Imagine this: You have everything you once prayed for. The career you dreamed of is now your reality. Your home is a sanctuary, and its foundation is secure. You’ve found love that mirrors your heart’s deepest longings. By all worldly standards, you should be fulfilled, celebrating, expanding, and chasing new dreams. Yet something in you begins to dim. The joy you expected doesn’t arrive. A strange stillness takes its place. Ambitions lose their flavor. You find yourself withdrawing, questioning, sensing an invisible sorrow pressing upon your chest. Confusion sets in, not because life is wrong, but because something deeper is stirring. A silent unraveling begins. You are not broken. You are being initiated. What you are experiencing is known in the mystical traditions as the Dark Night of the Soul, a profound spiritual passage where the ego’s illusions fall away and the soul begins its return to Truth.
What Is It?
The Dark Night is not a depression of the mind, but a purification of the soul. It is the spiritual twilight between the old self that must die and the luminous being that is yet to be born. It is a descent, a sacred disorientation where your former identities, attachments, and perceptions begin to dissolve, no longer sustained by the energy of your Higher Self.
The careers we once idolized, the relationships we once built our self-worth upon, the beliefs we clung to like lifeboats in stormy seas, they all begin to lose their grip. Not because they were unimportant, but because they have served their purpose. The soul is calling for something greater: Divine union. And to receive it, everything false must be surrendered.
During this phase, even the joys of ordinary life may feel hollow. You may weep without reason. You may feel lost while everything seems to be “going right.” This is the soul’s way of whispering: You were never meant to stop here. There is more to awaken.
The Origin
The phrase Dark Night of the Soul originates from the writings of the 16th-century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross, whose poem by the same name chronicles the soul’s pilgrimage through divine obscurity. In this sacred night, all outer lights fade, but an inner flame remains: the hidden flame of Divine Light that cannot be seen by the physical eyes. This flame is the guiding presence of the Divine, leading the soul through shadow into radiance, through absence into sacred union.
For St. John, and for mystics across cultures, this process is not one of despair, but of purgation—a burning away of all that is not real, not eternal, not Divine.
The Esoteric Perspective
In esoteric terms, the Dark Night occurs when the false self, or ego identity, collapses under the weight of awakening truth. The soul, having outgrown its former shell, begins to shed its karmic husk. This is often accompanied by an existential grief — a mourning for the life you thought you were supposed to live.
Yet hidden within this grief is the seed of illumination.
This stage often marks the crossing of a threshold. It is the death of separation. The soul begins to reclaim its sovereignty, no longer identifying with roles, achievements, or external structures. It returns to the Temple Within, where the true Self (the eternal spark, the Atman, the Divine Witness) waits in stillness.
It is not a punishment. It is a sacred initiation into higher consciousness.
The Symptoms of the Dark Night of the Soul
Everyone on a spiritual journey undergoes the Dark Night of the Soul before achieving spiritual enlightenment. However, we all experience it differently. And, unless you know what is happening, this transitional period can be confusing and scary. Here are 5 key signs that you could be going through the Dark Night of the Soul:
#1: Bouts of Sadness
The Dark Night of the Soul is a crisis in faith that can trigger a spiritual depression characterized by sadness. Think of persons with immense Christian faith like Elijah, Jeremiah, and David. History documents show how these spiritual leaders struggled with anxiety, depression, and failure (Psalm 51, 1 Kings 19, Jeremiah 20). Likewise, Mother Teresa is said to have dark night experiences that lasted for close to 50 years.
#2: Feeling Powerless or Hopeless About Your Current Situation
Anyone undergoing the dark night experiences becomes overly aware of their incompleteness and imperfection to God. You feel an overwhelming confusion. It is a discomfort that comes with a lot of hopelessness.
For example, the death of a loved one may remind you of how fragile life is, triggering a sense of powerlessness and sadness. Yet, unlike depression that brings about suicidal thoughts, or resentment towards God, the pain in dark night experiences is for a purpose. Hence, the loss of pleasure towards things of God is only temporary.
