درسنامه تفسیری

Dark Night – Commentary

Hello this is AJ and welcome to the commentary for this months’ lesson. Heavy topic this month, serious. Heavy means serious.

But, it doesn’t actually have to be a sad topic. In fact, I think the deeper message of this lesson, that the main lesson Dark Night of the Soul by St. John and in my commentary coming up, the deeper lesson is actually one of hope and power and wisdom and love and a very, very positive. So let’s talk about how you get through that.

How do you go from misery, suffering, complete loss, total defeat, powerlessness, no confidence, no faith to wisdom, faith, love, compassion, power, true leadership? How do you get through all of that? Whew.

First of all, when you find yourself in this dark night, there are some things you need to do immediately. Most of these happen naturally, but you can do them consciously also. You can choose to do them right away.

1. The first thing is don’t resist.

If you try to fight against it you just make it go longer and longer, you have to accept it.

1. The next thing you must do when you find yourself in this situation, the Dark Night of the Soul where you just seem to have lost everything, even your belief in yourself.

First you must strip away, it means get rid of, everything that’s extraneous. Extraneous means extra, in your life. All the extra crap. All the extra junk. Crap means junk or garbage. You have to get rid of it. When things are normal in our lives we tend to hold onto a lot of junk, a lot of nonsense that is actually not meaningful, not useful, not helpful, not important.

This can actually mean physical things. For example, we can collect lots of stuff, where we got lots and lots and lots and lots of clothes, lots and lots and lots and lots of stuff in our house, actual physical things that we buy and collect. It’s not important, not meaningful, not useful, so during this dark night it can be helpful to actually just get rid of stuff, physical items, possessions, simplify your life.

This also can be relationships. So again during normal times in our lives we can sometimes have people that we hang out with, that we do things with that aren’t really friends. We know that when things are difficult those people kind of disappear, they don’t help us, they don’t care about us so much. So, you can get rid of those people and in fact, what you usually find is they get rid of you.

People who are not true friends, when you are miserable and in this dark night, they will usually go away. They don’t want to be around you anymore. Those are not true friends. Let them go. Sometimes we feel sad about that, oh I thought they were my friends and they’re not. Well, you know, it’s a good thing you’ve learned something. You’ve learned that some people are not your true friends, it’s good to know that Let them go. Get rid of anything that’s shallow or trivial. Trivial means not important.

This could also mean things like, instead of watching stupid TV shows and garbage that instead you start reading more meaningful books to get rid of what’s not important, what’s shallow, what’s trivial. And finally, you accept your wretchedness. You just accept that you’re miserable and that you’re going to be miserable for a while. You have to accept it. In the truly tough times in life you’re going to feel miserable. That’s just the truth so you have to accept it.

Okay now next, what do you do? That’s the first step, accepting and getting rid of the all the extra junk you don’t need in life.

Part II is, you’re going to open yourself up and remember, one of the things about this Dark Night of the Soul is that you’re more sensitive. You become more intuitive, more sensitive and so it’s an excellent time to gain wisdom, so the first thing I recommend is that you read ancient wisdom. Ancient means very, very old. Read ancient wisdom books and texts. For example, Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross, there are many, many translations. That would be a good book to read when you’re in the Dark Night of the Soul. Read the book by the guy who wrote it with that title, because he went through it himself. That’s an old, old book with great wisdom in it.

Read the books of wisdom from your own religion or spiritual tradition. Read the books of wisdom from other religions and other spiritual traditions. I’m not a Christian but I found the book, Dark Night of the Soul by St. John, who was a Christian. I still found it very, very powerful and wise. So, just because you’re a Christian, a Buddhist or a Muslim or an Atheist it doesn’t matter, you can still read the wise books from other traditions, other cultures. I recommend you do so, because you will still find a lot of very powerful knowledge and wisdom in those books.

Another powerful thing you can do during this Dark Night of the Soul, take a pilgrimage. Take a pilgrimage, this is the best time for a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a spiritual journey, a physical journey, a spiritual trip. It means you actually go somewhere. You get on a plane, you walk, take a bike or drive, whatever and you go on a trip, but it’s not just a vacation it’s a trip with a spiritual purpose.

So you’re looking for wisdom, you’re looking for deep answers. You’re looking for a connection to a benevolent higher power. Now again, there are many actual religious pilgrimages. Muslims have a very famous one where they go to Mecca. Buddhists can go to Bulgaya. Hindu’s can go to the Ganges River. I did one, a Christian one in Spain, the Camino de Santiago. Some Christians go to Rome.

It could be artistic. Maybe there’s a writer that you find very wise and powerful. So you could go on a pilgrimage to that writer’s grave where they were buried or where they lived or where they did their work and you take that trip, and walk around visiting those sites and maybe reading their book at the same time.

