How to get out of the Dark night of the Soul

[Endangered-EGO]

How would you guys recommend people to get out of the dark night of the soul? There are so many. I was in it too, died nearly every day for 6 months and then the nothingness went away. It is for the same reason I can not take drugs, this would probably give me a panic attack and get me right into the DN. Meditating on infinity is no problem though, I am okay with the small detachement. How do you overcome the fear of the nothingness/dying? Or is it normal to feel a little afraid and weird when it is happening? Is it also normal to experience Depersonalisation in between the "dying". Like experiencing the nothingness just a little bit?

 

I am not in it right now, but there are a lot of people who are, and I will maybe fall back into it.

I guess that with love this process would be beautiful and not strange and painful?

[Endangered-EGO]

Good Luck with that, dying for 6 months every day didn't enlighten me, it just gave me a huge ego backlash that lasted for years. I also didn't accept the shit and love that came up inbetween. You don't really have a choice, you cannot fight the dying process, and if you try, it doesn't change anything to it happening. Hope you will be okay

[PenguinPablo]

curious, how did you get there? dying for six months...?

[Endangered-EGO]

@PenguinPablo Its basically everything that Leo explained about enlightenment and the formless. It depends on luck, apparently some people are more frequently aware about the formless. That's why you need to label every sensation/object, like emotion, sight, feeling, thought etc, so once the formless comes up you realize it is something that is different, has no form. Then you need the right meditation/concentration skill to be able to focus on it.

However if you have a panic attack, that gives you the concentration of a monk, because it is fuelled by fear. I was feeling the formless and decided to smoke a blunt to "come down", no psychedelic just weed. Then I had a panic attack for 2 hours, weird pulsations in my Body too. For the next 6 months I died every day. None of that would have been possible if I hadn't felt the formless before lighting this blunt.

No even if I smoke a little bit of weed, I feel the nothingness. I however don't believe it is possible for everybody, weed wont give you ego death without sensing the formless prior to that. 

I would also not recommend inducing a panic attack on the formless.

I was 16 back then and never heard anything about spirituality or enlightenment.

[arlin]

I went on an episode of depersonalization/derealization not long ago where i felt like i literally did not exist as a identity or person.

I learned about that that certain experiences are just your nervous system protecting you from overwhelming emotions.

How long have you been in the self development journey before you decided to investigate on this existencial problems?

You have to have a very solid foundation below your feel otherwhise when you go about those things the floor beneath you will dissapear and you will fall into the eternal void. I can guarantee that.

 

Don't mess with spirituallity. We are not talking shit here. This is very serious stuff and if you don't know what you are doing you can only harm yourself.

 

I am so glad i am out of it now, and i found a new sense of "Deserving" as i go on about life. I feel more self love now, i am able to love myself more. BUT , there is still work to be done for me. But i don't care. I did not mean to go into this experience, it happened for other reasons and  i just did not knew what i was doing. 

Edited February 10, 2020 by arlin

[loub]

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha has a great section on the dark night.

First thing I remember is to avoid bleed through. Don't use your symptoms to justify being a dick. Don't quit your job, end your relationship or do anything drastic out of one of the stages of the dark night.

Secondly, don't get attached to it. People who know about the dark night might want to prolong it, thinking that that will increase the amount of purification that happens. But: the severity of your dark night does not determine the degree of peace and equanimity you will have afterwards at all. Don't adopt the self-image of the guy who takes on the suffering of the world single-handedly. That is not necessary and counter productive.
You can go through the dark night in as much as seven minutes, or get stuck there becoming a chronic dark nighter for a decade. If you want a time-frame, try and get through it within a week by not getting attached to it at all and doing intense insight practice.