The Dark Night of the Soul

"The darkest part of the night is just before dawn"

Dark Night of the Soul" (Spanish: La noche oscura del alma) is the title of a poem written by 16th-century Spanish poet and Roman Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross, and of a treatise he wrote later, commenting on the poem.

         "O guiding Night,
           O Night more lovely than Dawn,
           O Night that has united the lover with his beloved
           Transforming the Lover in her Beloved."

I couldn't find a better opportunity to write on this subject today being Good Friday - when Jesus went through immense suffering - a period of dark night of His soul.

 The dark night of the soul is a period of intense turmoil faced on the journey of spirituality. It is a period of immense confusion, inner-conflict, chaos and helplessness perceived and experienced by the person. It is an ordeal every seeker passes through. This phase is destined to come into our lives, in order to come face-to-face with our 'other' aspect. This 'other aspect' is what some psychologists call THE SHADOW.



All of us are born complete, perfect in our thoughts and feelings until the time we begin to categorize our perception of the world and its associated experiences. From about the age of 3, we start living in the illusion of duality  - split from the source first as 'I' and 'The Other'. Then starts the split life of categorizing the world into ever conceivable opposite forms - good/bad, ugly/beautiful, small-big, etc. 

Check out the following short video on shadow. It is a beautiful presentation on this subject:

Note: All of us possess split personality or multilple personalities. We often project the image that is best suited for survival consciously. Our brain's main function is primarily to sustain our existence - survival mode! The thoughts that arise after the brain processes the inputs from the environment are only miniscule. Not only does the brain register thoughts with a delay of fraction of seconds, but it takes only selective thoughts for projection, the rest being dormant in the subconscious mind - which if unused/ redundant is either deleted from the memory or goes into the unconscious memory.

In psychology-spirituality, the term 'shadow' stands for that dormant part of us, that we do not consciously project. This is normally the dark side of us, which remains embedded and forming our karmic patterns and sapping our energy. In Christian philosophy it has been referred to as THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL. Jesus, Moses, St. John of Cross, etc. had gone through this. Jesus himself let out the deepest pain by expressing his human side, behind the 'prophet' image, by crying out in pain while on cross: "Father, Why have you forsaken me? ". It has also been said that Jesus went through his dark night earlier to this episode, during his ordeal of 40 days and 40 nights where he was lured into temptations by the devil.

Suffering seems eternal. Feelings of abandonment, powerlessness and at the extreme end even suicide tend to arise from the depths of of the self. In short, the self is completely exposed with repressed energies surfacing and appearing to devour the energy of the self !

It so happens that the phase of dark night appears mostly at a time when the spiritual seeker has almost neared enlightenment - or to put it in another way, as if the spiritual seeker 'feels' enlightened. Then comes the dark night with a bang! As the world is a projection of our mind, the seeker suddenly finds himself/herself in a peculiar place, with peculiar people and peculiar events happening that shakes the very foundation of his/her spiritual conquest - unaware that it was all self-created!

This phase is created and projected by the sage for the purpose of bringing out the shadow-side, accepting its presence, acknowledging its significance and releasing it with love and thus allow healing to happen.

'I am enlightened' is a subtle ego that still lurks within the sage (seeker). The sage faces perils unbeknownst to him/her as to how could such drastic things occur. The challenges that come in the way puts the sage in a whrilpool of chaos! This chaotic whirlpool churns out all the hidden negativities that lay dormant within the sage - fear, anger, violent demeanour, extreme emotional outbursts,tears, burning sensation, inferiority complex, etc. The sage ends up chanting statements repeatedly without being aware like:

WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO ME? WHERE THE HELL HAVE I LANDED? WHY MUST I BE THE VICTIM? THE WORLD IS AGAINST ME. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE DOING WHAT I AM DOING? I AM PAYING FOR MY SINS. I HATE THIS LIFE! I HAVE NO REASON TO LIVE ANYMORE...GOD - SAVE ME OUT OF THIS MESS !!!

