jespah lara - darkness

once upon a time i was on a family vacation in guatemala. we were visiting the mayan ruins in tikal, which were completely fantastic and awe-inspiring. the hotel we were staying at was in the middle of the jungle and the only lights were the few ones provided by the hotel lamps. one night i went out for a stroll past the gates to the main road. i took a flashlight with me.
when i turned it off i experienced the most absolute darkness i had ever experienced in my life. it was thick, it was all over the air in slices. it was smacking my face. and i was scared. it's different when you're in a perfectly dark room, because you know you can turn on a light or leave the room. the darkness is not permanent.
out there in the jungle nothing would lift it. my flashlight was a pitiful tool to help me against the darkness that saturated everything. and it was after that that i realized how to cope with absolute darkness. my problem then was that i was separating myself from it. the was me, and the darkness, and because i was apart from it, i was afraid. i felt that there was something else there in the darkness (and of course there were many animals) that i didn't know of, but which perceived me. I disconnected myself from it and therefore knew nothing of it.
however, what i should have done, and what i do now, is i unify myself with it. when i don't think of me and the darkness as separate, but rather as a whole, an entity, i am not afraid at all. in that state of mind, i am part of the darkness, it is a part of me, we are whole, i belong in it. in that sate of mind i am the one who knows, not the one who is afraid.
it was very liberating to reach the conclusion.