Category: Participants’ experiences

The dark retreat was very beneficial and enriching for me. I didn’t find the darkness frightening at all, and I was glad I didn’t need to go back into the past and sort something out there, which really pleased me 🙂 but working with the present, calming my mind, tuning in to the here and now – that was a real challenge for me.

 

In a crisis I switched the light on

The crisis came, it was awful; at one moment (which lasted about a million light years 🙂 I really lost any sense of why I was there and what I was doing there, and at that moment I switched the light on.
Luckily there’s that gap before your eyes get used to the light again and you can even start doing anything about leaving the cabin, and in that moment, as I was looking at the shining crack by the door and wondering what now, what am I going to do, I realised that there was still some unfinished food waiting for me (which I always looked forward to and really enjoyed), and I realised that I didn’t want to eat it knowing what it was, I didn’t want to look at it and I didn’t want to miss out on it – I wanted to savour it again in the dark like before, because that had been really lovely.

 

And then I switched the light off again

So I got up, switched off the light and went back into the dark. 

Into that pleasant, calm, embracing, cosy darkness. And the moment I went back, time finally stood still. Calm came. Calm in the whole cabin and inside me too. If I were to describe it, Tomáš, in your words: “the clouds parted and for a tiny moment the sun peeked out”. For some “time” I luxuriated in that state and explored it. It was lovely. When anxiety crept up, I tried to track it down, then I allowed it to leave, and it left, and when I fell asleep I had a dream:
I was at home; I knew my husband was at work, my daughter at nursery, and I was alone in the house. I went to have a look in the cellar and noticed a flame had shot out of the pipes. I went up the stairs to look for some kind of fire extinguisher, and when I came back down to the cellar, the flames were already creeping across the ceiling and up the walls (like in a film), and I knew I could no longer put it out. So I ran upstairs to the bedroom and started looking for things I could save. Each time I picked something up I put it back again, picked up another thing and put it back again, picked up something else and put it back again, because none of those things had any value. All the things were worthless. Everything worth saving was not in the house.

After the dark retreat came the light

That’s all. That’s my lesson. The rest of the time passed with me longing terribly to get home to my family.
Coming back out into the light was amazing! I was as if under the influence of some intoxicating substance – the beauty, the happiness, the wonder, the joy…I’m smiling even now just writing about it, and I know that back then I couldn’t stop smiling for at least two days.

Thank you for a beautiful experience, for your kind care and attention, and I wish you and your children that every day may be like that first day after you come out of the cabin :).
I hope I’ll be able to repeat the retreat again some day.

Take very good care.

Jitka

I signed up for a dark retreat because I’d been intrigued by the book Tvary tmy (Shapes of Darkness) by Mr Dušek. I had no specific expectations; I reckoned I’d quite possibly just get some rest. But I was also hoping some piece of advice for life might turn up, or that my aching back might get some relief. And a piece of advice for life really did turn up, as a deep experience (which I describe in the chapter The main experience), but I’m getting ahead of myself… Let’s start from the beginning…

 

Practical tips

First of all, I have to confirm that 3 nights are not enough. I had 6 nights and for me that was just right. I’d definitely recommend at least 6 nights. I think it’s a good idea to bring a few pencils and a notepad. Don’t take biros – they can run out. I didn’t make many notes, but afterwards I was glad of every single one. Next time I’d try to make more. After all, in the dark, when you wake up, you remember everything easily and it’s all clear, but it’s still a tiny bit like a dream and it can fade with time… I was also glad I tried lots of things straight after switching off the light, then turned it back on and sorted out the things that weren’t entirely clear to me in the dark… My last practical note is that I was glad I’d brought warm socks and slippers – the air conditioning blows warm air up top, but it stays up there, and it’s cooler down by the floor.

So my things are unpacked and nicely laid out under the bed. Notepad and pencils by my head, and now it can all begin…

First impressions – how to cope with horror films

The first 3 days you’re getting used to it. The wheel of thoughts from everyday life and work keeps spinning in your head… Luckily you can tell yourself you’re not here to chew over your everyday life situations. You don’t have to. And after a few turns you clearly see that the intellect is going round in circles, which is another reason to let those thoughts go. At least for now. The moment comes when you’re alone with yourself. There’s nobody and nothing to blame. There’s only YOU. As it happened, my mum and dad were in the dark around the same time. And the interesting thing was that dad was mostly bored and the darkness put him in a foul mood, while mum enjoyed it and said she relaxed beautifully. I had both states. It was mostly positive, but the negative feelings came too. For me personally the worst was when the thought came up that even though I was in the dark, I wasn’t one bit closer to any truth about life. That actually I had no idea how to lead my life or what the point of life was. An unpleasant feeling of helplessness, futility, uselessness. As I’ve already written – in the dark there’s only YOU, and YOU can get properly chewed up by it. There’s nowhere to escape to. There’s nothing to distract yourself with. Darkness can be intense and it can be pretty unbearable. But so I don’t just scare you – some of the fears I’d been afraid of before the dark turned out better than I expected. Maybe I’m a scaredy-cat, but when I watch a horror film and then turn off the light, I can get quite frightened by some shadow and I’m glad I can switch a light on. Luckily I hadn’t watched a single horror film for at least six months before the dark, and I was hoping I wouldn’t remember any while I was in there. Well, not a chance :). Of course I remembered every horror film I’d ever seen. But oddly enough they didn’t scare me as much any more. For one thing, in absolute darkness there are no shadows to tease the imagination. And for another, when you’re calm, you can calmly tell yourself in good time that these are just thoughts and they can’t hurt you. In fact you can even use them to practise surrender. Tell yourself that physically you’re safe and mentally this is here now and there’s no point running from it. I said to the thoughts, “go on then, eat me”. Then the little horror characters stood there looking a bit puzzled. They tried coming closer and backing off, and then it got boring, so the mind let them go :). Another good piece of advice that Tomáš (our host) gave me is to breathe deeply. For the horror characters it wasn’t quite necessary yet. But it didn’t hurt, at the first image, to take a few deep breaths in and out before inviting them to feast on me :). Another powerful tool against fear is trust in God. When you tell yourself and realise how complicated and amazing life is, and that we can’t create it artificially – then it’s obvious that the forces (or God) that created all this far exceed our intellect, and we can surrender to them with trust. Trust and surrender are a powerful tool, and their strength depends only on how sincerely you mean it. Imaginary horror characters can’t stand up to that cannon. So all together: consciously recognising that thoughts can’t hurt me, breathing, calm observation, trust in God and surrender to him were more than enough protection for me.