The period of dark night of the soul is a testing phase for the sage. It is actually a blessing in disguise because all the repressed negative energies have an opportunity to be released. In facing one's demons, by being conscious and allowing the negativities to surface, one not only gets to see all that one is not, but also feels compassion for all those possessed by such negativities. At this time, the body goes through a tremendous revolution from inside, although it is not visible from outside. Many blockages are removed and there could be frequent surge of energy flowing through the various chakras. The healing progresses and if one is conscious at this time, one notices visible changes in food habits and breathing pattern. One needs to consume a lot of water at this time and live on a healthy diet especially a lot of fruits and vegetables to ensure steady supply of energy due to the restoration in progress. On the social side, one would benefit a lot in the presence of trusted friends, supportive family members and understanding people around. The guidance from a spiritual guru would be very beneficial, provided the guru lets the student to find his/her own way and give motivational support only where and when necessary.

Healing at this time can be explained with the analogy of a soiled pan. To remove the grease, you would run hot water over it, leaving it there for a few hours, then with a cleaning agent start scrubbing the whole pain. The water in the pan becomes darker and darker on the surface, but deep inside, where the bottom of the pan is being scrubbed, you know that it the cleaning is getting effective.

Similarly, during this crisis of the spirit,though everything appears messed up, the truth is that healing is going on. At the peak of this crisis, one finally surrenders to the Divine Will. The dark night of the soul is a brief period of crisis like the solar eclipse. Although it is dark for a while, the sun is never extinguished.

Like in swimming, when all resistance is given up and the body surrenders to water, holding the breath, one is naturally pushed to the surface and it becomes easier to float, breathe and swim. Similarly, the soul instead of sinking deeper and deeper, finally manages to emerge from its own projected illusions and sees reality for what it is. At this stage, the sage learns acceptance his duality - of what the sage is not. Knowing what the sage is not, the sage then CHOOSES to be what he/she should be.The sage knows that he/she has more strength and courage then he/she had ever imagined. Done away with the victim mentality and all false illusions, the sage now projects his/her gratitude to the universe, and takes part in the creative manifestation of his/her life's purpose. The sage now truly begins to live out his/her authentic self; the 'Dharma' or the true nature of oneself.

The God within makes peace with it's other self - the devil for one is incomplete without the other as life is but a dynamic play of the interdependent complementary opposite energies. Having learnt true compassion, love and humility, the sage becomes a light unto himself/herself and like a candle, guides the way for others going their own dark night.

Happy Easter - May we resurrect from our darkness like Jesus Himself.

*****

Ratish



Warrior's North Star: Guide to martial arts

Choice of martial arts and understanding the unifying concept of all forms

Key words: North Star (Polaris), Soft vs. hard forms, awareness, concentration, Judo, Aikido, Harmony with universe

The North Star ( Polaris) has been a guiding star for many wanderers as we may have read in literature or geography in school. It is nature's way of guiding you with the direction of North in the absence of compass or map and may have saved many lives known and unknown with its guiding direction.

Check out the following link for more details on North Star a.k.a Polaris: http://www.ehow.com/facts_5977856_star-polaris.html


Just like a north star helps one in finding the right direction, I maintain the desire to give some inputs from my own experience and understanding of martial arts - especially for parents and young talents who are puzzled with the choices they have in this field.

I classify people who take in martial arts into the following categories:

1. Fitness lovers: Martial arts provides a holistic fitness regimen. Easy to lose weight and gives a healthy appearance and tones the shape of the body in a balanced way.

2. Energy acrobats: Some folks send their children to martial arts classes so that their energy can be properly channeled and keeps them physically and mentally engaged, whilst cultivating a sense of discipline. The young enthusiasts, after watching some special effects action scenes in the movies, wish to learn some acrobatics to impress folks around with impressive stunts and showing off flexibility or breaking boards and bricks.

