The spiritual awakening is the most extraordinary process one can undergo, where profound changes occur transforming the quality of human existence. There are many various phases to a spiritual awakening and one of them, the most mystical and challenging to endure, is the dark night of the soul. There is some information on the topic that is briefly shared regarding the hardships associated with it. However, I have noticed that the struggle one has to go through is not conveyed enough to depict its unfathomable depth which I have experienced myself.
During the spiritual awakening, there are many dark nights that can take a hold of a person. Each has a specific goal and is responsible for healing a particular sphere of life. It is impossible to pinpoint how long the shadowy and gloomy periods can last, even though this is the very first question the mind poses, since the discomfort is grand and characterizes itself by being suddenly removed from a very familiar routine and the way of going about life, and instead being placed in a quite unusual state that does not follow everyday habits and customs.
There, we can follow a few rules, and those are the ones dispatched from the divine realms, which one way or another, find its way to provide guidance and support through rough patches occurring along the path. What is significant to mention is the intensity of this phenomenon. There are various kinds of potency this process can impose. The easiest and the shortest way to illustrate the intensity is by observing how much life force is being removed from the usual life we previously had. In some dark nights we might still hold a job, but once getting home, the hermit mode takes over, which translates itself into having a limited amount of energy because a big chunk of it is directed into all-consuming contemplation without us realizing it. In other instances, we must be entirely dedicated to this inner transformation by relinquishing almost everything we had managed to accomplish, and spent full days, months or even years to examine all the raw materials we were previously creating our life with.
