Hi Lenka and Tomáš,
I’m replying to your email to write you a few lines about my experience of the “dark retreat”. To be honest, the feelings are, well, of both kinds, positive as well as negative, but the negative ones prevail.
From my point of view, the dark retreat has become something of a fashion, and I think I too gave in to the temptation to try it. I didn’t read much about it, and before I arrived I tried not to look up who had written what and how it goes.
A dark retreat as an instrument of torture
Yes, you come across all sorts of information, especially today in the internet age, but if you’re slightly better educated than average, have lived a bit and have your own view of the world, then you know that it has been, and in some places still is, an instrument of torture too. I didn’t think about it much and dived straight in headfirst with a clear goal: “To test myself and get through those 7 days in the dark.”
The reality hit me as soon as I arrived. A quick look round the little house, lights off and the start of “getting my bearings”. The first night I suspected you’d sleep right through, but I kept waking up and I, my body, soul and mind, started to clench up inside. I had never had any experience of meditation, I don’t belong to any religious ideology, nor do I live my life by commandments. To cut a long story short, I lasted 3.5 days!
Too little for some, a lot for others.
And what did the dark retreat give me?
One big new life experience. I think also new ways of looking at myself, at thoughts and opinions, and also the realisation that things can always be worse. We all live here in abundance, in surplus, and we still keep moaning about how everything is cr..p. Things can be better, but only we ourselves can do something about it!!! We each have our own opinion, our own view of the world, our own level of pride and honour.
I really tried, I fought to hold out, but then more negative signs took over and I switched the light on. I asked myself why I should put myself through such hardship voluntarily? On the third day, for example, I tried standing in one spot exactly like a castle guard. And the answer? Why did someone powerful come up with the idea that a soldier has to stand there motionless for a whole hour??? Who is that good for, and in this day and age at that??? And so I staged my own little private revolution! Up, click, and let there be light!
Today I still look at it with enormous respect, and I don’t think I’ll try it again.
Thank you, and take very, very good care of yourselves, because out here in the light it really is beautiful.
Marcel
PS: And I’d like my lines to be published. 🙂
