Enlightenment needs no Light

Good morning.

This morning, in this video, I would like to report a little bit about what I experienced the last 10 days or 8 days. I had a very interesting time.

It has been now 10 days since I was last sitting in front of this camera, and this is a very long time for me without making a video, and I just couldn't. I just couldn't make a video. I was really busy with things inside of myself. And I want to report a little bit about how this happened and how I experienced this; how I deal with these times when they come.

Usually, when people talk about spirituality, about enlightenment, about Heaven, it's about the light, about the beautiful things. Everybody wants to feel happy and look into the light, so to speak. But in my experience, it was always that treasures and the gifts which life gave me, they were hidden in the darkness. They were hidden in the pain.

And such a time I just went through, such a time I just experienced.

8 days ago, 2 days after I made my last video, I had a meeting with a few people which I like; people who are connected with an area of my life which is very close to my soul. One could say that these people are connected to the pain trigger points of my being.

And during this meeting, which I enjoyed, which was beautiful, some of these people told me things about the way I do things, and it touched something in me. At first, I didn't notice. During the meeting and for the rest of the day, I felt fine. I thought I had a beautiful meeting. But the next day, I noticed that something had been touched inside of me. I found myself in a mood... it was like I was being pulled inside of myself. I became very, very quiet. I was literally unable to speak to people. I was unable to work.

I completely withdrew into myself, And I was busy feeling what came up inside of me. It was like darkness was visiting me. This sounds like a big word now, but I try to describe this inner mood, which you are probably familiar with too.

It's this mixture of sadness and depression and feeling completely wrong, completely worthless, and this feeling of having no orientation anymore. Before, you thought you know what you're doing and where it's going, and then suddenly, you don't know anything anymore. It's like you're losing yourself. It's like you're burning inside. That's how I felt. So I withdrew from the people I live with, from the kids and my partner.

Practically, things were not much different. I was still participating in the meals and in the cooking, and I was spending the whole day in my office. It's not that during such a time, I sit in bed or on a chair or on the sofa all day long and thinking or indulging in my feelings. No. This is not how I live through times like this. My practical life continues as usual. My daily routine does not change. I still take care of my meals and my body. I still do my exercises. I take walks. Of course, I meditate in the morning, and I sit in the office, in my little office here at home all day long, but I'm not available.

I'm not available for other people, not to the people I live with nor for other people. I didn't work with my clients in my computer work. I did not have communication with people like you who write me emails or letters. For a week, I was completely out of order, so to speak. I needed all of my attention and all of my energy to welcome what was triggered inside of me: this darkness and this pain.

And by now, this became second nature for me since a long time. When I am visited by such a time, I just say yes. I don't think about who did something wrong that I feel like this. I don't think about what it means.

I don't think about what might change now or what I need to do different or what I will tell these people who talked to me. Nothing like this. All I do is: I try to be as naked as possible inside and allow these things which come up inside of me, this what I perceive as darkness as pain, as old feelings... I allow myself to be touched by this, almost like to be consumed by this, to be destroyed by this, this is how it feels. It's like a fire inside.

And when I have times like this, it's very intense for me, but inside; as I said, my outward practical life continues. Of course, I had these times also when I was still traveling with my spiritual master Soham, and there were certain obligations I had when we had Satsang at night. I showed up when we were traveling to the next city for Satsang, I was, of course, doing all of the work necessary, packing and driving and arriving, unpacking, all these practical things happen. But inside, it feels like I can't do anything. And that's how it was for me during the last 8 days.

And it feels like this will go on forever. Maybe you know these times too. And when these times come, it feels like: "Okay, this will never go away anymore. I will feel like this now for the rest of my life." And, of course, it's not true. And now, 8 days later, I'm completely different, but initially, it feels like this, also for me.

And as I said, I don't sit around not doing anything. This is not how I spent this time. I enter these feelings, I enter this energy and the mood inside of myself, but I outwardly, I'm occupied. And during these last 8 days, I told you I was unable to do a video. I was unable to speak or to have any correspondence with people. I was too busy with my own feelings. But I was sitting at the computer, and I was programming. And programming is a great way for me to use this time. Because when I'm sitting at the computer and programming, I'm totally alone, like in a cave.

And I want to briefly tell you what I programmed. You know, since I started with doing videos, I wanted to make sure that each and every video has good subtitles, so what is being spoken in the video can also be read in the video through subtitles, but also through text. And this is important because when the subtitles of a video are good, when they are edited, when they are correct, when they really are grammatically correct, then on YouTube, you can use a very, very cool function.

