In broad daylight, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the dark. I did not see it coming at all, but suddenly everything seemed to turn against me. Others were after me and were even after my life – at least that was what I suspected. Life itself had turned against me and I did not even know why.
An overwhelming doubt struck me, and I was assailed by dark thoughts. My patiently build up certainties were all undermined. The deep sense of presence behind all things was now a mystery to me, and without any guidance I was thrown back on myself. Sunken to the bottom of my existence and at the mercy of the dark forces of fate, I asked myself what for heaven’s sake I was supposed to do?
But was that not exactly the danger that awaited me? Being tempted to react in a hurry, to tackle immediately the looming adversity; defending myself impulsively with all power against any calamity that came my way; resolutely tackling the causes and fighting vigorously.
But by reacting in this way, wasn’t I just making things worse? By resisting, I strengthened the dark forces that fed on that energy. And all my involuntary thoughts formed a web in which I became increasingly entangled…. until finally, an overall panic completely paralyzed me. I was completely stuck. Metaphorically, I could no longer see my hand before my eyes, and I felt scared in the dark. Nor could I see that with every attempt to free myself I got stuck even more.
So, there was no end to all my resistance, as I struggled to voluntarily give up self-preservation. Moving like a bendable reed in windy weather conditions, I kept low until the storm had subsided. I was defenceless against this great force, and seemingly with no significant role in my own life. I just looked toward “the mountains from where my help would come”, as it is said in that old psalm.
I knew that, even though the timing was uncertain, help would always come. I had to continue to trust in it – in the beginning, perhaps only in the form of the grace to surrender to the circumstances which I had to live through; then maybe as a sudden new insight into what had happened to me, and why I created it myself; and finally, as the spiritual power of the centre, that filled my soul being and lifted me above all my struggle for life.
It finally showed me the way to where I could be liberated from myself, where there was no more prosperity nor adversity, nothing that threatened me, nor an I that could be threatened. The night had passed and the morning was finally here.