 

Observations while awake and dreams at night

After a short horror detour, on to more interesting things. As I’ve already written – in the dark there’s only you. So it’s good to be able to be alone with yourself. I think good preparation is when you’re already making some effort on a spiritual path in everyday life. If, say, you know a few yoga exercises and can enjoy them, then you can have a lovely practice in the dark. There’s time and space for it, and you can easily feel your body without any disturbance from outside. It’s also good to try meditating. If you’re used to sitting in silence for at least 15 minutes a day and now and then enjoying a quiet mind, that’s a great trump card to take into the dark. Here you have time to enjoy that silence for much longer 😉 I enjoyed both in the dark. I slept a lot. I really enjoyed the food, which you can concentrate on well in the dark, savouring every single flavour. I also realised that when I savour it and eat slowly, I eat much less. And after the first day, when I was still wolfing everything down, I felt how demanding digestion is for the body. The following days I ate less and felt better. But even so, I usually had a little nap after eating :).

The dreams were very interesting. With your eyes open you see only black, but when you fall asleep you see dreams in colour :). (Well, almost only black – except that even in absolute darkness I had the feeling I could see my body and hands as a silver outline. Maybe I was just imagining it – I don’t know. But I didn’t want to get too distracted by it, so I didn’t look at myself much.) The dreams were quite a pleasant distraction from the dark. The most interesting part, I found, was on waking. I’d be having a dream in colour – I open my eyes

 

 – and black. I close my eyes and see light. As if someone behind my eyes had switched on an old projector with a yellow light. The light grows in intensity and the colourful image of the dream is drawn. I open my eyes again and blink – darkness. I close my eyes and the projector lights up again. I found it interesting that it was reversed – in the world that normally offers so many images there’s absolute darkness, and the mind can generate a vivid, convincing dream image once the eyes are closed. Even though I’m basically awake and aware.

The first dreams were sort of normal. First I dreamt I was some kind of scientist, or magician, or maybe just an assistant in some scientific-magical workshop 🙂 Because I’m still young and the dream was interesting, I was also helping some sexy young lady in a leather outfit 🙂 The dream was long and I can’t remember exactly everything I did (but nothing improper ;)). Then the information crept into the dream that the world was going to end. We tried somehow to prevent it, but it was soon clear it was hopeless. We did manage to find out, though, that people who cut their hand in a certain way between the fingers would survive. So we did it. I don’t remember much after that, but we survived. Suddenly in the dream we woke up with some bunch of young people who were saying it was great that we’d survived. But somehow I felt they didn’t realise the magnitude of the event. Anyway, everything looked normal. And they decided to go and have a drink to celebrate. To me that seemed an inappropriate way of handling the fact that we’d been given the chance to survive. But what could you do – life went on and there was no point talking them out of it… Then I suppose I somehow woke up. The feeling from that dream on waking was – that it was an interesting story. And also that people are rather frivolous…

The next dream was more interesting – I think it was on day 3. It was shorter and less elaborate. I was also a bit disappointed that it wasn’t in colour, but sort of black and white. But it was all the more interesting in content. I was in a classroom where some old lady was teaching us. At first I could see her and she had terribly wrinkled skin. Then I stopped seeing details, and instead of people I just saw these grey eggs. It was hard for me to make out what was going on. But I understood that someone was saying the old teacher had died during the lesson. For a moment her body lying on the floor flashed before me. But then I again saw only the grey eggs instead of people. It seemed strange to me that even though she’d died, her grey egg existed unchanged. The students’ grey eggs got up and went over to her. They were nervous. But her egg was calm. Unchanged. Some doctor came, injected her with something, laid her on a stretcher and carried her out of the room. It seemed pointless to me, given that she was dead, and above all pointless because her egg was calm and needed no intervention. The feeling from that dream was that her dying wasn’t such a significant event at all and actually didn’t change much.

I don’t recall any other dreams. Here it’s perhaps a slight shame I didn’t write them down.

The first wonderful experience

Instead of dreams comes a truly beautiful waking experience. On waking on day 4, I woke up into an amazing calm. A calm that’s hard to compare to anything. Perhaps only to a few successful meditations. Or partly perhaps to the calm when Mr Sri Brahmam came to Prague for a lecture/satsang. (By the way, Mr Brahmam is supposed to come again this year – so I warmly recommend it. For the place and date see: http://www.brahmam.cz ). It’s hard to compare or explain that calm. It was a beautiful feeling of deep calm. A calm where you lack nothing at all and need nothing else whatsoever. You have no need to deal with anything at all, and so you’re actually happy, but you don’t even have any need to deal with whether you’re happy or not. Simply a calm where ordinary words and concepts have no meaning.  I don’t know how long it lasted. I’d guess about 20 minutes. Gradually the calm slowly faded. Not that I had any disturbing thought. Just the depth of the calm thinned out. I was quite sorry about it, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was still calm, but it wasn’t so amazing any more. I tried to deepen it again, but for one thing I had no idea how, because the mind was still without thoughts, and for another I realised that it was a gift, and the mind or some wanting of mine has no means of reaching a calm like that. The rest of the day was fine, but the deep calm remained just a morning experience.

