Darkness Exists Only Because of Light
Darkness is not so much the opposite of light as its companion; neither one could exist without the other. The same holds for your bright and dark moments, your peace and your suffering. When darkness comes, it helps to remember that it is only here because light is real.
Look at how opposites actually work and you find they lean on each other completely. Black would not be black if there were no white to set it against; the very meaning of the one is borrowed from the other. Silence gives sound its shape, and a birdsong is only heard because of the quiet around it. Nothing stands alone. Everything lives in exchange with what surrounds it, and nothing can be named without its opposite standing somewhere nearby. To grasp this is to stop treating the dark half of life as a mistake that should not be happening.
There is a story of a worn and ill-tempered warrior who came to a holy man and demanded to be told the difference between Heaven and Hell. The holy man answered with contempt, mocking him, calling him a failure unfit to hold a sword, until the warrior, beside himself with rage, drew his sword to strike the old man down. With the blade raised over him, the holy man looked up calmly and said, this is Hell. The warrior froze, understanding, and lowered the blade in shame and relief. And this, the holy man said gently, is Heaven. The same moment, the same two men, the same small patch of ground. Only the state within had changed, and with it, everything.
An old verse says the same thing: under the raised sword lies Hell to make you tremble, but step forward through it and there is bliss on the other side. Every difficulty is like that sword. It bears down on you, and it also opens a way through, if you look for the opening instead of only the blade. The darkness is not as solid as it seems. Look straight into it, without flinching and without filling it with frightened thoughts, and you often find it is mostly empty, and that the emptiness holds a quiet light of its own.
This is the practical heart of it. When night falls, whether the literal night or the dark that comes over the heart, the instinct is to pour thinking into it, to explain and rehearse and defend. But darkness is only emptiness, and it does not need your commentary to be survived. Let it be, and let yourself exhale. Simply being aware of the dark, without adding to it, is what shows you the opening the fear was hiding.
Anyone who has lain awake through a long anxious night knows how huge the dark thoughts grow in the small hours, and how the first grey light at the window shrinks them back down to their true size. The light was never actually far away. Meet your darkest feelings the way you would meet the night itself, remembering that morning is already on its way. And whatever you do, never act from the worst of what rises in you. The warrior's sword, swung in darkness, would only have made more darkness. Waiting for the light is what showed him the way through.
Questions that arise
Why do good and bad seem to depend on each other?
Because opposites define one another; each takes its meaning from the other. Light gives darkness its name, silence gives sound its shape. Seen this way, the difficult side of life is not an error but the other half of one whole.
How do I sit with my darkest emotions?
By letting them be present without drowning them in frightened thinking, and by exhaling rather than bracing. Look directly at the feeling instead of the story around it, and you often find it is emptier and more passing than it seemed.
What does it mean that Heaven and Hell are within me?
It means they are states of being rather than places, and the same moment can be either one depending on what is happening inside you. The warrior found both within seconds, on the same ground, because only his inner state had changed.
Isn't it dangerous to just accept darkness?
Accepting darkness is not the same as acting on it. You let the feeling be, but you do not act on its worst impulses. Acting from darkness breeds more of it, while awareness reveals the opening that leads through.
This is a gentle contemplation, not clinical advice. If your darker feelings become overwhelming or lasting, please reach out to a trusted person or a professional who can help you carry them.
Where this came from
The warrior and the holy man are a story Old Man tells in my novel The Sound of the Bells, in the chapter called The Dusk, as the sun goes down over the coconut tree grove. Michael has just admitted there is still resistance in him. Old Man answers with the story, and then with one line: accept your Hell, and you will remember Heaven. The saying about the raised sword is the one he quotes after it.
The novel runs about 130 pages and costs €7. If you read one of my books, read that one first. The rest are at jussiniittyviita.com.