Transcending the Illusion of Light Versus Dark
Jeff Street, Contributor
Waking Times
A belief that seems to be prevalent in many spiritual circles is that the ascension of humanity involves some sort of battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness — a battle between good and evil. Associated with this belief is the idea that we (the so-called awakened and enlightened ones) must defeat those of the darkness to successfully co-create a new earth. If you haven’t been drawn into this us-against-them mindset congratulations, you are probably better off without it (at least that’s my contention). For those that have been drawn into this belief, I humbly offer my perspective on this subject for your consideration.
From a superficial standpoint, there is certainly some truth to this belief — there certainly is an ongoing struggle between light and dark on our world. But when explored more deeply, you’ll find that this idea contains a great fallacy. And worse yet, holding this belief might actually block one from ascending and contributing to co-creating the new Earth.
When immersed in a separation reality like our own, it is so easy to fall into the trap of believing that we are in a battle between good and evil, that those of the light are here to defeat those of the darkness and save the world. Of course, this belief can only arise within a consciousness that is still in the grip of the illusion of separation. And ironically, holding this belief can only sustain the disharmonious and fearful conditions that we have thus far co-created in our reality. To understand and transcend the fallacy of light versus dark, you must first understand the illusion of separation that our reality was designed to produce, and why we chose to create and experience such a reality. But before I explore all of that, let’s briefly examine the state of our world.
The Darkness in Our World
There’s no denying that there’s more than a little darkness in our world. Fear, conflict, and suffering have been running rampant for as long as we can remember. It certainly appears that evil is alive and well. At least that’s the impression one might get from watching the mainstream news — whose primary purpose seems to be to sow fear.
But certainly, there is no shortage of souls that have been playing in the dark, to varying degrees, in many of their lives within the Earth Game. Some of the most notorious of these dark ones are those involved in the so-called Cabal/Illuminati. But there are many others, in a wide variety of positions in our society — and this includes many (but certainly by no means all) corporate, governmental, military, and even religious leaders. These extremely self-serving people seem to measure their self-worth by how much wealth they can accumulate and how much power over others they can have, and they are typically obsessed with their own achievement and power and have little regard for the welfare of others.
The most dedicated of these people have been ruthlessly consolidating their power and wealth via their command of the international banking and financial system, by creating trans-national corporate empires, and infiltrating our governments with their minions. Encouraging division amongst us is one of their most potent tools that facilitates their self-serving agendas. They keep us divided by encouraging fear, competition, and conflict amongst us.
The Great Awakening
If you are reading this article, then you’re probably aware that there is a great awakening spreading throughout Humanity. More and more people are awakening to their true spiritual nature, the greater spiritual reality, and the metaphysical nature of existence. It is this awakening that will inevitably lead to a great transformation of ourselves and our world.
As a part of this awakening process, more and more people are becoming acutely aware that humanity has been under the thumb of some very negative and self-serving people bent on their own self-aggrandizement and world domination. Many awakening souls are more than a little shocked when they realize the truth of this — when they realize that we’ve allowed ourselves to be unwittingly manipulated and subjugated by these dark ones. Some are so appalled by the unsettling revelations of lies, greed, manipulation, and control that they get drawn into judgment, blame, and condemnation of those seen as responsible (some even get stuck obsessively focusing on the injustice of it, a very unproductive state of mind that I call awakening shock syndrome).
With the shock of this realization, it’s no wonder that many people buy into the belief that a part of our ascension process involves a battle between good and evil and the defeat of the dark ones. But I didn’t write this article to complain about the state of the world or to encourage people to feel like victims or to fuel resentment, judgment, blame, and condemnation. I wrote this article to point out that the supposedly spiritual idea of “light versus dark,” and the “us against them” mentality that it represents, is a subtle yet insidious trap. A trap that is critical to become aware of because it can potentially stop us from ascending and co-creating a new and better Earth.
