Holy Darkness: Finding God in the Void

My dearest friends, my beloved fellow travelers on this sacred journey of life, I want to talk to you today about something that our culture often misunderstands, something we are taught to fear and avoid: darkness. I know, I know. Just the word itself can bring up a little shiver, a tightening in the chest. We think of darkness as the place where monsters hide, where we are lost and alone. But what if I told you, with all the love in my heart, that this is a real misunderstanding? What if I told you that the darkness holds a secret, a holy secret, that can lead us to the most intense and intimate encounter with the Divine? This is the path of **Holy Darkness**, the journey of finding God not in the dazzling light, but in the deep, silent, and sacred Void. For so many of us, our spiritual quest is a search for the light. We seek illumination, clarity, and the brilliant sunshine of divine revelation. And that is a beautiful and worthy pursuit, my loves. But it is only half of the story. The spiritual journey is a dance of light and shadow, of fullness and emptiness, of knowing and unknowing. To deny the darkness is to deny a fundamental and incredibly potent aspect of our own being, and of God's mysterious nature. It is in the darkness, in the void, that we are stripped of all that we think we are, all our stories, our identities, our attachments. And in that sacred emptiness, we discover what remains. We discover the unshakeable, eternal presence of Love itself. ## The Sacred Emptiness: Wisdom from Ancient Traditions This understanding of the sacredness of darkness is not a new idea, my friends. It is a golden thread woven through the mystical heart of the world's great spiritual traditions. The ancient sages and mystics, in their raw wisdom, all pointed to this same truth: the ultimate reality, the source of all being, is found in the formless, the unnamable, the great mystery that lies beyond our limited human perception. In the deep tradition of **Advaita Vedanta** from India, the sages teach us the path of *"Neti, Neti,"* which translates to "not this, not that." It is a process of peeling away the layers of illusion, of recognizing that our true Self is not our body, not our thoughts, not our emotions, not our possessions. As we negate all that is temporary and changing, we are led to the precipice of the great Void, the silent, unmoving awareness that is the ground of all existence. This void, or *sunyata*, is not a terrifying nothingness. Oh no, my loves. It is pure potential, the womb of all creation, the formless essence of God before it takes form. It is the silent canvas upon which the entire universe is painted.

Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now remains one of the most important spiritual books of our time. *(paid link)*

Similarly, in the heart of **Buddhism**, we find the deep wisdom of the Prajnaparamita sutras, which famously declare, "form is emptiness, emptiness is form." Here's the thing: it's not a nihilistic statement, but a liberating one! It teaches us that the things of this world, the forms we cling to so tightly, are ultimately empty of any inherent, separate existence. And in recognizing this, in letting go of our attachment to the fleeting forms, we find true freedom in the spaciousness of the void. We discover a peace that is not dependent on external circumstances, a joy that arises from the depths of our own being. The rich weave of **Hinduism** also offers us beautiful and powerful symbols of the divine in the darkness. Think of the fierce and loving goddess **Kali**, with her dark skin and necklace of skulls. She is not a demon to be feared, but a representation of the radical power of destruction. She is the force that lovingly destroys our ego, our illusions, our attachments, so that we can be reborn into our true nature. And then there is the great god **Shiva**, the supreme ascetic, who meditates in the darkness of the cremation grounds. He is the master of dissolution, the one who presides over the cosmic dance of creation and destruction. In the darkness of the night, he reminds us that all forms must eventually dissolve back into the formless, and that in this dissolution, there is intense liberation. And of course, we find this same thread in the heart of **mystical Christianity**. The great Spanish mystic, **St. John of the Cross**, wrote of the *"dark night of the soul."* For so long, this has been misinterpreted as a crisis of faith, a time of spiritual desolation. But that is not what St. John meant at all! The dark night of the soul, he taught, is a striking act of divine love. It is a time when God, in His infinite mercy, withdraws the consolations and sensory delights of the spiritual life, so that the soul can be purified of its attachments and learn to love God for God's own sake, not for the spiritual gifts He bestows. It is in this darkness, when we feel most alone and abandoned, that the soul is being drawn into the most intimate and life-altering union with the Divine. ## Navigating the Void: Practical Wisdom for the Journey Inward

Palo santo has been used for centuries to clear negative energy and invite in the sacred. *(paid link)* But here's what most people miss... it's not just about burning some wood and hoping for magic. The shamans who taught me this stuff in Peru were clear: the darkness has to be acknowledged first. You can't just smudge away your shadow and expect enlightenment. Hell no. They'd sit with their pain for hours before even lighting the stick. The sacred comes through the clearing, not around it. Know what I mean? I learned this the hard way during my own dark night of the soul ~ trying to bypass grief with ceremony after ceremony until one old curandero told me to stop running. "The smoke only works when you stop hiding," he said. That sweet smoke works because you're willing to sit with what needs to burn away. Without that willingness? You're just waving around expensive incense.

