Darkness has Silence, Depth

 

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Darkness has Silence, Depth

Everybody knows light, very few have noticed the mystery of darkness. Darkness is a much greater phenomenon than light. Light comes and goes, it needs some kind of fuel and thus is not eternal, as the fuel gets exhausted sooner or later. Darkness remains, it needs no fuel and hence it can remain eternally.

We wake up in the morning and the sun rises and there is light; in the evening the sun sets and the light disappears, and suddenly there is darkness – then lights are switched on and light powered by electricity is available – the darkness disappears! Why is it that darkness disappears whenever there is light? Why does darkness appear whenever the sun goes down or there is a power failure? Darkness has always been there – go deep into the cosmos, out of the earth’s atmosphere and there is only darkness, with stars blinking millions of light years away!

The question then arises – how can one see darkness when light is there? All we need to do is shut our eyes and the darkness is there. Switch off the light, blow off the candle – darkness is there.

According to Osho, Gautam Buddha is the only person who used the word ‘nirvana’ for the ultimate state of consciousness – and nirvana exactly means ‘darkness’ – it means blowing out the candle. Even the Buddhists did not associate the word with darkness – because darkness produces bad associations in the minds of people.

When one feels full of light, one may just be going on an ego trip. Identifying oneself with light, just helps change one’s identity – but the ego remains. Blowing out the candle is indicative of blowing away the ego, and then the vast, benign, comfortable darkness is bound to create a sense of vastness of humility, humbleness and egolessness.

Light always creates a disturbance as it activates one’s sense of sight and then the mind starts accumulating impressions, whereas in darkness there is silence. When there is light, we are not alone, we can see everybody. If the light goes off suddenly, the others may still be there, but we suddenly feel lonely. In the dark we cannot see the others, we suddenly feel alone, lonely. In the light, the crowd gives us warmth, a feeling of belonging, but in darkness there is a sense that nobody is with us.

But when we learn to embrace the darkness, the more we love it – it is our me-time, our privacy which no one can trespass. Never feel lonely, because the word indicates that one is looking for company – aloneness is better. Aloneness is meditation – just be alone. Even when we are in the crowd, if we remember that we are alone, we will be at peace.

The moment we feel we are absolutely alone, that is the time we start feeling that we are not the body, it is only a cover; that we are not the mind, it is only a mechanism; that we are not even the heart — that too is a mechanism of a different sort for different purposes.

Behind all these layers there is a space, crystal clear — nobody else has ever passed through it; its purity is absolute. To enter that space is to enter in meditation. Feeling that aloneness, you will feel the whole existence is alone.