[4.2] Part Two: The Year I Learned to DANCE with Darkness 🌚🪩🌀

surfing ancient esoteric spiritual wisdom and the secrets of the universe

New Here? Catch up with Part One

[4.1] Part One: The Year I Learned to Dance with Darkness

Let’s begin today with a seated visualization/meditation. Read through the meditation and then close your eyes to practice the visualization.

Close your eyes. Slow down. Bring your awareness to your breath. Imagine your breath like light golden energy particles, traveling into your body through your nose as you slowly expand your belly, and then back out. In for four counts, out for four counts.

💫✨ This breath is prana your life force energy ✨💫

Now imagine the people around you - they too have this prana.

Now imagine the animals 🦋🦊🐘🐯🐍 they too have this prana.

Now imagine plants, trees, oceans, mountains ⛰️☀️🌺🍃🌲 they too have prana.

Now look at the objects around you, the floor the couch the table. Even these objects have the tiniest hum of energy. From your body to the edges of the cosmos, energy is vibrating, pulsating through all of the material nature of reality.

To Dance with Darkness is to Pierce the Veil of Illusion

Today on my girl blog with 59 subscribers (😘🌈🪩😈🫂 xoxo) I am literally spilling the secrets of the universe. Okay? Like monks and ascetics have spent years trying to get to this True Knowledge, and I’m not even putting it behind a paywall.

This will require you to pay attention a bit so you know, put your thinking cap on.

A foundational concept in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy is Maya - the DIVINE ILLUSION. Some have called it a simulation, the matrix, etc.

This theory says our material world, physical objects, our bodies, our selves, our ego-minds are all “a projection of things and forms that are temporarily phenomenal and sustain the illusion of separation and permanence.”

Maya is the divine illusion that separates individuals from the Knowledge of the reality that EVERYTHING IS GOD.

There is no Good or Bad, EVERYTHING IS GOD.

There is no Life or Death, EVERYTHING IS GOD.

There is no Energy separate from Matter, EVERYTHING IS GOD.¹

Maya is the VEIL that creates DUALITY out of DIVINITY (which is everything).

Maya is as real as physical world but it is not Truth , actually it is curtain that hides The truth . When we observe the world we saw differences in physical , mental , ideological , conceptual existence on every plane, in every dimension , Maya creates an illusion of duality but the Truth is always behind Maya. The world as we think is just a reflection created by Maya, All our relations, dreams, aspirations, ideologies and life is just a Grand Design of illusion ...We live ....We love ....We hate ...And We die in this illusion ( Even our death is also a biggest Illusions of all ).

lol are you still with me

IF the Descent of the Divine Masculine and the Domination of Patriarchy has led to a culture of SEPARATION, Divide-And-Conquer, Command-And-Control both SYSTEMICALLY and in our MIND-BODIES,

Solar Eclipse & the Descent of the Divine Masculine 🌞

THEN our Healing requires UNIFICATION, INTEGRATION, and moving towards WHOLENESS 🌀

***** THIS IS IMPORTANT ******* — There is a very tangible and practical reason to become aware of the energetic nature of reality - to heal our selves and liberate ourselves from the trauma of capitalist and colonial conditioning that separates our Minds from our Bodies/Souls.

The forces of capitalism, white supremacy, colonization, etc. using the forces of Maya to get the collective to think, feel, believe and behave as they would like us to, keeps us bewitched by the the spell of separation, individualism, strife of survival.²

Maya is the false barrier between our conscious and subconscious mind. we disippate the barrier through the practice of meditation, becoming aware of our awareness, slowing down and peering into the depths of our murky self and using our discernment to bring back up the gems

Maya from a psychoanalytic perspective is the illusion of separation between the Ego and Shadow.

According to the spiritual philosophers, it is only through becoming Aware of the Illusion that it dissipates, allowing us to see THE TRUTH behind the illusion, which is our inherent divinity in our selves and connectedness to everything else in the universe.

Consider an illusion of a rope being confused as a snake in the darkness. Just as this illusion gets destroyed when true knowledge of the rope is perceived, similarly, Maya gets destroyed for a person when they perceive Brahman with transendental knowledge. A metaphor is also given—when the reflection of Brahman falls on Maya, Brahman appears as God (the Supreme Lord). Maya (illusion)

If Capitalist, Colonial, and Patriarchal conditioning control us by isolating and exploit Egoic attachments and desires (i.e. Shame, Fear), then we return to our divine nature by integration of our conscious and subconscious minds.