The Metaphor of Light and Dark
It’s important to understand that the terms “light” and “dark” are simply metaphors for the degree of connectivity and alignment that one has with their higher self. When one is well-connected and aligned with the higher levels of their consciousness (their soul, over-soul, and beyond), they increasingly express a way of being that reflects the state of being of their higher self. This way of being is characterized by unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness, acceptance, allowance, fearlessness, positivity, and service-to-others — to name just a few. The more you express these qualities, the more it could be said that you are “shining the light” of your higher self into this world.
In the same vein, the term “dark” or “darkness” is simply a metaphor for the lack of connection and alignment with ones higher self. When one is poorly connected and misaligned with one’s higher self, one’s way of being will veer off in the direction of negativity, fear, self-servedness, and perhaps even a lust for power-over-others. How far one will go in this direction just depends on one’s degree of misalignment with their higher self and their unique set of experiences. The more one expresses this way of being, the more it could be said that one is in “darkness” or “playing in the dark” — or if we want to get over-dramatic “gone to the dark side.”
There is No Force of Darkness
It’s important to understand that there is no force of darkness. Darkness doesn’t exist on its own; it is not a thing unto itself; darkness is simply the lack of light. All that really exists is the “light” of your higher self. If you block a light source, you create a shadow — an area where the light is much dimmer. When you block the “light” of your higher self, you create darkness. Metaphorically speaking that is, because remember what we are really talking about is the degree of connection and alignment with your higher self or the lack thereof, and the way of being you express in this world.
So, there is no “force” of darkness, no force of evil. There is nothing pushing us to become negative and self-serving other than our own unconsciousness (our own disconnection from our higher-selves). We are creating our own darkness by unwittingly blocking the love and light and wisdom of our higher self — our darkness and the darkness in our world is self-created! Ultimately there is nothing other than the “illusion of separation” that causes one to follow the negative path or turn to the dark side. More about the illusion of separation coming shortly.
Eckhart Tolle eloquently echoes my point about the origin of darkness, in his book A New Earth, when he said There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. With this realization, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.
Our true selves, our higher-selves, are the love and light we seek — we are already that, if we allow it. But we ourselves are blocking the love and light of our higher-selves and creating the darkness in ourselves and our world. This idea was eloquently expressed by Rumi, the beloved 13th-century Persian poet, and Sufi mystic, when he said:
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
And the two most significant barriers to expressing the love and light of our higher-selves are undoubtedly our fear and ego. These are the significant barriers that I think Rumi might have been alluding to, but of course, there are a multitude of variations. But let’s not demonize fear and ego, because they are just natural consequences of diving into the experience of a separation reality construct like our own. And as I alluded to earlier, to understand the fallacy of the “light versus dark” idea one has to understand the illusion of separation our reality provides us.
The Illusion of Separation
We specifically created our reality construct to have a separation experience, and it indeed produces a very powerful illusion of separation. And of course, this was not a mistake, we (higher aspects of ourselves — our oversouls and beyond) intentionally designed this reality as the ultimate experience of individuality, separation, and limitation. So, we understood full well what we were getting into when we chose to dive into the separation game.
We wanted to experience something dramatically different than our native state as formless and non-physical threads of Source Consciousness — eternal limitless creator beings! We wanted to explore the possibilities and experiences that such a separation reality would provide us. We wanted to explore the states of consciousness, and ways of being that would emerge within it and all their ramifications. We wanted to see what that would be like and what it could teach us.
Playing the Separation Game
We’ve all been playing the separation game for quite some time now — we have all played many many rounds in this game. Each time we enter the game (incarnate) the Veil of Forgetting and Unknowing takes effect, and we forget everything prior to starting the game — we forget choosing to play; we forget our reasons for playing; we forget our learning and growth objectives for playing the current round, and we forget everything about the wider reality and the true nature of ourselves.