#3: You Desire to Connect with People
Are you active on social media, or lead a public life where you enjoy impressing the masses? A dark night experience may evoke a desire to connect with your followers or audience. For, this spiritual transformation process causes you to question everything that you once thought was true. Hence, your mind tries to derive meaning in all your interactions with others, letting go of interest that is no longer serving your audience.
#4: Lack of Interest in Your Passion
Often, a spiritual crisis leaves us listless and with no motivation to do the things we once enjoyed. In turn, we isolate ourselves with our friends and loved ones, sinking deeper into depression.
#5: Longing for “Home”
If you feel frustrated and conflicted to the extent of getting homesickness for an imaginary place you want to call home, it is a clear sign of the dark night of the soul experience. See, the spiritual trials make us long for normalcy that we associate with our loved ones of the home environment. It is a natural response to any life transition that comes with a feeling of loss and a need to adjust to the new norm.
Overcoming the Dark Night of the Soul
If you are going through spiritual depression, here are some tips to make this experience bearable: –
- Maintain a journal of your dark night experiences. This approach helps you see what triggers the sadness, emptiness, and anxiety. More so, it will give you the insight necessary to assist another person going through a similar experience.
- Understand how your subconscious mind works. Knowing your thought process helps you anticipate and avoid an emotional breakdown. Plus, it will give you a chance to identify any areas in your life that bring about cognitive dissonance.
- Let go of your fears, feelings, and old beliefs. Instead, be open to the present moment.
- Embrace the dark night experiences with a positive attitude. The experience is only temporary, and the result is a profound perception of self.
- Enrich your soul. Here, taking part in yoga sessions, forest baths, reading motivational books, or listening to sleep meditation provides an outlet for the anguish you feel inside.
- Practice living in the present. Remember, sadness, hopelessness, or anxiety comes about when we have regrets or conflicts about our past thoughts.
- Stay active. A regular brisk walk can help wade off thoughts of depression and loss of interest in our passion. Likewise, if you know you enjoy camping or traveling, start by making a campfire in your backyard.
- Find support. Spending time with friends and family can uplift your mood.
Conclusion
As the mystic philosopher Meister Eckhart once said, “We rarely find people who achieve great things without first going astray.” This is not a call to stumble blindly, but a revelation of a deeper truth: the soul often finds its highest path by walking through the valley of shadow. The Dark Night of the Soul is not a punishment, nor a fall from grace. It is a sacred passage through which the soul is stripped of its illusions so it may awaken to its true essence.
This spiritual disconnection, though painful, is not a void but a womb. The darkness is not empty; it is fertile. In these moments of inner silence and sorrow, the soul undergoes an invisible alchemy. What once brought joy may begin to feel lifeless. Desires that once fueled your passions now seem hollow. Cravings may rise—not for material things, but for meaning, for truth, for something nameless that lives beyond form. The sadness you feel is not ordinary. It is the soul weeping for its forgotten origin.
These signs are not to be feared but to be understood. The Dark Night invites you to become a student of your own transformation. Learn to recognize its symptoms (emotional heaviness, spiritual fatigue, a withdrawal from former joys) not as signs of defeat, but as symbols of awakening. Yet in this sacred discernment, wisdom must guide you. While the Dark Night is a spiritual initiation, clinical depression and chemical imbalances are human realities that also require attention and care.
To walk the path of awakening is to walk in both worlds: the mystical and the material. Discernment is not denial. If your suffering feels unbearable, if the darkness is too dense to navigate alone, seek support. Healing is not opposed to spirituality; it is its companion.
The journey through the Dark Night is not meant to destroy you. It is meant to dissolve the false so the real can emerge. And in time, when the night completes its sacred work, the dawn will break within you. Not the dawn of old joys revived, but the radiant rising of a soul that has remembered the light it carries.
If you feel called to understand this journey on a deeper level and to master the inner path of transmutation, I invite you to step into the sacred teachings of the SOLANCHA Mystic Course. This is not just a course. It is a spiritual initiation into ancient wisdom, divine principles, and inner mastery. You will receive the knowledge, practices, and esoteric tools needed to awaken your highest Self and live from the radiant state of LAN.
Your soul already remembers the way. Let us walk this path together. Visit the course page to begin: https://community.solancha.com/landing/plans/1511641