3. Survivors, Victims and Avengers: Victims of bully, rape, physical/mental abuse, kidnap, robbery, terrorist attack, etc.. who have suffered immense trauma from such incidents, feel the need to take this art. They take it seriously in order to protect themselves from hurt once again; even ensuring the protection of their near and dear ones. Self-defence combined with exercises prepares the body, mind and spirit to face the challenges in their lives. On the other hand, it is a compulsory field of knowledge for the outlaws and the protectors of the Laws alike - terrorists, defence personnel, etc.

4. Inheritors and Seekers: Those born in the family of martial artists undoubtedly end up learning the arts as a way of preserving the heritage. They inherit this skills wantingly or unwantingly and may or may not continue this legacy. The Seekers are those, who most often than not accidentally land up learning the forms, on their spiritual journey - to know more about mind-body-spirit or through some karmic connection they are drawn towards this field. These seekers are not satisfied with just one form. They may go from school-to-school , until they find 'the Way' for themselves.This category of people take martial arts as a life-long pursuit and devote their lives solely to cultivate themselves in this field and serve the society through their skills and experience.

Let it be clear, that no martial arts is complete.. and yet any martial arts form can be considered complete. It doesnt matter what tool you are using. If you know the right way to use the tool, you have found the right tool.

Although, I would hate to categorize martial arts, but in essence - there are two main ways of fighting - the soft way and the hard way. All martial arts revolve around these concepts, yet the fundamental principle remains : MARTIAL ARTS KEEPS YOU STEADY FOR DEFENCE, AND KEEPS YOU READY FOR OFFENCE.

Basic Classification by nature of form:

1. The Hard Way: Boxing, Karate, Muay Thai, Taekwondo, etc. Use of hard force is predominant here.
2. The Soft Way: Judo, Wrestling, Tai-Chi, Aikido, Hypnotism ('Nokku-varmam' in Kalaripayattu) are some of the popular ways. The way is in expending the least energy, by using the opponent's energy against him.
3. Fighting with weapons.
4. Fighting without weapons.

Basic teachings prevalent in most if not all martial arts:

1. Cultivation of strength - physical and mental endurance ( conditioning through exercises)
2. Speed and power
3. Flexibility and agility
4. Discipline and constant practice, improvement and development ( 'kaizen' in Japanese )
5. Concentration, relaxation and meditation.
6. Balance
7. Knowledge and Awareness
8. Values of respect, truth, honour and courage
9. Understanding the way of warrior spirit and applying to daily living
10. Finding a worthy successor (student/disciple).

There are many sources to choose any style of martial arts available today. In my opinion, it helps to understand the ways of the universe and be in harmony with it.

Martial arts can be taught to a child as young as 8-10 years old and there is no age-limit to learn. However, learning at an older age has its limitations by way of limited flexibility, agility and energy. What one loses on this account, one can take advantage of strength and size or inner energy and discipline with focus.

We:
1. are born soft and weak
2. grow and mature in strength and flexibility
3. age and decline, going back to being soft and ultimately weak at a ripe age.
This is a well-known fact of life.

Respecting this truth of cosmos governing our bodies, it makes sense to start a small child with soft and easier forms like Yoga, Judo combined with light exercises gradually increasing the strength and endurance training well into the child's adolescence - where hard forms can be done easily and safely.

If started with hard forms at too small an age, the child may develop aggression, may not connect with the seriousness involved in these forms and there is a good chance of physical injuries. Before the age of 8, even 6, the body is just growing and needs to be in flow with the nature with the least human intervention possible. Yoga and Judo are pefectly suited for such a tender age to begin with. Yoga teaches relaxation, flexibility and breath-control and Judo also teaches discipline, balance, and most important of all the art of falling !