 

The next day, on waking, the calm was there again :)! I was terribly happy to be experiencing it again. But actually my being happy was only in the background, because the calm was amazing in itself. I enjoyed it enormously. Maybe it lasted a little longer. I don’t know how long. Perhaps only a little more than 20 minutes. But as soon as I saw it starting to wane, I wished I could hold on to it as long as possible. But that effort was futile. It seemed that when I tried to hold on to the calm, more wanting appeared and the calm leaked away faster. I found,  once again, that I couldn’t do anything about it, and so I enjoyed the last few beautiful minutes. It’s hard to explain. I don’t fully understand it myself. But if I wanted to analyse it somehow, I’d say that the calm is inside all the time. It’s just that our mind isn’t normally able to experience it. It seems that wanting itself is the obstacle. It seems you need to try to calm the mind and not grasp at mental concepts. Not get bogged down in opinions and thoughts and wanting. Gradually free yourself from strong desires turned towards the outside world. Then perhaps the calm will appear again… I don’t know…

The main experience of the dark retreat

After the experience of deep calm I told myself I’d received more than I expected. Perhaps even more than I deserve… But the strongest experience was still waiting for me… I have problems with my back and on the very last evening it started hurting somehow more. I don’t remember which came first, but at the same time I was tormenting myself with the thought that the outside world is bleak. Mechanical. Meaningless. And full of suffering – especially when your back hurts. I told myself there was no point helping the world and bringing more children into it. My back hurt more and more. And the thoughts about a world without meaning and without love were at times perhaps even worse than my back. I told myself that I’d received such gifts here in the dark and I’m no better, maybe I’m even worse. I felt sick from my thoughts, from not knowing which way to turn, from not knowing what to do about my back, and from the fact that it hurt… Here I used Tomáš’s advice. I needed to breathe it out. I breathed deeply and puffed the futility away. I blew it off so it wasn’t even in front of me. It helped me quite a lot. I blew away the tormenting, hopeless thoughts about the wretchedness of the world. Only an aftertaste was left. I told myself I’d sleep it off now. But my back decided otherwise. I was lying on the bed and felt as though a nerve was being crushed between my lumbar spine and my pelvic bone. I’d roll over somehow, for a moment it was better, and then the pain again. I was glad the thoughts about how bleak and mechanical the world is were no longer racing through my head, but the pain wouldn’t let me fall asleep. I don’t know how long I tossed and turned, but then I gave up. I lay there and gave up rolling over. I observed the pain. I wondered whether you can die from pain that strong. In that pain, tiredness and surrender, the thought of death didn’t even scare me much any more. Suddenly I saw my chest being lit up with light. It felt as though my energy had begun to leave my body. It occurred to me that I was dying. Then it occurred to me that I was sorry my girlfriend would be left here alone. To be honest, I don’t know exactly in what order the following things happened. The sorrow at leaving my girlfriend deepened and grew into an enormous sorrow that I hadn’t given the people around me enough love. It was no longer about specific people around me. It was meant for all people and in all situations. I think I have a relatively clear conscience, but suddenly the thought that I’d more or less done people no harm and had been rather useful seemed desperately and indescribably inadequate. I felt as though until now I’d been terribly ignorant and blind. As if until now I’d thought of myself as having a school-leaving certificate in humanity, and after the veil of ignorance was lifted I found I was barely in my first year of primary school. I was terribly sorry I hadn’t radiated more love in my life. At some point during this realisation I saw the energy that had been rising from my torso turn slightly, and I felt relief in my back. It still hurt, but the pain began to recede. Then I felt the middle of my chest. As if my heart wanted to make up for what it had missed, and it shone all around and pushed out from my chest. And I burst into tears. Like I hadn’t in a long time. I was sorry for my wasted life so far. I felt enormous love and was terribly sorry I hadn’t been giving it. It contrasted hugely with the despair and mechanicalness of the world I’d been thinking about in the evening. It was clear to me that what had been missing was for me to give love. That was what I’d been missing in all that mechanicalness. I suppose I’d been afraid to give love before, because I lived in the illusion of a world where things can run out, and I hadn’t realised that love isn’t that kind of thing. Also, maybe I didn’t give enough love because I was born into a culture that has got used to giving love only conditionally, as a reward, as praise. But now I clearly saw that love is something that shines, and shines all the time. That love is more like a muscle, and the more you use it, the more you have and can give. I felt terrible sorrow that I’d been hiding love and had been afraid for it. It was clear to me that every being craves precisely love. And that our concept of giving love only conditionally is a terrible misunderstanding of the order of the world. It was clear to me that love needs to be given to everyone and always. And perhaps even more to those people who are doing something wrong. When I was turning it over in my head on the train the next day, I kept running into our cultural concept that surely you can’t give love to people when they’re harming someone. But that’s just a concept we’ve cultivated in our culture through misunderstanding love and confusing it with helping and other doing. It isn’t at all about supporting someone or approving of what they do. The only thing it’s about is radiating love to everyone around you. Love isn’t me serving someone or helping them. That’s the mechanical side of things. Love is just Love. A warm feeling of affection and warmth that you want to shine out into your surroundings. In my view it’s most aptly hidden behind the smile we give to strangers without being able to get anything out of it. Love is when you spread good cheer around you. Your eyes shine. When I think about it, maybe this good cheer is far more beneficial for changing the people around us for the better than our ingrained method of love only as a reward. In my view love works far more directly than frowning at someone for having done something wrong. In any case, this was a huge experience for me. Now, 3 weeks later as I write this, it’s only a memory. But it can still warm me in the middle of my chest and move me. In any case, an experience by itself can’t change our habits. I’m still not an eternally smiling person and, if anything, I smile little. But I keep reminding myself of this experience and try to be warmer to the people around me. It goes slowly and I’m afraid there will be times when I half forget it. But for me personally, I now know at least one great meaning of life. I can no longer pretend I don’t know how to live my life. I see it as both a gift and an obligation. The experience of deep sorrow while dying is a great motivation for me. But I hope that everyone who reads this will try to be warmer and kinder to those around them. I believe we’ll all live better and die more easily. So I wish us all lots of luck in practice and plenty of love ;).

