I’m spiritual, but very, very recently I had quite the religious experience.
I woke up with the following quote seared into my brain.
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”
1 Peter 5:8
I’d heard the quote before, of course, and I immediately liked it, it’s a ‘me’ kind of quote... fire, brimstone, a sprinkle of the apocalyptic, what’s not to like? But it was only on this morning that I realised I had always misunderstood its meaning, perhaps we all had.
Before this day I’d woken up 193 times this year with all sorts of feelings inside of me, each with the ability to be compartmentalised into light and dark, this year I’d surmise 85-90% light, and, except for 2007 which would have had a similar record up until September which saw everything turn to black, this would be a record year… and in terms of learning about oneself? This year is unprecedented.
The darkness…
Oooooo god the darkness…
The darkness is the seed to all loss, an all-encompassing pain which can be strangely cathartic, you open yourself to an abyss that is ultimately a self-consuming, lonely path fraught with regret. You learn a lot about yourself when journeying into the ‘heart of darkness' but one must never let it become you, as Kurtz did in Joseph Conrad’s novella.
Peculiarly, the darkness maps out a path to find one’s way back into the light, the same way the light maps out a path to find your way back into the darkness – I’ll expand on this – but for those of you already running at extremes, doctors will call it many things and pill you up accordingly.
So, expansion… If you are not Kurtz-level broken, the pain and loneliness of the the darkness will take you on a path towards self-reflection. The self-reflection allows for rebuilding and you start the analyse the mistakes you made and the why, instead of running from them, which you may have been doing for a month, year or decade (think Simba’s return in the Lion King). If you face your past… there is no choice but to face it with overwhelming humility. Such actions are the basis to reach for the ‘light’, people’s ability to forgive and invite you back into their lives humbles you and fills you with gratitude, and gratitude is the key from where all light is born. Gratitude is literally everything. At times of levity, you have gratitude for the stupidest of things and because you’re grateful you take nothing for granted. Your job, your relationship, that bum asking for money, the guy that almost ran you over but didn’t, life, the world and everything. You’re not grateful for war, but you’re grateful there is not more war, you’re not grateful for disease, but you’re grateful there is not more disease, you don’t see death, you see life.
The light is an all-encompassing beauty – enlightenment – god – whatever you want to call it – when it surrounds you, you walk in an impenetrable shroud of happiness, and you are able to contribute to the happiness of others.
Unfortunately – and this is an end-of-days, for-fucks-sake, why-does-everything-have-be-so-challenging 'unfortunately', the light unchecked is a road to arrogance
Satan’s hubris
Icarus’ flying too close to the sun
And everyone knows how they feel about arrogance. Unwittingly, you become a bit of a prick, unaware of how your words and actions are affecting those around you, until, inevitably, you fall.
Gratitude is the answer, the path to light
Vanity the undoing, the path to darkness
Throughout history man has attempted to explain the spiritual path with religious teachings. From the bible to Buddhism, man has talked about finding a ‘heaven’ within and it has been universally accepted, with various metaphors and allusions across all religions that “the kingdom of god is within every man”. I feel that via the teachings from the dawn of mankind to today, this is no longer a matter of expert opinion or even theory. This is fact. Every religion, every spiritualist, every moment of euphoria, teaching the same thing in different ways.
God vs Satan
Good vs Bad
Light vs Dark
Forbearance vs Temptation
I against I
I against I
I AGAINST I
In my studies and experiences, I’ve concluded that the greatest mistake is trying to mismatch the balance of light and dark, the yin and yang, the balance between forbearance and temptation, but interestingly it is in upsetting the balance that we learn more about ourselves.
Siddhartha Gautama was a man born into extremes. A prince who wanted for nothing, shielded by his father from old age and sickness until one day he became so extreme in his forbearance that he became an ascetic. Over time he realised neither way of living was correct and he found what Buddhists know as the Middle Way and it was through the Middle Way that he eventually found enlightenment.
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”
Find him. Tame him. Be him.
It's the only way to win.
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