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emc
2072 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 25 2008 : 5:37:33 PM
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I'm exited! I found a beautiful section of wisdom from Osho, here are some quotes from the web page. There's so much talk about light here, and light is wonderful... I just have always been much more attracted to the darkness, and when I go deep I don't see light - it goes black, so I was so glad to find this to explain my experiences. I thought I had such a long way to go still, because enlightenment would be all about going into the light and I'm not even near light more than once in a while... Now, this is more in concordance with what I experience and what I've learned from other teachers. (I've cut some here and there in the text):
http://www.otantra.net/oTantra/VBTv...apter11.html
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IN RAIN DURING A BLACK NIGHT, ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS.
There has been one very old esoteric school about which you may not have heard. The school was known as the school of Essenes. Jesus was taught in that school; he belonged to the Essenes group. That Essenes group is the only group all over the world who thinks of God as absolute darkness. The Koran says God is light, the Upanishads say God is light, the Bible says God is light. The Essenes group is the only tradition in the world which says that God is absolute blackness, absolute darkness, just an infinite black night.
Reflect. Why has God been symbolized everywhere as light? Not because God is light, but because man is afraid of darkness. This is human fear -- we like light and we are afraid of darkness, so we cannot conceive God as darkness, as blackness. This is human conception. We conceive God as light because we are afraid of darkness.
Essenes say that God is darkness, and there is something in it. One thing: darkness is eternal. Light comes and goes and darkness remains. In the morning the sun will rise and there will be light; in the evening the sun will set and there will be darkness. For darkness nothing will rise -- it is always there. It never rises and never sets. Light comes and goes; darkness remains. Light always has some source; darkness is without source. That which has some source cannot be infinite; only that which is sourceless can be infinite and eternal. Light has a certain disturbance; that's why you cannot sleep in light. It creates a tension. Darkness is relaxation, total relaxation.
But why are we afraid of darkness? Because light appears to us as life -- it is; and darkness appears to be death -- it is. Life comes through light, and when you die it appears you have fallen into eternal darkness. That's why we paint death as black, and black has become a color for mourning. God is light, and death is black. But these are our fears projected. Actually, darkness has infinity; light is limited. Darkness seems to be the womb out of which everything arises and into which everything falls.
Essenes took this standpoint. It is very beautiful and very helpful also, because if you can love darkness you will become unafraid of death. If you can enter into darkness -- and you can enter only when there is no fear -- you will achieve total relaxation. If you can become one with darkness, you are dissolved, it is a surrender. Now there is no fear, because if you have become one with darkness, you have become one with death. You cannot die now. You have become deathless. Darkness is deathless. Light is born and dies; darkness simply is. It is deathless.
My own experience with these techniques is very beautiful. If you can do them they are wonderful. You will enter such a deep relaxation that you have never known. But first uncover your unconscious fears and try to live and love darkness. It is very blissful. Once you know, and once you are in contact with it, you are in contact with a very deep cosmic phenomenon.
IN RAIN DURING A BLACK NIGHT,
ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS.
All forms arise out of darkness and dissolve into darkness. Worlds come, are created out of darkness, and they fall back into darkness. Darkness is the womb, the cosmic womb. The undisturbed, the absolute stillness is there.
Shiva says that it will be good to do this technique in a rainy night when everything is black, when clouds are there and no stars can be seen and the sky is completely dark. In a black night when there is no moon... ENTER THAT BLACKNESS AS THE FORM OF FORMS. Be a witness to that blackness, and then dissolve yourself into it. It is the form of all forms. You are a form -- you can dissolve into it.
When there is light, you are defined. I can see you, the light is there. Your body has a definition. You are defined, you have boundaries. Boundaries exist because of the light. When the light is not there, boundaries are dissolved. In blackness nothing is defined, everything merges into every other thing. Forms disappear.
That may be one of the causes of our fear -- because then you are not defined, then you don't know who you are. The face cannot be seen, the body cannot be known. Everything merges into a formless existence. That may be one of the causes of fear -- because you cannot feel your defined existence. Existence becomes vague and fear enters, because you don't know now who you are. The ego cannot exist: undefined, it is difficult to exist as an ego. One feels afraid. One wants light to be there.
Contemplating, meditating, merging, it will be easier to merge into darkness than to merge into light, because light gives distinctions. Darkness takes away all distinctions. In the light you are beautiful or ugly, rich or poor. The light gives you a personality, a distinctness -- educated, uneducated, saint or sinner. The light reveals you as a distinct person. Darkness envelops you, accepts you -- not as a distinct person; it simply accepts you without any definitions. You are enveloped and you become one.
