Finding gems in the dark corner of our soul

The lion and the lamb lying down together symbolize that strength and innocence are not in conflict, but naturally live in peace.
(A Course in Miracles)

The ‘dark night of the soul’ process is unfortunately something many of us have to cope with during the Awakening process. That’s the time when all the the stuff that we didn’t want to deal with before comes to the surface. Childhood traumas, unresolved family struggles, repressed fears, unacknowledged cravings, depression; you name it. In an Awakening journey all this stuff has to come to the surface because we are encouraged to travel light on our journey Home; without the weight of the past, and without our lofty ideas what a spiritual kosher lifestyle is all about. We are encouraged to let go of everything that holds us back from appreciating what is here and now.

Seeking enlightenment is spiritual by-passing as our mind zooms right by ‘what is’ in the desire to feel better in the future. Similarly, the ‘dark night of the soul’ is a reminder from the depth of our being that we were judging the past, the people who inflicted the pain on us, and our own so-perceived shortcomings. The demons that pop up during the ‘dark night of the soul’ episode look so scary because we are too afraid to take a close look at them and see them for what they are all about. In my own experience, no matter what our history may have been, once we are truly willing to look, there is always a present waiting in the dark corner of our soul.

At the onset of my spiritual Awakening I had a strange dream. I was in a vacation resort when I heard on the radio that convicts had broken out from a near-by prison. I looked around and saw a group of them approaching me. 'Look", someone shouted, "there is fresh meat." I ran away and someone followed me. I ran into a building and somewhere on the second floor he caught up with me. We wrestled and both crashed through a window onto a balcony. That was the first time I had a good look at him. I was tall as me, he had body-builder muscles and he also had a clean-shaven head. His face looked grotesque. In short, he looked just like I would imagine a demon to look like. Amazingly, despite his intimidating look I could keep him at arms-length fairly easily. The calmer I got, the more furious he became. Then I woke up.

I had encountered my dark side. It took me a while to understand what this dream was all about but first and foremost I felt happy about the fact that I felt peaceful when I woke up. A few months later I understood why. The demon in the dream just mirrored back to me my suppressed aggressiveness. I realized that I was effectively a lion raised by lambs. Not aggressive enough to stand up for what was meaningful to me I had to resort back to passive aggressiveness. Yet, the job I was in was perfectly designed to help me step it up a bit. Every year my voice became a little louder and every year I leaned a little more out of the window making my ideas heard. As the years went by, the demon and I made up. I even have a name for him, my inner Kerl.

Many folks in our community are a bit conflicted just like I used to be. It is the pain of running constantly into a wall that makes us wake up on day searching for a new way. Amazingly, that’s exactly the time when glimpses of the Way appear. Yet, it can be a bit confusing to embark on a spiritual journey with one foot still in the old world and one in the new-found Reality. There are plenty of self-imposed interferences; the spiritual super-ego we carry around, a lot of judging of all the self-sabotaging actions such as anger outbursts, sexual cravings, alcohol, lack of creative expression, and whatever else it is that we feel holds us back. May I ask, who exactly knows what works for us? We develop the ‘thou shall do that, and thou shan’t do that’, and may even succeed in administering these rules, but end up living like zombies.

A spiritual journey is an idiosyncratic soul longing that expresses herself and finds her way Home. God doesn’t judge, why should we? For me personally, I realized in that transformation process that situation-specific assertiveness is not in conflict with spirituality at all. As a matter of fact, there are times when the Way demands it. Lion and lamb can lie together peacefully, just as it is written in the Bible. I never saw the demon again, but I have made a career for myself thanks to his insistence to bring my competitive nature and hidden aggressiveness out there and let it work for me. In that way we should never be afraid of the dark side but should see it as an opportunity instead to do something creative with it.

There are libraries written about the shadow process and to cope with the ‘dark night of the soul’ episodes. I am just amazed that it took one simple dream resolution for me personally to steer my life into a completely new direction, even though, as mentioned, the process of resolving my inner conflicts took many years. We spiritual travelers have creative tools at our disposal. My favorite story was that of a German author who claimed that her demon transformed into a beautiful dragon that protected her from evil of all sorts. How amazing is that! I would echo her conclusion. When you have the guts to look in the dark corner of your soul, a gem is waiting for you. What present will he have in store for you?