The Dark Night of the Soul

A personal rendition (regarding the absence and annihilation of the self) of St. John of the Cross’s writing of the same name, modernized.

 The Dark Night of the Soul begins on a dark and starry night, as dark gray nimbostratus clouds uncover the moon as they pass across the sky, and as the trees sway from the cold breeze, all around is the descension of autumn leaves. Meanwhile, underneath the shadow of the Earth, beneath the moon’s light, one of the universe’s many disguises, a human being, dies. And as death arises, and he breathes his last breath, the stars align, and everything he once knew disintegrates before his very eyes. And as the expansion of the universe exponentially accelerates, and dark energy envelops all of the stars escaping light, his heart beats one final time, as he is existentially burned alive. His soul is spiritually crucified, as he experiences what it is like, to no longer live, but instead become death, alive.

 

 The universe then merges back into it’s true selfless state, and as his soul ends, the universe within him begins, and as it transcends into the dark matter and energy, the emptiness, silence, and darkness that make up nearly the entire universe, he becomes one with each star of light, he then becomes the universe, he then becomes one with the darkness of the night.

 

 In an instant, everything turns back into what it once was before, and as no time elapses, the universe returns to its original form, as he is reborn. It is now that he rises, a human with a separate, individual being no more, he is now completely depersonalized, having seen no identity or self inside him, he is now, nobody, to the very essence of his core. And as he looks at his hands, he questions whether he is actually living and alive, because to him now, they are no longer his, as is everything he once called “mine”. He now realizes that everything he’s ever loved, hoped and dreamed, or ever feared, hated and believed, has never been and never will be his, and can never truly belong to anybody. He now sees with his own eyes, the impermanent, fleeting nature to life.

 

 No longer being himself, he now feels nothing, as he breathes out the cold air, and looks up at the night sky, where he sees his only reflection, the dark, starry night. For the first time in life, he fully understands the nothingness that’s inside, the emptiness of his soul, where a self once used to reside. For once and for all, he finally sees that deep within his blood, inside his veins, intertwined within his very cosmic DNA, exists an abyss of nothingness, a vast empty sea. That is the same as the one that permeates across every edge of the entire universe, throughout and in between every single star, black hole, supernova, nebula, and galaxy.

 

 From now, until the day he returns to the dark, infinite interstellar sky, all he sees when he closes his eyes is the dark night, when he discovered he is nobody, and became everything, everywhere, all at one time.