Yes, everybody falls, but if you develop an awareness of HOW to fall, you shall injure yourself to the minimum or not injure yourself at all. Getting trained into falling, put's one's ego in check - a sharp reality check! And that reality is check is that no matter how strong you are, you are not immune to a fall ! And when you fall, you realize what it means to get hurt, to get dropped.. You learn to pick yourself up and regain balance.
Coming back to HOW TO FALL, in Judo and Aikido, the practitioner is trained on how to fall by ensuring  that the head never touches the ground. This is done by reaching the open palm to the ground as the first point of contact to the surface upon falling. By doing so, not only do you reduce the impact of the fall, you also learn to avoid head injuries as head is the most important part to be protected in self defence. This is why boxers are trained to deliver a knock-out punch to the head.
Watch the following video on Aikido - from scratch to perfection - one of the very good aikido training videos I have come across, as each maneuver is repeatedly demonstrated atleast 4 times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHbfP1pPAAY&playnext=1&list=PL8138BE821388EB12&feature=results_video

In the second stage of growth - where youth blossoms and heads towards maturity, more hard training can be incorporated and this is the right stage for toning and shaping the body. Hard forms are most suitable here. The essence of this stage is that the student picks up on all basics and starts developing skills with constant training and discipline. Those in Karate for example, shall relate this to preparation to attain Black Belt. All the katas (forms & sequences) are taken one by one to examine, analyze and understand the secret power behind each move.

In the last stage of life, or as goes with the proverbial Black Belt - one has reached a level of gaining as much knowledge, skills as possible. From here, one needs to start perfecting what one has learnt. Perfection simply signifies that one starts using the art to suit one's natural abilities. This means, a lot of unsuitable forms need to be discarded. It is like a sculptor, who gives the final touch to his work by chiselling out the flaws bit by bit. Leonardo Da Vinci called simplicity as the epitome of perfection. The lesser you have, the lighter you are, the more you are ready to flow than sink in the flow of life - as simple as that. This means you are faster because you are lighter. This means you are more powerful because speed is proportionate to power.

In the last stages of life, wisdom then dawns upon the body when it knows that it does not have the same strength and toughness as it declines with time. Hence, one then develops inner strength, conserves as much energy as possible. From the thousands of techniques, the veteran may use one or two of the most suitable yet deadly ones that he/she has been perfecting over time.

Here is when soft forms never cease to be handy. In fact, at any point in life soft forms are very suitable to learn. But the great masters know that only when you have been through the hard, do you really begin to appreciate the soft - for the understanding then becomes profound.
Aikido and Tai-chi hone the body and spirit with the right exercises as well as rely more on inner power in harmony with nature's course and instead of wasting one's own energy, develops the ability to accept the opponent's force and deflect or use it against the opponent itself.

The miracle of enlightenment happens in a warrior's life is when he comes to a brilliant realization - that from the science of consistent conscious practice, flowers the art of spontaneous action - almost as if that the body-mind-spirit are in one flow, simply adjusting itself automatically to each movement in the heat of attack. It is as if the warrior's spirit is a calm and silent observer, centred like the eye of the hurricane, letting the force be as it may like to be in the periphery. No more separated by hard form-soft form, attack-defence.. the warrior gets the flash of understanding - to quote Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon: I DO NOT HIT.. IT HITS ALL BY ITSELF.

The warrior understands that there are no opponents - only action is ! Only forces of energy in their respective opposite-yet-complementary forms: battling out to preserve the universal balance. This is represented well by the Yin-Yang symbol, a representation of the oriental wisdom:

Whatever art one chooses, the techniques may vary, but core values remain same. The teachings of the spirit remains the same.
Victory does not depend on what weapon you use. But how well you know to use the weapon that you possess.
All fights start with the mind. Mind governs action. Hence in the Art of War - Sun Tzu makes it very clear that the greatest victory is that which is gained without a battle.

One of the nuggets of martial arts wisdom states that the greatest opponent is one's own self - one's ego. There remains a path for each warrior - You and I  - to tread upon relentlessly and persevere to perfect ourselves each day with each passing moment.

