People keep asking me "Do we have to go through darkness?"
"Why do we have to suffer? Or stating, "Suffering is part of the illusion, there is no need to feel pain."
THIS, my friends, is the illusion. This is the ego- mind - spiritual concepts of which it has little understanding, has not integrated and has not yet been relevantly initiated into or through.
It is the new-age panacea, wishful thinking lip-speak to perpetuate a semblance of 'feel-good', a false sense of security based on being in full control' and a denial of a force FAR greater than ourselves or anything we can imagine, known most appropriately as Great Mystery.
The uncomfortable truth is that if you believe these concepts, if you think that "karma has been abolished", that you are immune to darkness and experiencing anything that is not light which is un-necessary, then you are in great denial - unless of course you are a fully enlightened, ascended being who has risen through all this to rise to higher levels of consciousness.
Make no mistake - no higher being who has achieved states of so-called 'enlightenment' did so without feeling, facing, experiencing or being aware of the darkness, within and without. The ONLY way to bring in the light, embody it, is to feel the darkness, own the darkness (which might be pain, suffering, anger, sadness, hurt, fear, sickness, abuse, past-life or present, child-hood or current, any or all of the above and other). The ONLY way to activate higher Dna/higher consciousness is TO FEEL the darkness, to 'OWN' the darkness, to "ALLOW' the darkness, to 'EMBRACE' the darkness - in doing this you bring light/love/higher awareness to it and that, my friends, is what SWITCHES ON the light/Dna. The darkness is, in fact, the light switch. The rest is hyperbole - lack of spiritual and emotional intelligence, understanding and experience - tricks of the mind.
It is true (and you may read this in The Course in Miracles) that the ego referred to in the Course is the opposite of love and not real, YET……….. you have to know the ego in order to enlighten it, by healing and transforming it to transcend it. And it is facile to believe that everything that is 'bad' or negative' that happens, is felt or spoken about, is mere ego to be transcended –this is to deny the very process that can take you on the healing journey THROUGH the darkness, the ego, and back into light, which might in turn be the greatest gift/learning of your life, the most powerful empowerment, the most deeply profound karmic, past-life or child-hood healing that in turn simply clears the underlying need or reason for the ego to have taken control or set up this drama, issue or event in the first place.
Furthermore, individually and collectively, we are in body here at a time in planetary evolution when there is MUCH karmic healing and clearing that is essential in order for personal and global consciousness to undergo rapid and dramatic shifts in awareness and potential. This CANNOT be transcended without knowing it, experiencing it, being willing to face and heal it, and if you have not done this for yourself, you cannot help others through it AND you do not, in a real, honest way, have the love, compassion or understanding necessary to become more ‘embodily’ enlightened.
Those thoughts and belief-systems are a headspace that keeps one 'above' the darkness and out of the mud. My friends, no mud, no lotus! It is as simple as that. Why is the lotus such a powerful symbol? Because it grows in mud, it roots in mud, it cannot exist without mud. Without mud, there can be no stem, no bud, no flower, and no perfume. So if you are not willing to deal with the mud consciously, know the mud, sink in the mud, simply said, you cannot become the lotus - you can only talk about it - and that kind of talk is cheap, empty. It is a false story created by 'ego' to protect you from dealing with the very areas that prevent you from healing and guiding the ego to a point where the ego is entrained to work for you, not run the show like an out-of-control child or pet. The ego mind is the mirror of your unconscious, hidden agendas to avoid, surreptitiously, areas that it has well wrapped and hidden (shadow) or swept under the rug, conveniently disguised as un-necessary to deal with. It will always come back to bite you on the bum. It is the tail you cannot cut off for it will grow back again, it is the shadow you cannot hide, for as you shine more light upon it so it will expand and track you down, get bigger and bigger until it cannot be denied.
The unconscious creates outside of itself in order to be recognised, healed and released. The darkness will keep perpetuating, re-creating itself somewhere, in some way, in your life until you face it and deal with it. It will manifest as an angry partner or neighbour, a disaster or accident, disease or emotional distress and anxiety, financial hardship, abandonment homelessness, to name but a few, and God, Great Mystery, the Divine, Source, works in infinite and mysterious ways, thus, come hell or high water, literally, it will return to your shore as the waves roll in with the tides. Ignore it at your peril - eventually it will become a tsunami.
WHEN you can feel, know, fully experience the light in the midst of the darkness, then you are on the way to enlightening - but enlightenment is not a finite process, it is a continual journey of growth and evolution and I am absolutely sure that if you think you are there then you definitely are not! For, as we delve deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, the darkness, the veils of illusion, and higher and higher into the light, we realise that our humanity and spirituality are a paradox - a duality that has only one way to exist and that is to co-exist. In the integrating of the two within one's consciousness one is able to step into a higher level of being that allows the duality, the polarity, yet is not caught up in 'good or bad', 'positive or negative, 'right or wrong'. As one allows, heals, feels, it all, there is realisation that whatever is happening to you or others is happening for a reason, and having experienced the same issue, there is understanding and compassion for the suffering, your own or others, that "allows" this suffering, this dis-ease, to be there and in the 'allowing' there can be healing and release.
Do not be fooled into thinking that anything that is happening to or around you is random, or unrelated to you if you are feeling it. Physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, it is happening for a reason and if you are feeling it and having some kind of inner reaction on any of these levels there is something in it for you. It is NEVER just a cold or just an upset stomach, it is NEVER just an accident or 'shit happens', it is ALWAYS a teacher for you, a message for you, an AFGO* for you. There is always an emotion, an energetic, a karmic or some other form of learning that wants to take you to the next level. If you lump these experiences in the mundane realm of happenstance you are missing a great opportunity to expand, evolve, enlighten a little more. If you do not look for the signs, ask for answers and listen to them, pay attention to the messages and words of teachers that come in many forms, or recognise the point of the process you are in, then you are staying stuck in the mud that you wanted or hoped to avoid. You think you have higher/greater consciousness, greater spiritual wisdom, deep knowing? See you in the mud, my lotus friends!
*AFGO: euphemism for “another f---ing growth opportunity”
The phrase “No Mud No Lotus” is borrowed from the title of Maya Yonika’s book by the same name, a term for which I am deeply grateful in that it absolutely, evocatively and clearly conveys all of the above and infinitely more in the beautiful simplicity of a few words. Maya Yonika’s book “No Mud No Lotus” is available on Amazon.
With heart felt love,
Swan
