ARTICLE

Seeing Through the Dark

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The spiritual path is not about what "makes you happy." It's about committing to become fully honest; to doing what's right for your community, and doing what's right for your body.

By Caroline Myss


When I was a kid, I would do readings on houses. When we were driving around I would say to my mom, “You know what that house looks like inside? The people in there are happy, and the people in that house are not happy.”

When I was 13, I stopped by my uncle's grocery store after school one day. I saw a man named Elmer, whose wife worked at the register. I said, “Elmer is going to die, Mom.” She said, “He’s not sick.” I said, “I feel it.” He committed suicide six weeks later. When my mom asked me, “How did you know?” I said, “He felt cold to me.” That made me start taking my ability seriously.

In 1984, when I met my best friend and companion, neurosurgeon Norm Shealy, he took an interest in that ability. We started doing readingswith his patients, and my skill matured. Then it became a window for me, and I started to look through that window at human nature. I would think, “Why don't people want to heal?”

On Telling the Truth

One reason we don't heal, and why we've gone so dark as a society, is because we've become dishonest. In fact, the truth is so rare that we have a special name for someone who speaks it: a “whistleblower.” And we call them a criminal. What does that tell you about our society? That's what it is to be in league with darkness—when truth becomes the enemy.

People do not recognize what a formidable opponent this darkness is—they dismiss it as if it doesn't exist because they don't want it to. But a person will not heal unless they stop and admit, “I am in league with darkness. I can't get out of this without help. I am not strong enough to give my word and keep it.”

We've also decided there are no consequences for our actions. So how can you expect the government to have consequences if you don't have any of your own?

On Intuition and the Spiritual Path

The flip side of being in league with the darkness is that you don't trust the light. If light doesn't produce the consequences that you want, and darkness does, you go with that because it works for you. 

To trust the light you need to be honest with yourself and with others, and you need to let others be honest with you. That’s what the spiritual path is really about—it’s the interior devotion to self-knowledge. It's not about what "makes you happy." You commit to becoming fully honest; to doing what's right for the people you live with and for your community; and to doing what's right for your body. So when your body says, “Don’t eat this,” you stop. If you tell your body you're going take it out for a walk, you do it. Because if you can't be honest with your body, you’re not going to be honest with anybody else.

On Love and Relationships

Love is divine power. But I’m not referring to personal love—which is here today, gone tomorrow. Not the one that says, "If you make me happy, I'll still love you. If you don't make me happy, it's over.” That kind of love has no power.

I’m referring to the capacity of greater-than-thou-love, in which you love beyond yourself. Where you see someone who is suffering and you realize their wrapping is too tight—their burden too heavy for them to carry. Then you start seeing humanity the same way—you start looking through divine eyes and see everybody impersonally and personally, simultaneously. That's how you begin to access love as divine power.

At the level of personal relationships this way of looking changes everything, because you stop looking at everybody as though you are the center of their universe. You're not. 

The way to love your partner or friends deeply and fully is to say, from the get-go, "You will never be the center of my universe, and I cannot be the center of yours. So let's not engage in that delusion. My role as your partner or friend—as your witness in life—is to help you become fully aware of who you are. And your role is to help me become everything I can be, too."

That's how we evolve.