Without this awareness and integration, our subconscious rules us from the background, our Demons rattle around behind our field of vision and keep us perpetually unhappy.

Our subconscious is both the source of our suffering and untapped secret source of power.

If Death is one way to disipate the illusion of separateness, so too can we disipate Maya by fully experiencing the miracle of being alive.

peathefeary

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Becoming Aware of our Awareness

In Hindu philosophy, Maya is Shakti (divine feminine energy) without Shiva (conscious awareness).

A patriarchal interpretation of Maya says the dark goddess veil is trickster and therefore evil. So we need to reject the illusion by detaching from our senses, meditating and sending our consciousness outside of our bodies to connect with Divinity outside of us. This same pov will say our bodies are filled with sin, that there is no divinity in the material world.

A eco-feminist interpretation of Maya says we reach the divine through the veil, down through our bodies and into the earth, through our relationship with our subconscious and nature, seeing the interconnectedness of everything!!!

There’s a misconception that spiritualism is a rejection of logic, reason, and analysis. Spiritualism is the blending and integration of Yang (logic, action, reason) and Yin (intuition, emotion, senses). It requires both!!!

[2.2] Unveiling the Cosmic Rebels: PERSEPHONE 🍇🌾👑☠️

Like Persephone who is both Spring Maiden and Queen of the Underworld, archetypally our spiritual task while we’re alive is to bridge our Ego and Shadow, connect our Minds and Bodies. That’s basically as close as we get to God as mere mortals, when we’re dancing with our duality and letting it shine uniquely through our face of individuality.

Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean💧 The goal of enlightenment is to understand this —more precisely, to experience this: to see intuitively that the distinction between the self and the universe is a false dichotomy. The distinction between consciousness and physical matter, between mind and body (refer bodymind), is the result of an unenlightened perspective. Maya (illusion)

Yoga is one ancient philosophy and methodology that helps us practice this unification of our Mind-Bodies.³

However when we remain wholly and entirely transfixed by the illusion Maya (the physical material world, our individuality, temporary phenomena, whatever’s in our field of vision) we’re essentially keeping ourselves sick with suffering.

Instead of the seeing and dancing with the true nature of reality behind the illusion of separation that EVERYTHING IS GOD, our souls will perpetually act contrary to the true nature of our divine spirit and we suffer from the endless karmic chain of cause-and-effect.

When people are attached to the illusion of Maya and see it as the only truth or reality, this will manifest in Soul Sickness in Humanity like:

• loss of perspective

• attachment to senses and material goods

• hurting other people, animals, the land for self-gain

• perpetual dissatisfaction

• not seeing one’s agency, power, gifts,

• detachment from values of love, connection, justice

• becoming selfish, egoistic, or having false notions of self

• unable to differentiate between truth and falsehood

• unable to integrate learning from experiencing cognitive disonance

• suffering the limitations of time and space (aka rushing to nowhere)

Our past thoughts and actions, our physical and psychological “disorders” are all “programmed” in our subtle body manifesting as “knots” or “blockages”, which keep us stuck in old, limiting beliefs and patterns (sometimes formed over life-times). In turn this traps us in the illusion of “Maya”, the belief that we are separate from our Source. Loki Heals

I think Hindu and Buddhist philosophers see Death as the ultimate path to Liberation and being Alive as a struggle because of the relentless perpetual work we have to engage in to remain aware of the illusory nature of Maya, whereas in Death we can just… be.

raminnazer

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To be alive is to be engaged in the infinite dogged cycles of life and death, work and rest, trial and error. The horrors persist, but so do we.

Spiritual and philosophical traditions around the world offer theory and practice to help us “pierce the veil” Let’s explore Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as a different path to disipating the veil of Maya.

Understanding Reality as Illusion: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

For context, Plato was all about the pursuit of an ideal just society. This theory, the Allegory of the Cave, articulates that getting to this idealized version of society requires us to become aware both the limits and infinite potential of our perception are maintained by ourselves.

In this story, there is a cave with prisoners chained to a rocks and their heads are held so they can only look at the stone wall in front of them.

Behind the prisoners, there is a walkway where people walk by, going about their daily lives, and carrying different objects. These characters and their things casts shadows on the wall creating a puppet show for the prisoners.

Now imagine that for these prisoners, they were born in these chains. They’ve only been in this position, only seen the shadows on the wall. So they believe the shadows are real.

