There’s a very telling and theological opening line in one of the metastasizing “Walking Dead” genre. “No matter how far or fast light travels, darkness got there first, and is waiting for it.”
The not so subliminal message: ‘No matter how deep or far you go, no matter how much light you bring into the darkness within, darkness will still be there waiting for you.’
The subtext of course is that it’s no use doing the arduous spadework of bringing light into the darkness, because collective darkness is bottomless, and will always be there ahead of the light.
Why has human consciousness become nearly synonymous with darkness? Is it because content-consciousness is cumulative, and has become the real “dark matter,” the untenable ground of our existence on this planet? Are the few who are still inwardly alive being tested and forged by assaults by darkness, within and collectively, or is all for nothing?
We have to disabuse ourselves of the idea that “the way to deal with darkness is to focus on the light.” Positive thinking—the American way—is actually the most negative thing. Look where it’s gotten us.
Duality is a producer, perhaps the originator, of darkness. There is an approach that ends the duality between the darkside and lightside. It entails facing the darkness within and without, without introducing the idea or ideal of the light. Questioning and remaining with what is, one brings insight into the darkness. And since insight is light, it lights the way ahead.
No matter how deep the crud of man goes, life is actually in the transcendent moments–the spreading fire of a sunset splashed across half the sky; or the sparrows spraying into the air in the backyard as one rises from a meditation. Such moments belie the odious idea that “darkness got there first.”
Then what is this thing evil, and where did it come from? Is it human, or is it a priori, as Christianity and most other religions fearfully maintain, a phenomenon from the supernatural realm that preceded humans?
There is no supernatural realm, only levels of ourselves we don’t see, and dimensions of the universe forever beyond the known.
Evil is man-made, not a cosmically made realm of
‘fallen angels.’ Collective darkness has an element of intentionality, and flows through the inwardly dead. It wants everyone to be dead like it, to justify its existence.
‘Original sin’ is also a core philosophical and spiritual mistake and misnomer. There’s only the ongoing mistake of separation rooted in the division and duality between me and you, us and them.
When did purity become a dirty word? Darkness can be dissolved daily within oneself, sufficient at least to keep one basically inwardly clean.
Humans grow into human beings, and perhaps human beings grow into gods, through the growth of awareness and insight within the individual. Awareness is love, and if we’re here for any reason, it’s to grow in awareness.
Can that be done in the face of the darkness and deadness that now saturates the North American culture hearth, and perhaps the West and world in general? Is there any choice?
The great paradox of life is that only in dying psychologically does death cease to be a source of fear, or a fantasy of release through suicide. What we actually fear is psychological death, the ending of ‘me.’ But there is nothing to fear in it.
Every time we die to self and time, awareness grows within one. And dying as a human—a creature of tradition, experience, and the past—we metamorphose into a human being.
So when we die daily psychologically, we grow in insight and understanding. Then is there really death at all?
Martin LeFevre
