The Darkness in the Temple

[Leila Raven]

Somehow my original post got deleted, so this is a re-post, unfortunately I had to make it less detailed than the original. It's also going to be a lot less fluid and with more typos... lol. But there you have it. Same basic concepts getting conveyed.. it's essentially a copy of a letter I sent to a friend here.

 

There are dark elements here, yes. There are people who identify with what are traditionally thought of by many as 'evil' or 'negative' forces. People who identify as satanists, people who are attracted to the dark.

There are all kinds of people here...

I believe you cannot be practicing as a 'light' worker... if you are not willing to bring light into dark places, or invite darkness to share in your light... If you judge, alienate, and assume people who identify with some form of darkness or concepts of 'evil' are all so horrible and evil people through and through, with no light or divine spark within them, that you cannot risk even coming in contact with them online to ask them questions or interact with them... you can never hope to increase the light quotient in the world...

Very few of these people consider themselves evil/bad people, most of them are good people who are interested in exploring their dark side and the general dark side of human life. Those who do think of themselves as dark or evil are often people who have lived lives of hardship and abuse, and have been brainwashed into thinking they have no other options in life, but to believe they are bad. I do not close the doors of the Temple to these people. I invite them in and encourage them to share what is good in themselves. I focus on the message that they, and all people, are a reflection of the divine.

In my mind, there are no bad people. There are people who have some negative aspects to them. There are people who do bad things. There are damaged people, but this is nature. Just like I'm an animal lover and there are no bad dogs... there may be dogs that have been poorly raised and abused that lash out, there may be dogs that are brain damaged and vicious by nature.. but they are not 'evil' I see people much the same way. Even if there are potentially truly through and through evil people... I believe anything is possible, I don't believe that trying to shut them out is the way to deal with them in our world... the reality is we ARE all in this together, and until we learn to but judgements and assumptions aside about what labels mean, we cannot move on as a peaceful world.

Some people think Wiccans and Mediums are 'evil' and are working with dark forces. Then there are people who call themselves Satanists and say they embrace the 'dark', and people think they are 'evil'. The truth is, if you talk to these people, you will see that they don't see the darkness in life as necessarily 'evil', they don't identify Satan as 'bad'... people are making assumptions about what it means for someone else to be a Wiccan, or what it means for someone to be Medium, or a shaman, or a voodist, or a conjure worker, or a Satanist. Instead of asking that person what it means to them... Sometimes things that look 'scary' on the outside are just because we've been so programmed to fear people who think differently or who identify with counter-culture.

I don't understand people who say they are lightworkers... and are all about love and light... except for 'those' people... the people they judge unworthy of love and light and choose to see as somehow enemies of light... I say light and love has no enemies.. To me judging others as 'unworthy' is not an act of light and love... but directly out of the darkness of fear.

When we act from fear... we are acting from a dark place, when we act from love we are not. We may use the language of light to justify our negative judgments of those who use the language of dark...however I've found people who say they are 'light' and have done far more evil, negative and harmful things than many people I've found who say they identify with the 'dark'... I'm more concerned with getting to know whole people.. who I believe embrace the whole spectrum, that we are all capable of light and dark... I spend less time worrying about whether others actions are dark and try to focus on minding my own...

Live in Love

Leila

[Leila Raven]

Prajna Shiva Kalidasa, What a wonderful story, thanks so much for sharing it.

It's amazing what an impact people who are living authentically through their path can inspire.

Lady Silver Moon, absolutely.. we cannot divorce creation from destruction.

[Leila Raven]

Greeneyed Witch, very well expressed, thank you.

One of the biggest darknesses people face and carry within them is their own fear around 'darkness', particularly that which may be within.

When I think about the process of 'enlightenment' bringing what is in darkness into the light. It is ironic that so many people that profess to be 'light-workers' have a great deal of fear and/or even hatred toward what is perceived as 'darkness'. How they are ever to bring light into such places when they are so entrenched in the darkness of their own fears and judgements I don't know.

I have seen people insist they are all 'light' and good and on the side of light, righteousness and all that is good, yet express the sentiment that the only way to have a 'light' and good world is to literally 'eliminate' those they consider 'dark-hats'... spiritual genocide?

The only way to bring light into the darkness is to confront any darkness within self, to soul search and work on our own fears, our own prejudices and judgements, are own hates and insecurities. We can only change the world by changing ourselves, and providing support and encouragement for others to do the same.

You do incredibly valuable and powerful work. I believe strongly in what you do.

[Leila Raven]

It's good to see people out of dualistic thinking. So many people are trapped into a learned system of perceiving and relating to the world. Placing people in either or boxes. 'Good' or 'Bad', 'Us' or 'Them'. etc. The reality is people don't fit into little boxes, we're infinite beings who do things that depending on the context and situation may be 'good' for some people or may be 'bad' for some people, or may be things you can identify with, or things you cannot at all relate to... but people are not static labels. 

I wrote that as a status earlier today, that if you want to know people, you can't do it by looking at and taking on their 'labels', you have to do the opposite and look past the labels and discover the person shrouded beneath them.

[Leila Raven]

Stuart, absolutely. There is a lot of communication and connection that goes on energetically all the time that we are not consciously aware of because it transcends our ability to consciously define.

I believe love is a gateway to deepening our energetic connection and awareness because this is one 'state/emotion' we are taught to recognize and accept, even though we are not well able to define it logically. It bridges the modern mind between the worlds of logical understanding and connection to the divine.