And again, you can do a religious one, even if you’re not Christian but I did a Christian pilgrimage in Spain and I found it very, very powerful still, very powerful. Because when you are in this Dark Night of the Soul, again, you’re so sensitive, you’re so open, your soul, your spirit is so open to intuition, to gaining wisdom, to connecting with other people and it’s such a powerful time then to take a journey like that.

Finally, just in general every single day, listen and observe carefully. Right, if you’re just sitting at a coffee shop, just sit back and watch people, listen to conversations, listen to the sounds, listen to your own breathing. Just notice. When you’re in the Dark Night of the Soul it’s not a time for lots of talking. It’s not a time to do a lot of writing unless you’re just trying to figure out your thoughts. It’s not a time really to be teaching other people. It’s a time to be listening and observing It’s a time to ask questions not give answers, so ask a lot of questions. If you’re writing a journal that’s fine, but ask questions and listen and watch. That’s what you need to do during that Dark Night of the Soul.

After you go through that for a while, reading those old wisdom texts, maybe taking a pilgrimage, listening, observing and asking questions, it might take weeks and it might take months.

The next step is to contribute and serve.

You’ll notice that in both the main lesson and interactive lesson, there was a focus on letting that ego die, letting your ego get smaller, being more humble and humility. And going beyond yourself to help serve, to contribute, to help beyond yourself instead of focusing on yourself. When you’re miserable, the first step is to look at yourself. And then you see all your own weaknesses and then you feel even more miserable. I’m so weak, so stupid and so foolish.

It’s still me, me, me. You’re still looking at yourself too much, but a big step happens when you go beyond yourself and you start looking at others and you get a higher mission then. This is where you find that higher mission. How can you help others? Maybe you can help others who are suffering the same way as you. And that higher mission means it’s a mission to help that’s beyond you. That might just be your family, your mom, dad, your husband or wife, your children; uncles, aunts whatever. It might be something in your local town or community. It might be a certain group of people.

You’ll find, for example, people who go through alcoholism and they finally go through it. They have that Dark Night of the Soul and they finally recover. Well then they go and they try to help other alcoholics. They’re serving beyond themselves. That’s the true path of healing in what this Dark Night of the Soul is really about. It’s healing and going beyond your small ego self, connecting to something more than just your small little ego.

That can include family and community. It can include a benevolent higher power. You’ve got to find that yourself, I can’t tell you what that will be. But it will be beyond just you.

And finally, the final step as you come out of that Dark Night of the Soul, the final step that will get you out of that is that true leadership. Okay, this is when you arrive at genuine true leadership. You’ll be very effective as a leader, because you’re genuine, you’re sincere and because you are doing leadership, you’re trying to lead, you’re trying to help, you’re trying to contribute. From a genuine, very sincere desire to serve other people, to serve a higher purpose.

When you do that and when it’s real, and when it comes from this Dark Night of the Soul, other people will feel it. They will feel it from you, so even if you are a terrible public speaker and your body language is terrible and you’re just not very inspiring or powerful in your communication. You’ll still be a leader. People will still look to you, respect you and follow you because it’s coming from something very deep inside of you, because you went through this Dark Night of the Soul and you suffered and you went through it and you found greater wisdom and you found a higher purpose to serve. And you’re doing it from a genuine, real desire to help other people and to serve, not for your own ego. When people feel that you become a real leader.

Those are the most powerful leaders. And of course, yes, then you can also add those different communication skills and leadership skills. You can learn to be a better public speaker and have confident body language and all that other stuff is good and it’s still useful and important. However the deep core comes through, I’m going through that That Dark Night of the Soul and finding a higher purpose.

So that’s how you get through it. It sounds all logical, but as you probably know already it’s a very painful process. It’s tough. It’s hard. Some things in life are hard and usually the most powerful experiences in life, the most profound, meaning the most meaningful, they’re usually, very, very, very tough. So, I can’t say you’re going to enjoy it you won’t enjoy it, believe it or not, you’re going to be miserable. If you’ve had this happen already you know. We’re all going to face this in our lives, many different times in our lives, but you can still find that wisdom, that deep wisdom to help you go through it and to come out with a greater faith, greater strength, a connection to something bigger and beyond yourself, a higher purpose. That’s the meaning of that Dark Night of the Soul. That’s the purpose of it, so have that faith as you go forward.

Even now, maybe right now your life is great, everything’s wonderful. Still, start thinking beyond, your own ego. This month I would like you to just let go of your ego. Be humble and focus on that ancient wisdom. Find a book or a few books of ancient wisdom and read them this month, with humility, from your own religion or another religion, even if you’re an atheist it doesn’t matter, there’s still a lot of wisdom in there.

That’s what I would like you to do this month. If you like on Twitter, on GAB, you can tell me about your thoughts and experiences.

All right, have a deep and meaningful month this month. Talk to you again.

Bye for now.