 

 

Thoughts from my notes

From my few notes I have a couple more interesting ones. They’re thoughts that came to me and that seemed important. They don’t carry such a strong experience as in the previous chapter. I may partly have made them up, but here they are:

At the start, as the thoughts from everyday life were still trickling in, I realised that: The mind cannot be present. By its nature it analyses previously experienced events and from them invents the future. We can shorten the gap, but the mind will always be a little behind or ahead. In the exact present the mind isn’t needed. And by its very nature it can’t function in the exact present…

I suspect the following thought came to me sometime at night, when I casually raised the question of what to do in life. The advantage at night is that you’re already tired enough not to scare off inspiration with your own doggedness. Anyway, I noted down: “Everything is all right. And the best thing I can do is to observe my life from a place of calm and without attachment.” There’s probably not much to add to that except thank you for this note. 

Another piece of advice invented by me or by the dark was: “Be grateful – that is your path.” With hindsight it’s probably difficult to keep to in some situations. But still, when you’re not grateful, it can be taken as a warning light that your mind is leading you away from reality. It’s time to calm the mind and look at the situation from a distance. This is a situation I’ve been allowed to experience. What is it meant to teach me? What can I be grateful for in it? Maybe this reflection helps you to be more grateful – I don’t know… At other times, when you walk through beautiful countryside, you can feel good quite naturally. If at the same time you realise you’re grateful for it, then the good feeling is amplified, and I find that nice…

 

One last practical tip

I’d like to share one more obstacle. One day I probably woke up early and Lenča and Tomáš were late with the food. Of course my head had already started spinning a carousel of thoughts about everything that might have happened to them. And I was already considering going out to rescue them. Luckily I kept putting it off and putting it off, and then they came. The thing is, when it feels to you like they’ve been gone a long time, it’s far more likely that you’re making things up than that something has actually happened. Don’t be tempted and don’t leave your darkness early. You never know what experiences are still waiting for you and what you might deprive yourself of.

Conclusion

I’m very glad I tried a dark retreat. It was far more intense for me than I’d thought. I’d like to go again, but not for about 2 years. After all, an experience in which you die isn’t something you want to repeat just like that. Actually I’m slightly hoping it’ll be less intense next time, even at the cost of it being less instructive…

Víťa

Hi Lenka and Tomáš,

I started my dark retreat in December. I remember a clear, sunny day. A beautiful walk from Kutná Hora along the little Vrchlice river, past Sion to Lomec. Towards evening the landscape darkened. The sky exploded in the glow of the sunset as the sun slowly disappeared below the horizon. I was determined to experience something new, something unusual. To get to know myself better.

The sanctuary for the dark retreat

The sanctuary felt pleasant and cosy, and it was warm. I could adjust the temperature inside. Darkness!

…Agitation and worry: What am I going to do here all this time?! Time seemed endless. Emotions and self-reproach: What have I done?!

Gradually my body got used to the dark. My mind became aware of the breath and of calming down. Exercise, dancing and cold water helped me. Massaging my feet and hands. Every activity in the Sanctuary was an adventure. When I ate, I was aware of every single ingredient with intense joy. It even chased away sadness. Sometimes my emotions made me cry, and other times I laughed at myself. Self-reproach and memories hurt. Crying healed me. I learned to talk to myself. After seven days I was looking forward to going outside, and at the same time I wanted to stay inside the Sanctuary and extend my dark retreat.

Long after the retreat I still feel that I value myself more. I can show myself love and trust.
I’m grateful that I could step outside the circle of everyday worries, habits and time. To be aware of the present moment and of myself.

Thank you, and I wish you good health.

Best regards
Petr

Hi,

I was really, really looking forward to my dark retreat. I was looking forward to getting out of my ordinary life. To sitting alone with myself, in the dark, with nothing to disturb me, searching for my true self. There’d be nobody to interrupt my search, no outside stimulus to grab my attention.

Looking for inner peace in the dark

For the first few days that’s exactly how it was. There’s nothing else to do, so I withdrew into myself and looked for inner peace. It came several times, and I had nothing but positive experiences of the dark. Hand in hand with that came a desire for more spiritual practice, which was exactly why I had gone into the dark.

I think it was Monday morning. I had a dream, quite a pleasant one: we were shooting a funny advertising campaign. The first sequence was done, and then the director announced we’d run through it once more. At that moment I woke up.

My consciousness was awake, but my brain couldn’t let go of the dream. An inner battle broke out over what was real. I was sure that reality was the cabin, but my brain kept dragging me back into the dream. I tried to calm it down with exercise, food, a shower. Nothing helped, and I started to feel I was about to go mad. I needed something to see. I didn’t want to switch on the main light and throw away my dark retreat so far, so I turned my phone on for a moment and used its dim light. The instant I glimpsed the floor and the walls, everything calmed down. My eyes had something to anchor to and my brain finally understood that I was no longer dreaming.