The darkness is doing it always, but because you are afraid you cannot understand it. Put aside your fear and become one.
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When I started this journey I was afraid of the darkness. I was scared from demons from the dark and I felt uncomfortable in darkness. Then I remember I had a very, very nice piece of scenery one evening when I had asked desperately for help - I wanted to get over this fear and understand the darkness. I didn't know how much the "demons" or entities could harm me (I was very, very new to this whole spiritual world.) The scenery was the creation of the Earth. I saw how the Earth could not exist if it wasn't for the Darkness giving it Life. I realized Darkness is essential and nothing to be afraid of. The scenery was the most beautiful I've ever had, and I think it helped me a lot to quickly accept the Darkness for what it is - the other side of the coin. (And further down the path I learned more about deamons and entities and the limited boundaries they move within, thus not scaring me at all anylonger.)
I do believe the Light is as much God as the Dark.  I'm just... more at Home in the Dark... |
Edited by - emc on Mar 25 2008 5:49:54 PM |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Mar 25 2008 : 5:55:11 PM
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| I wonder if it may be a male-female thing? The Darkness is the Feminine, the unlimited potential giving life. The Light is the Masculine, the projecting part giving the directions for creation... Perhaps I as being in a female body are more prone to melt into the darkness, while men are more prone to be attracted to the male core, the Star...? |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Mar 25 2008 : 7:44:47 PM
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Thanks emc and Shweta
This stuff is food for my soul
There is still so much fear in my neck of the woods about darkness and spirituality that I have had to stop talking about it in certain circles.
The more evidence about its beauty from good concrete sources the better.
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Ananda
3115 Posts |
Posted - Mar 25 2008 : 9:10:07 PM
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Great subject emc, i went through some similarities concerning being scared of negative entities and so on when i 1st started spiritual work.
but now i don't know y, but after years of meditating i feel as if i'm only at my best comfort when i meditate in the dark.
it's like i feel safe in it but still i experiene some visions of lights and so on now and then.
nd
one that is most common and that has been with me since i early started meditating especialy on the third eye is that i see the dark cosmos filled with stars and meteors and so on and i feel like i'm part of it as if i am it.
but after reading what you've written here, seems like meditating on the dark the way that was mentioned n ur post seems to be a great and amazing way to cultivate deep calmness.
god bless u my friend, and thk u for sharing.
Namaste
Ananda |
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Katrine
Norway
1813 Posts |
Posted - Mar 26 2008 : 05:52:50 AM
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Hi emc
The darkness I rest in....is like black velvet. It shines of itself.
The light, however, is born of it.......everything comes of it!
But it is the black velvet that is the source.
I don't see it as one or the other. Light is no more masculine than feminine. Darkness is no more feminine than masculine. The black velvet is the union of the female and the male. It is what is before the splitting into two.
And what is born is the light. The light is the child. It too is both. But to know it, it must go through life.
See?
How can such a child (and we are all that) not be loveable?
It is implicit! May we all come to this simple understanding.... |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Mar 26 2008 : 07:46:29 AM
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"It is what is before the splitting into two."
And the two - male and female - would then be...???
I don't know if I have a mind model that I have trouble giving up, but I somewhere can't believe I've already tasted what's beyond light and darkness, the unnamable, the undescribable, the absolute. Darkness can still be described and all sages say that if you can label it in any way it isn't IT, so I just figured it can't be IT, only one of the two poles (which definitely can be described and labeled). So can you please explain more what you mean by the "two" above that would come from the Darkness?
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Katrine
Norway
1813 Posts |
Posted - Mar 26 2008 : 08:12:55 AM
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Hi emc
quote:
but I somewhere can't believe I've already tasted what's beyond light and darkness, the unnamable, the undescribable, the absolute.
No.....I see what you mean, emc. But you still are it.
Even if you did believe it - that wouldn't be it. It is not a concept. I don't see the darkness.
It tastes itself.
quote:
And the two - male and female - would then be...???
The potential of two.
Just that.
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VIL
USA
586 Posts |
Posted - Mar 26 2008 : 12:15:44 PM
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While in the darkness of the womb the unborn child has the potentiality to be male or female.
Another way of looking at it from a cosmic standpoint is that all things passing within a black hole are unobservable and it is theorized that radiation (light) is emitted, therefore observable (Hawking Radiation) We'll see what scientific findings produce in the near future. This is an interesting animation:
http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/hawk.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation
Another interesting side note is the term "dark faith" has been theorized by scholars to be the state of being beyond all of the bells and whistles of overt experience and is comparable to comtemplation or self-inquiry. So it's not really literal darkness, but illumination.
VIL |
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The Darkness
