Surrendering to the beauty in the world helps us move through difficult times and beyond the dark night of the soul.

“Look for the beauty in the world – what do you see?”
– Masiandia

Surrendering to the beauty in the world is a compassionate gift to ourselves, the cells of our body and to one another, and the earth itself.

Many years ago, I received a steady message from Masiandia repeated over and over. “See the beauty, Linda!”

At the time, I was frustrated and moving through what I now know was a night of the soul, an ego death, as some mystics call it. Surrendering the mind – the limited and conditioned beliefs – must happen so that the soul can be reawakened. 

Masiandia’s constant message about beauty was an invitation to be reborn to a higher, spiritually aligned consciousness, to see and sense with compassion towards myself and others.

However, at that time, seeing the beauty was no small task. What I saw instead was my own despair locked in on what wasn’t working in my life. The sacred beauty in all that exists was far from my sight.

It took me a long time to realize that there IS beauty in absolutely everything, even in my intense anger at the time. I felt beneath it a deep hurt that was raw, lonely, and let down. Under it all, I let my hungry heart soften and the intensity of my feelings flow through me like a river. In my hurt, raw and open state, I found peace.

Reflecting on this period, I recognize our humanity is going through a similar shift.

The coronavirus pandemic is a time of chaos moving us towards collective renewal and we’re bridging this unknown together.

Often world changes, disease, and suffering will feel like a spiritual crisis, despite it actually bringing us closer to divinity. It’s an impossible journey to escape from. A dark night demands complete release of the old and surrendering to the newness to come. 

Though the chaos is uncomfortable, we’re bridging this unknown together. Our once familiar perceptions of reality as a collective are shifting to integrate new awareness. To embrace our true wholeness, we must surrender further than we ever have before.

Eckhart Tolle refers to the dark night of the soul as a term used to describe a deep sense of meaninglessness. “The inner state in some cases is very close to what is conventionally called depression. Nothing makes sense anymore, there’s no purpose to anything.” … “The meaning that you had given your life, your activities, your achievements, where you are going, what is considered important, for some reason collapses.” … “Really, what has collapsed then is the whole conceptual framework for your life, the meaning that your mind had given it.”

If you’re on the path of spiritual growth, you will inevitably meet times of great uncertainty as you move forward with little to familiarize yourself with. 

As Bethany from North Point shares, “The Dark Night of The Soul is a paradox in its truest form”. Her article gives voice to what so many have been left to struggle with alone. “You have to embrace the darkness to find the Light. You have to die to self so you can truly live. You have to experience great loss so you can gain everything. You have to lose your way so that you can begin to walk your true path. You must abandon yourself to find yourself.”

Bethany also writes, “In a sense, the darkness is a void (or symbolic womb) from which you will be reborn to a higher, more spiritually aligned consciousness – a new self.

Your new self – your wholeness – already exists, has always existed.

What we learn through these Dark Nights is that our being, both spiritual and human in nature are already divinely united. The capacity to love the full expression of who we are is present even when our conditioned meaning of life collapses around us. What follows is the gift, and enough space to allow a new way of being to unfold free of our former expectations.

We are more than the mind, more than our linear perception of reality. 

For life to have meaning again, everything we had built around our conceptual sense of reality must be surrendered. When we let go of making sense of it all, we cease needing to explain, defend, or justify our experiences, needs, and wants. We breathe, we let in, we allow.

Then we can see and sense with greater awareness, not because we’ve become identified with having to see and sense with greater awareness. There’s no effort. There’s no pressure. There’s beauty.

Seeing and surrendering to the beauty in anger for instance doesn’t make sense in a world where anger is deemed bad and ugly. How can we fall in love with intense emotions when our mindset has been shaped around its rejection? We let go of the mindset. 

“Look for the beauty” really means “Surrender!”

Surrendering to the beauty in the world is our greatest superpower; it opens us to the light of who we truly are – to our soul-essence.

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Yearning for spiritual guidance – for the light of who you are?

Read Mystical Intimacy.
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Featured images by Gerd Altmann