Dear Feel Love Now Community,
Below is a teaching from Srimati Shanti Mataji—ordained as a member of the Universal Swami Order by her guru, Swami Shankarananda, who was Swami Nityananda's teacher and the founder of Awake Yoga Meditation. It was originally published in Awake Yoga Meditation’s quarterly print publication called Darshan, which was last published in 2022.
Past issues of Darshan are available here in PDF form. We are republishing it here with love to facilitate ease and grace in accessing these beautiful teachings.
In loving service,
The Karma Yoga Team at AYM
P.S. If you are interested in joining the Karma Yoga Team at Awake Yoga Meditation to expand your practice of selfless service, love in action, please click here.
The dark night of the soul
In the inner life, there are times upon times when the path may feel dry, the heart may feel empty, and meditation may feel fruitless.
When the devotee knows what it is to feel the presence of the Beloved, has experienced the stirring of the heart, has known clarity of vision, and has tasted the certainty of wisdom and inner guidance, then the seeming absence of divine presence—in whatever form has been known or longed for—feels barren, indeed.
Also, the discovery of areas within ourselves that need to be uplifted or healed may make us feel bereft of any claim to our divinity in conscious awareness. A great lover of God before us has called these barren times “the dark night of the soul.”
Emptiness itself is the presence of God
At such times, we can remember that the path up a mountain is not evenly inclined. One must also cross level plateaus, seemingly going nowhere, which are still integral parts of the climb. There may even be momentary dips before the path turns steeply upward again.
Plateaus and dips are normal and essential, for we often need time and space to assimilate what has gone before.
“Remember that the path up a mountain is not evenly inclined.”
At such times, we can also refocus our perception to know that the emptiness itself is the presence of God. Then we can focus on the apparent emptiness as yet another way to experience the divine presence. When we do that, we will discover that what before seemed bitter has become sweetness itself; for we have found God in one more of the infinite garbs in which the Beloved comes to us.
Truly, there is no experience, no condition, no being that cannot be uplifted in our consciousness into the blissful perception that, behind what it seems to be to the mind’s first glance, it is in its depth the manifestation of God!
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