Into the Darkness and Void: Transformation!

I’d be the first to tell you, I have not lived what I’m talking about.

But I’ve read and heard a lot of people describe this stage of spiritual development: going into the Darkness and seeming Void.

In all cases, these are the times when they have hit rock bottom. There is nothing...NO-thing...between them and death.

Then, out of the darkness awakens life.

In that space or place, between death and darkness, there is light.***

I’ve heard it and read about it time and again.

In one of my spiritual director’s classes, I’d resisted when I heard the instructor talk about us getting into the Center of our being and finding darkness. It didn’t make sense.

After speaking with her in more depth and thinking through the seeming paradox, I understood.

That “darkness” is the Void that we hear about. It is the mystery of God.

“At a certain point [of connecting] we merge with God,” Eckhart Tolle said in Week Seven of his book review with Oprah this Monday night.

The Void possibly also is this “certain point.”

The truth is that until we reach a certain level of consciousness, Spirit cannot reveal itself to us.

It is the part of life and living that not many enter until Death.
Some transition on to their next phase when they hit it;
others return and tell us about their experience.

Call it “near death” experience, but it really is “death to the old self” because those who live to tell about the experience are never, ever the same. They all are transformed.

(Others, after years of seeking and searching on the Spiritual Path with earnestness and sincerity, do get this revelation, sometimes in a flash of insight.)

I’ve had recent conversations with someone who has experienced “near death,” where he entered into “Pure Being,” as he described it. Out of that experience, he returned to a life of Love, Joy, Peace and Grace...on a daily basis. I asked him if he stays in that state all the time. He said, basically, “yes.”

So, what happened to this person and so many others?

They were touched by God.

In the darkness...in that place between life and death, i.e. The Void, God is there.

Pure Being...Light...Love...Peace...Joy...Ecstasy...Grace.

They were sent back into life.

Some empower others with their renewed Spirit.

Some encourage us that Death is not the End.

Others continue to seek TRUTH. They are transformed by Pure God Essence: Pure Being...Pure Light...Pure Love...Pure Peace...Pure Joy...Pure Ecstasy...Pure Grace. They now know the truth of who they are! Thus they become more productive, more brilliant, more energized, more of who they already are.

Thomas A. Dorsey, who wrote the song “Precious Lord,”said it was when he was at his lowest and darkest moment in his life that “something happened” to him.

“ I felt at peace. I felt as though I could reach out and touch God. I found myself playing a melody, once into my head they just seemed to fall into place:

' Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand! I am tired, I am weak, I am worn, through the storm, through the night lead me on to the light, take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.'

The Lord gave me these words and melody, He also healed my spirit. I learned that when we are in our deepest grief, when we feel farthest from God, this is when He is closest, and when we are most open to His restoring power.”

Seeking to convey the message of the VOID, some leap into thinking that we are in an un-evolved stage of God-ness, waiting to be evolved fully as we move through this life.

Jesus taught that there is the Spirit of God within us, but, he also said, “there is none good but one, that is, God.”(Matt. 19:17)

Those who have been “touched” and transformed by the Void need to be especially careful after such a transformative experience. They need to make sure not to equate their Pure Being awareness and consciousness with the omnipresence and omnipotence of God, the Creator.

Some basic common-sense questions would serve to get everyone back on track:

*Where is our POWER to create a whole world?
*Where is our POWER to dictate the flow of our lives, indeed, even our time of death?
*What happens at the time of death, if we evolve fully into “God-ness” while on earth?
*Where is the power within the “chosen” to HEAL life in an instant?

“There is ONLY ONE PRESENCE...and ONE POWER...in the Universe: God, the Good, the OMNIPOTENT.”+

Namaste’,

Che’

+This is a basic Unity principle.

***St. Teresa of Avila in her work, The Interior Castle, explains, in recounting insight received from God, there are seven dwelling places or castles of the soul, “made out of a diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms.” The outer wall of the castle is the body. The gate of entry into the Interior Castle is prayer. “Prayer is a door that opens up into the mystery of God and at the same time a means of communinig with him....Self-knowledge and humility grow as the soul moves onward through the castle toward the center.” The Fifth dwelling place is where Teresa says, “the faculties become completely silent and are suspended, and which leaves a certitude that the soul was ‘in God and God was in it.’” In the Seventh, which is the center, “the King of Glory dwelt in the greatest splendor. From there he beautified and illumined all those dwelling places of the outer wall. The inhabitants received more light the nearer they were to the center. Outside of the castle all was darkness, with toads, vipers and other poisonous vermin.”