The prisoners watch and enjoy the puppet show everyday. They have a game where they guess which shadow will appear next. If one of the prisoners guesses correctly, the others praise him as clever and say he is a master of nature.

Then one of the prisoner escapes!!

He crawls up and sees the fire, the walkway, the people and objects making the shadow puppets.

He walks further and then emerges out of the cave. He discovers OUTSIDE. He sees THE SUN 🌞

Looking directly at the Sun, especially after a lifetime of looking at the shadows in the cave, you can imagine, it’s blinding. Disorienting. Overwhelming. Imagine the grief the escapee felt thinking of a life spent looking at the shadow puppets believing that’s as good as it gets. The bittersweet pang of what was, what is, what can be.

But even in the most painful confusing moments, he doesn’t want to return to the cave of ignorance.

As he adjusts to the light outside, he delights in the radical freedom in his new surroundings, he becomes mesmerized with the BEAUTY of LIFE, he realizes that his former view of reality was wrong.

He embarks on a jourey to seek purpose, meaning, and beauty. He sees the Sun is the source of life. He feels the breeze through his hair, makes new friends, picks up new hobbies.

Most importantly, he is on a spiritual and intellectual journey entirely his own. As he wanders, he aims to carve out a purpose for his new life for himself outside of the cave. He wants to forget his past, the other prisoners, the cave.

But he eventually realizes that keeping the knowledge to himself is meaningless. True enlightenment requires applying the knowledge of freedom and justice by “descending back into the darkness, joining the men chained to the wall, and share that knowledge with them” (Allegory of the Cave - Plato’s Best Known Metaphor about Enlightenment).

So one day, the escaped prisoner turned Philosopher returns to the cave.

He tells the chained prisoners about the world outside - teeming with life, adventure, chaos, love, grief, war, everything. He urges them to escape.

The other prisoners think he has LOST his mind. They don’t believe him and threaten to kill him if he sets them free.

---

Plato is demonstrating through allegory how our perception of the world through our senses is only an approximation of what is real, and that the real reality can only be understood intellectually.

So the prisoners in the cave, this is most of us. We are sheep. We believe that knowledge is simply what we directly observe. We don’t question our values, beliefs, stories - we just assume they’re truth because they’ve always been there. We only consider Empirical Evidence as truth. But our observations and perceptions are only a Shadow, or reflection, of the Truth.

Collectively we are attached to the mind-numbingly simple and predictable nature of the Puppet Show. In the Game the prisoners play, the “master” is the one who has knowledge of the empirical world such that they can predict the pattern of the Shadows. In his subversive way, Plato is throwing shade at the Sciences. The obsession with empirical evidence in and of itself is pointless as it is only a reflection of truth.

The escaped prisoner represents the Philosopher who goes out and returns with the secrets of the universe, returning with the knowledge that the shadow puppet play is only a faint reflection of the juicy vibrance of life that sits out of the cave.

The Philosopher embraces both his Independence/Agency *and* his Connection to the World around him in order to experience the miracle of life.

The Philosopher embarks on the self-led spiritual and intellectual journey of discovering and making meaning of the world outside of the cave. Even when it is painful or challenging, the Philosopher chooses this principled journey than to go back to the false sense of safety by putting the chains back on and settling for the illusion of the shadow puppets.

The journey the Philosopher embarks on up and out of the cave and the unpleasat adjustment to the brightness and spectacle of the Sun and Stars has many names across time and culture.

Some sound sweet and simple, like Spiritual Journey, Awakening, Enlightenment. Others are more gnarly like Ego Death, Dark Night of the Soul. They all say that it is the integration of Mind-Body, the dance between Yin-Yang, the unification of Body and Soul, integration of Self and Source, Embracing Paradox, and this process of enlightenment is the closest we get to freedom here on this plane of existence.

In the discrete “reality” of the prisoners, the awakened Philosopher is crazy. The prisoners see him as a Fool.

The Philosopher returns out of breath, trying to show the prisoners that they can escape! There is a world of pleasure and freedom beyond their wildest imagination outside of the cave! They just have to claim their own agency, remove their own chains, and get up on their own two feet to walk out of the cave.

But so many of us are comfortably attached to the shadow puppet show and too terrified to turn towards the light.

