In the East, “Emptiness” and In the West “Chaos” or “Nigredo”
The training that leads to that is yoga training, which is done together with all kinds of physical exercises that are intended to lead to an emptying of the conscious mind.
In contrast, in the West the “chaos” or “nigredo” is not thought of as a mental state, but as a material state.
That is the big difference: Eastern mysticism is driven by the soul, while in the West it is matter.
The Westerner sees all psychological experience first in matter.
That is the initial state in Genesis: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” That is this chaos.
A state of deepest unconsciousness, devoid of thoughts, which is equivalent to the very origins of the world. Why is it like this in the West?
It is actually a curious fact that in the West, a soul secret or soul state is discovered in matter.
That shows you the extraordinary extraversion of the Western spirit toward the matter of the world.
We see it in things, Eastern people see it inside, in the soul.
The Easterner does not explain the chaotic state with something external. ~Carl Jung, The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, Page 53-54
The alchemical stage of Nigredo
The alchemical stage of “Nigredo”:
Inferno Canto I:1-60 The Dark Wood and the Hill
In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.
I cannot rightly say how I entered it. I was so full of sleep, at that point where I abandoned the true way. But when I reached the foot of a hill, where the valley, that had pierced my heart with fear, came to an end, I looked up and saw its shoulders brightened with the rays of that sun that leads men rightly on every road. Then the fear, that had settled in the lake of my heart, through the night that I had spent so miserably, became a little calmer.
And as a man, who, with panting breath, has escaped from the deep sea to the shore, turns back towards the perilous waters and stares, so my mind, still fugitive, turned back to see that pass again, that no living person ever left.
After I had rested my tired body a while, I made my way again over empty ground, always bearing upwards to the right. And, behold, almost at the start of the slope, a light swift leopard with spotted coat. It would not turn from before my face, and so obstructed my path, that I often turned, in order to return.
The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the sun was mounting up with all those stars, that were with him when Divine Love first moved all delightful things, so that the hour of day, and the sweet season, gave me fair hopes of that creature with the bright pelt. But not so fair that I could avoid fear at the sight of a lion, that appeared, and seemed to come at me, with raised head and rabid hunger, so that it seemed the air itself was afraid; and a she-wolf that looked full of craving in its leanness, and, before now, has made many men live in sadness.
She brought me such heaviness of fear, from the aspect of her face, that I lost all hope of ascending. And as one who is eager for gain, weeps, and is afflicted in his thoughts, if the moment arrives when he loses, so that creature, without rest, made me like him: and coming at me, little by little, drove me back to where the sun is silent.
