Dark Night of the Soul

It is November 23rd, 1:24 pm. The first wave of hunger in my body arrived about an hour ago and is yet to pass. I welcome the feeling, and find comfort in the hunger. I intend to fast until the sun is down. I have been battling very negative energy lately. It is coming from the outside, resembling an attack, but if I am honest it is also coming from within, being generated in my own body due to attachments and modes of perception I find it difficult to let go of. I can sense on some level that my relationship to myself and to the world and to God is undergoing a rewriting, a purge, and I am challenged in this moment to relinquish that which is causing me suffering and torment in order to become a vessel capable of baring more light. I feel very lost as I navigate these difficult feelings, as if I am pacing through an empty room looking for something that will alleviate my suffering and there is nothing but emptiness and absence. Immersed for days in these feelings, there is pain in my chest, not entirely physical pain and yet a localized pain nonetheless. Late last night, by some grace, it occurred to me to return to St. John of the Cross’ work The Dark Night of the Soul. Before going to bed last night I took the book off the shelf and set it down on the table to be read in the morning. This morning I made a small cup of black coffee and sat down with the book. I opened to the page I had left off on. A couple of years ago I read The Ascent of Mount Carmel and was so nourished by the work that I decided to continue on into The Dark Night. I remember at the time how the beginning of The Dark Night was not fully resonating with me, and perhaps in retrospect, it was not the right time for me to be reading it. For whatever reason, I indeed did stop reading it, and moved on to other texts. It was not until these two years or so later that I take the book off the shelf and pick up where I left off. On Book Two, Chapter 5. Almost immediately this morning the text reaches me and resonates on a very deep level. It feels very much as if I am being instructed on how to navigate a time of deep challenge and I would like to return to these passages now and continue the practice of purging, reflecting, and purifying myself so that I may better serve God, and integrate the divine into my flawed and contemptible state here on earth in this human body. I will turn now to St. John of the Cross, and then reflect on each passage before continuing. 

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Chapter 5

[Begins to explain how this dark contemplation is not only night for the soul but also affliction and torment.]

1. This dark night is an inflow of God into the soul, which purges it of its habitual ignorances and imperfections, natural and spiritual, and which the contemplatives calls infused contemplation or mystical theology. Through this contemplation, God teaches the soul secretly and instructs it in the perfection of love without its doing anything or understanding how this happens. 

Insofar as infused contemplation is loving wisdom of God, it produces two principle effects in the soul: by both purging and illumining, this contemplation prepares the soul for union with God through love. Hence the same loving wisdom that purges and illumines the blessed spirits purges and illumines the soul here on earth. 

Commentary: It feels true to me that there is a simultaneous purging and illumining. Part of what is so painful in the dark night experience I am living through is that very deep patterns and dynamics of relationships – of myself to others, of my self to myself, of others to others, etc – these deep underlying patterns are being illuminated and brought to the surface to be dealt with, and this process is incredibly painful. It’s as if things that have been stored and kept at bay in my body have suddenly been triggered into being released and the negative energy of what was stored is creating imbalance and destruction to the bodies harmony and the mind’s peace. Eckhartt Tolle has the concept of the Pain Body – and it certainly feels appropriate to say that the Pain Body is active right now, and attempting to feed itself with negative energy. I also feel that what is necessary and perhaps what is occurring through grace is that these stored clusters of negative energy need to be purged and let go of, and the only way to let go of the negative energy is for it to be stirred into becoming active. While this is painful it is also an opportunity to observe things that are often hidden from my awareness, as if the negativity wants to preserve itself by hiding itself in my body. When the triggers occur it gets shaken loose and it can be seen, in fact it demands to be seen, in an effort to terrorize the mind, and the only recourse is to wake up to the nature of a spiritual battle and begin turning one’s self over to god, to let go of what I am carrying and occupy the higher mind, free from pain and despair – trusting that life’s journey is unfolding according to God’s will and there is no way for me to improve that by attempting to control anything. So the same force that illumines the negative patterns stored in the body and causes the pain of recognition is the force that is purging those patterns and attempting to free the body of its weight and density. It is not an attack but rather a divine presence purifying the soul, and the degree to which the body and the mind resist that is the degree to which there is suffering. 