As we explored in Part One, there is a long history of pathologizing, dehumanizing, and criminalizing those who challenge the illusory and ephemeral nature of the status quo. Women, indigenous people, people of color, queer and trans people, mystics, subversive creatives, nature whisperers, anyone who aims to unveil what sits behind the illusion of separation in our Colonial/Capitalist culture are labelled CRAZY.

spectaculaurthoughts

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“Many insights categorized as delusions are potentially deeper truths about our human experience as spiritual beings. For example, when persons experiencing psychosis believe that they are God, it is perceived as a grandiose or religious delusion due to Western Christianity’s portrayal of God. Yet, in Hinduism, Brahman is the supreme God, the ultimate truth/reality that makes up everything and is found within each person…

Due to Western individualism, a person’s desire to help other beings regardless of the cost it would incur upon themself is seen as a savior complex, yet in Buddhism, a bodhisattva is known as an enlightened being who delays their own entry into Paradise so that others can attain it as well.”

Laurel @spectacularthoughts (one of my absolute favorites to learn from on mad liberation and psychospirituality)

I promised you the secrets of the universe and really it’s all deceptively simple - the awareness of the dual/non-dual nature of the universe AND our agency within it is that liberates us. The piercing spiritual insight that our power rests between our intuition and our agency is what makes each of us GOD.

fleurentcue

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This is the Miracle and Terror of being alive, seeing our divine role as Creator in the nature of our own existence. That parts of us can die, and new parts regenerate and grow and begin again in its place. And we’re playing a part in it all.

Now all of us shitheads have the internet, practically a real manifestation of the Akashic records in the palm of our hands, the ancient philosophers and mystics hard earned wisdom can be found with a few clicks. We can become awakened integrated spiritual weapons… If we choose to.

Awareness of the dual/non-dual nature of reality is one thing, but learning how to dance with it (putting this theory into practice, applying it to your life, cultivating integration and wholeness) requires us to not only be aware of our Subconscious but also use our Conscious power of AGENCY, CHOICE, MANIFESTATION to move in the opposite direction of our conditioning to find any semblance of liberation on this plane of existence.

Successfully surfing the energetic nature of reality only becomes exhilirating when we’ve crashed, burned, and fully experienced the crash in the scary depths of nature’s waves

Like it has to be said, I know I promised you the secrets of the universe, so I should probably add that even though this might all sound deceptively simple in theory, it’s incredibly challenging to do in practice.

Awareness is one thing, integration and practice in a world that actively disincentivizes this is another.

There’s a reason why for the chained prisoners staying with the shadow puppets was safer than confronting the terrifying reality of having to go out there and make a name for yourself. The ascetics and gurus spent ages trying to meditate and find this blissful state of samadhi and even the best only caught glimpses of it.

ancientisbe

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All of Abraham Hicks manifestation science is about using consciousness to shift through this vibrational spectrum of the human experience. At the end of the day, we are the only ones with the power to move us through these levels of consciousness. This is the divine freedom all humans have access to, but Maya makes it hard to access.

The 11/11 Portal 🧿✨

Octavia Butler teaches us to Dance with Darkness by shaping change. God is Change, God exists to be shaped.

A victim of God may,
Through learning and adaption,
Become a partner of God,
A victim of God may,
Through forethought and planning,
Become a shaper of God.
Or a victim of God may,
Through shortsightedness and fear,
Remain Godʼs victim,
Godʼs plaything,
Godʼs prey.

So what will you choose to do? Stay in the Cave? Or go out into the light? Be Shaped by God or Shape God?

Enough of this theoretical mumbo jumbo.⁴ How do we make meaning? How do we integrate? How do we put this into practice?

💌 Stay Tuned for Part 3: The Year I Learned to Dance With Darkness

raminnazer

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petrichara

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1. The scientists are only just now coming to the conclusion that the ancient mystics have been saying — The Illusion of Reality: The Scientific Proof that Everything is Energy and Reality isn’t Real

2. Maya: Illusion and Delusion.

3. The word yoga is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj, meaning “to yoke,” or “to unite”. The practice aims to create union between body, mind and spirit, as well as between the individual self and universal consciousness. Such a union tends to neutralize ego-driven thoughts and behaviours, creating a sense of spiritual awakening. Yoga is a science and an art, a theory and practice, that is uniquely practiced by each individual to practice this wholeness, unification, and integration. There are many other “Yogas” out there beyond what is known and practiced in the West and India as Yoga.

4. My Mercury is in Pisces in the 12th house 🪐 This placement means I think in watercolor and I communicate by raising to the surface that which is most hidden, unveiling what’s been lost in the depths of the subconscious or our collective unconscious. Basically the stars say that I was born to trigger the shit out of y’all lol 🤪