The Sun at Midnight, a new book by mystical scholar Andrew Harvey, describes how he rebuilt his life, his faith, and his marriage after the split from his guru, Mother Meera. It's centered on the Christian concept of the "dark night of the soul," in which the false self must die so that the true self can be born. This mystery of annihilation is found in many religions throughout history, from the shamanism to Sufism. Often there is anger, despair, and a sense of abandonment by God. But, as Harvey relates, the dark night of the soul is the true passage to Christ-consciousness. You think that you are at your furthest from God, "but you are actually so close that you are blinded by His Glory and think it night."
COLLEEN O'CONNOR: St. John of the Cross said we must go through two deaths -- first the night of the senses, then the night of the soul. What is the difference between them?
ANDREW HARVEY: This first dark night purifies all of the senses so that they can become the vehicle of the inner divine self. This first dark night is extreme, but it's not as extreme as the second dark night. It's a purification that enables the ordinary senses to start registering the divine world. Through devotion, through meditation, through intense mystical practice, you start to see the divine light. At first it just flashes, and then when the process is complete, you have an overwhelming experience in which you see the entire creation as a manifestation of the light, and your consciousness is one with that. This is not enlightenment. This begins what is called the state of illumination. Although the senses are purified, and although they're able now to register the divinity of the world, the ego is still subtly present. So there has to be a second death on the path, which is the death of the personal identity.
One example I use in the book is a rose bush. If you imagine the growth of divine consciousness as being like the growth of a rose, then a cutting from the original rose would have to be placed in the earth. It has to be watered by prayer and by devotion and by meditation. It comes up out of the ground, it has to be protected. Then it grows thorns -- the thorns of discrimination and wisdom. Then it flings out branches and all the created powers come through -- mystical listening. Then, on those branches, buds appear, and those buds contain the potential of the rose because they're juicy with all kinds of recognition. But something else has to happen for the open rose to be created. The bud has to be broken. Jesus said if the grain does not die, then the corn will not spring up. If the bud isn't broken, the full rose will not open. That breaking of the bud is annihilation and crucifixion of the false self.
CO: Given the current economy and state of world affairs, many people feel they're undergoing some sort of dark night.
ANDREW HARVEY: The entire world is now going through a massive crucifixion on all levels. It's going through an environmental crucifixion -- hundreds of species are vanishing every month. It's going through a personal crucifixion. There are two billion people living on less than a dollar a day. It's going through a crucifixion of all the patriarchal systems -- look at Enron and what it has shown us about Corporate America. Look at the Catholic Churches' scandals of pedophilia and what it shows us about authority. Look at the growing disillusionment of politicians of all kinds. All of the systems are being exposed as illusory and as fantasy ridden -- as deeply corrupt and exploitative. There's another kind of crucifixion going on -- crucifixion of purpose and hope. Everybody is totally bewildered. They know that the world is potentially on the brink of total apocalypse. There's a tremendous danger that as people wake up to the horror of what is going on, they will run into political extremism or into fundamentalism of one kind or another. So it's extremely important that the wisdom of the dark night gets across because if people understand the necessity for this crucifixion, and understand that it's preparing the resurrection and the birth and an empowerment, then they will be prepared to go through it without fear -- or without too much fear -- trusting in the logic of the divine transformation.
CO: You write about your friendship with Bede Griffiths, who is one of my spiritual heroes. What was his experience of the dark night of the soul, and how was it connected to his devotion to the Black Madonna? In other words, is there a link between the dark night of the soul and the sacred feminine?
ANDREW HARVEY: There is absolutely a link. Bede gave me the clue in an amazing series of conversations that we had just before he died. I was lucky enough to be invited to make a film about him with an Australian film company, and spent two weeks talking to him about his life. One evening he shared with me his experience of the dark night, which came to him at the beginning of his 80s. He said that he was sitting outside his hut one day and he felt as if a hand hit him on the right side of his being. What he went through was a massive, massive heart attack that completely destroyed what he described as his patriarchal mind and introduced him to a holy, new reality. This gave him access to a much deeper elaboration of Oneness with all things. This is what Bede actually said, and I think it's worth quoting because it is so beautiful. He said, "It is a very strange thing, Andrew, but when I thought of surrendering to the Mother I naturally of course thought of Mary -- I often say the Hail Mary--but it was Mary as the Black Madonna that came into my mind. For me the Black Madonna is the mother of the earth as well as heaven, of the body as well as the soul, the mother of the subconscious, the hidden, of all those powers that the 'masculine' mind represses; the Mother of the sacred darkness. In Her the Western Christian vision of the Divine Mother and the Eastern one merge and meet; you can think of her as both Mary and Kali, both preserver and destroyer. From that time on, I have turned to Her again and again: invoking Her strength and grace, I find, makes the 'birth' go so much faster and more cleanly."
See, the power that is doing this to us is coming towards us simultaneously with terrifying destruction and extreme grace and prosperity. The destruction is, in fact, a form of that extreme grace. It's quite clear that humanity is now terminally ill, and can only be transfigured by a totally shocking revelation of its shadow side. And this is what we're living through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have done nothing but betray the sacred in us.
We have lacerated the sacred in others.
We have betrayed the sacred in an orgy of fundamentalism.
We have brutalized the sacred in nature.
We are now terminally destructive.
So only an almost terminal destruction that reveals to us the full extent of our responsibility in this destruction can wake us up. And that is what is happening, and it will get worse. It's bound to get worse. But it is only being done to us for our own redemption.