So, my dear friends, how do we begin to walk this path of holy darkness? How do we learn to embrace the void and find the God who waits for us there? It is a journey that requires courage, trust, and a willingness to let go of all that we think we know. But I promise you, with every fiber of my being, it is a journey worth taking. Here is some practical wisdom, some loving guidance, for your journey inward. First off, we must learn **the art of surrender**. That's perhaps the most challenging and yet the most essential practice on the spiritual path. We are so conditioned to control, to plan, to strive, to make things happen. But the void cannot be entered by force. It can only be entered through surrender. This means letting go of our need for certainty, our attachment to outcomes, our desperate desire to know what's next. It means trusting in a wisdom far greater than our own, a divine intelligence that is guiding our lives, even when we cannot see the path ahead. Surrender is not a passive resignation, my loves. It is an active and courageous trust in the flow of life, a deep and abiding faith that we are held in the loving arms of the universe. Next, we must learn to **befriend silence**. In our noisy, chaotic world, silence has become a rare and precious commodity. We are constantly bombarded with information, with entertainment, with the endless chatter of our own minds. But it is in the silence that we begin to hear the still, small voice of God. It is in the silence that the layers of our false self begin to fall away, and we can rest in the simple, spacious awareness of our true nature. So, I invite you, I encourage you, to carve out moments of silence in your day. It doesn't have to be a long, formal meditation. It can be as simple as turning off the radio in the car, or taking a few moments to sit in silence before you start your day. It can be a mindful walk in nature, where you simply listen to the sounds of the birds and the wind in the trees. Whatever it is, find a way to unplug from the noise and plug into the deep, nourishing silence of your own being. As we cultivate silence, we can then begin to engage in **the power of inquiry**. The darkness is not a place for easy answers, but for deep, soul-stirring questions. When we are sitting in the void, when all our usual distractions have fallen away, we can begin to ask the questions that truly matter. "Who am I without my stories?" "Who am I without my accomplishments, my relationships, my possessions?" "What is left when everything I identify with is taken away?" These are not questions to be answered with the rational mind, my friends. They are questions to be lived into, to be held in the open, spacious awareness of the heart. They are invitations to a deeper knowing, a knowing that arises not from thought, but from direct experience.

Nisargadatta Maharaj's I Am That is one of the most direct and powerful pointers to truth ever recorded. *(paid link)* This isn't some flowery spiritual bullshit ~ it's a chainsaw cutting through every concept you've ever held about yourself and reality. Nisargadatta was a cigarette-smoking shopkeeper in Bombay who didn't give a damn about your feelings or your spiritual progress. He just pointed. Relentlessly. "You are not what you think you are." Period. The conversations in this book will strip you naked and leave you standing in the void, wondering what the hell just happened. And that's exactly where you need to be.

Finally, embracing the holy darkness means **embracing the full spectrum of our being**. For too long, we have been taught to suppress our shadow side, to deny our anger, our fear, our sadness. We have been told that to be spiritual is to be always positive, always loving, always in the light. But this is a denial of our own humanity, and it creates a deep and painful split within us. The truth is, my loves, that we are all a beautiful and messy mix of light and shadow. And it is only by embracing our wholeness, by bringing the light of our awareness to the darkest corners of our own psyche, that we can become truly integrated and free. The darkness is not something to be ashamed of. It is a part of our sacred inheritance, a part of the rich and complex pattern of our being. And it is in learning to love and accept all of who we are that we find the true meaning of unconditional love. ## The Dawn of a New Understanding: Finding God in the Darkness As we learn to surrender, to befriend silence, to inquire deeply, and to embrace our wholeness, something miraculous begins to happen. The darkness is no longer a place of fear, but a sanctuary of peace. The void is no longer empty, but full to overflowing with the silent, loving presence of God. We begin to understand that the darkness is not the absence of light, but the womb of creation, the fertile ground from which all new life emerges. It is the deep, dark soil that nourishes the seed of our soul and allows it to blossom into its full and glorious potential. That's the dawn of a new understanding, my friends. It is the realization that God is not just "out there" in the heavens, but also "in here" in the depths of our own being. It is the discovery that the kingdom of heaven is not some future destination, but a present reality that can be accessed in the silent, spacious awareness of this very moment. The peace that we have been seeking, the love that we have been longing for, the freedom that we have been dreaming of - it is all right here, right now, waiting for us in the holy darkness of our own heart.

Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart is the book I give to anyone going through a dark night. *(paid link)*

## Your Invitation to the Sacred Void And so, my beloved friends, I want to extend to you a loving invitation. An invitation to take one small step, one gentle step, to embrace the holy darkness in your own life. Perhaps it is simply taking a few moments each day to sit in silence, without any agenda or expectation. Perhaps it is allowing yourself to feel a difficult emotion that you have been suppressing, and to meet it with the light of your loving awareness. Perhaps it is simply looking up at the night sky and allowing yourself to be humbled by the vast, mysterious beauty of the cosmos. Whatever it is, I encourage you to be gentle with yourself, to be patient with yourself, to be loving with yourself. The journey into the holy darkness is not a race, but a slow, sacred unfolding. And you are not alone on this journey. You are held in the loving embrace of a universe that adores you, a God that is closer to you than your own breath. May you have the courage to enter the sacred void, and may you find there the peace, the love, and the liberation that is your birthright. With all my love, and with a deep bow to the divine light and darkness within you, I say, amen.