Come to the dark side, we have cookies

Tommaso Matelli
Jun 2, 2016
4 min read

Today I figured I'd take the cue from the season and talk about darkness. Because all the other stuff is fun, but this is pressing.

This year we had a strange Easter: some celebrated it at the end of March, some at the beginning of May. Easter symbolically brings Light to the world, yet this year it's very spread out, we're in June and still there's lingering darkness, more pressing than usual. Almost as if the ignition faltered – giving us the chance to shine more deeply.

I hope this will shed some light on darkness.

Come to the dark side, we have cookies

One night I was in a state of deep trance, I saw the world evaporate in front of my eyes and reassemble into a domed black room, the ceiling made of shifting geometrical shapes. It felt like a waiting room. There was a seductive song, the words kept going in cycles, it wanted me to force my way and break through. I had a visceral longing, something was beckoning me and I knew everything that would make me okay was waiting. I just had to say yes.

But something didn't feel right. I couldn't say what, I just couldn't trust the voice beckoning me.

Suddenly I was back in the world, it was over.

That was the first time I was officially asked to join the dark side.

It's happened a few times, in different ways that always have similar patterns:

Light you have to seek, darkness seeks you. It offers gifts and promises, it works at seducing you.
Light is being here. Darkness tells you you'll be okay if you do this or that, then offers the means to do it: it is wishing to be somewhere else.
Darkness can't take you unless you say yes. But it can trick you so you don't see what you're actually saying yes to: like all bad decisions, it looks hotter in dim lights.
Darkness feeds your ego and fears: it offers validation, power, it offers escape from suffering. It glorifies our own gravitational pull toward unawareness.
Darkness has no essence, it is lack of. Because it is void, it has to seduce you so it can feed on you and make you its essence, a cracked grail draining others to feel full. That's its only purpose.
Darkness comes to you when you shine brighter (and look tastier).

Think of the vampire: magnetic, powerful, an immortal with life at its command. The truth behind the seduction: a maimed creature, cursed to escape life, terrified by death. Its only purpose: draining others and making more like itself.

Darkness is the same, it promises your heart's desires but they are your ego's desires, born out of suffering and fear of suffering.

Fear of suffering comes from unawareness, the only cure for it is awareness. That often feels unbearable: to look at all the ways we feel unlovable, broken. Darkness offers to put more distance between you and that reckoning, disguising it as whatever you need to feel good about yourself – allegorically, vampires have no reflection.

By doing that we subconsciously reinforce the belief that there is something we need to run away from, and darkness steps in again to oblige. Thus we go further and further until the tiny spider we swept under the carpet of unawareness is made to look like a terrifying monster, creating the need for more fear, denial, narcissism – creating more ego, the allegorical devil.

Awareness is Forgiveness: you are forgiven by being willing to look at your pain, to feel it and ask if you can be taken back anyway through the power of unconditional love. In a transformative plot twist, by recognizing a higher Self and asking for forgiveness we find forgiveness in our own hands, we can look at ourselves without fear, empowered to shine the same love for others. You are forgiven by the very act of looking with trust in the truth of unconditional love.

To turn to darkness is to ignore the truth of what we are, and act blindly: whatever its claims, darkness is a quest for unawareness. It has to make itself appealing because no clear mind would ever turn to it, so it preys our more vulnerable blind spots. But all the promises darkness can make are already fulfilled right now by awareness, the Holy Grail we all drink from.

Right now, as we speak, you're a miracle, you're perfect and equipped with everything you need to turn on the light for yourself and others. Because you are Light. In that sense you are forgiven, you are free from sin – it's just a matter of going through the process of remembering it.

Remember you're safe, you're loved and you're wise: you can see through suffering and fear.

No darkness can touch you if you know the truth of who we are.

I'm gonna suggest to watch or re-watch Star Wars. Any Star Wars, maybe The Force Awakens. After all, we are awakening.