It was a pretty unpleasant experience. Tomáš advised me to let it flow next time and not to fight it. I didn’t have to wait long to try that out: the very next night something similar happened. Fortunately it wasn’t as intense. After waking up I stayed lying down and tried not to focus on anything. After a while everything really did settle by itself.

At the same time, though, the “hallucinations” kicked in. Phantasmagoria kept running in front of my eyes: falling needles, waterfalls, people climbing, huge spinning discs. Every so often a bright green light flashed in my eyes. Constantly, over and over again. I could exercise, lie still, think, or not think at all. It just kept running and pulling my attention away. I couldn’t meditate, I couldn’t find the inner peace that had come during the first days. I felt like I was high and I was experiencing a lot of anxiety. Since I could no longer do what I’d gone into the dark for, and I felt very uncomfortable, I decided to end the retreat early.

I switched on the light

I switched on the light. It was dark outside, and I’d given my phone to Tomáš to charge. So I had no idea what time it was. The lights were on in the house, but I was scared to walk round the garden at night like that, with two Caucasian shepherd dogs guarding it.

I thought it was probably morning and I’d wait a little for the sunrise.

It wasn’t morning; sunrise came about 14 hours later 😀 But within a few hours the anxiety and the twitching stopped. After leaving the dark retreat cabin I felt huge relief and was overjoyed by the rediscovered world outside. I said goodbye to Tomáš and set off home on foot.

I ended my dark retreat early

I didn’t last the whole week in the dark, but I got what I went in for. I probably wouldn’t do darkness therapy again, but I definitely don’t regret it.

Thanks to Tomáš (Lenka happened to be away) for taking care of the basics, and maybe see you again some time 😉

Jakub

At first it was boring. Apart from flickers before my eyes, not much was happening. What was interesting was how precisely you can remember every object and where it is in the dark.

In the dark I saw images

Over time, day and night began to merge…waking and sleeping…dreaming…beautiful and sad images.

My spatial memory started playing tricks; the little dark retreat cabin kept changing: once it had a baroque ceiling, another time there was sky and trees. A few times I bumped into the  wall – the door was somewhere else 🙂

And once I woke up just like that…I was about 6 years old. I felt good. Like long, long ago…

The dark retreat ended; it went by quickly. The wonderful food and Tomáš’s kind support helped a great deal.

I left for home in the early morning

I went home. Work, duties, routine. Everything went back to the old ways…or did it?

I look at the surface of the water, at the little sparks of sunlight dancing on it. Or at the stars in the sky. Sometimes I feel that I’ve known it for a long time…long…long…known it.

Thank you, Lenka and Tomáš, for the chance to stop by with you 🙂

Take care

Květoš

 

Dear Lenka, dear Tom,

thank you both so much for the chance to spend that wonderful week with you, the dark retreat, for the excellent food and for the insight I was given.

 

Leni, thank you for your amazing dynamic energy, which literally brought me back to life, and for the love with which you prepare food that is so utterly unforgettable. Tom, thank you for your gentle, calm energy, which deepened the experience of profound calm and peace, and for your deep words, thanks to which I was able to look at my experiences and thoughts from a different angle and so come to reconciliation.
Not a day goes by without me remembering the Darkness, and the two of you…

A dark retreat = a path to yourself, that is how I see it and feel it.

I would struggle to find words to express what I lived through, saw and felt during the dark retreat…
I have no need or desire to describe what the dark retreat revealed to me. Experiences cannot be passed on and they are mine alone. It would be hard for anyone to understand…
What I am happy to share is the fact that darkness is truly light, and that what we are looking for, we have within ourselves.
The darkness gives each person exactly what is needed. She is a beautiful, soft friend who surrounds you with love and reveals the naked truth to you. She strips you bare, and suddenly you are standing naked before yourself, without the masks and attitudes you put on out there…

The darkness gives each person exactly what is needed.

The darkness let me experience “the worst and the best” of myself, so that I would understand that nothing is either bad or good. It brought me to my knees and let me feel humility, unconditional love, oneness and deep calm.

For the first time in my life I feel happy. I have felt deep calm and reconciliation the whole time since the retreat, and it is beautiful and something I had never known before. In the dark I found the way to myself, I found myself. I am grateful that I was able to live every single moment of the retreat, even though there were two nights that I felt at the time as a negative experience. Today I know it was a gift and I am endlessly grateful for it (and thanks to you for that too, Tom, for your words…)

Afraid of going on a dark retreat?

Among other things, I was looking forward to the dark because I would catch up on sleep and wipe out my sleep debt. Out of the whole week I slept one night. Another surprise for me was finding my way around in the dark, which I had no trouble with at all. And fear of the dark? I felt completely safe and free in the dark.
I had been through so many courses and seminars, read so many spiritual books, yet I still felt a contradiction, a lack of fulfilment and a strong urge, a call welling up from deep within me. Only in the dark did I experience what I had only sensed…I found my way home, to myself.

I lived as a slave to my mind and ego. Only in the dark did I sense that the I is neither the mind nor the body.

There are so many words, and none can express my thanks for that deep week.

Thank you.

With love, humility and respect

Lenka

Hi everyone,

I’m writing a bit late, because a lot of duties piled up on me, mainly at work. 