With the in-your-face highly convincing experience of separation that our reality presents our consciousness, it’s not surprising that we quickly get sucked into the drama of the game. Because we don’t remember that we are eternal consciousness (non-physical and formless), we quickly become strongly identified with our bodies as who and what we are. And since we can’t remember anything about the wider reality, the bigger picture, we quickly come to believe that the world that we perceive with our physical senses is all that there is. And step-by-step we get drawn ever-deeper into the drama of the game, and ever-deeper into Separation Consciousness, and we become utterly lost within the game.
The Emergence of Egoic and Victim Consciousness
And once immersed in, and mesmerized by, the drama of the game we quickly lose our connection to our higher self and our consciousness, essentially, devolves. But not really so much devolve as to attain a state unlike anything possible in any other context of experience — a state of consciousness only possible within a separation reality like our own — an interesting and unique state that we might call Separation Consciousness. And this state of consciousness has two major aspects; namely Egoic Consciousness and Victim Consciousness.
Egoic Consciousness is a state characterized by a very strong sense of identity and individuality — one which often expresses as self-centeredness, self-servedness, greediness, defensiveness, and so on. Victim Consciousness is a state characterized by the belief that one is largely at the mercy of circumstances beyond their control, and often expresses as fear, hopelessness, disempowerment, etc. And because the state of our world is simply a reflection of our collective state of consciousness, our world is characterized by plenty of fear, greed, competition, and conflict.
Note that the common denominator here is FEAR. Of course, fear is not an unreasonable reaction to what our reality sometimes presents us. After all, there is plenty of apparent danger and limitation to worry about if we so choose. Because fear naturally arises within a separation reality like our own, we don’t need to demonize it, all we need to do is to understand it.
Fear is the Root of Darkness
And here’s one of the most important things to understand about fear — it’s the number one thing blocking us from expressing the love and compassion of our higher-selves. Ultimately much of the hurtful negative self-serving things people do is driven by their fear — fear that they aren’t good enough or worthy, fear that they won’t have enough, fear that they are not safe, fear for their survival, etc.
And as the beloved Yoda character from the Star Wars stories so aptly pointed out — Fear is the path to the dark side.
The root of all the darkness in our world is FEAR. Until we deeply understand this, we will find it difficult to unconditionally forgive and love those still playing in the dark. And until we do that we will be trapped in judgment and condemnation and be unwittingly perpetuating the world as we know it — a world of conflict and pain and suffering. Only unconditional love can heal our world.
A recent message from one of my favorite non-physical teachers, Seth (via one of my favorite channelers, Story Waters) really hammers home this point.
Darkness is an illusion. Darkness is the absence of light and that absence of light comes through unconsciousness. And that unconsciousness is experienced as FEAR. Fear is that which hides light. All are light.
The battle is not against ignorance (or evil) or those that are called ignorant (or evil); the battle is against FEAR… See those that appear ignorant clearly by seeing their fear. For when you see their fear you will not see them as other, you will not see them as separate and ignorant, you will see them as beings in fear.
And, when you understand they are in fear, and that they are not being driven by some nefarious force of darkness, then you will see that they are just loving beings in fear and you will be able to love them — then you will discover the compassion, the compassion of the awakened one, the compassion of the open heart that sees that all the ills in the world come from fear.
— Seth (via Story Waters, an excerpt from the Shards of Light Series)
When you understand that fear is at the root of every ill in our world, you are at the doorstep of transcending it and all that it leads too. And transcending fear and shifting to love is one of the greatest challenges that the separation game has to offer. Something that all the souls in the game right now were hoping they could achieve as a part of the great awakening and transformation game plan (more about that game plan later in this article).
Nothing to Fear
But it’s important to understand that fear is not a mistake We wanted to experience separation and fear is a natural part of that. So, we wanted to experience fear — something impossible in our native state as pure consciousness. What is there to fear as a formless and non-physical focal point of consciousness? Which is what you really are. As pure consciousness, you have no physical needs — no need for money, no need for a job, no need for food, no need for anything! And as pure consciousness, you cannot be physically harmed!