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2. Yet a doubt arises: Why, if it is a divine light (for it illumines souls and purges them of their ignorance), does the soul call it a dark night? In answer to this, there are two reasons this divine wisdom is not only night and darkness for the soul but also affliction and torment. First, because of the height of the divine wisdom that exceeds the abilities of the soul; and on this account the wisdom is dark for the soul. Second, because of the soul’s baseness and impurity; and on this account the wisdom is painful, afflictive, and also dark for the soul.

Commentary:  The humility required to let go and recognize the soul’s baseness and impurity… The signal of this baseness and impurity is the suffering of the state I am in. The recourse of rescue is to desire to be purified without needing to understand how or why. To accept that the presence of wisdom pouring in to the body is pain until the body becomes a suitable home for a purified soul. There is an opportunity in this teaching to understand that a process is underway that I cannot understand – a paradox perhaps, but a mode of desire that has sense and provides relief on a spiritual level, even if the presence of pain in my chest persists, and the hormones of stress flow through me. This first thing I can do is stop adding stress, stop engaging in the cycles of negativity loops as they become perceivable in my mind as they exit. The way the negative energy forms loops of thoughts feels sinister, but I recognize that it is me who cling to them and run their program of torment over and over in my mind, causing havoc to the equilibrium of the bodies systems of harmony and balance. I can take responsibility for allowing the thoughts to pass as they are illumined and dissolved by the divine light of wisdom and consider any torment that lingers to be the sign of the purification that is underway, to welcome the feeling just as I welcome the feeling of hunger in my body. 

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3. To prove the first reason, we must presuppose a certain principle of the Philosopher: that the clearer and more obvious divine things are in themselves, the darker and more hidden they are to the soul naturally. The brighter the light, the more the owl is blinded; and the more one looks at the brilliant sun, the more the sun darkens the faculty of sight, deprives and overwhelms it in its weakness. 

Hence when the divine light of contemplation strikes a soul not yet entirely illumined, it causes spiritual darkness, for it not only surpasses the act of natural understanding but it also deprives the soul of this act and darkens it. This is why St. Dionysius and other mystical theologians call this infused contemplation a “ray of darkness” — that is, for the soul not yet illumined and purged. For this great supernatural light overwhelms the intellect and deprives it of its natural vigor. 

David also said that clouds and darkness are near God and surround him [Ps. 18:11], not because this is true in itself, but because it appears thus to our weak intellects, which in being unable to attain so bright a light are blinded and darkened. Hence he next declared that clouds passed before the great splendor of his presence [Ps. 18:12], that is, between God and our intellect. As a result, when God communicates this bright ray of his secret wisdom to the soul not yet transformed, he causes thick darkness in its intellect.

Commentary: St. John of the Cross proposes an inverse relationship to the darkness and the light, the degree to which one feels gripped by a darkness is the degree to which the brightness of the light is pouring in. The implication and point to contemplate is that my own soul is not yet entirely illumined, and I must have the humility to not only recognize that, but tp recognize that it might only be illumined by the grace of God and no effort of my own – my role is to continue letting go of what is being purged and to not cling in desperation and fear. It’s haunting to thing I would fear letting go of my own torment. And yet this is the condition I find myself attempting to reckon with. The difficulty in letting go of pain, of grief, of sadness. Perhaps I may permit myself to feel it fully as it passes. Perhaps this is part of what is being asked of me, as I surrender more fully to the bright ray of light and the divine will of God. My intellect is darkened, and has no answers, I am alone with myself in my body, I hold myself open to the presence of God, and offer my intimacy and my pain to the light. 

