The Dark Night of the Psyche
By: Daryl Mowat
Tags: Arguments, Soul, Wisdom, Fiction, God

Most people would have said that Doug was separated from God, but Doug knew better, because Doug knew that separation was a delusion of those who did not know that God’s Will was always inseparably relating everyone and everything together. Doug was confused, however, because he was alienated from other psyches, souls, or gods, even though he knew that his use of God’s Will in tandem with God was always inseparably relating him to other psyches.

Doug was not experiencing alienation from God. Doug was experiencing alienation from other psyches.

The Dark Night of the Soul was described by St. John of the Cross as an alienation from God. St John did not realize that, after once having been instinctively related to God, the psyche concerned repressed its knowledge of its inseparable relationship to God’s instinctive use of Its Will in everyone and everything which is why this psyche experienced The Dark Night of the Soul.

Doug had experienced ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’ or what Doug also called ‘The Dark Night of the Psyche’ because a psyche’s recovery from The Dark Night of the Psyche occurred in two stages. The first stage of recovery from The Dark Night of the Psyche was a psyche’s recovery from its delusional thought that it could be separated from God.

When Doug was in the first stage of The Dark Night of the Psyche, he plunged into meditation where he realized that he was developed as a center of God who could never be separated from God or anything else because God’s Will exists in everyone and everything so that God is continually and instinctively relating everyone and everything together. Doug also realized that his mistaken repression of his use of God’s Will in tandem with God was the origin of his delusion that he could be separated from God as well as from other psyches and things. Doug realized that separation was a delusion because separation did not refer to an actual reality. Consequently, Doug released his repression of his knowledge that he was always using God’s Will in tandem with God which ended the first stage of Doug’s Dark Night of the Psyche because Doug realized he could never be separated from God, anything, or anyone.

Although Doug realized that he was inseparably related to everything and every psyche, Doug unfortunately felt alienated from the other psyches on earth as well as the psyches existing in the after-death to whom he was always attempting to relate. Doug’s goal was to overcome this alienation, but he was forlorn, because he hadn’t yet found the answer or the ‘key’ to the ‘lock’ of his alienation from other psyches. In other words, Doug had not yet emerged from the second stage of The Dark Night of the Psyche in a triumph of wisdom.

In his meditations, Doug had interacted with the psyches of the heavens, underworlds, and Otherworld of the after-death. He knew that psyches existed in an ultimate heaven of Heaven who only watched the various interactions of psyches so that they would know who qualified for admittance to their ultimate heaven, while the other psyches of the after-death had as yet to realize the wisdom necessary for admittance into this ultimate heaven; therefore, these psyches had to continue to work towards wisdom in their less than ultimate heavens, their underworlds, and their Otherworld.

Doug was driven to find the answer to his dilemma which is the dilemma of every psyche because every psyche is developed from stupidity so that it has to work towards developing the wisdom necessary for admittance to the ultimate heaven. This stupidity is the lack of knowledge of how to relate to each other with words of speech so that we avoid the misunderstanding of each other that results in our wish to inflict suffering on the person with whom we disagree. Doug knew that our misunderstanding of each other was our problem, but he did not know what the key to unlocking the solution to this problem was.

Doug had experienced many ‘peak experiences’ which Abraham Maslow had described, but he had seldom experienced a peak experience in terms of relating to other psyches, because Doug was never totally at ease when he was relating to other psyches; however, one morning, Doug was sitting at his kitchen table with a friend, Karen, with whom Doug occasionally had arguments. This morning, Doug did not feel like arguing so, when he disagreed with Karen, he sought the most diplomatic way of expressing his disagreement so that she would not take offence.

Karen said to Doug, ‘I don’t like words because words are not the realities for which they stand; therefore, people often think the word I am using refers to a different reality than the reality to which I am actually referring.’

Doug disagreed with Karen’s sentiment that words are unlikeable because he knew that words can be used to understand each other’s communications as well as misunderstand each other’s communications. But Doug knew that he would have to be careful in how he expressed his understanding to Karen because Karen’s sentiment often triggered an argumentative response in her so that she failed to consider the other person’s truth.

