I think my dark night may be ending

[Nikolai1]

Hi all,

 

Back in March I started this thread about what I called my 'dark night of the soul'.  Well it seems that it may be true that 'the darkest hour comes right before the dawn'.

 

I was at home, idly watching an

between Richard Dawkins and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. They were discussing 'What it means to be human': Dawkins was suggesting that being human is experiencing the purposeless expression of our genes, Williams was saying that the human being experiences and grows ever conscious of the Divine Intelligence that created our universe.

 

Needless to say they were disagreeging, albeit politely, and each felt that their views were ultimately irreconcilable.

 

What I found very interesting was that the Chairperson started the debate by clarifying points of agreement.  The first two were that humanity has evolved over time and that the best way of understanding our situation was through logic: something cannot both be and not be ant the same time.  The third point, which I found most interesting, was that each agreed that there is an objective truth that can be comprehended by the intellect.

 

I realised with a flash that I no longer believe that the intelligence is capable of this. The intellect is only capable of generating propositions that then need to be contrasted with their opposite in order to be intellectually comprehensible. Dawkins and Williams were both representing the opposite poles in a classic dichotomy: the universe as purposeful vs purposeless.

 

It was very clear to me that their positions are intrinsically and necessarily irreconcilable. And what makes them irreconcilable is the fact that both share the same aim: to describe objective reality.  By a strange twist of logic, I saw it to be logically the case that the logical is illogical.

 

I realised that it is precisely because I have become detached from the intellectual approach that I see Dawkins and Williams as arguing the exact same thing. And yet both agree that taking my relativistic perspective is the most intellectually dishonest thing you can do: it is what Dawkins calls a 'cop out'.

 

But I notice: I am at peace on this matter - the nature of the universe: these two are quarrelling with each other.

 

This was more striking for me personally because I have most my adult life taking the exact same approach to truth as they do.  What has happened to make me change?

 

I realised in a flash that, despite the aimlessness of my dark night, I have somehow found a substitute for intellectual truth.  I call it peace, and it is a felt experience in any given moment. I can rely on it.  It is a place of stability and I can go there and see what is going on below.  I can see the differences between Dawkins and Williams, and yet for myself feel only peace of mind on the same subject.  I can also see that these two very intelligent men are also searching for peace, and hope to find it through intellectual certainty.  This is what motivates them into arguing and persuading.  I can also see that they will never find what they are looking for by taking the approach that they take and I see this without any feeling of anger or regret.

 

I realise that I have found something extraordinarily special.  It is a place I can live my life from.  It is there whenever I want it, and it is only when I forget it that I will find myself in the meaninglessness that Dawkins and Williams are trying to banish by subjugating intellectual opponents.

 

But what is this peace? How does one live it?  By one of those beautiful coincidences, I logged on this morning to write and I found these words written to me by Heartlumination, a newcomer here:

 

Show love and gratitude to everyone around you.  If you are not use to this it can take a second.  The great thing is though that everything you radiate out radiates back on you.  Radiate love the love radiates back at you.  This will bring the energy into your heart which will allow you to be ok with things and also will make have a great feeling in your chest.  Which will bring an unattached appreciation for the mundane things in life.  Again have love for those around you and it will do wonders for you.

 

How could I possibly put it better?  This IS how to live.  And I know exactly how to do it - in fact it's pretty easy and obvious.

 

To come out of the dark night I think you have to start all over again.  You have to go out and, from square one, deliberately make every interaction an interaction from the heart.  The heart is is there all the time, substantial and obvious.  Not only is it the place of love, it is the place of wisdom.  It is the place of peace that enables me to see very clearly why Dawkins and Williams are not at peace, and were I to meet them, it is the place that would enable me to tell them all about what I have learned.

 

This is really a good day! I feel like I want to start living all over again!

 

All the best to you all, who were patient to read this far!

