The Dark or The Absence of Light? Part 1

What is “the dark”  anyway?  Is there a dark side as presented in all those sci-fi movies? What if the way we think about good and bad, light and dark, is all wrong.  I had occasion to seriously consider these issues recently.

My husband and I were sitting at a red light and were hit from behind by a semi truck. Thankfully, through the grace of All That Is, which is something  way beyond us, we were spared great injury though our beloved car is a goner. Therefore, I have been deeply listening and asking very pointed questions about the presence or absence of darkness and about the real energetic causes behind such an accident in this cause and effect world.

The stages I have experienced after our our accident have been shock, rage, defiance, befuddlement, questioning, then listening and reintegrating.  The first stage was simply a numbness and exhaustion while all that had happened sank in. This went on for several days and was overlaid with rage and defiance.  The rage was directed at some unknown entity in my mind known “the dark”, envisioned as some power apart from the goodness of All That Is.  I was defiant and literally remember raising my fist into the air and hissing out loud, a number of times,  ” you are not going to get me.”  I suppose that was better than wallowing in fear and victim energy, perhaps only marginally though.  However, it did not feel very good to be facing the unknowable face of  “the dark” nor to imagine “the dark” coming after me again.  As there was incredulity and fear connected with all of this, I increasingly became mixed up, unsure of what I was possibly dealing with and I felt lost and befuddled.  I also increasingly wondered how could I possibly make sense out of this fear filled and seemingly senseless experience.

My next stage was full of questions.  I talked with God, my sons, my husband, my friends, my colleagues, basically anyone who would engage with me.  I talked and talked getting out all my questions and misgivings and when I was completely talked out, I listened in silence. I felt no peace in the self-fashioned image I had of  “the dark”.  As I listened and sensed the Divine Energy of All That Is,  I felt more and more deeply that All There Is is the Oneness. We are all connect to that energy, indeed we come from the same source, though some of us do not recognize this in our present state of consciousness.

The Oneness knows all the goodness and all the evil as we are given complete free will to live as we so choose.   Some of us choose to consciously live in that energy of the Light and others of us do not.  There are natural consequences for remaining outside Light space. One feels alone, fearful, angry, rage, resentment, uncertain, anxious, and far worse as well. That energy manifests as unkindness, cruelty, violence, disaster, war, and disintegration in varying levels to self and others.  This is the source of the darkness, these human choices, these human fears and their human consequences.

Through all this searching,  a deep knowing has emerged from within.  All darkness stems from the human choice to separate from the Light.   Darkness is the state of separation of individuals from the Light/ All That Is/ the Greater Whole/ the One Mind. I have suspected this for a while.  However, I was amazed that such deep soul searching was still needed to resolve my feelings.   With such a highly noticeable event in my life, it was challenging to come to balance with regard to,  “why me”?   One day, in silence,  I realized that I was not the only person involved in this accident.  DUH!  There were two others in this accident, my husband and the truck driver.  So, possibly it was not necessary to wrack my brain for a plausible explanation as it probably did not “belong” solely to me.  That was a total relief.

Still, there can be the appearance of darkness everywhere we look.  Someone in my meditation group asked about how my insights about there being no “dark” source energy fit with something as horrible as the holocaust.  How could anything less that deep darkness explain such horror, death and destruction?

We have had some simply horrific things occur throughout all time and across this entire globe.  With the holocaust, in our time, we can  include  Darfur, the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda,  the killing fields in Cambodia plus the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and 9/11 in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C., the Haiti earthquake, not to mention the four most recent oil spills and millions of other devastating events.  The question is how does one really believe that there is no “dark” in the face of the horrific situations clearly evident to us, all around.

Dark energy does exist, but it exists through our thoughts, fears and emotions. Millions are making choices individually and collectively which are not in Right Relationship with the Great I AM/Universal One God/Divine Creation.  Where there is the appearance of darkness, what we are truly seeing is the result of a human or group of humans making decisions which are not of the Light, disconnected from All That Is, not in alignment with the Highest Good.  Those who make decisions and take action, while being separated from the Light, are the creators of darkness.  There is no source other than the Energy of All That Is.

We experience human catastrophe, because we have made decisions which are separated from the Light, and are not of the highest good. The decisions are highly likely to originate from fear and anger.  We therefore see the absence of Light showing up as war, genocide, murder and abuse.  These are all consequences of choices we or those around us have made to act upon fear, greed, jealousy, shame, guilt, hatred, anger and pride.

All the horrible and the all the wonderful things we see are a result of balance or imbalance coming from our thoughts and feelings.  We have control over those thoughts and feelings and therefore, the way to a more balanced life is through attention to what we are thinking and feeling.  (stay tuned for part 2)