You are non-physical! You are pure consciousness! And that consciousness that is you is merely having the “experience of” having a body and being in a world. Your consciousness is essentially dreaming this experience you call your reality! Or perhaps a better analogy, your consciousness is playing a character (or avatar) in something very much like a multi-player virtual reality game!
Yes, this experience that you call your reality that seems so concrete and serious is a purely perceptual experience happening within your consciousness! It’s a symbolic representation being projected onto the “screen” of your consciousness! And this means that you don’t have to take everything that happens in the game so seriously or be in fear, none of it can truly harm what you really are. When you complete this round of the game, you’re going to be very surprised and amused by how seriously you took all of it. But we’ve gotten a bit off topic here, let’s keep exploring what happens to consciousness within the game.
The Positive and Negative Paths
One of the most interesting things that happens within a separation reality is that consciousness (and way-of-being) heads in two distinctly different directions — sometimes referred to as The Negative Path and The Positive Path, or the Service-to-Self Path and the Service-to-Others Path, or in keeping with the theme of this article (yet a bit over-dramatic) The Path of Darkness and The Path of Light.
The Service-to-Self/Negative Path is characterized by a way-of-being that is decidedly self-serving, and that likes to exercise power-over-others so that others can be made to serve their desires and needs. And the Service-to-Self label seems somewhat appropriate because those exploring this way-of-being (or on this path, if you like) have a strong bias towards fulfilling their own needs at the expense of others. Some of the attributes associated with this way-of-being include a tendency toward deceit, manipulation, and greed.
The Service-to-Others/Positive Path is characterized by a desire to help others and to engage in cooperation for the betterment of all. Those on this path have a tendency toward honesty, cooperation, and generosity — to name a few.
So in effect, there are two types of players in the game — those biased towards helping only themselves with little regard for the greater good of all, and those biased towards helping others and working together for the greater good of all. Of course, this is not an all or nothing thing, it is a spectrum going from neutral all the way to either very negative or very positive.
In any case, a complex dynamic emerges between these two types of players that creates a whole lot of drama and a whole lot of opportunities to learn and grow. There are perpetrators, victims, and rescuers; there are subjugators and the subjugated, etc, etc. And they all do a complex dance together as they play out all the ramifications of separation consciousness.
And again, this is not a mistake, this is by design. We wanted to explore all the states of consciousness, and the ways of being that would emerge within a separation reality. And the two directions or paths that consciousness can go is a part of that. In fact, some of the rules of the game that we put in place allow for both paths to be explored and their ramifications to be experienced.
Having said that, you’ll probably be happy to know that the rules are biased towards the Positive Path. You can only go so far on the Service-to-Self/Negative Path before it becomes nearly impossible to proceed and you “see the light” and switch over to the Positive Path. Ultimately the negative, service-to-self, power-over-others path is a dead end. The Separation Game is much like a multi-level game (or school) whereas you master one level you graduate to the next level. After the first few levels of the game, everyone exploring the Negative Path finally realize their oneness with all and the ineffectiveness of their approach and converts. Love, sharing, and cooperation work better, it’s that simple — this is a part of the grand lesson of our reality system.
Of course, there’s much more to the levels of this game than just exploring the negative or positive paths (or ways of being). A soul doesn’t advance to the next level of the game untill its mastered the core lessons and understandings that each level is designed to teach. The learning progression through the levels of the game (the school, if you like) is a fascinating subject that is beyond the scope of this article, but one that I will likely be writing about in future articles (subscribe to stay tuned) and my upcoming book.
Lost in the Game, Playing in the Dark
Every player in this game is Source — we are all Source (at least indirectly)! And we have all been lost in this game and playing in the dark to varying degrees for a very long time. Each of our souls has played hundreds, if not thousands, of rounds (or lives) in this game.
