Theos-Talk Archives (December 1995 Message tl00020)

Eldon:
>Is the term "abyss" meant to imply a "dark night of the soul"
>experience for those that cross it? Then it would be akin to
>the western experience of transcending the personality of
>rising to the pure experience of unqualified consciousness.

They are different but similar thing. The Abyss is
an objective "place" in the invisible worlds around us. It is
the demarcation line between the upper three cosmic planes
arupa and the lower four rupa. The Dark-Night-of-the-Soul
is an anguishing experience that most of us go through at
some point in which the human mind eventually
comes to terms with the fact that its limited nature will never
allow it to fully understand or comprehend the infinite spirit.
Technically the Abyss marks the end or beginning of
the Ego not the ego/personality which is limited to the
3rd plane. Thus the Abyss stands just above the
Reincarnating Ego and just below the atma.

>It would be more like a "sweet melting" leading
>to a sense of "eternal delight" rather than a "dive into
>the dark unknown" or a "shattering".

It is "eternal delight" to atmic consciousness
but the Abyss is a "dark unknown" of incoherence and
insanity e.g. the unconscious to the ego/personality.
It is exactly what the ego sees when it faces the
unconscious in Jungian terms. Not a pretty sight
because the ego sees its own death within.

Jerry S.