You can turn on "automatic subtitle translation", and then, when YouTube finds the subtitles of the originally spoken language, then you can translate it automatically in all kinds of other languages. Now usually, The subtitles which are automatically generated by YouTube are kind of... they're very entertaining. They are very entertaining because they are full of mistakes, full of misunderstandings. YouTube misunderstands all kinds of words, and what you read then is kind of... it's either very funny or. at times, not understandable. Often, it has nothing to do with what was really being said. And when such an automatic subtitle of bad quality is then being automatically translated In another language, the outcome is even more entertaining and even more confusing.

And that's why I wanted to make sure that my videos have good subtitles, so they can be automatically translated in a good quality. So, no matter what language you like to read, you can read my words in that language. That was my intention from the very beginning. But then I found out that it's a lot of work to produce good subtitles out of that what YouTube generates normally. It turned out to be so much work that it was preventing me from doing the videos I wanted to do.

And then, a few weeks ago, I found a technical possibility to generate subtitles in a different way, where a combination of a company, a service I found, which generates very good subtitles, and then a program I could write, which then takes this data of rather good quality, and then the program I would write would turn this into subtitles, which are of good quality and very readable and only require a little bit of corrective work to have very good subtitles for each of my videos. This is the idea I had. But, of course, this takes a lot of time. I didn't have this time.

But now, when 8 days ago, this time of darkness started for me where I was incapable of doing any of the normal work I would do, where I was unable to do videos, write emails, or letters... During that time, programming was the perfect occupation for me and for my head. And in these 8 days, I spent 8 days straight all day long in the office, other than cooking and taking walks, playing the piano... I was just programming all day, and the outcome is great. I'm totally happy. From now on, I will be able to generate subtitles for the videos in a fraction of the time which was needed before, and the outcome is brilliant.

And this is one of the fruits of this time I just lived through. Of course, this is a rather mundane aspect of the whole thing, but I wanted to mention it anyway because I said initially: my experience in life is that it is in these difficult times, when we meet things inside of us which are not easy, that's the time where we get the gifts. That's the time which are really fruitful and productive for life.

And that I was able to produce something totally valuable for the videos during this difficult time is one of the signs I see that this was a really gifted, blessed time. Of course, it is a very mundane aspect. I will come to the other aspects in a moment. But nevertheless, I find that when I go through difficult times, everything which comes out of it is nothing but good, only good things.

Something else happened during these 8 days.

Often when darkness visits me, and when I'm so consumed by something inside which I can't even name, what happens out of this is often of very basic nature. Very often, things become different or possible which have good effects for the rest of my life. It's like with this simple example of programming. What I generated in this one week will change the way I make videos for many, many years to come. It is so fruitful. And something else happened. In the beginning of this time, I had an inclination. I don't even know where it came from. Suddenly, I had a strong impulse to change something about my diet, about the way I eat. I added something to my diet, and I never thought about this before. And this, in a matter of a few days, proved to be an amazing help for my health and for my body.

And this is also one of these basic aspects I was just mentioning. About 10 years ago, I made some fundamental changes to the way I'm eating. For instance, I stopped eating meat at that time. It just happened by itself. I didn't decide it. It just happened naturally. And along with this, during the next few years, another few changes happened also just by themselves, and these were good changes. My health improved drastically back then. I'm very healthy. I'm blessed with a body which is really happy.

But somehow, at that time, something got introduced into my new way of eating, which was not so beneficial. Something was missing, but I didn't notice at that time. The only thing I could tell is that during the last few years, I noticed that my body is lacking something, lacking some strength, lacking some energy, but I couldn't understand what the issue was. And now, when this dark time started, I just had an idea, and I tried it out immediately. And the differences I feel are amazing.

I will not talk about the specifics, what I changed. I want to talk about how I deal with what happens in my life, how I deal with when darkness comes, when it gets difficult, because this is something you know too. And then, if you want, you can pick up some of the things I find helpful, and maybe they are helpful for you too. But what I discovered, for instance, nutrition-wise, for my body at the point where I'm at in my life, this is specific to my body. This is specific to my life.

For you, these things may be totally different. That's why I don't want to talk about these specifics, because they distract from the actual issue. And the actual issue is: when I'm close to myself, when I say "yes" to what happens with me inside, then I get the right impulses for all the other areas in life automatically. I don't have to worry about it. It will be like this for you too. If something has to change with your nutrition, you will get the right impulses. You don't have to hear these things from me.

