Don´t curse the darkness

 

I posted this in 2021, but in Swedish. Here is an English translation. With one word added! (Yes, "ableism". Couldn´t help myself.)  

I´m not exactly a fanboy of Osho, but in his door stopper volume "The Book of Secrets" (the madman´s commentary on the Tantric meditation manual Vighyan Bhairav Tantra) he actually says something interesting. 

Namely that God isn´t light. Rather, God is darkness. Or more precisely put: darkness is a better metaphor for the divine than light is.

Why do we think that God is light? Because we *fear* the darkness. But actually it´s the darkness that is divine. Light is temporary, it comes and goes. The darkness is eternal. The darkness is what is always left when the light disappears. The darkness existed before the light. The light "creates" our personalities and our entire (visible) world, while the darkness is primordial, that which existed before "creation". It dissolves our personalities and that´s why we fear it, but if we could just meditate in darkness we would realize that everything is alright... 

Or so Osho says (insert emphatic disavowal here!) 

It struck me that the metaphor "God is light" can only be used by humans with unimpaired vision. A person who is blind since birth can´t use it. We could also imagine an intelligent species who lives on a darkened planet and therefore never evolves normal vision (maybe it´s telepathic instead or whatever). Yet, many claim that God is light not just metaphorically but that the statement should actually be interpreted literally! Anthropocentrism, ableism, or what? 

The mystics of the Orthodox Church describe God as "the dazzling darkness". Perhaps this comes closer to the truth...  

Don´t curse the darkness. And do NOT light a candle!