concern. In Christian mythology we also have a God who is unavailable to us, and so we are given angels, archangels, and even fallen angels to keep us company instead.

“We come to God in bits, dismembered. We don't know if the bits can be made to fit in the way they used to”, writes Michael Begg, an Irish philosopher. His prayer is a simple one: “We ask God to re-member us”. But to do so, we

In the creation myths of the world there is always a time of darkness before the birth of the human race and, within this darkness, an undifferentiated oneness where all is God and everything is one. There are no human beings, only God-beings, or rather, aspects of God waiting to be born – if a unified consciousness can have aspects at all.

And then something happens. God becomes lonely and longs for a partner, a beloved, or becomes curious about his powers and potential as a God. In order to know himself and what he might be capable of, God must do two things: he must separate himself into at least one other form so he can look back at himself and know what it is to be God. And, so he can see what he has become, the God of darkness must create light.

God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light…Genesis I

Then he realised, I indeed, I am this creation, for I have poured it forth from myself…Upanishads

And so it is that with God’s ‘illumination’ comes separation and the arrival of opposites, parts in conflict with one another. The universal consciousness we all once knew becomes split into many - a chaos of fragments, a world unknown, a oneness divided.

This notion of separation and the fate of man within it is there in mythology the world over, whose stories speak of the distance and ambiguity of God (this original first consciousness) from man (what God has now become).

The Greeks, for example, regarded human beings as the playthings of the Gods, who were multiple and often at war with themselves, with mankind a tiny and insignificant concern. In Christian mythology we also have a God who is unavailable to us, and so we are given angels, archangels, and even fallen angels to keep us company instead.

“We come to God in bits, dismembered. We don't know if the bits can be made to fit in the way they used to”, writes Michael Begg, an Irish philosopher. His prayer is a simple one: “We ask God to re-member us”. But to do so, we m

ongs for a partner, a beloved, or becomes curious about his powers and potential as a God. In order to know himself and what he might be capable of, God must do two things: he must separate himself into at least one other form so he can look back at himself and know what it is to be God. And, so he can see what he has become, the God of darkness must create light.

God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light…Genesis I

Then he realised, I indeed, I am this creation, for I have poured it forth from myself…Upanishads

And so it is that with God’s ‘illumination’ comes separation and the arrival of opposites, parts in conflict with one another. The universal consciousness we all once knew becomes split into many - a chaos of fragments, a world unknown, a oneness divided.

This notion of separation and the fate of man within it is there in mythology the world over, whose stories speak of the distance and ambiguity of God (this original first consciousness) from man (what God has now become).

The Greeks, for example, regarded human beings as the playthings of the Gods, who were multiple and often at war with themselves, with mankind a tiny and insignificant concern. In Christian mythology we also have a God who is unavailable to us, and so we are given angels, archangels, and even fallen angels to keep us company instead.

“We come to God in bits, dismembered. We don't know if the bits can be made to fit in the way they used to”, writes Michael Begg, an Irish philosopher. His prayer is a simple one: “We ask God to re-member us”. But to do so, we

t’, and there was light…Genesis I

Then he realised, I indeed, I am this creation, for I have poured it forth from myself…Upanishads

And so it is that with God’s ‘illumination’ comes separation and the arrival of opposites, parts in conflict with one another. The universal consciousness we all once knew becomes split into many - a chaos of fragments, a world unknown, a oneness divided.

This notion of separation and the fate of man within it is there in mythology the world over, whose stories speak of the distance and ambiguity of God (this original first consciousness) from man (what God has now become).

The Greeks, for example, regarded human beings as the playthings of the Gods, who were multiple and often at war with themselves, with mankind a tiny and insignificant concern. In Christian mythology we also have a God who is unavailable to us, and so we are given angels, archangels, and even fallen angels to keep us company instead.

“We come to God in bits, dismembered. We don't know if the bits can be made to fit in the way they used to”, writes Michael Begg, an Irish philosopher. His prayer is a simple one: “We ask God to re-member us”. But to do so, we

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This notion of separation and the fate of man within it is there in mythology the world over, whose stories speak of the distance and ambiguity of God (this original first consciousness) from man (what God has now become).

The Greeks, for example, regarded human beings as the playthings of the Gods, who were multiple and often at war with themselves, with mankind a tiny and insignificant concern. In Christian mythology we also have a God who is unavailable to us, and so we are given angels, archangels, and even fallen angels to keep us company instead.

“We come to God in bits, dismembered. We don't know if the bits can be made to fit in the way they used to”, writes Michael Begg, an Irish philosopher. His prayer is a simple one: “We ask God to re-member us”. But to do so, we

concern. In Christian mythology we also have a God who is unavailable to us, and so we are given angels, archangels, and even fallen angels to keep us company instead.

“We come to God in bits, dismembered. We don't know if the bits can be made to fit in the way they used to”, writes Michael Begg, an Irish philosopher. His prayer is a simple one: “We ask God to re-member us”. But to do so, we must first remember ourselves by going back to that primal darkness and experiencing a world without forms.

RECONNECTION
Man has been searching for reconnection with the infinite and for a meaning to life ever since his realization of separation. Most often, if it is serious, this search will take place in darkness – of a physical kind rather than the metaphysical “dark night of the soul”, as Carl Jung defined it.

Recognizing the primal union that was present in that first darkness, sages and mystics have always used the dark as a vehicle for returning to a state of bliss and understanding. This return to peace and stillness enables them to break through the concerns and anxieties of their earthly lives, with all of its socially-prescribed reality and the conditioning of the world outside, so that they might, in some way, attain reconnection with an undifferentiated consciousness where all is One once again.

Within the Shinto tradition of Japan, for example, there is a discipline known as komori - seclusion - undertaken in the darkness of a cave, a temple, a shrine, or even a room in one’s house, which is specially prepared and purified so it may bring the gift of power and illumination. Japanese texts make frequent mention of sojourns in places such as these and in windowless huts, known as the komorido, which can be found on various holy mountains where ascetics undertake their dark retreats.

The practice of spending extended periods within caves can also be found in the remote peninsula of Land’s End in Cornwall, where Iron Age communities felt com