For the majority of my life, I’ve been told that darkness leads to death. I was raised to believe that darkness and light are synonymous with evil and good. I believe this stems from the judeo-christian idea that god is light; “in him is no darkness at all.” Despite the god of the bible regularly using darkness as a tool to accomplish his will, the book of Proverbs also says “the way of the wicked is like a deep darkness.” When indoctrinated in this dogma, or the ones twisted into American ideologies, it becomes easy to draw a conclusion that darkness, wickedness, and evil are the same. Within the past few years, I’ve questioned this mindset and have found a deeper truth for myself.
Darkness is a part of who we are. It’s something that allows us to see the world through a different lens. Understanding it’s intrinsic roots in us actually helps us grow as people. From my experience, attempting to cut out the darkness leads to delusion, and false piety. Attempting to live entirely on one side of either darkness or light will lead to an imbalance in our individual lives. To understand something, we have to know both sides. To command one side without knowledge of the other is tyranny. Life without darkness is corruption.
I believe we are spirit, mind, and body. These three components of our lives should be equally attended to for a healthy life. Maybe not always at the same time. Different seasons of our lives will lend to a different focus. It’s really up to the individual. We know what we need, and when we need it. We also need physical darkness in our lives. A third of our lives is spent sleeping, and 9 month is spent in a womb growing in darkness. Darkness has very practical benefits to our physical body. To say that our physical, mental, and spiritual worlds operate differently is baseless. So to dismiss mental and spiritual darkness as “evil” should, at the very least, be questioned. At most, should be experimented with and found individually.
There is a Hermetic principle called Polarity. It teaches that everything is connected on one pole (or maybe a ring).
“Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet” -The Kybalion
It’s saying that rather than being separate, darkness and light are more like two ends of the same pole—opposite, but connected. They feed into each other and allow the other to exist. This explains why one without the other leads to imbalance; why rejecting something that is a part of you leads to disingenuous living. I’m sure we all know people who live like this. They just don’t know how much they’re hurting themselves, and those around them.
This world isn’t black and white. Black and white are one, but there’s no telling when one becomes the other. Maybe I can’t guarantee that darkness and light aren’t synonymous with good and evil. I do believe that it’s something we should be experimenting with on our own, rather than taking the word of those who blindly push an archaic narrative they’ve been taught.
I believe humanity has the ability to tell right from wrong without the aid of an external deity. The people who tell you that “darkness leads to death,” or “darkness is a dead end,” typically have something to gain from our ignorance. Or, these people who continue to push the narratives are simply ignorant themselves. Question the motives of the people telling you this. Question me! Test out this theory for yourself. How do you define darkness? Do you feel uncomfortable with the idea that darkness is a part of you? Do you associate that darkness with evil? If so, challenge that idea. Where did it come from? Maybe darkness is something that we should all come to understand as a helpful part of our psyche. We’ll never know unless we take the time to find out for ourselves.
Embrace the darkness.
Josh T. Romero Lead Creep