The Two Nights
We do not intend to speak here of what the mystics call the 'night of the senses' and the 'night of the spirit'; although these may present partial similarities with what we shall discuss, they contain many elements difficult to 'situate' exactly, and they often even contain elements of a rather 'troubling' character, which obviously arises from the imperfections and limitations inherent to every merely mystical realization and which we have explained enough on other occasions not to have to address anew here. On the other hand, neither is it our intention to consider the three symbolic 'nights' representing three deaths and rebirths that, as concerns the human being, refer respectively to the corporeal, psychic, and spiritual orders.[1] The reason for this symbolism, which naturally is applicable to successive degrees of initiation, is that every change of state is produced through a phase of obscuration and 'envelopment', from which it results that this 'night' can be considered in as many hierarchical meanings as the very states of the being; but for the present we shall confine ourselves to only the two extreme senses. Indeed, what we propose to do is to explain more clearly how the symbolism of 'darkness' in its most general traditional usage presents two opposite meanings, one higher and one lower, and, in addition, to explain the nature of the analogical relationship existing between the two meanings which allows their apparent opposition to be resolved.
In its higher meaning, darkness represents the non-manifested, as we have already explained in the course of our present studies. This
presents no difficulty, but it seems nonetheless that the higher meaning is generally unknown or misunderstood, for it is easy to show that when it is a question of darkness, only its lower meaning is commonly considered; and often a 'malefic' significance is added that is by no means essentially inherent to it and is justified only for certain secondary and much more particularized aspects. In reality, the lower meaning represents 'chaos', the state of indifferentiation or indistinction that is the starting-point of manifestation, whether in its totality or relative to one of its states; and here we immediately see the application of analogical inversion, for this indifferentiation, which in Western language can be called 'material', is like the reflection of the principial indifferentiation of the non-manifested, what is at the highest point being reflected at the lowest point like the summits of the two opposed triangles in the symbol of the 'seal of Solomon'. We shall have to return to this later; but what must particularly be understood before going further is that when this indistinction relates to the totality of universal manifestation, it is nothing other than the indistinction of Prakriti insofar as this latter is identified with primordial hyle or with the materia prima of the ancient Western cosmological doctrines; in other words, it is the state of pure potentiality, which is nothing but a kind of reflected and thereby inverted image of the principial state of non-manifested possibilities; and this distinction is particularly important, for the confusion between possibility and potentiality is the source of innumerable errors. On the other hand, when it is only a question of the original state of a world or of a state of existence, potential indistinction can only be considered in a relative and already 'specified' sense in virtue of a kind of similarity between the process of development of universal manifestation and that of each of its constituent parts, a similarity which is expressed notably in cyclic laws. This can be applied at all degrees, and to the case of a particular being as well as to that of a more or less extensive domain of existence, and it corresponds to the remark we made above about a multiplicity of hierarchical meanings, for it goes without saying that because of their very multiplicity these meanings can only be relative.
From what has just been said it follows that the lower meaning of darkness is of a cosmological order while its higher meaning is of a
properly metaphysical order; it can also be noted at this point that their relationship allows us to understand the fact that the origin and development of manifestation can be envisaged at one and the same time in an ascending and a descending sense. If this is so, it is because manifestation does not proceed only from Prakriti, from which its entire development is a gradual passage from potency to act and can be described as an ascending process; in reality it proceeds from the two complementary poles of Being, that is from Purusha and Prakriti, and with regard to Purusha its development is a gradual separation from the Principle, thus a true descent. This consideration implicitly contains the solution to many apparent antinomies, especially those concerning cosmic cycles the course of which, one could say, is regulated by a combination of tendencies that correspond to these two opposed-or rather complementary'movements'. The developments this might occasion obviously lie outside our subject; but from the foregoing it can at least be easily understood that there is no contradiction at all between assimilating the starting-point or original state of manifestation to darkness in its lower sense, on the one hand, and on the other, the traditional teaching about the spirituality of the 'primordial state', for the two do not relate to the same point of view but respectively to the two complementary viewpoints we have just described.
