Disengaging with the Dark Side

The Holy Spirit teaches thus: There is no hell. Hell is only what the ego has made of the present.
(A Course in Miracles)

Yogananda, one of the sages who brought Hindu spirituality to America, reported that during one meditation session he saw the devil in all his might. He said that he of course knew that this image was nothing but a phantom, but boy, did it feel real to him.

When you tell someone that we have an angel and a devil on our shoulders, he will probably instinctively know what you are talking about. We all have stared evil in the face just as we all have personally met angels. For many of us, good and evil balances out and most of the times we end up doing the right thing despite ourselves. We have learned some lessons the hard way. We also have support from cultural institutions like the values of our parents and mentors, the social pressures coming from our work, our neighbors and the community, we can always count on the support from family and friends, etc. And once in a Blue Moon we let our animalistic side roam free in a somewhat damage-controlled setting only to return to our normal world with a hangover the next Monday morning.

A spiritual path is quite different from this world of balances and counterbalances. It is a journey into a new world full of light. As a spiritual traveler you are on a journey that teaches you to see the world with new eyes. You are encouraged over and over again to put the ego's dark glasses down and face the blazing light. The transition to this new world is mostly fun and eye-opening but now and then a little rocky as well. After all, there is still a part in you that screams, "you got to be kidding me", but somehow you have to manage to bring him along wherever you are going.

The most important insight on this spiritual journey is that your so-called dark side doesn't really exist. It is nothing but hot air very much as Yogananda discovered for himself as well. Yes, it is something you imagine but it isn't real. Your mind zooms into the fantasy, names and labels it as bad, and then you start attacking yourself for this mental phantom. An inner war starts this way. Instead of using your energy to understand your unity with your environment, you waste your energy by attacking yourself. So the real issues never really get resolved but the inner wars consume all your energy and leave you in a zombie state.

Mostly everyone gets caught in this duality. Until you get to this realization that the internal struggle between good and evil isn't real, the Star Wars movie will keep on playing in your head. A spiritual traveler eventually recognizes the trap. Just view the demonic force inside as your fuel tank and the angelic perception of your life as your healing force. That's all there is. There is nothing else to do. Just embrace life and accept who you are. Wherever the Tao treads, duality shrinks into nothingness. You can experience this as well. Just disengage from your mental phantoms and see what happens!

By Christian and Su Zhen