My dark retreat went smoothly, you could say, and I’d rate it as a very positive experience. I didn’t go into it with expectations, but I didn’t leave surprised either. I didn’t prepare for this retreat in any special way, although apparently I took on a lot, because I decided to spend a week in absolute darkness without any food, just on water and air, and on top of that without the guides being present.. maybe there wouldn’t be anything unusual about that, but I had never been in absolute darkness before, so I had no idea what it would be like, and I had never once in my life tried living only on water (I don’t really know why, I was probably afraid my body wouldn’t cope with the hunger or that I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of food, I don’t know).

Of course I had to prepare somehow, because a week without food with no preparation at all is a pretty crazy idea, I think, so for about 2 months beforehand I ate roughly once a day, mostly raw vegetables and fruit, some bread and lightly cooked meals (I don’t eat meat or meat products), or something sweet now and then, and the week before the retreat I had only pure raw vegetables and fruit to cleanse myself (I wanted to try a water-only fast too, but I couldn’t manage it). And how did I cope there? Brilliantly :), I discovered that you can live not only without food but also without light, and I needed very little water during those days. I also found out how deeply ingrained our ideas about food are, the different tastes; thoughts of food came to me fairly often, but I didn’t have any stomach pains from hunger or any extreme hunger.

I felt wonderful in the dark

The darkness accepted me absolutely and I felt wonderful there. Everything is in our heads and in our mindset; if I had been afraid of the dark, I certainly wouldn’t have had positive experiences…as Tomáš said: “If you’re afraid of something, it will materialise for you in the dark.” So I wasn’t afraid, and that’s why I only had lovely experiences. In the dark I didn’t work through any personal problems either, because I try to deal with those in the light :). But there is space and time there for a personal conversation and for everything you need to resolve, nobody and nothing disturbs you, and answers come to all your questions.

So to everyone who has decided to spend time in absolute darkness, or is just thinking about it, I wish you no fear (there’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s all about your mindset), and I hope you relax and accept everything the darkness offers you.

Wishing you only lovely experiences 🙂
Eva

I decided on a dark retreat in January. I went through the options and liked the one with Tomáš and Lenka best. I found out that the next free date was six months away, which surprised me a bit, but I simply waited. So in September I set off for Bykáň and from there on foot to Lomec. I’ve been going barefoot since March, so I sometimes have trouble with certain paths, and the one from Bykáň really wasn’t the most pleasant, but it was doable. After Úmonín came the reward of an avenue of pear and apple trees. When I arrived I was surprised by the quiet – nobody welcomed me, so I walked around the garden to see whether anyone was there. After a while Tomáš and Lenka’s son appeared, explained everything to me, and so I could begin my week-long dark retreat.

How the dark retreat went

To my surprise I got my bearings very quickly and moving around the space was no problem at all. What I couldn’t manage, though, was doing the first of the Five Tibetan Rites in full. In this exercise you spin round and round and are supposed to do 21 turns – in the dark I managed 14 turns at most. I slept through almost the whole of the first day, and in general I slept a lot, about 14-16 hours a day (I really don’t know exactly, because time in the dark is completely different). The food Tomáš and Lenka brought was amazing. I don’t know whether it was because my other senses were sharper or simply because it was great anyway, but that hardly matters. On the last night I didn’t sleep much and looked forward to the sunrise. Unfortunately a light rain came, so we didn’t see the sun.

Along the way I noticed that I couldn’t concentrate much on meditation; I tended to drift into some kind of relaxation instead, and getting rid of thoughts was hard. I was also pretty bored. Next time I would definitely bring some knitting or willow rods for basket-making so I could make something. Although maybe that too was meant to be part of my darkness therapy – learning to do nothing.

Walking home after the dark retreat

I set off home on foot, this time straight to Kutná Hora. I went across fields, through a forest and along a stream, and it was longer but more beautiful than from Bykáň. At home everything is as it was, although maybe some changes are still to come. So far I feel I’m a bit calmer than before, but that’s probably hard to judge.

I would recommend a dark retreat to everyone. Personally I will probably come back for a dark retreat some day, but rather than that, every year I’ll pick a week somewhere I can be completely alone (or something like that). For me the dark retreat was a brilliant chance to relax, and I had a fantastic rest.

All the very best

Jan

I set off for my dark retreat more or less straight from a friends’ wedding (the him-and-her kind, I mean :), well, the day after, I mean 🙂

The journey to the dark retreat

Bus, train, the odd beer along the way, at times I felt like an alcoholic on his way to check into rehab 🙂 Last can at the station in Kutná Hora and then the final stretch on foot from the station … to the place, where I turned up around seven in the evening. Tomáš welcomed me with a smile and showed me the cabin. Will you be eating? One of the first questions. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind something now and then 🙂 We’ll bring you food once a day, here’s a thermos with tea, here’s the switch, turn the lights off whenever you like. You can switch them back on any time, leave, it’s voluntary, enjoy it 🙂 One last text saying I’d arrived, and I switched off my phone. I had a look round the cabin to see where everything was and a moment later turned the lights off. Darkness fell. I had a shower, put on shorts and a T-shirt.

And then it hit me.. so what now? So here you are alone in the dark, you’ve waited so long for this, you’ve been looking forward to it.. and now here I was sitting on the bed like a lost soul who’d fallen into a dark burrow and couldn’t climb out. Being all in a travelling mood from the journey and the beer, from mulling things over outdoors across familiar and unfamiliar landscapes, I felt more like wandering on somewhere, enjoying the Sunshine and tramping about, alone with my thoughts. But now I was here, and it took me a while to get myself together. It crossed my mind whether it wouldn’t be better to get straight out of that cabin again and enjoy a week of tramping. But hang on, I’ve been waiting half a year and looking forward to this moment, and now that it’s here, I don’t know what to do with it? One of the first things I realised was that the feeling of loneliness is nothing new. On the contrary, I know that feeling very well, and even when I’m among people, I’m used to being alone.

