Grief, Pain, Loss – The Dark Holes In The Universe and Our Hearts

Like many of us in our lifetimes, I have experienced deep loss.
The pain of that remembered and traumatic loss in the body has an emotional scar. In yoga, we call this a samskara. For me, every time potential loss was nigh, there was some sense of angst and deep discomfort. It caused grasping, clinging, discomfort, fawning and control.
Everytime the hard lesson of impermanence arose, my guts would spin with the feeling of being out of control. Then, one day, I just stopped and lay still. I knew the loss had a charge that was simply strong energy. I stopped labelling it as fear and anxiety and just really began to lay in shavasana and surrender to this deep energetic charge in my body. And just like the physical pain we come across in meditation, this emotional pain didn’t have a solid hold as I once thought it did.

Now, this place in my body was in my very core, below the rib cage and above the navel. The pain of loss easily triggered the whirling sensation of angst in the solar plexus or third energetic centre. Over the years of working with many people and the emotions that we store in our bodies, I know this feeling is a common place of control, tightness and resistance for many of us. (In yoga therapy, we also call this the KUM region of the body. It’s where we feel dukkha, a sense of suffering or darkness. Conversely, in yoga therapy, we bring a sense of sukkha, lightness and ease to the region with breathwork and posturing but this dukkha must be first explored and accepted with insight and understanding).

Meditating on this whirling energy, I was able to transform the spinning vortex into flows of energy all that moved over the body. Shakti would be the best way to describe the phenomenon. I mentally stopped resisting loss, stopped controlling sensation and just noticed all that was coming and going because I could feel that energy was not bound to form. Then, I moved deeply into the deep dark hole beneath the spinning vortex and flows of energy in the body and allowed all this energy to just chaotically come and go. Underneath all this energy was a zero point, a still point, a spaciousness, a no-thing-ness, an emptiness or dark hole, if you will. We often refer to this as Shunyata in yoga and buddhism.

Śūnyatā (shoon-YAH-tah; Sanskrit: शून्यता, romanized: śūnyatā; Pali: suññatā), translated most often as “emptiness“, “vacuity”, and sometimes “voidness”, but can also means “zero,” and “nothing-ness”. Source

A sense of deep peace washed over me with the realisation that no energy can ever be created, lost or destroyed. Energy can be transformed, but essentially it always remains the same underneath all forms. The entry in the quiet spaciousness underneath all the chaos challenged my belief in form being so real, so absolute. 

Spiritual Leader, Thich Nhat Hanh, says it perfectly:

“When we lose someone we love, we should remember that the person has not become nothing. ‘Something’ cannot become ‘nothing,’ and ‘nothing’ cannot become, ‘something.’ Science can help us understand this, because matter cannot be destroyed—it can become energy. And energy can become matter, but it cannot be destroyed. In the same way, our beloved was not destroyed; she has just taken on another form. That form may be a cloud, a child or the breeze. We can see our loved one in everything.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

Whilst I was exploring this phenomenon of dark holes within my own form, I heard Eckhart Tolle explain that ten years prior to the scientific discovery of black holes in the universe, he had known about their existence from his own exploration in the microcosm of his own body. When he was writing the Power of Now, he was told by the publishers not to include this personal insight as black holes had not yet been proven. Fast forward a decade and we now have scientific evidence of their existence.

The Science of Black Holes

From an astronomical point of view, a black hole is a phenomenon of great mystery and wonder. We understand their physical form adequately but do not entirely understand their meaning. Black holes are the result of suns collapsing on themselves. Within every sun, there is nuclear fusion occurring that emits energy outwards. Additionally, all suns are incredibly massive and generate a gravitational pull inward. These opposing forces, the radiation outward and the gravitational pull inwards, develop a balance that keeps a sun formed. However, the gravitational pull can eventually overpower the internal radiation forces and cause the sun to implode. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity explains how space-time is a singular concept bent by mass. The more massive something is, the more gravity it generates. Once the sun implodes on itself, its volume becomes zero. This causes a point in space with the same mass as an enormous sun, with an infinitely high density. The gravitational pull of this point in space is so high that space-time is bent to the point where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape its power. Therefore, we call these black holes; not even light can escape them—making them mysterious holes of darkness in the middle of space.

Nonetheless, they are fundamental to our universe. They are a natural conclusion to the life of a sun. Additionally, there is one at the centre of every galaxy.

A black hole, given its high density and gravity, warps space-time to such a degree that some scientists believe they create wormholes that can transport someone or something to another place within their universe or another universe entirely. Black holes are potential gateways to other universes under the multiverse theory.

Another interesting aspect of black holes is that they represent a paradox within modern science. Black holes are the product of the theory of general relativity. It represents one of the incompatibilities quantum mechanics had with General Relativity and is one of the reasons for the development of String Theory. String Theory predicts the existence of many dimensions beyond the four we experience daily (three dimensions for space and one dimension for time). In the context of black holes, string theory predicts that the collapse of these extra dimensions can lead to the formation of black holes. In this context, black holes are considered the endpoints of the collapse of higher-dimensional objects. The properties of these black holes are closely related to the vibrations of the strings that make up the universe and the compactification of extra dimensions.

The Spiritual Teachings of Emptiness or Shunyata

Now with the scientific explanation aside, I wish to remind you how deep personal exploration and insight can lead to deep internal freedom. The acceptance of impermanence within our bodies, even our breath reminds us that impermanence is indeed a miracle, not something to be feared or resisted. Because of the gift of impermanence, anything is possible.

We begin to no longer believe so heavily in the identity of a separate self struck by grief and loss. There is such a heaviness, such suffering coupled with the belief. Love becomes truer, less controlling, more trustworthy. It lifts and opens our hearts. Deep freedom lies in the acceptance of impermanence and all that is.

This final quote by Thich Nhat Hanh explains it so well:

“It is only because of our misunderstanding that we think the person we love no longer exists after they ‘pass away.’ This is because we are attached to one of the forms, one of the many manifestations of that person. When that form is gone, we suffer and feel sad. The person we love is still there. He is around us, within us and smiling at us. In our delusion we cannot recognize him, and we say: ‘He no longer is.’ We ask over and over, ‘Where are you? Why did you leave me all alone?’ Our pain is great because of our misunderstanding. But the cloud is not lost. Our beloved is not lost. The cloud is manifesting in a different form. Our beloved is manifesting in a different form. If we can understand this, then we will suffer much less.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear

I recently had the good fortune of catching up with Nick See on the “Don’t quit on me” podcast. We explored the topics of meditation for physical and emotional pain and the podcast emphasises the teachings above in more personal detail.

Below is our conversation titled “Pain as a teacher” https://www.podpage.com/dont-quit-on-me/Celia-Roberts-Pain-as-a-Teacher/

Further listening and watching to merge the science with the spirituality:

If you are interested in the spiritual teachings of Eckhart Tolle on grief, listen here to this podcast.

For more of a scientific explanation on the spaciousness of the universe A Trip to Infinity | Official Trailer | Netflix