“We have been raised to treat life as a problem to solve, a result to obtain. What action do I take next to get what my mind says is most important to do, be, or have? It is a shattering experience to give up the life of the mind’s conditioning. In that shattering, there is no going back to what was, but there can also be a feeling of aloneness and desolation, a sense of emptiness, an inability to see the way forward.
The mind has kept us distracted so we don’t feel alone. It has kept us busy, so we don’t notice the emptiness of its promises. It has kept us on the never-ending search for more, which is focused on the future and what to do next. When we no longer run our lives from this mental drive, it is a shattering of a deeply held illusion that has been projected outward as the way of life.
When disconnected from the homogenized reality that the world has bought into—but we’re not yet firmly grounded in self-observation and the experience of awareness within—it can cause dissonance and a crisis of spirit. Like Neo in The Matrix, the red pill has been taken, and there is no unseeing what has been revealed. And yet, there is no comforting way forward, no god or belief to hang onto, no goal plan to keep us busy and distracted.
It is a kind of dark night of the soul. You know where you have been, and you don’t particularly enjoy where you are at the moment, with its great uncertainty and unknowns. There is no clear way forward.” – Leela Swann-Herbert