Doug responded to Karen by saying, ‘I like the challenge of exploring the other person’s use of words so that I understand the realities he or she is expressing with his or her words because, with mutual understanding, we both feel closer in our intelligent understanding of each other as well as closer in our emotional understanding of each other. But I can understand why you don’t appreciate using words, occasionally, because words can be used by other people as weapons to purposefully confuse our understanding as well as used as peace offerings to purposefully organize our understanding.’

Karen gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling of my kitchen before responding. ‘I suppose that’s true, but I prefer to experience my subjective world and my objective world without using words in my intelligence to understand my relationship to these worlds. You see, our experience of our subjective and objective worlds exists prior to any words we might use to describe our experience of these worlds.’

I suddenly had an insight into Karen’s dislike of words. ‘Karen,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘do you dislike using words to communicate with other people because people make use of their words to deceive you, while you only use words to clarify your truths?’

Karen came to attention in her chair. She said, in wonder, ‘Yes, Doug, that’s exactly why I’ve learned to dislike using words. People only seem to want to abuse my truths.

‘Thank you so much, Doug. It’s experiences, like my experience with you this morning, which help me to realize why I love you. You communicated in words the reason why I felt such a dislike of using words to communicate. Unlike you, most people argue with my expression of my truths in words, instead of attempting to understand the truths I am expressing with my words.’

Doug was slightly embarrassed because he knew that he likely would have argued with her about her dislike of using words if he didn’t feel like not arguing that day with her. But Doug felt just as much love for Karen that morning as Karen felt for him which Doug realized was a peak experience that he could maintain — if he didn’t argue with other people.

When Karen left, Doug contemplated his experience of arguing with other people. To his excitement, he realized that arguing with other people was the source of his alienation from them. He realized that although he would always disagree with other people on occasion, he did not have to argue with them about their disagreements, but simply had to diplomatically explore each of their stances so that their disagreements could be resolved without arguing about the differences in their stances. In this way, both of them would realize their need to alter their stances so that they agreed with each other and came to a more in-depth understanding of the reality they were considering. Doug realized that this was the joy of learning.

Doug experienced immense joy at learning he did not need to argue, but his enjoyment was immediately disturbed by a flash of pain occurring in his mind. Doug realized that a psyche in the after-death was jealous of his experience of joy and was sending a sensation of pain to his mind to interfere with Doug’s feeling of joy. Before this morning, Doug would have reacted to this psyche’s action of sending a sensation of pain to his mind by using a method of psychological judo to redirect this sensation of pain back to the psyche who had initiated it. But Doug finally realized that this psyche needed Doug’s understanding, not his enmity.

Doug spoke internally to this psyche by saying, ‘You will only cease to be alienated by ceasing to send sensations of pain to other psyches’ minds. The pain you send me does not bother me because it is only a flash in the pan. It does not last; therefore, you will tire out before I do because it takes effort for you to send sensations of pain to my mind, while I merely have to let these sensations of pain fade away.’

The psyche to whom Doug was mentally speaking stopped sending sensations of pain to Doug’s mind which meant that this psyche had realized the truth of Doug’s message to it. The psyche did not respond to Doug in words or with emotion, but Doug did feel this psyche withdraw its thinking from Doug’s mind.’

Doug realized, then, that argument was simply a way of conflict which led to the suffering of a psyche, just as the sending of a sensation of pain also led to the suffering of a psyche. Doug realized that he did not feel like sending the sensation of pain in his mind back to the jealous psyche because he also did not want to argue with this psyche.

Doug finally understood that he needed to suffer ‘the slings and arrows’ of other psyches without attempting to retaliate because his suffering was transitory, but his joy could be continual, even in the midst of his suffering. With this understanding, Doug permanently unlocked the lock of his alienation. Doug had discovered the key to life. His answer to life was realized. He had attained the ultimate heaven, even though his body was not yet dead. Doug was not afraid anymore because the second stage of The Dark Night of the Psyche, The Dark Night of the Soul, or The Dark Night of the God was over. Doug had finally realized that he was absolutely free to be as he needed to be.