So, during the last 8 days, which was so intense for me inside, I tried this new addition to my diet, and it is such a difference, as if something very basic and fundamental for my body has been changed. And this gave me a feeling for the magnitude of what's actually happening inside of me during these days. When darkness comes, big things are going to happen, good things. Usually, we want to say: "No. No. No. Leave me alone, darkness. I want light. I don't want pain. I don't want this." But when we allow it, big, basic things are going to happen.

And what I experienced nutrition-wise with my physical body, it's just one other sign for for what was going on inside of myself. What really is going on inside of us, on a soul level so to speak, we cannot know, and you don't have to know. But then, the experience changes on these mundane levels, like at work or with the body, with the nutrition, in practical life, and this gives us a feeling that basic things inside of us, things we cannot see, are being changed. These things happen by themselves, just by us saying "yes" to what's coming.

And what was really going on with me, I got a taste about this during meditation. Of course, I meditated also during these days, especially during these days, but I can't say "especially" because I meditate every day no matter what, I never make any exception. But 3 days ago, I had a dream, a dream I did not understand initially, a dream which I found very strange.

In that dream, I was living in a country at a time where it was dangerous to speak the truth and to give Satsang. In the dream, I experienced as if somebody suggested to me that I better stop with this, otherwise, bad things would happen. That's how it felt, but I couldn't stop. In the dream, I was as stubborn and as crazy as I am in real life, and so I continued. And in the dream, I continued to to do namaste, this gesture with the hands, and then they cut off my hands.

This sounds a little bit dramatic now when I speak about the dream, but maybe you know this from dreams: often in dreams, you see images, you experience things happening, but you are totally detached from it. There's no pain. There's no horror connected to it. You just see it like in a movie, and you think: "Oh, wow, Strange things happen". But they are not charged with emotion, and that's how the dream was. So, I was seeing what was happening, and I just didn't understand. And with this, I woke up early in the morning.

And then, as I do every morning, I sat down for meditation, and I meditated. And then, in the meditation, I remembered this dream, my hands being cut off, and then I understood.

I was sitting in meditation, and if you do the Samarpan Meditation yourself, you know how it is: you rest with your attention up here in the crown chakra, and it's just lovely. It's so helpful. But you know how it is: we are constantly being distracted, pulled away by our thoughts. There are these feelings. You sit in meditation, you don't do anything, but then you remember all the urgent things you didn't do yet, all the things you still have to do, and then there come thoughts about things you shouldn't forget. And that's how it is for me too, of course. So, I was sitting in meditation, and then these things came again: "Oh, I have to do this. Oh, I shouldn't forget this." And then I remembered: "I don't have any hands. I can't do anything, so I don't have to do anything. I don't have hands. I can't do anything."

And then I understood: this dream taught me how to be inside. This dream taught me how to meditate. This stream taught me how I should be as a being inside. I am not the body. I'm not somebody who is doing something. I'm not somebody who has to do things. I'm a soul.

A soul doesn't do anything.

A soul is a being, a beingness. God.

So, I was sitting in meditation, and these urgent things: "I have to do", especially after neglecting my work for 8 days straight, there's a pile of things which feel very urgent. Also now, that I do a video instead, but I can't help it. So, I was feeling this in meditation, and then I remembered: "I don't have hands. I can just meditate. I don't have hands. I don't I don't have to do anything." And this gave me such an amazing meditation, and I had the feeling that this is the direct outcome of these days I was now living through, the direct result of this encounter with my darkness and my pain: "I don't have to do anything, I'm just here". And everything happens by itself, work-wise, programming-wise, nutrition-wise, and in all other areas of life too.

And then, something amazing happened. I understood Jesus. If you know my videos, you know that I love to talk about Jesus occasionally, because during the last few years in my life, I began to understand what Jesus was really talking about. But, of course, there are also things I still don't understand. And there is one thing he said... I think he said it in the Sermon on the Mountain. I'm not sure, but I think that's where he said it. He said things that, up to this point, I never understood. He said, and I think it was in the context of where he spoke about lust and feeling lust for the woman of your neighbor... He said: "If your eyes give you trouble, it's better that you pull out your eyes, then you end up in hell."

He said: "If your hands give you trouble, it's better you cut off your hands, then you end up in hell because of that." And I never understood this. It sounded very drastic and very strange to me, but now I understood. I always tell you: Jesus was always talking about the inside. He didn't talk about practical life. He talked about how to be inside.

