I think we are undergoing a collective Dark Night of the Soul, though mileage may vary with each individual. This passage from a post about Meditations on the Tarot by Valentin Tomberg helped me to wrap my head around what is happening to me personally in the context of our collective suffering under the COVID banner:
…The esoterist chooses a different path. He makes his choice in total freedom and stands by it. Tomberg made this point in an earlier cycle of lectures published as Inner Development. First of all, with a “program” to follow, his path is plagued with uncertainties:
When we advance on the path of spiritual discipleship, we ourselves notice very little of this advance. Other people and higher beings notice it, but not we ourselves. We may be well aware of our mistakes and weaknesses, but it is not possible for us to know what we attain in the positive sense. Even the gods had to withdraw from their task and rest on the seventh day so that they could know that the world they had created was good. All the more so are human beings unable to say whether there is progress in their inner spiritual development. There is a sign, however, that does indicate this. It is the fact that one becomes inwardly ever more isolated. At first, one has many companions of the same disposition, awake to the same questions and concerns.
The esoterist then has no support from others, and especially not even visible support from above. This experience has been called the Dark Night, or facing the abyss, etc. Tomberg explains, presumably from his own experience:
Then one discovers with dismay that the circle of people interested in these questions becomes ever narrower. Finally, one finds that there are only two or three others who are still awake in this domain—the others are asleep. At some point a person makes this discovery. Then there comes a moment at which one finds oneself alone between sleeping humanity and the dark, silent heavens. During the hour of the greatest decisions, heaven is silent—that is a law. The spiritual beings do not want to impel a human being to any decision. As human beings, we must decide for ourselves, out of our freedom, everything that determines our destiny, our path. And one can say that this situation—which was experienced to a tremendous degree by Christ Jesus—must be suffered through in some form or other by everyone on the path of spiritual discipleship.
https://www.meditationsonthetarot.com/members-of-the-crew
further thoughts….
You might find Tomberg’s lectures on Inner Development a helpful book…I just rediscovered it (and then I read this passage, as if to drive it home for me yet again) it really spoke to me deeply at this time of great loneliness. It is amazing how the stages of Christ’s initiation can be mapped—the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the crucifixion, descending to hell, resurrection—Tomberg maps all these to the path we each must take. I have found it helpful to use this map to make sense of my own trials.The loneliness has become for me a sign that I am invited into a new realm of radical freedom—at first very scary freedom— where my allegiances to institutions, teachers, leaders, colleagues, friends, family have all to be questioned and laid aside if I want to stand by and live into the truth my soul is seeking. It is indeed a lonely place but for my own inner guidance telling me this has to be so, but I am also surrounded by divine Presence, my only comfort. This Presence I only detect by faith at times like these…there are few edifying comforts now.I am aware how precious the time is spent in the company of fellow seekers, and I am honored and humbled to be able to be a part of a small group studying such an important work on the Christian Hermetic path, Meditations on the Tarot. It has been my experience that the most profound work is done in these small groups where the well we dig goes deeper and deeper and we hold the lamp for each other as we dig.