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH…. and who cares? 🙂

Now I’ve only got one unanswered question left. Do I want to be president or king?

Either I’ll be a future candidate for president of the Czech Republic in the direct presidential election in 2023, or King! I’d rather go for King 🙂

But just to be sure, I’ll do one more dark RETREAT sometime, in case I got it wrong!:-)

Richard 🙂

PS: Lenka and Tomáš,  it was great at your place, maybe again some time. Greetings to both Tomášes too, my fellow dark-dwellers 🙂 

PS2: Don’t worry, I’ve already booked an appointment with a psychologist, but they’re not free for another three months, there are lots of us crazies around 🙂

Hi Tom and Lenka,

so I’ve finally sat down at the laptop and I’m writing to you…..

in short, I could write:

I WAS SO LOOKING FORWARD TO IT

I EXPECTED SO MUCH

I SUFFERED SO MUCH

I GAINED SO MUCH

I had known about darkness therapy for about two years, but the decision crystallised gradually, and in November I booked a week for June.

Oh, that waiting …. the moment I decided, I was so looking forward to it that I couldn’t wait to settle into the darkness and have a week of doing nothing just for myself. I had already experienced several extrasensory moments when I was able to peek beneath the veil of forgetting and connection …. and so I was expecting mainly this “communication”. I thought that because I’m constantly on some merry-go-round of work, household, people around me and so on, I have no chance to devote myself to my spirituality, to rest from the rush of ordinary days and to connect with myself.

And then came the dark retreat

So the time came and I was standing in front of my cabin. I had just come off a night shift, and then I always feel as if I’ve been hit over the head with a sack 🙂 So I felt achy, sluggish and in a way “dull” that day too…. 

Tom gave me the instructions: to settle in and, when I was ready, to switch off the light myself, and that when the feeling of anxiety came that would drive me out of the dark (apparently it almost always comes), I should try to calm down and breathe through it so that I could carry on.

Already as I walked into the cabin I was telling myself: “you’re completely barmy, Ali … you won’t manage this … it’s “brutal”, that darkness is literally so thick that not even Rákosníček could cut through it” 🙂 Today I smile humbly when I remember those mixed feelings of fear, anxiety and uncertainty. 

So I unpacked the few clothes and toiletries I had brought and put them away so that I could find them without trouble all week, showered while the light was still on so that I could “feel out” everything, and … SWITCHED OFF and went to sleep ….

…. suddenly I woke up … that absolute darkness was so thick and HEAVY that I could really feel its weight on my chest, I couldn’t even breathe  and out of fear that it would suffocate me, I shot out of bed in a frenzy and slapped along the wall in the corridor for the switch THERE WAS NO TIME FOR BREATHING THROUGH IT – sorry Tom :))) … I found it … switched on the light … opened the cabin door … and breathed in terror … I could hear in the distance the laughter of Tom and Lenka’s children playing by the pool, it was already dusk … nobody had any idea what I was going through right then … I found that only half an hour had passed, I texted my neighbour that I probably wouldn’t manage it and that we’d soon be having coffee together at home again, and went for the “SECOND ATTEMPT”

From that moment on I never interrupted the process of healing in the dark again, even though I often came close to it.

I no longer had the feeling of the heaviness and density of the darkness. I perceived the days only by the food arriving.

On the first day I slept 6 times, and on the following days about 4 times a day.

Interestingly, I didn’t have a single dreamless sleep. The dreams came and were really vivid, and the interesting thing was that in them I was often aware that I was in the dark, as if it were connected, and as if each day were dedicated to one chakra. On the first day I had dreams about grounding, I am… I see … in the dream I saw everything, many faces, many people, many souls, and in the dream I was deeply aware of the being of the body, of matter; I was thrilled that I could see quite clearly in the dark (in the dream) and wanted to shout it out loud.

On the second day I had erotic dreams, all connected with sexuality.

The third day was the hardest, the ego, the manifestation of the ego … FEAR, I was even afraid to fall asleep, the dreams were so vivid, so overwhelming, dreams about crocodiles, about sharks… they were destroying me and my loved ones, about fire, about water …they were showing me my dependence on my life, my clinging to it (which of course only dawned on me much later, in hindsight), I was afraid for my sons, afraid that I wouldn’t know whether they were all right, whether they had crashed their motorbikes, that nobody would let me know because I hadn’t told their father where I was going, only the boys knew and my neighbour … but what if they both crash on the same motorbike? who will tell me? What kind of mother am I? In the dream I saw them injured, after an operation, in pain … the younger one was telling me: “Mum, my leg hurts” … and I saw a thigh bone screwed together after an operation. One of the worst moments of my darkness therapy. 

I hadn’t come to the dark retreat for no reason

That day I told Lenka, who brought me the food, that I would leave in the morning. She said a sentence that was motivating for me: “I thought you’d say that. Do as you wish, I’ll tie up the dog for the night so he doesn’t jump all over you, you can leave at any time without having to tell us, but it would be a shame, you’re here for a reason. You didn’t come here for no reason ” She didn’t have time to chat that day, she was in a hurry, but she gave me a moment to tell me that I can’t influence what happens in the world and I can’t have everything under control all the time, and I suddenly understood that in fact I have nothing under control, and that’s how it should be. And I stayed. 