We have considered the lower meaning of darkness as the reflection of its higher meaning which indeed it is from a certain point of view; but at the same time, from another point of view it is also as it were its 'reverse', taking this word in the sense in which the 'reverse' and 'obverse' are opposed to each other like the two faces of one same thing; and this requires further explanation. The point of view relating to the reflection is naturally that of manifestation and every being situated in the domain of manifestation; but from the standpoint of the Principle, where the origin and end of all things meet and unite, there can no longer be a question of reflection since here there is really only one single thing, for the starting-point of manifestation as well as its endpoint are necessarily in the non-manifested. From the point of view of the Principle in itself, if one can still use such a manner of speaking, one cannot even distinguish two aspects of a single reality since such a distinction only arises and
is valid for manifestation; but if the Principle is considered in its relationship to manifestation one can distinguish two faces as it were, which correspond to the going out from and the return to the non-manifested. Since return to the non-manifested is the final end of manifestation, it can be said that, when viewed from this point, the non-manifested appears as darkness in the higher sense, while when viewed from the starting-point of manifestation it appears on the contrary as darkness in the lower sense; and depending on the way in which the 'movement' of manifestation with respect to nonmanifestation is effected it can also be said that the higher face is turned toward the Principle while the lower face is turned toward manifestation, although this image of two faces seems to imply a kind of symmetry which cannot truly exist between Principle and manifestation, and further, there can obviously be in the Principle itself no distinction between higher and lower. The point of view of the reflection is illusory with regard to the Principle, just as the reflection itself is illusory with regard to what is reflected; thus this point of view of the two faces corresponds to a deeper reality although it is itself illusory at another level since it in turn disappears when the Principle is considered in itself and no longer in relation to manifestation.
The point of view we have just described might become clearer if one considers what corresponds to it within manifestation in the passage from one state to another. This passage is in itself a single point, but it can naturally be envisaged from both of the two states between which it is situated and of which it is the common limit. Here again one thus finds the two faces: this passage is a death with regard to one of these states while being a birth with regard to the other; but this death and birth coincide in reality and the distinction between them exists only in regard to the two states, one of which has its end and the other its beginning in this same point. There is an evident analogy with what, in the preceding considerations, concerned not two particular states of manifestation but total manifestation itself and the Principle, or more precisely the passage from one to the other; moreover it is appropriate to add here that one also finds analogical inversion, for on the one hand birth into manifestation is like a death to the Principle, whereas on
the other, inversely, death to manifestation is a birth, or rather, is a 're-birth', into the Principle, so that beginning and end are inverted according to whether they are considered in relation to the Principle or in relation to manifestation. This of course is always said concerning the relation of one to the other, for in the immutability of the Principle itself there is certainly neither birth nor death nor beginning nor end, but it itself is the first beginning and the last end of all things without there being any distinction at all between this beginning and this end in absolute reality.
If we now consider the case of the human being we can ask what, for him, corresponds to the two 'nights' between which all of universal manifestation unfolds. As for the higher darkness, there is once again no difficulty here, for whether it be a matter of a particular being or of the totality of beings it can never represent anything else than the return to the non-manifested; because of its strictly metaphysical character this meaning remains unchanged in all the applications which can be made of this symbolism. But as concerns the lower darkness, it is obvious that here it can only be taken in a relative sense, for the starting-point of human manifestation does not coincide with that of universal manifestation but rather occupies a determinate level within it. What appears as 'chaos' or as potentiality can thus be so only relatively and in fact already possesses a certain degree of differentiation and of 'qualification'; it is no longer materia prima but, if one likes, a materia secunda that plays an analogous role for the level of existence under consideration. Moreover, it goes without saying that these remarks do not apply only to a being but also to a world; it would be an error to think that potentiality pure and simple could be found at the origin of our world, which is but one degree of existence among others; despite its state of indifferentiation, the ākāsha nonetheless is not devoid of all quality, and it is already 'specified' in view of the production of corporeal manifestation alone; it can therefore never be confused with Prakriti, which, being absolutely undifferentiated, thereby contains in itself the potentiality of all manifestation.
