The Existential Reflections of a Spiritual Vigilante

Only a month has passed since my last post and yet for me it has been a lifetime. The darkness of the last year has dissipated like a dream, leaving only faint whispers of the ordeals endured. 

Yet it was a journey that had to be undertaken nonetheless. And although clothed in moments of deep confusion and suffering, in reality it was a great blessing in disguise. As a dear friend recently said to me, “it is mere training for what you are to become.”

We are perpetually becoming more and more of who we are. And this is indeed the greatest dichotomy of all. For we are ALREADY completely and utterly who we are, always. And yet, the expression of that wholeness in our human forms is never quite complete. We are constantly challenged to express what we know to be our deepest truth - in every moment as thought, word and deed. 

The last nine months have been a gestational period for my spirit - a long dark night that this soul has fumbled through.  But I now understand why. I needed to be reminded of the darkness and despair that living in this human world inherently brings forth. I had grown disconnected from it. Having awakened long ago and having experienced good fortune and serendipity almost consistently for the past decade, I had begun to harbor the insidious belief that I had somehow grown immune to deep suffering. That I was simply incapable of it anymore, except at a superficial level. I became convinced that I was “plugged in” to life and couldn’t be thrown by it.

How utterly wrong I was. I was humbled, I was silenced, I was made to feel like a blithering idiot, an utter and total novice in all respects. Life has its ways of cutting us down to size when we begin growing too big for our own boots.

I find myself changed. Softer, more receptive, more inwardly supple, less certain, less interested in being certain, more vulnerable, more myself. Looking back I realize that I hadn’t shed tears in a decade. Well I certainly made up for it over the past 9 months. The tears have flowed freely; of gratitude, of misery, of confusion, of relief, of awe and of laughter. Thank god for tears. They are visceral evidence that energy is being moved and released.

But what I have learned most through this year, is that I haven’t fully been honest with myself. I realized that I have been afraid. 

Before when asked by people why I wrote my articles and blogs, I would reply nonchalantly,

“I write for myself. Not to help other people.”

The whole idea of “helping” people or being “in service” to them was something I found quite egotistical. Who am I to “help” others? How can I know I am truly helping and not harming them? What an arrogant notion to have! I would muse. 

I now realize that I was running away from my own sacred purpose. I was correct in saying that I wasn’t here to “serve people”. I am here to serve something greater, more immediate, more all encompassing: The spirit of what is.

And “what is” can look like a person. Or it can look like a dog. Or an excel spreadsheet. Or a can of paint. It can look like a moment of deep suffering, or a lazy afternoon spent reading a book in the sunshine, it can look like an argument with a family member or a moment of deep flow in meditation or in nature. The content or form of “what is” is not my concern. My only concern is to live in service of it.

But it has taken realizing the futility and the unimportance of my own ideas and opinions (which incidentally I had grown to give a lot of importance to) to truly enable my willingness to be of service. 

One of my favorite quotes of Nisargadatta is “the mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it”. Mine has been a journey from head into heart.

I’ve decided to rename my blog because this truly feels like a rebirth both literally and figuratively. I have chosen the title “Dark Knight of the Soul” for a number of reasons.

First, and most obviously, it is a reflection upon these arduous journeys and rites of passage we must all inevitably embark upon in our own lives. Journeys that lead us through loss, grief, pain and heartbreak often multiple times in a single lifetime. Yet, every one of those journeys, when seen from the right perspective is really a pilgrimage to that sanctum within ourselves. Each time we return, if we haven’t been destroyed by it, we emerge renewed, revitalized and infinitely more ourselves than when we began. Those of us who have endured such journeys hold a sacred responsibility to assist others who are embarking upon them. Not in the forms of “guides” or “teachers” but simply as friends, comrades, brothers and sisters of this human race.

You will notice that the word “night” in the phrase has been replaced by the word “knight”. The “dark knight” in superhero lore is unusual in that he is not a traditional superhero. He has and claims no supernatural powers. He is simply an ordinary man with a finely tuned physical, mental and emotional apparatus and an unwavering ethical compass. He is as much an embodiment of the darkness as he is of the light. He is guided by three principles above all else: truth, justice and compassion. The only law he obeys is his own and the only justice he adheres to is vigilante justice.

This anarchistic, anti-establishment streak has always been a strong feature in my writing throughout. As has my penchant for truth and integrity. But I am no longer interested in directing my focus at the spiritual industry per se, though my views on it haven’t changed much. It is a necessary evil in this world that will play its part in the grand scheme of things. Instead, my aim is to engage and dismantle the ideological structures and mental scaffolding we carry around within our own minds that then enable these external institutions, allowing them to exert power and influence over us. Slavery occurs first and foremost within our own minds.

I look forward to re-engaging with you again, my readers. Your presence was a solace in dark times though you may not have known it. Your support and friendship has meant the world to me and my family.

I leave you with a poem by Kahlil Gibran which is a beautiful metaphor for the journey that I have been on.

Now, this river no longer lives in fear. It has immersed into the sea…

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Fear - by Kahlil Gibran

It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.