I think I’m a bit more optimistic than you – our growth can be easy as well as difficult in my experience. Though I do think that it is important to realise that we can learn from even the bad stuff.

I also agree wholeheartedly with you that ‘the dark parts’ don’t haunt us to possess but because we have ignored and disowned.

Thankyou for your very valuable comment.

As for the kind of soil we need to germinate our given seed.. this might also be quite different for each of us. Speaking from my own limited experiences I can say what appears to works for me.

For many years now I’m suffering from an inner conflict which goes back to my early childhood. What once started as a small ball of snow slowly grew into a monstruous avalanche of emotional upheaval some fifteen years later. Some dramatic events (in particular, a series of nightmarish dreams) were necessary to stop me from running away from it and to wake up from this unconscious journey to self-destruction. And so I began to search for answers by paying attention to my dreams by writing, interpreting, drawing and painting them.

Thus, I noticed that everytime I encountered a dream witch, monster or giant, I would run away from it. It was only later that it struck me how much these creatures depend on my fear for them for their very survival. One of my best experiences in this life were encounters with dream monsters in which I found the courage to stop running from them, to turn around so I could confront and hug them while saying how much I really loved them. With no exception they grew to normal size and had normal looks again. This way it became possible to engage in fascinating conversations with these rejected parts of my personality.

In the end I realized that the unfolding of the soul I was given can only happen if I suffer inwardly. If I show compassion or tolerance towards other people, it was mainly because I had to learn how to be compassionate and tolerant towards the darkness I had to confront within myself. The empathy I sometimes feel for people is mainly the result of a long and painful inner confrontation. I could not cultivate empathy, compassion or tolerance if I did not experience those virtues towards my-self. And I could only experience them within myself if I acknowledged both the good ánd the dark side of myself.

I believe Man is made out of light ánd darkness. A seed is placed in good soil when it accepts its inner and outer darkness. A seed needs both light and darkness to grow to a bright flower. For me, the key doesn’t lie in striving after perfection (“utter goodness is the goal!”), but in realizing the still unwrapped wholeness of my center. My inner darkness once threatened to shatter me exactly because I didn’t recognize its existence. People tend to think that if you open up towards your Shadow and your imperfections, it will overpower you. However, if you retain a healthy self-criticism towards your actions, nothing can be further from the truth. The inner darkness did not haunt me to possess me; rather, it haunted me because I have neglected this vital part of me. The resulting pain is only painful for the ego, but it’s an agent of healing for the soul, just as long as one looks beyond its outer shell.

The doors of Heaven can only be found by crawling through the dark passages of Hell..

Imo :-)

Nowadays we like to walk the known paths, because it feels so much safer, but I feel that genuine spirituality is an authentic expression of the unique soul each one of us was given. This requires courage to face our own fears of the Great Unknown, our innate imperfect nature, and a persistent hope, trust and faith in something greater and deeper than us that everything will be alright eventually.

God sowed us as little seeds in a verdant valley. We were all given the burning essence of the same flower species, called “human”, still unfolded in its seed coat. But it remains up to each one of us to let this precious seed germinate within the dark, fertile soil of the Earth, so it can grow to become the unique flower each one of us truly is.

Perhaps that’s why it’s so difficult to find a common language. Every attempt to do so would result in a dramatic devaluation of the authenticity of each individual experience. At best we could try to make generalizations about the inner topography of the human soul (as for instance Jung tried to do); just as each one of us has the same physical organs, so we all might share more of less the same soul structures, which form the collective framework for our individual experiences.

I feel spirituality is indeed a -highly individual- experience. Perhaps the only thing we might do regarding the relation between different lives/spiritual experiences, is to cultivate a deep, natural sense of Human Virtues to accept other people’s experiences truly as they are, without trying to judge or explain them from our own, wholly different perspective. Even though the paths of two people are utterly different at their core, they might be able to understand each other to an astonishing degree when they have developed a high level of self-relativism, and a deep humility and receptivity towards the other person.

in other words, “hey, why am i doing this, this doesn’t have anything to do with me!” then when one notices that other people have a similar experience, the more general general question arises, “why are WE doing this?”

however, the real culprit, in my opinion, is not a GENERAL lack of meaning or purpose (“what is life all about?”), it’s a SPECIFIC lack of meaning/purpose (“why am i/are we doing this nonsense?”). and as you say, often the reason is quite clear (“to pass the exam”). the “why” is then often used out of fear because the next question really should be, “do i really want to do this? what are the consequences of stopping or continuing?” again, those would be questions that look at and lead to experience, rather than explanation. and experiences typically look more scary than explanations.

which goes for spirituality, too. it’s much safer to read books about buddhism than to practice it :)