00:00they say that awakening will feel like light but this this feels like death and it's happening to
00:07me right now and i want to share it with you most people talk about the shadow cell like it's a
00:14journal prompt or a healing workshop but this this is different this is the part where everything
00:20you thought you were starts to dissolve where your desires go silent where your ego doesn't
00:27just bend it disappears this isn't just theory at least not for me this is the dark night of the soul
00:35and i'm not through it yet if you're new here my name is len cook this is the maverick mind
00:41i don't teach from a mountain i don't pretend to have all the answers i ask questions most people
00:46were afraid to ask about consciousness nature of reality ancient mysteries religion philosophy
00:53and spirituality and more right now i'm walking through what many call the dark night of the soul
01:00not as an idea not as a memory but it's something i'm living viscerally i don't know what i'll be on
01:08the other side but i know this the journey is not meant to be walked alone so that's why i'm sharing
01:16it with you i really had apprehension if i should even share the story or not but i really want to be
01:23open and honest and genuine with my youtube channel my journey and my story and this feels like i'm going
01:32through a very significant transition and now that i understand what it is i'm also deeply fascinated
01:41westry the phrase dark night of the soul comes from a 16th century mystic named saint john of the
01:47cross he wrote about it not as suffering for its own sake but as a sacred unraveling a painful shedding
01:53of the ego that opens the doorway to divine union in eastern traditions you'll find echoes of this
02:00in what's called ego death or the disillusion of self and practices like gaza zen zen and aviata
02:06vendata across these traditions the message is the same to truly awaken the self you've built your
02:13beliefs your mass your identities must die not metaphorically not conceptually but experimentally
02:20and that death it feels like hell until it doesn't at least that's what i'm told until i've heard about
02:27the dark night of the soul and ego death before but i never knew that it was more than just a concept
02:34it's a real thing and i've seen many videos that are out there that are talk about it hypothetically
02:42and this is what it is or educationally and more of a philosophy and i've seen others where people
02:49have said they've gone through it but i have yet to see anybody tell their story while they're going
02:55through it and that's why i'm doing this because i have a feeling there might be other people out there
03:02who either have experienced this who are experiencing this and maybe are not able to articulate it as
03:09well as i am this isn't about realizing i'm not my thoughts this is watching every part of myself
03:16dissolve automatically unstoppably and without negotiation it's just happening i didn't ask for it
03:25i wasn't looking for it and no i do not feel special that illusion is long gone in fact if anything i
03:32feel more anonymous more like empty space where identity used to be and strangely that emptiness
03:39is peaceful in a way i didn't expect but peaceful doesn't mean easy and it definitely doesn't mean
03:47painless in fact it's excruciating to watch the character you've built vanish not violently but
03:56completely and all you can do is watch
03:59at first i wondered is this depression logically right i felt that before though the emptiness the
04:10flattening the fall but this isn't hopelessness this isn't numbness this is silence this is awareness
04:19this is present strip bearer not absence but kind of a sacred stripping down desires are flat for just
04:29about everything not repressed just unnecessary not denied just irrelevant i feel like my body is still
04:37here but it's no longer trying to chase anything conquer anything or prove anything to anybody
04:43including myself it's just breathing and i can see now i've touched this abyss before brief moments
04:50and glimmers of it in the past deep meditation and grief and all back then i wasn't ready to surrender
04:57to it now i long for it not as an escape but as truth there's no romanticism here no spiritual gold stars
05:06no just raw experience just the unknown the world keeps spinning bills need to be paid but inside time
05:15feels stretched thin like i'm living in a little hallway between two versions of reality one where
05:22everything made sense and one where nothing will ever make sense in the same way again and i'm okay
05:28with it maybe this is my shadow self maybe it's not the kind people journal about this isn't about
05:37healing wounds or integrating trauma this is watching the scaffolding of me fall apart piece by piece
05:45what's left is raw unedited no beliefs few attachments just awareness watching everything fall away and
05:57what's striking is how automatic it feels i'm not trying to let go it's just happening as if resistance
06:04was a luxury i no longer possess i'm not orchestrating this i'm witnessing it and what i see is not darkness
06:12with the end of fiction the shadow isn't knocking it's moving in and it doesn't want healing it wants
06:21everything false to burn the shadow isn't dramatic it's subtle silent surgical it cuts through years of
06:30persona i didn't even know were still there and oddly enough i don't fear it i respect it because
06:38what is cutting away needed to go lately all i want to do is sit under a tree and feel grass beneath
06:46my feet to be with the earth not as something separate but as part of it to be still and let
06:53the wind move through me all of the spiritual tools i've acquired through meditation breath work
07:00ritual they just feel quiet now not useless just hushed they've served their role to this point
07:09and are just now bowing out and in their place there's just this space a deep craving to stop seeking
07:18stop naming stop becoming anything at all in a way i feel like a tree one that doesn't question the soil
07:26in the sun or the storm it just grows even in silence even in the winter this silence is not
07:35emptiness it's fullness without narrative and within it i hear something ancient not a voice
07:40but a knowing there's something sacred about becoming simple again to walk barefoot to breathe deeply
07:47not to need to explain yourself to anyone including yourself to be enough i'm beginning to realize that
07:55nature never forgot how to be we did going back it's not even a question at this point
08:02like leaving your home and watching it burn down behind you sure you could sift through the ashes but
08:09you can't live there anymore that is what ego death really means it's not about cosmic firework not
08:15about enlightenment but it's about distortion emptiness and eventually i do believe peace
08:22but i'm not there yet i'm in the collapse and no it is not fun but i do feel that it's necessary
08:30much of my life has led me here i didn't choose the timing but it feels like the timing chose me
08:37everything not real is falling away every illusion role and projection i'm not interested in upgrading
08:45to the ego spiritual edition 2.0 this isn't about being special it's about being nothing so something
08:53real can emerge and i don't know what that will be just yet but i trust it'll be enough because
09:00anything real doesn't need a role it just is and maybe that's all that's ever been asked of us
09:07not to be impressive but to be honest i want to speak to the version of me that once held it all
09:14together to the version that i thought surrender was a weakness to my younger self len
09:21you don't have to know who you are you don't have to have all the answers it's okay to unravel
09:29it's okay to let go because who you truly are was never built it's what remains when everything else
09:38dissolves if you're still watching this in this experience resonates with you if you feel
09:43the disorientation that's solving maybe you don't need to fight it maybe you just need to let go
09:50i'm documenting this not because i've reached the other side because almost no one ever talks about
09:57this while it's happening and i know there are people out there maybe you are feeling something
10:03similar i can't put it in the words maybe we don't need words maybe presence is enough if this does
10:12resonate with you join me on this journey i don't know where i'm going to end up i don't know how it's
10:18going to go but i know i'm where i'm supposed to be and doing what i'm supposed to do and i'm really
10:27looking forward to other people to join me on this journey and see where it leads so if you feel
10:34like there's a connection like subscribe consider patreon that support means a lot more to me than
10:43you possibly know because i'm going all in
10:45soon you'll find out exactly what i mean by that
10:50but i am giving up everything and i am going all in on what i believe i'm supposed to do
10:57and i truly hope that some of you will join me along the way and i don't know what's coming next
11:03but i know it won't be the ego and it won't be a mask it will be real
11:10will you walk with me thank you
11:17you
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