And even though we can’t remember all those life experiences right now (because of the Veil of Forgetting and Unknowing), I assure you that each one of us has played in the dark to varying degrees more than we know. If you inspect the Akashic Records, the record of all human experiences, and review all of your lives, you will likely be surprised (or perhaps even shocked) at what you have done, and what you have been, and what you have experienced.
You have been the light and the dark. You’ve been the enlightened and the unenlightened. You have been the perpetrator and the victim. You have been the good and the bad and the ugly. So, before you jump to judgment and condemnation of those still playing in the dark, please contemplate that.
We are all source consciousness dancing with itself in the light and in the shadows in this separation game. Within this dance many dramas unfold, and many amazing adventures are had, and they have all been incredibly formative to our consciousness — much knowledge and wisdom has been gleaned from our experiences within this reality construct — it is one of our most magnificent creations.
Negativity and Darkness only Exist within this Game
One thing that’s very important to understand is that negativity and darkness only manifest in our state of beingness within the experience of separation realities like our own. They don’t exist elsewhere — they can’t because they are a product of the separation reality experience itself. Egoic and victim consciousness and everything that that leads to is simply a result of the separation context that we imposed on ourselves and all the constraints that it involves.
It’s only when we dive into the separation game, pulling the veil of forgetting and unknowing down over our consciousness, that consciousness can go in the directions that it goes within the game. This is just where consciousness goes and how it expresses itself when it loses connection to its higher self. It is only within the illusion of separation, that our separation reality construct so effectively produces, that “darkness” can exist. Otherwise it is impossible, in our absolute native state as threads of source consciousness it is impossible.
Taking the Game to the Next Level
We’ve been playing the separation game for a very long time, and we have learned many things. Much knowledge and wisdom has been gleaned from our adventures within this game. But we had pretty much seen everything the game has to offer, and the question was Have we had enough? Is it time to end this game and move on to something else?
There would be no reason to continue unless there was something new to learn.
And that’s when we conceived of an exciting new game plan. What if we could all awaken within the game? What if we could all remember the true nature of ourselves and the greater reality while playing the game? What if we could transcend separation consciousness while immersed in the experience of this separation reality! That would be an entirely new and very exciting experience! Brilliant!
This is the new game plan that we have collectively chosen to try to achieve. That is what is going on right now. We all dove into this round of the game (incarnated) with the great hope that we could all be awakened, remember who and what we really are, and transcend separation consciousness and all the unpleasantries that this state of consciousness creates.
So, the greatest challenge of this game is before us. Can we awaken within the game? Can we transform ourselves (our state of consciousness and state of being), and thereby transform our reality? Because the state of our reality, our world, is simply a reflection of the collective state of our consciousness. And we were very excited to create a new world — one where love, compassion, and kindness would flourish, one where cooperation, sharing, and caring would increase. This would be one of the litmus tests — if we can change our state of being the state of our world will change to reflect it.
To achieve this new game plan, many adjustments and stimuluses had to be put in place. The rules of the game had to be loosened. The Veil of Forgetting and Unknowing had to be thinned. Our spirit guides would nudge us at the appropriate time to help us awaken. The goal being for each of us to remember our greater self and the greater reality. The goal being for each of us to re-connect more fully with our higher-selves and begin expressing more of our higher consciousness within this world.
An essential part of the plan was for each awakening soul to help others awaken by expressing their newfound understanding of the greater reality and greater self openly, and by functioning as a living example of a higher way of being for others to model. We came here to awaken and then shine the light of our higher self into the world.
Defeating Others is not a Part of the Plan
And here is one of the most important things — defeating others still playing in the dark was not a part of the plan. That idea could only be conceived of by a mind that is still in the grip of separation consciousness. And worse yet, because the world is a reflection of our collective state of consciousness, the us-against-them mentality that the light versus dark idea represents can only create more “us against them” experiences, can only perpetuate polarization and separation. You cannot transcend the experience of separation with this mindset; you can only experience more of the same. That’s why the plan does not include judging or condemning those souls still playing in the dark.