When we allow ourselves to 'feel' the subtle energies of love and other aspects of the infinite divine within, and experience it and understanding it not through the limitations of mind, but through our very being, for we are a part of it. Like a cell in a body, the cell does not understand the body, or what goes on in the mind, but it knows how to be a cell and how to do it's job, and knows the body and the mind, not by consciously grasping what mind knows and is, but simply because it is a part of the whole. We are a part of the infinite divine, we cannot know it through mind, but we can know it through being.

It would be a much better world if we focused on teaching our children what was really important to do. If I were ridiculously wealthy, creating a 'school' and a method of teaching and school program would be an amazing thing to create... Children raised with meditation, yoga, and martial arts, rewarded for co-operation instead of competition. Empowered creative free thinkers. The powers that be probably wouldn't let it be built. They'd probably be terrified of the liberated thought being spread. Kids taught to overcome anxiety with relaxation/meditation techniques and able to recognize their own brain wave states through bio-feedback training, would be very hard to control through the commonly used media elements of fear and trance states.

This could be such a very different world...

[Leila Raven]

Teri thanks so very much for sharing all of that with me. :)

For myself I embrace the full spectrum.. I see the duality of light and dark and contrasts, but I also see them as a unified whole with no light or dark.. I find the way I see things and their depth of paradox very challenging to put into words, our conceptualization is currently inaccurate I feel. 

One thing I've come to believe is that we do ourselves a grave disservice whenever we think we can hold a large infinite divine truth as a conceptualized symbolized thought in our brains. Our brains are small, our thoughts and language even smaller, and when compared to some of the things we are attempting to define and understand, the 'computer' part of the human is simply not equipped, and if we accept the limitations of what we alone can perceive as some entire 'truth'... we are lying to ourselves.

It is when we are willing to surrender to how little we 'know' and accept that the infinite divine universe is in it's whole a 'wiser' entity than our own finite segment of it, we allow ourselves to simply be a part of it, and in doing so reach a whole different level of 'knowing' one that does not originate from the mind, and is not bound by our limited language based conscious thoughts, but that comes from whole being... when we experience this 'knowing'... we simply 'feel' it, we simply 'know'.

When we allow ourselves to tune into these things and trust in the self... the whole self, over the limited mind, especially a mind that is being manipulated by fear tactics by groups of power holding individuals that would prefer to keep us conflicted and compliant. We connect the most deeply to the divine in all things.

Anyways, off and rambling again, have a busy mind today.

[Leila Raven]

Very much appreciate and enjoy all of your heartfelt and insightful comments... I did too much typing yesterday, so instead of replying individually need to keep it to a group reply! LOL.

[Leila Raven]

Really appreciating all the great and thoughtful comments, many of them would make their own great stand alone blogs. Thanks for sharing personal insights and experiences.

[Leila Raven]

Thanks for feedback all... it's a subject passionate to me a big basis of what this site is about.. bringing diverse groups of people who often have assumptions about one another together, so everyone stretches and grows...

I'm sure I'll keep saying it over and over again many times in many ways.. *smile*

Nicole, I believe and many psychologists do, that when you deny or suppress an aspect of yourself and of your human nature, it can often dwell in a part of the psyche largely occupied by the non-conscious mind. What happens then is often instead of us being in conscious control of those aspects of ourselves, they will come out without our conscious control... and may come out through outbursts, lashing out, fear, anger, pain, anxiety, nightmares, depression, illness, etc, etc, etc... If we deny the darkness within self, and in others, we don't do any positive service to anyone. 

Often it's because we are afraid that if we allow ourselves to explore dark ideas and feelings and thoughts, that we will somehow turn 'bad and evil'... it doesn't work that way, exploring the shadows within self does not deepen those shadows.. it brings light to them, it literally brings awareness to them, and often dispells them in self.

SO many of the horrible things people do are born out of the very efforts to repress them in a way that does not work through them, but tries to deny or banish them.

Usually with these people it really is the darkness within that they fear... and often because it is a big unknown to them. We're also in a society that thrives on fear mongering as a method of manipulating and controlling, instead of approaching things rationally and from a place of strength, confidence and love, people are taken down to a base place of operating out of fear and suspicion. They don't need to be ostracized for it, being judgemental of the judgemental people doesn't help much either... lol, and it just serves to enforce their beliefs.and create sides/factions.

[Leila Raven]

Thanks all, sorry the original which was better went and vanished.. lol.

Aaron, I think it's challenging for people to understand those of us that wish to explore areas of our culture most have fear around, and play and explore that darkness that is within the human psyche. They don't grasp that people exploring these concepts are often doing so out of the desire to banish the real demons they seen in the world and dispel those demons of illusion. Instead they are only blinded by the fear they've been taught and almost seem to feel that they may be somehow 'contaminated' by those who are willing to challenge and explore mainstream concepts.

The opposite happens as well, people from darker subcultures often take great issue with those who have a very light and rainbows and positivity all the way mindset... they also often have negative assumptions that are based on their own biases.

I think what's important is for people to try to challenge any and all 'assumptions' they have and instead deal as much as possible with their genuine experiences. We base so much on what we've been led to believe by our own subcultures, families, peers, churches, schools, etc, etc, etc... instead of taking the time to assess things for self. To listen to what is -really- happening inside of us and with the people around us, instead of jumping to often negative conclusions.

It can be hard to challenge our assumptions, very hard, it's always so much easier to see other peoples prejudices, we are almost always uniquely blind to our own, and we all have them... we all have our own subjective view of the world around us.