Ending on a thankful note and by paying my respects to the legendary great warrior-sage Parashurama.

                                  *********
                                   Ratish

The power and significance of zero/circle in mathematics, martial arts, zen and spirituality

This is no mathematics class, but it is an eye-opener in a simple way for those folks like me who have ever hated/ hate mathematics and are unable to figure out what makes nerds love mathematics.

I used to despise and dread mathematics. I would always feel that the general public would most of the times be under an illusion to measure intelligence by the way you could parrot and vomit tables or arithmetic laws or alegbra equations {x+y the whole square is equal to...blah blah}, or how you could master complex calculations.. the bigger the number the better.. especially the ones with decimal values -the icing on the cake !

It would surprise some of you to know that the greatest teacher of mathematics was Ancient East ( Vedic civilization in the ancient Indian subcontinent) and the greatest student of mathematics was the West - Jesus Christ to be specific. Why do I say this ?

Zero is the greatest contribution to mathematics as we all know. But how could I say Jesus as the greatest student? My opinion may be valid if the following story could be true: Well, I happened to read somewhere if I remember correctly, about a short story on Jesus' childhood - that when he was a student, he asked his teacher to explain what was the meaning of the number 1. The teacher was perplexed by this question and tried to persuade him to proceed with 2. Not convinced, Jesus told the teacher that unless he was made to understand what number 1 meant, he could not proceed to understand anything further.

I have a strong feeling that I had read this in of Osho's discourses, although I cannot recollect precisely where.

The point here is, if it was so, then Jesus was perhaps unconsciously searching for the meaning of zero rather than 1.
Ancient Indian civilization was a highly advanced civilization many ages before the advent of Jesus Christ. This civilization reached the epitome in all spheres of life.

I will try my best to explain in simple language based on my personal understanding, the power and significance of the number zero/ the shape of circle or round:

1. Wisdom is the transcendence of intelligence. Philosophy/Spirituality is the final journey in the quest for knowledge. Even if you wish to travel around the world, it is a circle that takes you to a return trip to your starting point. Similarly, the spiritual significance of zero ('shunya' - in Sanskrit) comes from the wisdom of Ancient sages who through their individual & personal enlightenment came to realize that everything originates from nothingness. That nothingness is the space, the void, the emptiness  - the background on which all manifestations appear and disappear. So a number like 1 has no significance unless it is in relation with another 1( in numeric terms we call it 2); else the primal 1 has no indentity by itself. To represent that source from which everything springs forth and disintegrates to, the idea of zero took birth, the shape of circle being the graphical representation of going back to the source  - the source of non-duality.

2. A circular motion is the most powerful energy configuration, In science, we learn that a soap bubble has the most efficient energy configuration-structure. A mass in an ongoing circular motion builds up tremendous energy, and would be able to deflect any onslaught force. The whole of our cosmos is based on rotation and revolution - our solar system, our bodies energy patterns - the movement of electrons, protons, neutrons..

3. In martial arts (especially Tai Chi and Aikido) and Zen, the idea of circle is the fundamental underlying principle governing the way of the universe. Circular motion in these martial arts, emphasize on the use of accepting the opposing energy and then deflecting the energy often in circular ways. Check a sample of the 'randori' (multiple attackers) in the way of Aikido to get a feel of the way of least effort and resistance. Here comes hollywood actor Steven Seagal in action:

Now, you could dust off the armour of your self-respect henceforth if anybody calls you a A BIG FAT ZERO! Could you imagine the greatest of scientific inventions possible without the invention of wheel? There may be numerous teachers of mathematics, who may not have had even an iota of self-realization about the concept of void and zero. The day you have a direct experience of the profound significance of zero - you shall have gained the essence of mathematics. When I interpreted this way, my respect for mathematics increased, albeit without any additional love (in good humour of course).

On the forthcoming occassion of Easter - Wishing everybody HAPPY EASTER