In Darkness There is Light

Contemplative prayer, the deepest roots of the Christian faith, has remained hidden and secret in the hands of the contemplative saints these many years, and one may wonder why contemplative monks and nuns have practiced these mystical prayers in obscurity. Why do they close themselves off from the glitzy world and pursue these things when they could get to heaven as easily as we can by simply being decent and honest. Why do they hide themselves away?

Most Christians believe that meditation consists of thinking about God, but this is only beginning prayer. The contemplative saints claim that only when one abandons all ideas of God and enters into a spiritual Dark Night of the Spirit does one completely let go of all imaginings and finally come face-to-face with God.

St. John of the Cross; saint and Doctor of the Catholic Church, coined the term "Dark Night of the Soul." This title is one of his poems that described his journey into spiritual development and the steps he took toward union with God. Broken down further into a Dark Night of the Senses and a Dark Night of the Spirit, his Dark Night of the Soul is a description of the psychological changes one goes through during a serious spiritual journey.

In the Dark Night of the Senses, purification in the form of losing all desire for anything that previously excited the senses is abandoned. The Dark Night of the Spirit, which is a purification of the ego and the imagination, involves complete darkness and unknowing regarding any spiritual understandings. Naked, one stands in intellectual and spiritual darkness before God.

All prayer and meditation eventually comes to a halt in this final Dark Night of the Spirit. Only a thirst for God, who seemingly has abandoned the practitioner now, remains. This is a purgatory, a sense of abandonment. But what is really being abandoned? In the guise of a projection of an idea of God is the idea of self or ego, and this is what is truly being abandoned. This is a trial that all sincere seekers must endure if they want to transform their idea of God into an authentic face-to-face meeting with God; a difference that measures the split between heaven and earth.

St. John also talked about the frail health of many who seek unity with God. He said that it is as if God tears down one's old house to make way for a new mansion, appropriate for God to reside in. Many spiritually advanced seekers of all religions have experienced this phenomenon of illness. It is a passage, a test of courage and intention, and only the most sincere make it through this tremendous trial. Illness to a seeker who understands these things is a blessing, indicating that he or she is being considered for great things. Patience and faith are required.

Those who are attached to the world and the world's creatures (as St. John refers to human beings) will not understand or be willing to go through these trials. They will remai
"secure" within their possessions and families, rationalizing their comfort by this or that scripture and only learning too late that they have relied on things that will disappoint them in the end. The illusion of time will remain linear to these people, the self will appear to be real, and these sufferings and illusions will torture their minds relentlessly.

But the contemplative saints didn't do this. It was a curious thing. It makes one wonder what else they knew that we don't.