I went to find my limits
When I decided on a dark retreat with Tomáš and Lenka – a decision helped along to a large degree by a miraculous coincidence – I tried to prepare for every possible version of what might happen. Since I was aware that things might also happen that would never have occurred to me, I set myself one fundamental condition in advance. I told myself that even if I were to go mad from my own company, even if I longed to break off the retreat, I would not do it. That was how determined I was to find my limits and to experience myself truly as I am. And so equipped, I set off on my journey.
Before actually entering the dark I was of course given a very warm welcome, but I confess that I perceived the events connected with the outside world only on the periphery. I was curious and looking forward to my great inner adventure. After getting acquainted with the little cabin where I was to spend the next seven days, and taking it in with my eyes, I said goodbye to Tomáš, and although I had planned to finish reading about five pages of a book before immersing myself in the dark, in sheer anticipation and full of impatience I switched off the light.
And so my dark retreat began
This was it. Right from the start it was probably the awareness that the darkness would be my only company for the next several days that triggered my not perceiving it as darkness I was immersed in or lost in, but as a living entity, as if it were the only other being sharing the space with me. And the darkness itself approached me in just the same way. The first small steps of our getting to know each other were gentle, tender. And two things surprised me straight away.
I was prepared
Firstly, I was prepared for fear, for despondency, for worries, for having to face myself, for losing all meaning along with losing sight of the whole of my outside world. I was prepared to face my worst inner demons and fears. Because that is what we tend to associate darkness with. Ghosts, demons, bogeymen under the bed, skeletons in cupboards, the unimaginable, emptiness. And would you believe it, for the first two or three days nothing of the kind happened.
I was, nothing more
I sat there prepared to face everything terrible that might come at me out of that darkness; I sat and waited, and nothing at all happened. I simply was. This later grew in intensity, and this very fact was one of the most beautiful things I brought back from the dark. Suddenly there was nothing. Nothing to fear, nothing to worry about. There was only me. And what’s more, right from the start, stripped of my ideas, thoughts and expectations.
The darkness was not empty.
It was not alone in there. It was full of me. Nothing could come out of it that did not come from me. And anything that came from me, I was determined to get to know, understand and accept. Above all, though, I began to discover what that “from me” actually really is.
I have the feeling that this is how a certain game began, one that gradually and slowly loosened and shed all my expectations. Although certain themes did arrive (different ones from those I had planned) and the work on myself was very interesting, it was only after roughly three days that a noticeable turning point came.
The darkness took me inward
As if the darkness first calmed me down, waited until I tore down my protective barriers, and only then, once I felt completely safe, began to take me on bolder journeys. All those journeys led into my inner self, somewhere beyond me, beyond the physical being who appears a certain way to others, the one I had known until then. For lack of external stimuli my mind began to get bored, it quietened down, until my thoughts almost switched off.
Then the journey inward began. Human consciousness needs to look, to perceive, to get to know. And if you have nothing around you to get to know, without the flood of phenomena, pressures, ideas and demands of your surroundings, you calm down, and suddenly a door opens into your inner being.
It was metaphysical and wonderful. Only in the dark did I have, perhaps for the first time since I drew my first breath in this world, real space to be myself. Until then I had been meeting myself, getting to know myself, but I could never truly know myself. One huge part was missing, the part that had always been with me, the huge part I am immersed in every day, so automatically that I had almost stopped perceiving it clearly, even though I was aware of it. I simply knew about it, sort of automatically, but I no longer experienced it so much.
In the dark I met my own soul
and discovered how many treasures it holds for me, if only I listened to it more and gave more attention to moments like this one. As if the darkness allowed my scattered attention to return to myself. Not to the being who functions in various relationships and patterns, but to the essence of myself. To pure being, here.
It is better to experience it “for yourself”
I could describe the whole retreat here, with all the experiences and the things that were revealed to me. I may yet add to this short description of mine. But I believe it is far better to experience it for yourself. Yes, there were also two complicated, or more difficult moments. But for everything, presence always helped. You simply had to find your way back into it somehow, and that was very good training. Those moments arose from my mind, or soul, lingering somewhere other than where I actually was. That very anchoring in the present was one of the greatest benefits, though by no means the deepest or the most beautiful. Those moments arrived at exactly the right time, only once I had gained complete trust in the present, and in myself.
I would do it again
I would like to repeat the dark some time, perhaps even for two weeks. It probably depends on the individual, but if you want to know yourself, then know that the outer world through which we come to know ourselves is still here. It is good to know the inner one too, and to realise who it actually is that is getting to know that outer world. If you want to resolve some issue, the darkness may surprise you. Without outside support for your imagination, it will not take you to where you think the problem is, but will show you the place where the problem really is, and you suddenly know with absolute certainty that it really lay in something other than what you had assumed.
If you want to know where your inspiration springs from, you can experience a connection to an infinite source, with which you are, in your own essence, one – which is amazing if you are a creative person.
What is hardest about the dark?
What is probably hardest about the dark is the return to the light. The darkness, being with yourself and within yourself, is easier than the light, than facing that world out there. In the dark it is truly you. You cannot hide behind any role. Outside, you then feel that you have stepped back onto a stage where only some are aware that they are, in fact, acting.
Just as day and night alternate, it is good to experience yourself in the light and in the dark. To know yourself from both sides, and to see that in there is a whole vast universe to know and to explore. I am very glad of the experience. Perhaps the only thing I would welcome now, in “real life”, is more opportunity and space to look within, and not to have to focus almost all of my energy on the things around me all the time. Because on any retreat, including one in the dark, you should realise that it is above all a retreat into yourself. That everything around and within is a stay “in me”.
From the depths of my soul, I wish you a beautiful retreat 🙂
Ondřej
