Dark Night of the Soul

"A necessary part of the First Crossing is the purificatory process. Everything that is in the 'unconscious,' relative to the objective state, comes out to the periphery...The periphery of the psychic nature is where all the hidden content of the 'unconscious' is revealed and worked through... When things that are buried in the South Half begin to come out, they pass through this periphery and we then become conscious of them. Many students have said, "Vitvan, before you came here to give your teachings, I was all right. But now I am in hell. You ought to be shot. Someone ought to run you out of town. Before you came we were quiet and peaceful. But your frequency has us all stirred up!

What is happening? A higher frequency hits a psyche, breaks down the barriers and the hidden content is released. It is absolutely necessary to go through this purificatory process in order to tread the Path. The more repressions and suppressions, the more necessary is the release before progress can be made! We think if we have a good opinion of ourselves, if we wash and paint the surface, then we can cover up what lies deepest inside. But it does not disappear. What we have built in and cultivated through the aeonian past must come out. We cannot cavalierly throw it out and walk on. It has a demand on us. We must stand in the burning. We need to get it behind us, we want the inside of the cup as clean as the outside! We cannot go forward with dead men's bones, corruption, pollution, and other unseemly and unmentionable things..."

"Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, 'Sit here while I go over there and pray.' And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be grieved and greatly distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; please remain here and keep watch with Me?” And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.' And He came back to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, 'So, you men could not keep watch with Me for even one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.' He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Your will be done.' Again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy…" ~ Matthew 26:36-50 (NAS)

It seems almost unbelievable that his closest friends could have slept through his suffering and agony from just steps away. But as this story shows, it is absolutely necessary to lay down and die to your person if you want to make progress in your self-unfoldment. You will cry and sob and scream and feel utterly and completely alone. It is inevitable. As a rule we die by inches, a slice at a time. How? We create in our minds a great expectation -- marriage, home, children, possessions, or whatever. Look back at the expectations we have fulfilled. Have we ever received what we anticipated? What do we get but heartache, anguish and suffering? And so, we die by inches. Then we rebuild our personality pattern, look at our mistakes and vow never to repeat them. How many times will we say, "That was a mistake, but next time will be different...?" Sooner or later these little disappointments mount up and we want to give it all up. "What is the use? I will quit it all. I will be a good dog and lay down. I will just die." Sooner or later we all go through our own Garden of Gethsemane, the disintegration of the psychic nature. It is called the dark night of the soul. There is no ray of hope, no light anywhere. It feels as if there is nothing left...

"And when it overtakes students of this School, perhaps the memory of this lesson will be sufficient to hold them waiting for the darkness to break, waiting for the higher Light to enter..."

This is the phase at which some of us find ourselves. We are beginning to break into something other than the 'physical' sense life. We are all functioning on that level, more or less, and we must begin right there to take up our work and carry it through to 'higher' levels... Remember, when a student begins to awaken all the hidden content of his psyche, or South Half, everything is brought out to the periphery... But a student who is treading the path alone, without a qualified teacher or guru, will almost certainly get involved in a great many difficulties. He will become confused and frustrated. He will conclude that taking up the study of truth is the worst thing he can do. And he is right. Without a qualified teacher, it is nearly impossible to find our way into the Light, another reason we label this phase "the dark night of the soul.”

This is the Raison d'être of the School of the Natural Order -- we must develop as Teachers and Leaders!

The following is taken from Vitvan's commentary on When the Sun Moves Northward: "What is there about a teaching or a teacher that such terrific cyclones of destructive force are turned against the teacher, the teaching, and the group? It means that we have the Light! The stronger the Light we carry, the more is the darkness stirred up against us! If it were not for those who can transform the forces of darkness and evil through the force of love, the race would be overwhelmed. Sometimes a great work will go down and be swept away by the forces of evil because the leader lacks support. If the Great Master, Jesus the Christ, could have found even two to support him in group formation when that great world drama was enacted in the Garden of Gethsemane, he could have alchemically transmuted the race hatred of all Jerusalem into love..."

So, please, sob and cry and weep and mourn until all of your tears are dried up and gone forever. It is not immature or childish or "being too emotional" -- you are simply healing yourself. All of the past repressions and pain and suffering has to come out to the periphery of the psyche, and only then can it leave you. Believe it or not, this is a GOOD THING...!

Quotes from Vitvan in this article were primarily taken from Steps In Self Unfoldment, Lessons 8 and 9