Here’s a snippet from a recent message from the 9th Dimensional Arcturian Council(as channeled by Daniel Scranton) that speaks to this point.
Condemnation and judgment will keep you stuck where you are. This is why it is so important to stay out of the us-versus-them mentality that is everywhere outside of you.
From our vantage point outside of the game, we deeply understood that each and every soul immersed in the game is doing the best they can and that getting drawn into the darkness of separation is just part of the game. Also, we were fully aware that all of us have played in the dark to some extent in our many rounds in the game — no soul can claim to have not gotten lost in the game. Hence, there is very little if any judgment, just lots of unconditional love.
Another thing that our souls beyond the veil deeply understand is that the others still playing in the dark within the separation game are other expressions of ourselves at different places in their journey. They know that each and every soul playing the separation game is Source! They know that we are all truly one.
So they know that trying to defeat the others still playing in the dark would be futile. You cannot defeat the dark; the dark is a part of us. We’d be trying to destroy a part of ourselves — of the collective consciousness of what we are. Destroying a part of yourself will only hurt yourself. You cannot defeat or destroy a part of yourself; you can only transform it with love; you can only love it back into the whole.
When you recognize that those playing in the dark are just parts of our greater self (parts of source) doing the dance of the light and the dark in this separation reality you then realize that they are not to be defeated, you then realize that they are to be loved back into the whole. Outside of the illusion of the separation game, we know this, and we know it deeply. This is the unity consciousness perspective, and it’s only with unity consciousness that we can co-create the better world that we all yearn for.
Transforming Ourselves and Our Reality
Our great hope, as we all planned heading back into the separation game, is that we could shine our light so brightly that every nook and cranny of darkness would be illuminated and transformed. We did not come to defeat those still playing in the dark; we came to unconditionally love them back into the whole. And this goes for everyone — your average everyday angry negative self-serving people all the way up to your power-hungry self-serving Illuminati/cabal kingpins.
If they choose to reject our unconditional love, and not join us in the light in this round of the game so be it, this is not the last round that they will play they still have plenty of time to see the light. We knew that love is the only thing that will transform ourselves and our reality. We came here to be beacons of love and light; we came to shine our light so brightly that others could find their way out of the darkness.
The only way forward out of separation is to send the ones still playing in the dark as much love and light as possible, and steadfastly focus on imagining the better world that we all yearn for.
So many great souls have incarnated into the game and walked the earth to share this timeless wisdom — only love and light can transform our reality. Desiderius Erasmus, the great Christian scholar and humanist of the renaissance period, said it this way — Give light and the darkness will disappear of itself.
The late great Martin Luther King Jr. said this — Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
The beloved Buddha said something very similar: Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love. This is the eternal rule.
We collectively chose to continue this game and to play another round in it to take the game to the next level, to dive into the game once again and see if we could transform ourselves and transform our reality. You cannot create a reality of love and harmony when you are still judging, condemning, and resisting the others that are still playing in the dark. Only unconditional love can create a reality of Love and Harmony.
As more and more of us shift our consciousness into greater and greater alignment with our higher-selves and our way-of-being shifts towards being more loving, compassionate, forgiving, accepting, and allowing we will begin to witness our plan coming to fruition. We will start to experience a great transformation of our society and our world — and the exciting achievement of our plan.
To the new us, and the new earth we will create!
About the Author
Jeff Street awakened about a year and a half ago, after having been an atheist/agnostic scientist type with absolutely no spiritual beliefs for most of his life. After many ‘magical’ new experiences, he is now passionate about learning and sharing his insights about spirituality and metaphysics on his blog www.divine-cosmos.net. You can also follow Jeff on Facebook via www.Facebook.com/DivineCosmoz
This article (Transcending the Illusion of Light Versus Dark) was originally at Divine Cosmos and is posted here with permission.