Enlightenment and the Dark Night of the Soul

Elly’s support for Brad was unconditional, even after he turned the temple trip into a competitive sport. The monks had beaten him at every form of spiritual practice, which made him bitter. “They played me,” he said, as they prepared for the 10 hour flight back to California. “They set me up for the hardest practices, and then laughed at me when I failed.”

“Honey, nobody was trying to win anything. And they weren’t laughing at you. They are actually happy! You should try it. How can you expect to beat monks who practice every day for years? They didn’t go to medical school, you wouldn’t expect them to come to America and practice medicine, would you?”

He ignored her aphorisms. “But they still aren’t enlightened! All their dedication, and the Master still complained about it. I’ll show them. I’m going to get it. Then we can fly back there, and Master can test me and announce that I got Enlightened before any of his monks.”

“You always have to be the best! You should try to relax.” Elly had a natural way of being connected with her experiences and with other people, and he was sometimes mystified how she could remain so deeply devoted to him and his constant need to succeed. But now her voice had a sharp edge to it.

“Are you hungry?” he said, changing the subject. While she made plans for dinner, he began silently plotting a scheme to tackle this new challenge. Elly was obligated to travel to Japan again in a few weeks, for a trip she had arranged a year ago.  She hadn’t seen her parents in a while, and they weren’t getting any younger. When the time came, Brad took her to the airport, unloaded her luggage, joked “Let’s both try for Enlightenment and see who gets it first. You can meditate every day while you’re away and Ill do the same.”

“Heehee, I love that! Okay, let’s do it!” she giggled. She waved goodbye as he drove off, and his plan went into action.  He had offloaded some clinic days to lighten his workload, and arranged a stack of spiritual texts on a nightstand.  Arriving home, he drank water, stretched, and assumed the sitting posture for silent mind meditation.

It was an old practice, one that he didn’t need to review. Focusing on his breath until the mental noise receded, silence would arrive, stay for a few breaths,  then be broken by an arising thought. That thought would  pull fears and desires out of some subconscious repository, and become a bulky objects that filled his awareness. He would repeat it, again and again. When the internal conflicts became noisy enough to cause him to forget what he was doing, he would get up and stretch, then sit and read selected sections from the books.  Teachings by Ramana, Nisargadatta, Buddha, Osho, and others refocused his intent, inspiring his return to meditation.

Hours went, then he fell to sleep, which brought odd dreams. Days went by, interrupted by an occasional day of work where he would see a full load of patients.  Elly called while he meditated one evening, and asked if he was eating healthy. He assured her he was, but didn’t tell her about the disturbed dreams, or the great AHA that was pulsing through him.  The teachings focused on things like meditation, acceptance, egolessness, and kindness for others. Yet, awakened teachers also had to overcome a dark night of the soul. Students didn’t like to hear about that, so teachers didn’t dwell on it.

It struck Brad that failing to go through this darkness was why the awakening he had after his first trip to India was only temporary. Researching it, it had titles like “Ur-anxiety,” and the “primal fear of non-existence.” There is nothing more to get from research – I have go straight into it. He sat quietly,  focusing on breath, letting go again, allowing for thoughtless awareness, observing the return of thought, doing it again, again.

Suddenly, a puff of air blew across the back of his neck. Just a nerve discharging. He felt it again. Something is there!  Brad pushed up from his chair, head down, spinning around, sure he would catch some creature or someone right behind him, right at the back of his chair. No one. His heart raced from the rush of adrenalin. Fight or flight became fright. Checking doors and windows, he calmed, and resumed the deep patterned breathing. Something uneasy, something very wrong was there in the moment. Thoughts of Reptilians, evil thought projections and alien abductions entered his awareness. All that reading about UFOs and negative life forms haunted him. He pushed himself again and the stillness came and was frightening. He tried to read but his mind wandered, as if it needed escape. He turned on the TV and watched the news until it was time for sleep.

A terrible thought came – what if the Ultimate Truth is that nothing exists at all? That beyond our experience of what we think is reality, are not only illusions, but utter non-existence? That night’s dreams were filled with haunting scenes that didn’t make any sense, if he slept at all.  When the morning came, his mind was in a black void, his body heavy. Sounds from outside of his apartment seemed to come from another world. A full bladder finally drove him out of bed and to the toilet. In the mirror, his features seemed to hang down in a frown. He was hungry but only made it as far as the couch, where he laid down and pulled over a blanket. Thinking about Enlightenment was something he had done up until yesterday. There was no sense in it now, and no energy. Nothing in the word mattered. He stayed down on the couch, shifting this way and that, without an iota of desire to be productive.

In the afternoon, he forced himself up to eat and take a shower. It felt like he was feeding and washing someone else’s body. It was all empty. Back on the couch, he tried to think of the “primal fear of nonexistence” and was able to surrender to it. Let it kill me, he thought. I am dead inside anyway. Days went by, feeling it, the emptiness, the sense of doom at what he might become if he awakened to the real, absolute Truth. They were all lying, the spiritual teachers. The story of Gautama Buddha starving and sitting under the Bodhi tree fighting off demons before his Enlightenmnet, came to mind, and was enough to pushed him back to the sitting meditations. He forced himself out the door for daily walks, trying to eat healthy and shower. He didn’t want to talk to anybody. Elly sent a couple of text messages which he returned promptly, glad it wasn’t a voice call.

One night came when he slept long, and without dreams. In the morning, he awoke with a profound sense of newness, and a shift of awareness. Getting out of bed, recognizing thoughtless awareness, he allowed it and simply went about his routine. No thoughts came. His body felt lighter, and more coordinated. Everything flowed. He had an intent, a will to maintain the inner silence. Finally around mid-morning, after lounging about for two hours, he allowed thoughts, the first of which was to describe the new state. The reality of self, things, and the very experience of time and space was transposed. The new reality was an ever-present, unknowable beingness that went beyond any attempt to define it. This would prove to be his final spiritual awakening, and he knew it absolutely. Elly would be home in a couple of days and he couldn’t wait to share it with her. As for going back to Japan to show up the monks, the thought made him laugh out loud. He had no business proving anything to anybody, ever again. He was in the flow, and the mission was good. Challenges were suddenly irrelevant.  It was time to chop wood, and carry water, as the old koan said. There was nothing else to do.