The “dark night of the soul” is an expression that St. John of the Cross used to describe three stages in the aspirant’s journey to what he calls “the state of perfection.” (1)
The rigorous discipline that St. John and others followed to achieve enlightenment is not necessary for us in the end times. Because some sources are using the term these days, I look at the original meaning here.
The first dark night of the soul, according to St. John, is the purification of the senses through the deprivation of all sensory objects, which takes us out of our knowledge of the external world and plunges us into a form of darkness.
The second dark night is the sensing of God through faith alone, deprived of external light.
And the third dark night is the communication of God to the aspirant, which happens in the darkness of unknowing.
Some of our sources are pointing to this period of time, prior to the Tsunami of Love and before Ascension, as being in whole a dark night of the soul. And there may be readers who are experiencing it as such and wondering why?
One of the sources is the Arcturians through Sue Lie, who used the term to refer to a cleansing process, just as St. John of the Cross did in his description of the first dark night. They tell us:
“In order to complete the process of Ascension you must go through the dark night of the soul. …
“The dark night of the soul is the final cleansing that must occur before you can live within the NOW of Ascension. This dark night of the soul is when you go through your daily life being fully aware of what you are doing wrong, aware of your fear, aware of your anger, aware of your pain.” (2)
“You must see yourself,” they say. “You must be aware of what you are thinking, what you are saying, what you are doing and WHY. Why are you thinking that? Why are you saying that? Why are you doing that?” (3)
This dark night of the soul, they tell us, “is quite uncomfortable but very informational.” What are we being informed about? We are wiping the slate clean by seeing that “there is no one else you can blame.”
“It was no one’s fault. No one and nothing did it to you. You created your reality. Through creating your reality, you first needed to bring to the surface the parts of you that could not participate in the creation of the reality of planetary Ascension.” (4)
We emerge from this dark night taking full responsibility for our lives. And why is that important? Because, as far as I’m aware, not until we acknowledge full responsibility for everything that happened to us can we release Third Dimensionality. Thus the dark night of the soul that the Arcturians refer to is a time in which all our false beliefs of victimization are coming up to be released.
Another source is Mary through Pamela Kribbe, who uses the phrase more as St. John did. Souls go through many lifetimes seeking God outside themselves.
“You have tried to find the Light by gaining worldly power or possessions. You have tried to find the Light by creating a big ego and gaining recognition from the world. And you have tried to find the Light by losing yourself in romantic relationships; by trying to merge with another soul. These are really the stages that every soul goes through on its evolutionary journey.” (5)
But, according to Mary, “at some point, the soul discovers that those things do not work, and then the soul goes through a deep inner crisis” and here is where the dark night ensues.
“As it is maturing, it discovers deep emotions of loneliness, separation, and fear, and there is a growing awareness that nothing outside itself can fill the void. This stage of a soul’s journey can be called ‘the dark night of the soul.’ The soul can not lose itself any more in anything external, and yet it does not know how to nurture itself, how to go within.
“This is when loneliness can hit you hardest, and when you are at this point, as often happens in relationships, you realize you can not find outside yourself what you are really seeking. So there is no other road to follow than the road that leads to your heart.” (6)
The aspirant then turns inwards to find the Light, Mary says.
“Home is within you all, and when you open the doors of your heart, the Light will shine so brightly! Your Light will bring joy to others, and you will joyfully connect with other people, but you will also be at peace when you are alone.
“You will not need other people to be fulfilled, but it will be an experience of enrichment and abundance to meet them, especially soulmates.” (7)
There’s no mistake that Mary should call this an opening of the doors of your heart because Ascension does result in a permanent heart opening. (8) The soul that we are then shines through us in a way that isn’t possible while the heart aperture (hridayam) is closed.
So Mary uses the phrase “dark night of the soul” to mean a turning away from the external light and a seeking of the Light in the darkness within.
We’re at a place, I believe, where external things can no longer satisfy. I’ve heard from many lightworkers that sensory things no longer appeal to then.
So the way Mary uses the phrase is to indicate a turning away from the external and a seeking of the Kingdom of Heaven (the Mental Plane or Fifth Dimension) within.
Finally Archangel Gabrielle referred to the dark night of the soul last summer. She asked:
“What do you do when you are in [a] dark room? Because what you are really referring to is that dark night of the soul.
“[Call] for us. And we will respond.
“Embrace yourself. Hug yourself, literally, as you have never hugged yourself before. Appreciate, love, regard, honor yourself as you never have.” (9)
Why did we put ourselves in this dark room?
“You put yourself into the dark room — yes, sometimes with great help — so that you would break through this illusion of isolation, of separation, of being alone, because it simply is not so.” (10)
And now, she says, we are saying “I am fed up, and I won’t do this anymore!”
“And it doesn’t mean that you are getting rid of or throwing out your entire spiritual journey! You are saying, ‘I am done with this illusion, and I want the totality of my integrated self. I’ve had enough!’
“And to this, we say, thank God! Thank Mother/Father One. Let it go.” (11)
So Archangel Gabrielle uses the phrase to point to a breaking out of the prison of illusion we’ve built for ourselves, the illusory sense of separation from God which caused our original isolation from the higher realms in the first place.
So if we’re feeling somewhat desolate at times, and wondering why this late in the game we feel this way, perhaps remember that we’re experiencing the illusion once again, coming up to be experienced and let go of.
The really ironic thing is that we go back by the way we came in AND it feels the same leaving as entering. (12)
Previously we concluded that we were separate from God and descended into more and more loneliness. Now we’re re-encountering the illusory vasanas and beliefs that we created as we rise out of them. But the experience of loneliness and sometimes desperation feels exactly the same, whether we’re descending or ascending.
We probably think we should be feeling better by now and we’re not. Certainly we will when the Tsunami hits. But until then, we’re not feeling better because we’re re-experiencing the illusory beliefs and very real vasanas we created in our descent, as part of our ascent.
The same loneliness and sometimes despair are now coming up to be removed. We’re making our exit from the illusion of separation and at times it may feel like a dark night of the soul.
Footnotes
(1) St. John of the Cross in Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, trans. Complete Works of St. John of the Cross. Washington: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1973, 73-5. This state of perfection is where we’re headed.
(2) “Message from the Arcturians: Walking The NOW,” channelled by Suzanne Lie. March 27, 2014, at https://suzanneliephd.blogspot.co.uk/.
(3) Loc. cit.
(4) Loc. cit.
(5) “Mary: Circles of Light,” channelled by Pamela Kribbe, August 7, 2013 at https://www.jeshua.net.
(6) Loc. cit.
(7) Loc. cit.
(8) Sahaja samadhi, which is the level of enlightenment that Ascension is, is a permanent opening of the aperture which the spiritual heart or hridayam is.
(9) “Archangel Gabrielle on the New Golden Grid, the Process of Ascension, and the Advent of Global Prosperity – Part 2/2,” channeled by Linda Dillon, August 26, 2013, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/08/archangel-gabrielle-on-the-new-golden-grid-the-process-of-ascension-and-the-advent-of-global-prosperity-part-22/.
(10) Loc. cit.
(11) Loc. cit.
(12) This is not mystical. Imagine we have a fear vasana. We created that vasana because we felt fear and never wanted to experience fear again. But now, when we want to exit the vasana, we have to do it by experiencing the very thing we resolved not to experience again. So entering and leaving feel the same. Ironic.