On the following days I was bored; time passed so slowly that I jokingly told myself that our planet was being invaded by aliens who were playing with us and dilating time to suit their whims. The only way I could keep track of time was when I heard some voices of children, birds, aeroplanes and a family of some kind of weasels or mice playing on the roof of the cabin; I said to myself “my neighbour won’t leave me in peace even here :)))) …I called out her name and said jokingly out loud: ” …hi, welcome … :))) “, when I heard nothing, it was night. that was my entire awareness of the world outside the cabin.

I often laughed at myself, I cried, I talked to myself, sometimes I even wanted to sing, but somehow I couldn’t, the food was great and there was plenty. I’m quite a big eater, but I was surprised that in the dark the need to eat is far smaller. I lost 2 kg (which of course I’ve already got back 🙂

Otherwise, for the whole of the retreat I had tremendous pain in my back and neck and headaches. I often suffer from these normally too, but here I had more than my fill of them. 

On the fourth and fifth day I could see … I was astonished. A dark red light very clearly lit up part of me and the room and I saw my hand moving the door. I repeated the movement several times, I was so thrilled. It lasted about 10 seconds. It was amazing, I literally enjoyed it with delight. Tomáš later said that this is how the third eye opens … but mine probably closed straight away when, all excited, I walked forehead-first into the door frame :). Then I saw red twice more, once when I was drying myself after a shower and the whole little corridor – the bathroom – was lit up, and I saw myself opening and closing the door of the shower cubicle and I could see the outlines of the whole corridor, the toilet, the washbasin, the walls … gorgeous. and then a third, weaker sensation back in the room, but there the light wasn’t so bright any more. 

Throughout darkness therapy there are light effects of white and bluish light. These didn’t light up the space for me, though; it was like car headlights shining into thick fog – you can’t see anything, but you perceive the light. So these light effects came every day; sometimes it looked as if light were coming through the slats of a window blind, but there isn’t one there :))) 

Once, when I was sitting on the meditation cushion, it might have been the 5th or 6th day, I sensed and out of the corner of my eye could even see a dense cone of white light above my head. So large that its narrowest part touched and fully covered my head. I felt a pleasant warmth entering me together with the light. This phenomenon seemed long to me. I was fully aware of it all, I felt calm and warmth, but without emotion. 

The last day was the longest, as if it didn’t want to end. I was even angry and desperate that I couldn’t sleep any more (I was over-slept, in pain and looking forward to the morning) … it just wasn’t possible.

Eventually the day passed and I stepped outside before four in the morning and staggered around like a drunk for a good quarter of an hour. When the eyes start processing all that information again after a break, it’s probably too much for the brain :)))) I hadn’t expected that :)))) I didn’t know that, I hadn’t read about it …. :))))) … that was a surprise :)))

I am grateful for the dark retreat

For most of the retreat I was in pain and time dragged. That’s what I felt most of all, probably – the futility of what I was doing and the foolishness and presumption of my expectations 🙂 The experiences I’m now writing to you about here in wonder somehow didn’t fully register with me at the time; in terms of time they didn’t fill the percentage of my expectations, nor of the day as a whole. I mainly perceived the pain, the boredom and anger at myself for not being somewhere in the sunshine recharging my “batteries” instead. This perception was probably the strongest. That’s why I said quite openly: never again. I WILL NEVER DO SOMETHING SO STUPID AGAIN :))))) 

Tomáš kept me company throughout my therapy and I am immensely grateful to him for everything he told me, even though he often annoyed me with his attitude and opinions. Whatever I talked about, he was always in opposition, always as if he wanted to catch me out on something; I felt as if he wanted to force something on me that I didn’t want, that isn’t mine … once I even politely banished him from my rented cabin … :))))))) that surprised him :))))))))   but I always looked forward to him coming again … Tom, sorry, but you know :))))))))  I think you needed that from me too. 

It helped me a lot. I owe it to you and to the darkness that I realised … I made peace with my parents, especially with my dad, and I’m really happy about it. Thank you.

The angels, and even my soul, didn’t speak to me the way I’d hoped … that made me sad, that my expectation wasn’t fulfilled. As if they’d left me there and were laughing at me. That’s how I felt there. They didn’t answer my questions. I was angry with them; in the dark I also cried a lot. How hard life is on me, how it lets me suffer all these “many” years … and I have no help, only I myself have to help myself.

But the MIRACLE came afterwards. THE REWARD 🙂

on the second day after the dark, that feeling came … LOVE … something that can’t be described in words … I experienced true love from the source … AGAPE love … an indescribably beautiful feeling of all-embracing love; I felt so free, so liberated, so light, wonderful, as if I perceived every moment, every gust of wind, every drop of rain, every ray of sunshine … unbelievably beautiful moments … and then I went to work 🙂 … no, I’m joking, as always … work didn’t end that feeling … it just left by itself after three days. But I know how to feel it, how to reconnect to the broken thread … once I find it again :))))

But the effect of darkness therapy is still running…even now, and it will run every tomorrow too. NOW THAT’S GOOD NEWS 🙂

Overall, in the dark I released deep fears and let go of some of my attachments; I’m calmer, I don’t fret as much as I used to, as if I don’t care quite so much, I let “it” be. But it’s not all clear and smooth yet, I still have to work on myself 🙂 , I still let myself get carried away by emotions and feelings … I still have things to process.

Gradually I went through the opinions from “never again”, via “it really was good for something” and “really good” to “I’ll go once more” :)))))) 

So that’s all I wanted to tell you all about my darkness therapy. I could go on, I have so many impressions, but I think that even so I may have written too much here already 🙂  

Take care, and if you decide to heal yourself with darkness, I wish you what you need – to each their own 🙂

Many thanks to Tomáš and Lenka for everything, and above all for being who they are 🙂 and also for the recipe for that great dessert 🙂

Bye, Alča