From this it follows that, as to what represents the lower darkness in the human being, only the image of reflection-to the exclusion of that of the two faces-can be applied in relation to the higher
darkness. Indeed, every level of existence can be taken as a plane of reflection, and it is only because the Principle is in some way reflected there that it possesses any reality at all, that of which it is capable in its own order; but on the other hand, if one passes to the other face of the lower darkness one will not be in the Principle or in the non-manifested, but only in a 'pre-human' state which is nothing but another state of manifestation. Thus we are brought back to what we explained earlier about the passage from one state to another: on the one hand it is birth into the human state and on the other it is death to the 'pre-human' state; or, in other words, it is the point which, depending on the side from which it is considered, appears as the final point of one state and the starting-point of the other. Now, if the lower darkness is taken in this sense, it could be asked why, in a symmetrical way, the higher darkness is not simply considered to represent death to the human state, or the end of this state, which does not necessarily coincide with a return to nonmanifestation but can be merely a passage to another state of manifestation, for the symbolism of night indeed applies, as we have said, to every change of state whatsoever. But, besides the fact that this would be only a very relative 'superiority', since the beginning and end of a state are only two points situated at consecutive levels separated by an infinitesimal distance along the 'axis' of the being, this is not what matters from the point of view we have chosen. What must be essentially considered is the human being as he is presently constituted in all his integrality, with all the possibilities he carries within himself; but among these possibilities is that of directly attaining the non-manifested, which indeed he already touches, if one can so speak, in his higher part, and this part, not itself human properly speaking, is nonetheless that which makes him exist as human since it is the very center of his individuality; and in the condition of the ordinary man this contact with the nonmanifested appears in the state of deep sleep. Moreover, it must be clearly understood that this is in no way a 'privilege' of the human state, and that if one considered any other state one would always find there this same possibility of a direct return to the non-manifested without passing through other states of manifestation, for existence in any state is only possible due to the fact that Atma
resides at the center of this state, without which it would vanish like pure nothingness. This is why, at least in principle, every state can be equally taken as the starting-point or as a 'support' of spiritual realization, for in the universal or metaphysical order all contain in themselves the same virtualities.
Once one adopts the viewpoint of the constitution of the human being, the lower darkness then appears more under the aspect of a modality of that being rather than under the aspect of a first 'moment' of its existence; but in a certain sense the two things meet, for what is involved here is the starting-point of the development of the individual, a development that has different phases corresponding to his different modalities which thereby possess a certain hierarchy; it is thus what can be called a relative potentiality, starting from which the integral development of the individual manifestation is effected. In this respect, what is represented by the lower darkness can only be the grossest part of the human individuality, the most 'tamasic' in a way, but that in which this individuality in its entirety is nonetheless enveloped as in a seed or embryo; in other words, this will be nothing other than the corporeal modality itself. Moreover, it should not be surprising that, in the human being, it is the body that corresponds to the reflection of the non-manifested, for here again a consideration of analogical inversion allows all apparent difficulties to be immediately resolved. The highest point, as we have already said, is necessarily reflected at the lowest; and this is why, for example, in our world principial immutability finds its inverted image in the immobility of minerals. In general it can be said that the properties of the spiritual order are expressed in what is most corporeal, but 'turned inside out' and 'negatively' as it were; fundamentally this is only an application to this world of what we explained earlier about the inverse relationship of the state of potentiality to the principial state of non-manifestation. By virtue of the same analogy the state of wakefulness, in which the consciousness of the individual is 'centered' in the corporeal modality, is spiritually a state of sleep, and inversely; this consideration of sleep, moreover, enables one to better understand that the corporeal and the spiritual appear to one another as 'night', although naturally it is illusory to consider them symmetrically as two poles of the being even if only
because the body is not really a materia prima at all but a mere 'substitute' for it relative to a determinate state, while the spirit never ceases to be a universal principle and never is situated at any relative level. If these reservations are taken into account and if one is speaking in conformity to the appearances inherent in a certain level of existence, one can speak of a 'sleep of the spirit' corresponding to the corporeal wakefulness; the 'impenetrability' of bodies, as strange as this may seem, is itself only an expression of this 'sleep', and moreover all their characteristic properties could equally be interpreted from this analogical point of view.
With regard to realization, what must above all be kept in mind from these considerations is that, if it is achieved from the human state, it is the body itself that must serve as its basis and startingpoint; this is its normal 'support', contrary to certain prejudices current in the West which would see in it only an obstacle or treat it as a 'negligible quantity'. The application of this to the role of corporeal elements in all rites, as means or aids toward realization, is too obvious to need emphasis here. Furthermore, there would certainly be many other consequences to draw from all of this which we cannot develop at present; in particular one can glimpse the possibility of certain transpositions and 'transmutations' quite unexpected by those who have never dreamed of such possibilities; but of course it is not according to the modern 'mechanistic' and 'psycho-chemical' theories of the body that any of this could ever be understood.[2]