“All the painful experiences that life gives us are there so that we learn to be compassionate with others; they are not divine punishment.”From El refugio del corazón
There was a time when I devoted myself to teaching meditation in South America. It was then that I began to go through a very strong identity crisis, a truly complex one. Those states of mind could be given a name: the dark night of the soul. It means sustaining yourself spiritually in the midst of loneliness, of a terrible sense of abandonment and personal insignificance. Everything looked empty, like an immense desert, with no horizon but a blazing sun and mounds of sand repeating endlessly until they were lost in the distance.
I tell you this because perhaps you have been there too, or are there now. We may go through dark moments for a day, or perhaps for years. What matters is to understand that those moments come to teach us a lesson.
The alarm that goes off
From the very moment we arise from the Source, we beings manifest at some level of experience, and sorrow comes when there is a lack of illumination in the essence of the truth. We all have a purpose and a reason to be here. We were not created at random, but to play a role in the Universe.
When we stray from the source of our Being, or feel in dissonance with it, we begin to have a hard time. Sorrow is the alarm that goes off when our actions are not right. It does not come to punish us. It comes to warn us. The Universe gives us all the opportunities to synchronize with it, but we always turn them down, because we believe we have to meet the demands of our surroundings.
When we are sad, we are unable to understand our essence. We wrongly identify with the ego and the mind, and we tend to look outside for the reasons for what we feel: a circumstance, a relationship, a lack, a health problem. But the ailments of the spirit are the result of a disconnection from our essence. There is no greater grief than being separated from the Father.
I am certain that our greatest sorrows come from that separation. We know God exists, but we believe He lives outside of us. We have yet to understand that He is part of our Being.
What we look for outside
When we are in pain, we always look for something to help us heal, but we look for it outside: another job, more money, bad habits, a new partner, the best version of something. You firmly believe that once you get that “better” something, your grief will disappear.
The mind uses this deception to keep us trapped, and the search becomes endless, because we will always want more. The mind has been programmed to fix pain by accumulating things and sensations, without recognizing that the only void that needs to be filled is that of the spirit and of self-knowledge.
Matter always generates suffering, because it is finite. Only when you recognize your Being as something eternal, indestructible and unchangeable can you overcome the pain that this limitation produces. Then you begin to live in detachment.
Holding the light
This is a process of the heart. It means trusting your intuition and your inner guidance. Remember that your mind is only a tool, and that spirituality is lived in the heart.
God did not make you to suffer, much less to be a cause of suffering. Your soul simply needs to learn to be compassionate, gaining mastery in how to transform pain.
There are stages we need to work through at the level of the soul in order to create our own light and our own energy. The tests of darkness are like exercises that life throws at us so that we can learn to stand in that light. And when we finally step into the light and let go of what we no longer need, we also release light.
We must be able to keep our inner glow in the midst of darkness. It is precisely then that many souls lose their way: they let themselves be carried away by the ideas and concepts of the mind and fall into tremendous spiritual suffering, as if God were forsaking them so that they could bloom on their own. It is a confrontation in which you are asked to remain in the light. It is time to decide which road to follow.
Forgiveness is the key
Do not blame the wrongdoings of others for your sorrow. If you take a moment to know their story, you will see that suffering has been the main author. Once you understand this, the walls that kept you from escaping the situations that hurt you come crumbling down.
Align yourself with the Universe and understand that one person’s misfortune concerns us all. Stay present. Do not project your frustrations and your pain onto others, so as not to cause even more suffering. Practice compassion and tolerance as an antidote to your own poison.
Your own suffering is not the only one that matters. The fastest way to grow is by helping your neighbor, and that becomes easy when you understand that the other who is suffering is also the essence of God. Whenever you serve another, you will be serving Divinity.
When suffering touches you on every level, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual, rage overflows, and that is a direct path to more pain. That is how new afflictions arrive and a vicious circle is created.
Do you want that wheel to stop turning? Nobody is going to come down from heaven to stop it. It is your responsibility, and you have the power to change it. You set the ball rolling, and only you can stop it. Forgiveness is the key to healing, but you are the one who has to take the first step.
I was not alone
Today I know that I was not alone in my dark night. It was in that time that God appeared in my life, and I finally understood that I exist because of what He is. The most important thing is to be present: do not avoid being in relationship with the now.
If you are going through your own night, let sorrow warn you: it is not a divine punishment. And turn back toward that God who does not live far from you, but in your own Being.
From Dr. Zuluan Orion's books: Illumination · Deshojando el Corazón de la Eternidad · El refugio del corazón