When Light is Dark

A Great and Wonderful Yogi Living Master : Sadhguru

The idea of this article comes from a video of Sadhguru entiteled "Enlightenment or Endarkenment? Which is Right?"  This video reminded me of an Osho discourse  about Darkness and Light. It also reminded me a documentary about the Sun and suggested to me an analogy between the Photon journey from the core of the Sun and a Human Being journey in this Life. Enjoy the reading and the videos !

1- Invisible Light

In this video, the amazing Yogi and Living Master, Sadhguru explains that Enlightenment or any other word is just a signpost used to indicate which cannot be described by any word from this world. Sadhguru talks about light which remains invisible unless it is reflected by something. In fact photons, the little particles of energy, transporting what we call light, are simply invisible ... unless they hit an object. This object can be either your eye if you’re looking at the source of the photon; or it can be any material object reflecting the photons. The photon materialize itself for the eye when it hits an object, otherwise it is invisible.

The astronauts in the outer space far from the atmosphere are in complete darkness even when the sun is shining. The absence of the air and little particles of dust in suspension in it, they can't see sun's rays. So in the outer space there is no light. It's absolute darkness, despite trillions of photons and other energetic particles are traveling from every where ! It's an amazing thing that light and darkness are so entangled ! In the absence of any object, light is not distinguished from Darkness, it melts with it.

In a beautiful discourse, Osho talked about Darkness as  "The Substance Existence is Made Of". Not only Light is dark but "Darkness is a Deeper Phenomenon than Light" said Osho. Light goes on and off, but Darkness is always there. Light has some source generating it, but Darkness is Eternal. Sadhguru continued in the same manner: Light has the biggest speed known in this world, but still has a limited speed and needs time to travel from point A to point B. But Darkness is every where.

Composition of the Universe upon NASA WMAP probe

In fact Darkness is the symbol of the unknown for humanity. In Science we call “Black hole” this phenomenon we try to understand and still blows up our physics equations. In Cosmology, Scientists are talking about Dark Matter and Dark Energy. In this NASA website, the latest measurements of WMAP probe demonstrate that only 4.6% of the stuff making the Universe is made of Atoms. 24% is Dark Matter, which is an unknown form of matter. Without considering it; all the Structures in the Universe like Galaxies will collapse. 71.4% is Dark Energy, which is an unknown form of energy. This energy is a kind of anti-gravity that goes on expanding the whole Universe.

Light is the source of all kind of Life we know on Earth. Without solar rays, it’s impossible for Life to be born and grow up on Earth. And if the Sun disappears, all forms of Life on Earth will die. But Darkness seems to be the womb of the Light, the matrix where Life can take place. Without Darkness, nothing can ever take place …

2- The Photon's Journey and The Seeker's Path

In this Documentary entitled "Journey From The Center of the Sun", the journey of photons born in the core of the Sun is described. Generated from nuclear reactions, photons are produced as high energetic Gamma Rays. They leave Sun’s Core at light speed but are immediately faced with very dense and chaotic upper layers of the Sun. The photons bounce here and there, are absorbed by this atom and then ejected to be caught by the other atom and so on. At each absorption/ejection a part of its energy is absorbed until it attains the Sun surface as a low level energy photon we called Visible Light. This journey between the generation at Sun’s Core and Liberation at the surface of the Sun could take thousands of years and even a billion years ! After that the photon can head towards a planet of solar system  or travel across the entire universe and melt with it!

When I saw this documentary for the first time, tears came to my eyes and I started crying like a child. I didn’t realize then why this journey of photons touched so deep my heart. Now I can see the parallel I can make with human Consciousness journey in this Life.

The real self of a human being is his Consciousness, his Awareness. We can’t define it or grasp it but we can make an analogy with the photon, the Particle of Light. 

• Like the photon, our Consciousness travels and hits various kind of Life forms, from the more dense, like the rocks to the more subtle like human being body and mind. 
• Like the photon, it can be a very long journey from the dense core of the Sun before the liberation at the surface of our home star. The same with our Consciousness, it evolves from the extra dense to the ultra subtle before it realizes its Liberation, its Enlightenment. 
• Like the photon, our journey seems to be an endless and chaotic journey, but in fact it is pulled with an invisible force towards the surface, towards the Liberation. 
• Like the photon which is absorbed by atoms before its ejection, our consciousness is absorbed by various kind of Life until the last and most evolved form of Life, the human being. During this temporary merging with Life forms, we can lose ourselves and be identified with the temporary form, but we should know that our Consciousness is eternal, unbound and aiming to its ultimate merging with the entire Universe.

Of course this analogy with Light or Photon is just a metaphor. Let's not seek any truth in it. Truth is to be searched deep inside each one of us. Without any preconceived idea. The entire Universe is reflected within us. Just let's close our eyes, relax our body and mind. Then wait.  Let's our Consciousness accommodate with Emptiness. Let's our inner eyes accommodate with Darkness, the Source of all what is.