But when Jesus was living, there was no language for these inside things. There was not even the word "thought". When Jesus was speaking about thought, he used the word "devil". This voice inside of you, your thoughts, this is what Jesus called the devil.

And he taught us to put our attention to God, to our inside, but the word "inside" didn't exist at that time. Nobody knew about his own or her own inside.

He taught us to put our attention to God. He said: "The Kingdom of God is at Hand", and it really is. But there were no words for this, so he spoke in mundane language. There was no spiritual language at that time which normal people would understand, so he would say: "When you meditate, when your inner attention is resting inside, or when you are with God, or here, and your inner images distract you from this which is really important, then it's better to ignore these images. It's better to pull out your eye, to not look, than to neglect that one thing which is important in life: to look inside, to rest with your attention in the crown chakra or with God, whatever you want to call it.

He said: "If you are resting inside of yourself, if you meditate, if you're praying, if you're resting in God, but then these thoughts come that you have to do this and you have to do that, it's better you cut off your hands inside. It's better you to ignore this feeling of "I have to do this, I have to do that". It's better to ignore that, otherwise, you will end up in hell: you will lose the connection to your inside. He said: "If you are resting inside of yourself, if you're quiet, in peace, and happy, and then this inner voice comes, all these words in your head, it's better to cut off your tongue." It's better to ignore all these words which seem to be so reasonable and so important and so urgent. It's better to ignore all that and to return with your attention to the inside, to your prayer, to God, to meditation. That's what he was talking about.

And now I understand, because I experienced it in meditation, and this changed my meditation. And it changed me. Something changed. Some of this "I have too", some of that "Oh, this is urgent" has no grip on me anymore. Now I sit in meditation, and the thoughts come, the urgencies come, and I'm just sitting there. I have no hands. All this is not my business. The thoughts come. I don't have a tongue. These words have nothing to do with me. It is as if I experience now even more that actually, I'm a soul.

All these changes happen by themselves inside. They are gifts from God. And all we have to do for this is to say "yes" to ourselves, to our own darkness when it comes, to our own pain when it comes. I said in the beginning of this video: whenever I experienced times like this before, it was always a tremendous gift, also this time. That's why I'm speaking about it: to encourage you to say "yes" yourself too.

Usually, we don't want this. Humans always want light, happiness, We don't want anything to do with darkness and pain. And when somebody says: "Here, follow me. Look into the light. Be happy", everybody joins. A workshop for this is being sold out in no time. But when somebody says: "I invite you to meet your darkness", nobody comes. But when you run after the light, you end up in an illusion, in your own illusion. But when you are willing to meet the darkness, there you meet yourself. There you meet God.

And it's the same with patience. It has always been like this. It's not new that people want to be lied and that people want to be seduced by the liars, because we want it easy. We want the shortcut, but there are no shortcuts. Good things take time. But when somebody says: "Here, listen to me, you don't need all this. In one weekend, you will be free and happy forever", we believe it. We want to believe it, and we run after it. But the true things, they just take time. They're not difficult, but they take time.

There's a a quote from Carl Gustav Jung I stumbled over yesterday. I want to read it to you. He said: "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by becoming aware of the darkness."

And this is so true. We want to imagine figures of light, we love this stuff, but Enlightened we become by welcoming the darkness. I would put it into different words than Carl Gustav Jung did almost 100 years ago. At that time, it became fashionable to dig deep to find the darkness, to dig deep to find your pain, your childhood trauma, to look for it.

I don't think that this is good, and I don't think this this is even necessary. But when the pain comes visiting you by itself, when it's being triggered by your normal life, when the darkness comes to you by itself through what you experience in life, without looking for it, then welcoming it, then looking at it, then being with it, that's all that is needed. That's the way to enlightenment, Ho heaven. That's the way to your soul, to God, which is all the same.

So, you don't have to dig for problems. You don't have to dig deep in your psyche to find darkness and pain. This is not needed. What's needed is to be open to whatever wants to come to you now, and then, only those things come to you now which you are ready for, and then to just say "yes". Even when it feels difficult, even when it feels totally dark, you know: "This is the gift", and you say "yes". It's like this: the true difficulty... Usually, we shy away from these things. We think: "I can't do this. I can't handle this. This is impossible."

