The term “dark night of the soul” has floated into conversations past and present.
Eckhart Tolle says, “[Dark night of the soul] is a term used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life…an eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression. Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything. Sometimes it’s triggered by some external event, some disaster perhaps, on an external level. The death of someone close to you could trigger it, especially premature death, for example if your child dies. Or you had built up your life, and given it meaning – and the meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, and the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses.” (Read more here.)
The gist of it is that everything in your life breaks down. But the term “dark night of the soul” doesn’t feel right.
It certainly is a dark night or time but not for the soul. Our soul is always light. It is the innermost, deepest, truest part of us, but it is not always easy to feel or see it. It seems like it takes a night so so dark for the light of the soul to finally be visible and to be given the attention it deserves. The dark night is of our ego, our human-ness and the result is that our soul can finally be seen.
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