영혼의 어두운 밤: 연합을 향한 영적 여정

### 영혼의 어두운 밤: 신성한 사랑으로의 여정
* 🌌 "어둠을 견디는 것은 **큰 빛을 위한 준비**입니다." - 십자가의 요한
* 😔 우리 삶의 대부분은 감각적 쾌락을 쫓으며 보내지만, 이러한 쾌락은 **결코 지속적인 만족감**을 제공하지 못합니다.
* 🔄 십자가의 요한과 아빌라의 테레사에 따르면, 인간은 신성을 찾고 완성을 이루기 위해 **내면을 들여다봐야 한다**고 합니다.
* 🌑 이 여정에는 **영혼의 어두운 밤**으로 알려진 무의식 속 변화의 경험이 포함됩니다.
* 🙏 영혼의 어두운 밤은 종교를 초월하는 영적 현상으로, **신성한 결합을 향한 여정**으로 볼 수 있습니다.
* 💔 많은 사람들이 세속적인 쾌락으로 채울 수 없는 공허함을 경험하며 **인생이 보이는 것과 다르다는 것**을 깨닫게 됩니다.
* 💖 요한과 테레사의 신학은 인간의 궁극적인 욕망은 사랑이며, **영혼의 어두운 밤은 사랑을 통해 신성과의 합일을 추구하는 과정**이라고 말합니다.

영혼의 어두운 밤은 자아를 벗어던지고 사랑을 통해 신과 하나가 되는 과정입니다.

The endurance of darkness is preparation for great light. - John of the Cross. Most of our lives are ongoing pursuits of sensory pleasures. And every time we think that we’ve found lasting fulfillment, it doesn’t take long before we need more gratification to soothe the pain of an incomprehensible emptiness that seems impossible to fill. We seek pleasure and avoid pain. And most of us are stuck in that cycle until death. However, some people go beyond the cycle, like Spanish mystics John of the Cross and his mentor Teresa of Ávila. According to John and Teresa, humans have an inborn longing for completion. This completion cannot be achieved by worldly pleasures. So, instead, we must go within, to reach the inner core of our soul in which ‘the divine’ lies hidden. Through spiritual awakening, we adopt a different perception of reality. Our predicament becomes clear. Knowing that our past way of life never fills the void, while not knowing where to turn.

next, can leave us in despair. According to John and Teresa, we must undergo
a transformation that happens in the darkness of our unconscious, to reach the light. This mysterious and confusing transitional
experience is called the dark night of the soul. After his attempt to find God in worldly things,
John of the Cross spoke of God as ‘nada,’ which is Spanish of ‘nothing’ or ‘no-thing,’
meaning that our senses cannot perceive It, and our minds cannot grasp Its wisdom. As opposed to the typical Christian description
of God, which is that of a powerful bearded man in the sky, John’s God is mystical and
elusive. This observation closely resembles what the
Taoists call ‘Tao,’ which is an undefinable and incomprehensible force that cannot be
understood by the human intellect. John of the Cross became an apprentice of Carmelite nun Saint Teresa of Ávila in 16th-century Spain. Both were deeply concerned with the union
between the soul and the divine, and both

experienced a dark period in their lives during
which their own unions took place. John and Teresa described these journeys as
dynamic love affairs, full of passion and emotion. In his poem called The Dark Night of the Soul,
John narrated this union, and I quote: O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his
beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover. End quote. Even though the dark night of the soul has
its roots in Christianity, it’s not restricted to Christians only. Rather, it’s a spiritual phenomenon that
can occur in everyone, regardless of religion. We could call it a ‘spiritual depression,’
or a journey towards divine union that takes place in the shadow of our essence. It happens in the regions of the soul that
we cannot see nor grasp. Thus, the dark night of the soul is an unconscious
experience with conscious consequences. The tragedy behind the unification between
ourselves and the divine, according to Teresa,

is that we don’t realize who we are and
what we want. Blinded by worldly pleasures (the things that
our senses can perceive), it’s no surprise that many people don’t go beyond their search
for sensual gratification. It’s perfectly possible to live life going
from one pleasure to another and find a sense of fulfillment in doing so. However, some feel that there’s a void that
seeks to be filled, which cannot be done by anything that the external world has to offer. Perhaps we thought that money was the answer,
but after becoming rich, we discover that it’s not. The same goes for status and fame, which are,
at most, temporary substitutes that do not bring lasting fulfillment. Even relationships and romantic love affairs
don’t gratify our hearts in the ways we had hoped for. According to Gerald May, author of the book
The Dark Night of the Soul: some people even seem to be born with this realization. I quote:

They grow up trying to adjust themselves to
the values and strivings that surround them, but somehow their hearts are never in it. They have a deep awareness that fulfillment
cannot be found through acquisition and achievement. They often feel like misfits because of the
different, deeper, ungraspable love they feel inside them. End quote. Other people, sometimes even in old age, get
struck by a sudden clarity, realizing that life is not what it seems. An example of this sudden life-changing awakening
is the concept of ‘taking the red pill’, which is derived from the movie The Matrix. After swallowing the red pill, the veil is
lifted, and we see reality for what it truly is. Of course, we can choose to be plugged back
into The Matrix, but we’ll never experience it in the same way we did when we were residing
in blissful ignorance. The allegory of the cave, presented by Plato,
teaches us that we cannot unsee what we’ve