 

Nikolai

[Jetsun]

I haven't watched the whole interview but it surprises me if Rowan Williams says that objective truth can be understood through the intellect. I am no theologian but as I understand it even many of the old Catholic philosophers and theologians said that God can't be comprehended through the intellect, that it is based upon mystery. 

 

I can see how moving out of identification with the intellect can cause a dark night because the way we have been taught to perceive reality our whole lives is crumbling away, in a sense we move into a different realm than all our friends and family, in that sense it is a death. 

 

But in terms of moving out of a dark night according to St John of the Cross, who the term comes from, there is nothing you can do to move out of a dark night, which is why it is so dark. If you could do anything then you would be able to keep hold of attachments to things like a sense of your own power over life, so it wouldn't be a humbling. St John basically says just have faith that God is working on you even if you feel completely helpless, alone and disconnected. 

Edited April 29, 2015 by Jetsun

[Nikolai1]

But in terms of moving out of a dark night according to St John of the Cross, who the term comes from, there is nothing you can do to move out of a dark night, which is why it is so dark. 

 

Yes, of course. But in the night there is nothing, no glimmer. Then suddenly you realise something that had eluded you - in my case that the peace IS the life itself.  al you have to do is be the peace that you already feel.

 

On the same day in March that I started the Dark Night thread I said:

 

Its very lonely, but not painful.  In fact, there is a very deep sense of peace underneath at all and a frequent sense of beauty.

 

I was always aware of the peace, but something about watching the debate made me realise just how rare and special the peace itself is.  I could see that it alone prevents me from falling into the pit that Williams and Dawkins are in.  I don't wish to say that they are in a pit, but if they had the peace they simply couldn't debate such a matter.  They would see only agreement with each other, nothing else.

 

Of course in another sense they aren't in a pit.  They are famous, rich and active - the opposite of the aimless obscurity of the dark night.  But the pit they are in is of the heart.  They aren't at peace, either of them.  In this respect I am lucky, despite my dark night.  Moving out the dark night is realising just how lucky I already am, and then living according to this awareness.  Really, there's no problem with me.  My dark night is actually something rather beautiful and rare and special.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Jetsun]

I was always aware of the peace, but something about watching the debate made me realise just how rare and special the peace itself is.  I could see that it alone prevents me from falling into the pit that Williams and Dawkins are in.  I don't wish to say that they are in a pit, but if they had the peace they simply couldn't debate such a matter.  They would see only agreement with each other, nothing else.

 

The realm of being stuck in mental dualities, being defined by identifying with one position in opposition to another, is the realm of Samsara which the Buddhists talk about, the realm of suffering. 

 

While I respect Dawkins for his intellect and contributions to science clearly his perspective is limited. To live purely from the intellect is a form of avoidance of life, an avoidance of deeper emotional intelligence as well as deeper spiritual truths. Rowan Williams is an intellectual too, he is now a master at a college at Cambridge university.

 

One of the things which a healer told me recently was that many of the really brilliant intellectual people have a deep trauma in their root chakra, so all their energy is constantly brought up to the mind as a means of avoiding the trauma. In Professor Dawkins autobiography he admits that he was sexually abused as a child, but he says it didn't affect him and doesn't upset him, in other words he is completely emotionally dissociated from his experiences. It is probably too terrifying for him to move out of identifying himself with intellectual positions and it requires a constant fight against those who threaten the position, which isn't the most healthy way to live a life.

 

To be able to transcend identifying with intellectual positions altogether is a movement towards sanity, unfortunately as you say it is very rare. 

Edited April 29, 2015 by Jetsun

[Nikolai1]

Hi Jetsun

 

To live purely from the intellect is a form of avoidance of life, an avoidance of deeper emotional intelligence as well as deeper spiritual truths. 

 

I guess what I think is that nearly everyone lives by intellectual constructs.  Those who say they don't are usually just unreflective and don't realise the extent to which our existence is structured by our concepts.  This is why the Buddha is so powerful in exposing this.  Dawkins exposes the limits of intellectual concepts too...but only the kinds of concepts the religious tend to use!