But in reality, the actual difficulty lies in saying "no". The difficulty is in imagining. As long as you're still imagining how it is to say "yes" to the darkness, it feels totally difficult. When you listen to me speaking about these things, and then you think: "Oh, I should do this. No. This is too difficult"... When you think about the pain, the pain is unbearable. When you think about the darkness, the darkness is impossible.... when you imagine it.

But once you say actually "yes", and once you actually encounter it, then it's easy. It's still a little bit painful. It's still a little bit dark. Yes. But it's easy. It's bearable. One doesn't have to do anything. It all takes care of itself just because we gave up our resistance and we say "yes". Everything flows. But as long as you imagine it, as long as you think about it, as as long as you're still thinking about "Should I say yes to it or better not? Can I handle it or not?"... When you are in this phase, it feels impossible. It feels totally painful. That's the only difficulty. Thinking about it, this is difficult. Imagining it, this is difficult. But the actual encounter with what's coming up in you is easy.

I experienced this countless times in my life, with all kinds of things, also the really heavy ones, also, trauma. The agony of trauma is in the saying "no". Once we begin to dare to say "yes", all the trouble dissolves.

At the end of this video, I want to quote another wonderful being, Rumi. Rumi said: "If there's only darkness around you, look closely. You might be the light."

I love this. Rumi has such an amazing ability to put the deepest things into few words.

It is like this: when you become light, when you become enlightened, when you start shining, everything around you becomes dark. This is nothing bad. This is normal. It's like when you are the sun: the sun is so bright, everything around the sun appears pitch black, absolutely dark, because the sun is brighter than anything else out there. Now when you are dark, when you are black hole, when you are dark, then everything around you, even the smallest light, appears bright to you. Like, when you are in a dark night looking at the sky, even the distant stars, they seem so bright, so beautiful.

And that's how we usually do it. We look into the world, and we want to find the the light. We want to find beauty. That's how we run around in life, that's how we run around in the world; looking for light and beauty out there. But you can only see the light and the beauty out there as long as you yourself are dark. Once you become illuminated, when you become light, when your own inner light starts to shine, you will notice that this is happening because you will be able to see more and more darkness.

As long as you're a dark yourself, you don't see the darkness.

But once you become bright, you see the darkness all around you more and more. This is a deep secret of life. This is what Rumi tells us. It's like in meditation. People write to me, and they say: "When I meditate, it's terrible. It's so loud around me. All these thoughts in my head." Yes, when you meditate, you plunge into your inner being, and there, it's totally quiet. And when you are in your inner quietness, your ability to perceive the noise around you, in your head, in your body, becomes more and more, and that's why it's a good sign. Your ability to perceive the noise of your thoughts is a good sign. It means: you become quiet. Your ability to see your own darkness, it's a good sign. It means: you become light. The lighter you become, the more you can see the darkness coming.

When you begin to be able to feel your pain, this is a good sign. It means: you start becoming whole, healthy. The person who is totally sick can't feel the sickness. But then you start becoming healthy, and then, for the first time, you begin to be able to feel the pain. And the more you can feel the pain, the more you can allow the darkness, the healthier you are actually, the brighter you are actually, and that's the truth.

And then, of course, after a while, you notice that what I perceive as darkness is not darkness actually. It's only God everywhere. But first, you have to make friends with the darkness in you and all the darkness you perceive around you. That's what Jesus said all the time: "Don't judge other people. Make friends with your own darkness. Make friends with the log in your eye. Don't pull out the splinter in the eye of your neighbor."

And the more you are able to love your own darkness, being able to see your own darkness, the more you will feel the goodness of it in you and around you.

That's why Swamiji, my Indian Guru, says that it's so important when you meditate to not judge your meditation, because you cannot judge your meditation by what you experience in it. When you become really quiet, you notice the noise so much more.

And that's the reason why in every of my videos, I want to encourage you to not go the way everybody goes: to search for the light, to reject the darkness. No. When the darkness comes to you, I encourage you, stop, turn towards the darkness, and say: "Yes, come. Come. Come." Don't analyze where it comes from. Don't analyze who triggered it. Don't be angry with the trigger. No, welcome the gift, welcome the darkness, welcome the pain, quietly, willingly, and with infinite patience. And, yes, I know it feels it will be like this forever, but you know this is not true. The more willing you are, the easier and the quicker it is.

And this is what I want to encourage you to.

When the darkness comes, say "yes". That's what I experienced once again during the last 8 days, and it has transformed me. I don't even know what happened, but I feel like a different person.

I don't know what happened, but it is good.

I'm so happy that you are here.

I love you.