Those who turn to the Mother in total faith, those who turn to the Black Madonna in total admiration, those who realize the mercy behind the violence will be given extraordinary protection, extraordinary strength, and extraordinary revelation. They will be empowered in the core of themselves to become what everybody who has a heart and a mind must now become -- a spiritual revolutionary devoting their entire life and all their resources to the preservation of the planet. So, finding the Black Madonna, in whatever form you want to find her, realizing the massive task that she's doing and turning to her for protection is now crucial to the preservation of the planet. It's extremely important that people really come to understand the feminine and turn towards it, because it's our betrayal of the feminine in ourselves and in the divine that has led to this crisis.
CO: How does the dark night of the soul birth the full Christ-consciousness?
ANDREW HARVEY: It became clear through my personal crisis that the only real way to birth the living Christ is to love intensely another human being, to stand up fearlessly for the truth in the face of overwhelming violence and cruelty, to dedicate my whole life to the empowerment of others and to absolutely risk everything in the pursuit of a justice that transforms the divine. And if you can combine all of those things, then you are birthed into a holy, new way of being and acting. I'm certain that's how it happens for many, many people.
That's why I wrote this book. One of the key elements is the acceptance of the holiness of human love. One of the disastrous affects of the addiction to transcendence is that the body and its desires have been characterized as illusory and as dangerous. Bede gave me the great clue when he said to me, "Those who oppress sexuality get lost. Those who indulge sexuality get lost. The only way through is to consecrate sexuality, to offer it up as an expression of the divine to the divine." This is what I discovered in my sacred marriage to Eryk, and this is what the book is partly about -- the discovery of the tremendous, all-healing power of tantric love that fuses one's sexual, emotional and spiritual levels. Then slowly the two beings who experience that are born into the one fire presence of the living Christ. This is very crucial information.
CO: We've talked before about this topic, and you said that to commit to sacred marriage you're basically committing to an ordeal.
ANDREW HARVEY: Well, the true sacred marriage involves not only ecstasy and rapture but it also involves the embrace of the other person's shadow -- and the healing of each person's shadow through unconditional compassion and unconditional love. The eruption of the shadow in any relationship is frightening and requires infinite intelligence when dealing with it. That is very much a part of the sacred marriage. When you read the different books about tantric love it becomes sickening, because all they stress is the joy without any of the real, hard, harsh work. And that hard, harsh work is what transforms frivolity into total commitment.
CO: You believe that mainstream culture, particularly its New Age aspects, is in denial of the trials of the world -- the environmental, cultural and spiritual holocaust that's sort of a global dark night of the soul. But what happens to those of us who do wake up?
ANDREW HARVEY: I think there are three different stages. The first stage is that you wake up to real, deep, desperate horror. You wake up to the fact that none of the institutions that are supposed to be protecting us or leading us forward are, in fact, doing so. You wake up to the horrible bankruptcy of politics; the horrible bankruptcy of the churches and the mystical transmission systems; the horrible corruption of the media; the inertia and vanity and emptiness and folly of most of the so-called alternatives to all of those. And that first response is totally devastating.
CO: It seems to breed hopelessness. How do you avoid getting stuck there?
ANDREW HARVEY: That's why I wrote this book. Because if you dare to have that first experience, it makes you extremely lucid and extremely clear, and very, very determined to find a new path. That new path is what the divine will reveal to you, if you hang on to the skirt of the Beloved in total faith and total trust. What that new path reveals is a path of massive, direct connection to God. Everybody can have that connection within their own lives if they combine prayer and meditation and real service.
The second stage of the dark night of the soul will be an overwhelming awakening that will lead to the third stage -- a really radical, passionate and wild, intense, all-absorbing and all-devouring and all-consecrating commitment to do absolutely everything in your power to try and turn the situation around before it becomes terminal. Even after it becomes terminal, which it might, you stay committed to being someone who can really be a nurse at the world-wide hospital, really do some good even if the situation becomes so hopeless that there will be no hope to the saving of the world. You will, nevertheless, be able to be someone who watches over others as they go through this transition.
CO: Let's talk more about the second stage, which seems the most spiritually precarious. I've interviewed many people on the spiritual path, and some have reached a point where they feel abandoned by God. What should people do when they feel they've lost everything, including their connection to God? They can't really pray, much less go to church.
ANDREW HARVEY: Even when you can't meditate, you can still say the name of God in your heart. You can still say a mantra out loud. Even if you can't pray, you can actually say, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus in my heart," or "Mary, Mary, Mary," or whatever divine figure you turn to. You can still serve others, which is a form of meditation and prayer. I think it's absolutely essential to do as much as you possibly can to stay connected to the divine.
CO: You never lost the connection, even in your darkest moment? You never really seemed to feel abandoned by God.
ANDREW HARVEY: Well, it's more complex than that. I think the human side of me did feel totally abandoned by God, by everybody -- except for Eryk and a very few close friends. But the divine part never, ever lost contact -- because I had already done a huge amount of spiritual work. So I felt that at some level the human part wanted to die, but the divine part kept on hoping against hope.
CO: To me, the real blessing of your personal story is the realization that everyone who experiences the dark night of the soul is offered enormous divine guidance and protection at every stage.
ANDREW HARVEY: Well, it's a very, very dangerous transition. You can lose hope. But if you know the wisdom of the dark night, then you are looking out for protection. You're aware that through this terror, protection will be given. This is the universal testimony. They mystics have gone through this process. It's the testimony of Rumi. It's the testimony of the great shamans. It's the testimony of St. John of the Cross, and it's the testimony that I gave in this book. And it's, of course, the testimony of Bede Griffiths. You are given tremendous divine protection, because as the human is being destroyed, the divine consciousness comes up. So one side of you is being annihilated, but the other side is stronger than ever in the ashes. So great dreams will come and light will become more and more vibrant. The divinity of life will become more and more naked to you. Miracles will take place to protect you. To anybody who comes to this path, the divine is both extremely ferocious and extremely tender. Ferocious to destroy the illusions, but tender to give the human being the courage to hang in there and do the work.
