Why are Bad Times Good for the Soul?

There are two opposite poles to consciousness: self-consciousness and unitive-consciousness.

Self-consciousness is constrained by an organism’s thoughts and emotions. It is being inside your physical and sensory identity, separated from the outside world.  Unitive consciousness is a sense of unity or oneness with the world that transcends personal identity.

Anyone who has experienced unitive consciousness knows that it comes with a blissful sense of expansiveness, freedom and escape from the constraints of self. It feels like being true self. And that true self is termed the ‘soul’.

But we’re not always motivated to know our souls.

In good times, our thoughts and emotions are pleasant. We’re comfortable with our progress in the world, and there are no major causes of suffering around us. We are happy, so there’s no need to move beyond the constraints of our self-consciousness. That is why it is said that it is harder for a rich man to get to heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

But if bad times come along – say relationships fail, businesses go broke, or a pandemic alters the world – thoughts and emotions can become tormentors. We can get stuck in chemical loops of regret, disappointment, fear, anxiety and sadness. We may even find our very identities, with their attachments and senses of achievement, in disarray.

In these times, our intentions are most definitely to get past the pain, to find relief, and be free of this suffering. And an intention to leave our identities, is all that is required for consciousness to drift toward unitive.

It’s amazing grace.

Or, as Sheryl Crow sings in ‘Redemption Day’: Oh what mercy sadness brings.