seen. So, after the awakening, we can choose to
go back on the wheel of sensory pleasures, but we’ll always be lucid about the emptiness
of this pursuit. We know it’s phony, and therefore, we can’t
enjoy it, and even begin to resent it. The experience of the gray area between the
mundane and the divine, and the great uncertainty that comes with that, is part of the dark
night of the soul. Because we’ve lost faith in old ideas and
beliefs, we experience a weakening of the will. This manifests as a loss of appetite in the
things we used to enjoy. We know that the activities hold us back from
achieving something that we cannot intellectually explain, but desire nonetheless. No matter what we do, we’ll always feel
the pull in a certain direction without exactly knowing why or where it leads us. The more we try to relive old experiences,
and reignite the fire of what we once enjoyed,

the more useless it all feels. That’s why, for many people, going back
isn’t an option. They must move on. But how? And where to? Should it be done by prayer? The practice of meditation? Or perhaps by therapy, or maybe by embracing
some sort of religious belief system? Unfortunately, we cannot intervene in the
process, apart from increasing awareness, sitting with it, and accepting it. “The purest suffering bears and carries
in its train the purest understanding,” wrote John of the Cross. Thus, we might want to contemplate the nature
of what’s happening to us, which, according to John and Teresa, is the unconscious movement towards the very thing that our soul wants the most: love. According to their theology, we humans have,
above everything else, a deep desire to love. And this love can be directed towards each
other, but also to God. Therefore, the union that comes through the
dark night of the soul entirely revolves around love.

It’s the Lover seeking union with the Beloved, which is the divine. And the divine is in everything and everyone. When we become one, our emptiness is filled. Teresa, for example, as a Christian nun, experienced a period of twenty years, plagued by confusion and self-loathing in regards to her creed. According to May, she was very attached to the opinions of other people, and how they perceived her as a religious person. But when she finally surrendered to God, she let go of these attachments along with all the ideas and opinions of herself and other people. She felt liberated. The dark night of the soul is a process of shedding off the ego. We unconsciously let go of concepts that block us from becoming who we truly are. It’s a process of giving up control and becoming receptive instead of defensive. During the dark night, we are losing who we thought we were, while not yet having become

what we’re supposed to be. We’re in between. We can’t go back, but the way ahead of us
is dark and unknown. The elusiveness of what’s going on in the
depths of our souls brings about great confusion. We feel that something isn’t right, but
can’t really grasp what it is. This experience can range from quiet awareness
to deep depression and hopelessness, so it doesn’t necessarily go together with pain. Nevertheless, the frustrating thing about
the dark night of the soul is that there’s no way to control what we cannot comprehend. We can’t fight it, nor can we intervene
in its workings. Thus, as far as John and Teresa are concerned,
the only thing we can do is endure, and before we know it, the dawn will be upon us. As John described: I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved; all things ceased; I went out from myself, leaving my cares forgotten
among the lilies.

The Dark Night of the Soul (Losing Who We Thought We Were)

Einzelgänger

십자가의 요한과 아빌라의 데레사는 진정한 성취는 세속적인 쾌락에서 찾을 수 없고 영적 각성을 통해서만 얻을 수 있다고 믿었습니다.

그들은 영혼의 어두운 밤으로 알려진 영혼의 내면을 파고들어 완성에 도달해야 한다고 주장합니다.

요한이 하나님을 '나다'로 인식하는 것은 도교의 '도'라는 개념과 유사한 신비롭고 이해하기 어려운 본성을 반영합니다.

둘은 함께 어둠에서 빛으로 변화하는 여정을 통해 영혼과 신의 결합을 강조합니다.

영혼의 어두운 밤: 연합의 영적 여정

영혼의 어두운 밤은 기독교에만 국한되지 않는 영적 현상으로, 신성한 결합을 향한 여정과 관련이 있습니다.

이 무의식적 경험은 의식적인 결과를 가져와 세속적 쾌락의 부적절함을 깨닫게 합니다.

이 현상은 돈, 지위, 인간관계와 같은 외부적 요인으로는 지속적인 성취감을 얻을 수 없다는 것을 깊이 이해하게 해줍니다.

성취감과 진실을 찾기 위한 투쟁

많은 사람들이 성취와 성취에 대한 사회적 기대에도 불구하고 깊은 성취감을 느끼지 못합니다.

'빨간 약 복용'이나 동굴의 우화와 같은 개념은 사회적 규범을 넘어선 현실에 대한 각성을 설명합니다.

이러한 각성은 오래된 쾌락에 대한 즐거움의 상실과 새롭고 불확실한 방향으로 끌려가는 느낌으로 이어질 수 있습니다.

의미 찾기와 고통에서 벗어나기

고통에서 벗어나는 것은 기도, 명상, 치료 또는 신념 체계의 수용을 통해 접근할 수 있는 개인적인 여정입니다.

십자가의 요한과 아빌라의 테레사는 영혼의 어두운 밤이 다른 사람과의 관계든 신과의 관계든 깊은 이해와 사랑과 연합으로 이어진다고 말합니다.

이 과정에서 집착을 버리고 내려놓는 것은 자아를 버리고 변화를 수용하는 것이므로 해방감과 자아 발견으로 이어질 수 있습니다.

영혼의 어두운 밤은 조용한 자각에서 깊은 우울증에 이르기까지 인생의 깊은 혼란과 난해함의 시기입니다.

이 시기는 통제하거나 완전히 이해할 수 없기 때문에 개인이 새벽이 밝아오기까지 견뎌야 하는 어려운 경험입니다.

요한이 묘사한 이 영적 여정에는 자아의 포기와 초월에 대한 갈망이 수반됩니다.