Ok, freak this is looooooong; I hope it helps, (it's my P.O.V. and I hope it helps because I'm going through this too) otherwise we can keep talking through this!! :)
First off, the dark night of the soul is for EVERYONE FreakofNature....no human being is without doubt, therefore, the ability to transcend that doubt is there....even spiritual men/women of great faith were introduced to a struggle for their soul, and felt forsaken by "God" and felt faithless, and broken because of it, and that is probably the worst part of this experience, but EVERYONE can achieve this higher state of mind. They aren't imbued in any light that we all cannot experience it; I'm not a frequent worshiper of the bible or God, and I'm not spirtual master; I'm a 22 year-old college student, who suffered, and had looked for a way to enter within to find the true self....spiritual practioners, and worshipers are thought to be the only ones who feel this because they often are the only ones who seek to be "one" with all.....they are ones who practice this meditation often to reach a state of mind that is required to be "pure" and "focused" on getting above the pettiness of the ego.....this is a search for the GENUINE and REAL self.
The past is past, alright, but it did shape me.
True FreakofNature. We were damaged, and that's life...it happens....but you have to understand that it was the ego that became damaged, and NOT the true self....the true self encompasses more of reality, than just the little personal hurts that the ego is known to collect/accumulate throughout life....the true self is UNDERNEATH the pain, and hold your ego has over you....you are realizing the futility of your ego, and it's threatened I think....I learned that there is indeed a "true self" underneath it....the ego is just a psychological construct that allows us to observe reality in the body that we have....it is our P.O.V. literally, but that doesn't mean it's the "right" P.O.V. to establish, and build a life on because it breaks down....which mean, it's redundant, but fears discovering it's redundancy because it has learned/believes its the preeminent force of reality....."I must be all there is to this person because, how else could they see/observe life without me?" is how the ego sees things....but the ego seeks ways counteract these crises that arise that threatens it (defense mechanisms) that keeps the locus of control on the ego, ensuring it is the preeminent force in the persons mind, but there is something more to this situation....it just seems at this time "how can there be ANYTHING larger than my own P.O.V.?" well there is!! It's the "true self".
Ego and consciousness are emergent and contingent
The ego is indeed contingent on consciousness, but the reverse is false; the ego is a construct of the amalgam of experiences that we gain from our earliest times of conscious recollection; that's what the ego is, a framework of ideas, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings, and experiences that becomes cohesive and welds together, to form the so-called, "personality" and is designed to remain "in tact" in most situations....but the ego, can be broken, and undergo the process of "disintegration" that can be most profoundly positive for the possessor of the ego in question....think about it, breaking a habit can be done, and this is apart of the ego; ego's process of uncoupling the value behind the behavior that keeps it intact, can be magnified on a GLOBAL level (which now considers the WHOLE psychological infrastructure of the ego) and is repeated until the "Dark Night" is introduced....this made me "think/feel" suicidal....my ego, was breaking because it was time to undo itself.....it frightened me, (and still kinda does) frighten me to think that I'll be without that old P.O.V. but I'd GLADLY give it up, if it meant becoming the guy I both WANT AND NEED to be.
Even if you take 'self' to mean your vantage point and feeling of continuity there's no 'true' there.
I know a feeling of 'happy self' and wise thoughts, but they are no more true than any other self, feeling or thought.
There is a true self, but it's beyond the EGO, it's beyond the vantage point!! You see this is a time that silences the ego, from eclipsing the true self The ego is the self that most people identify with, and is capable of a wide range of emotional states, but is fundamentally false, because it's a psychological construct that deals with reality principally.....the internal landscape of the ego comes to a point where it's shading out the true self from emerging. The ego can be happy as well, and hell it LIVES to satisfy YOU so that it can keep it's sense/feeling of omnipotence, and omnipresence in your life; the ego will experience joy and happiness for a time, because data comes in at a rapid pace and changes our emotional landscape from time to time, but these states are ALWAYS transitional, and NEVER last forever once we feel them, they go around and around shifting from mind state, to mind state....
