Sometimes it Has to Get Totally Dark for Someone to See the Light - Grasshopper

There is an upside to the dark side. It's a pathway to find out who you truly are.

Our human conditioning begins when we leave the womb. Some researchers say it happens even while were still in the womb. Whenever it begins, it continues throughout our life. We are conditioned to be a separate entity with a name, a personality, a set of patterned behaviors, and a unique personal history.

We define ourselves through the filter of all of this conditioning. We make up who we are in our mind and we live out that blueprint for a lifetime. We didn't accomplish this on our own. We had the help of people molders of all sorts - parents, peers, teachers, clergy, advertising, etc. They helped us form an image of who we are.

The image is a façade.

This false idea of who we are works for awhile, but somewhere along the way we start to notice cracks in the foundation of this image. Dark clouds begin to form as we sense an impending storm.

Life begins to get tough - a struggle. The struggle seems to be with other people but it's really with ourselves. We are changing and it has an unsettling effect. Some have called it falling apart. We are coming unglued on the inside but fighting to keep up appearances on the outside.

You may look for answers and relief with therapy, prescription and/or illegal drugs, alcohol, affairs, divorce, superficial lifestyle changes, etc. Those answers are short-lived and you continue to plunge deeper into darkness.

You have access to light but you don't know it. That light is awareness - the awareness that shines its light on the conditioned version of you, exposing your false front as the pretender that it is.
 

Not everyone is ready for the light. As Eckhart Tolle wrote in his seminal book THE POWER OF NOW:

"The light is too painful for someone who wants to remain in darkness."

That darkness is caused by the "false self" known as the ego that is allergic to light. (cue to the scene of the wicked witch melting)The darkness creeps up insidiously. We don't even notice it because it happens a little at a time.

Suddenly, there is no light and life gets dark. This is a necessary step for many in order to find the light of life. This dark night of the soul, which can last for years, has been called suffering.

We suffer in the dark because we have sealed ourselves off from the light. We seal ourselves off when we buy into the illusion that we are our conditioned identity. We make attempts to find ourselves in that delusion. That has the same effect as like looking up a word in a dictionary and finding the same word as the definition - no real answer.

The light can only be found when we realize that who we think we are isn't real. It's an illusion. Just like dark is an illusion. Dark is the absence of light. Ego is also the absence of light.

Yet the light of life is so persistent that it keeps shining from the inside until it can find an opening in our cracking plaster of Paris veneer allowing it to shine.

The light is always there waiting for you to discover it. It warms you, it nourishes you, and it guides you as you become illuminated. Life becomes easier. You begin to respond rather that react to reality, and the struggling ceases. You begin to dance with the will of God and find purpose in your existence.

Some can't notice the light until it's completely dark. Then even the hint of light acts as a beacon.

You don't have to wait for complete darkness to discover your light. You can begin the process at any time. It starts by noticing that you are not the voice in your head - Your Self Talk. That is not you. It's a conditioned bunch of thoughts, feelings and patterns pretending to be you.  You are a victim of identity theft.

Get into the practice of observing your ego blabbing away pretending to be you. Don't try and change it, just observe it. The part of you that observes is the real you. The more often you become aware of yourself lost in thought, the more light you let in.

The light of life dissolves the ego and you finally discover the genuine comfort of being you.

 

All the best,
John