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4. It is also evident that this dark contemplation is painful to the soul in these beginnings. Since this divine infused contemplation has many extremely good properties, and the still unpurged soul that receives it has many extreme miseries, and because two contraries cannot coexist in one subject, the soul must necessarily undergo affliction and suffering. Because of the purgation of its imperfections caused by this contemplation, the soul becomes a battlefield in which these two contraries combat one another. We will prove this induction in the following way.

5. In regard to the first cause of one’s affliction: Because the light and wisdom of this conetmplation is very bright and pure, and the soul in which it shines is dark and impure, a person will be deeply afflicted on receiving it. When eyes are sickly, impure and weak, they suffer pain if a bright light shines on them.

The soul, because of its impurity, suffers immensely at the time this divine light truly assails it. When this pure light strikes in order to expel all impurity, persons feel so unclean and wretched that it seems God is against them and they are against God.

Because it seems that God has rejected it, the soul suffers such pain and grief that when God tried Job in this way it proved one of the worst of Job’s trials, as he says: Why have You set me against You, and I am heavy and burdensome to myself? [JB. 7:20]. Clearly beholding its impurity by means of this pure light, although in darkness, the soul understands distinctly that it is worthy neither of God nor of any creature. And what most grieves it is that it thinks it will never be worthy, and there are no more blessings for it. This divine and dark light causes deep immersion of the mind in the knowledge and feeling of one’s own miseries and evils; it brings all these miseries into relief so the soul sees clearly that of itself it will never posses anything else. We can interpret that passage from David in this sense: You have corrected humans because of their iniquity and have undone and consumed thier souls, as a spider is eviscerated in its work [Ps. 39:11].

6. Persons suffer affliction in the second manner because of their natural, moral, and spiritual weakness. Since this divine contemplation assails them somewhat forcibly in order to subdue and stregnthen their soul, they suffer so much in their weakness that they almost die, particularly at times when the light is more powerful. Both the sense and the spirit, as though under an immense and dark load, undergo such agony and pain that the soul would consider death a relief. The prophet Job, having experienced this, declared: I do not desire that he commune with me with much strength lest he overwhelm me with the weight of his greatness [Jb. 23:6].

7. Under the stress of this oppression and weight, individuals feel so far from all favor that they think, and so it is, that even that which previously upheld them has ended, along with everything else, and there is no one who will take pity on them. It is in this sense that Job also cried out: Have pity on me, at least you, my friends, for the hand of the Lord has touched me [Jb. 23:6].

How amazing and pitiful it is that the soul be so utterly weak and impure that the hand of God, though light and gentle, should feel so heavy and contrary. For the hand of God does not press down or weigh on the soul, but only touches it; and this mercifully, for God’s aim is to grant it favors and not to chastise it. 

Commentary: It has felt during the past week that there is a spirit of weightlessness and creativity within my that is covered in stones. So John’s insight here is on point and resonant. To consider that this weight is not a burden that has descended or arrived from an external source but rather a weakness that has been generated and revealed from within restructures the whole frame of mind away from one of victimization to one of the necessity of healing and fortifying the soul, a process to undergo from within, by becoming receptive to the grace of God, and to become capable of receiving the subtle gentleness of care and mercy. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner. My despair is a sin. I turn it over to you, Lord. I relinquish my attachment to any and all negativities and illusions within me that I have stubbornly hidden and established as constancies. Let them be taken, purged, and dissolved into light. I pray for the courage to let go of that which no longer serves your Will, God. And I pray for the grace to let go without flailing, without much fear, allow me to tremble as I grow strong in my soul that I might better serve the divine light as I navigate the world. 

It is currently 2:42 pm, the light is descending, and a cold airs are swaying the branches of trees outside the window. Lavender-grey clouds move slowly across a dull blue sky. There are ribbons of white light in the liminal space were the clouds boundary line becomes a gradient with transparency. 

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