9 - An Early Existential Crisis

I believe that young people are often capable of profound existential awareness (e.g. arising from early parental loss) though perhaps not yet able to articulate such experience in an adult fashion.

So we should not deny the authentic nature of an early "dark night" episode in a child due to lack of adequate intellectual interpretation. Implicitly, during such an existential moment, the appropriate structures are provided though explicitly these will be not be accessible after the experience has passed.

However, the more authentic the spiritual nature of such a childhood experience, the less satisfied will one be with the inadequate interpretation provided through habitual modes of understanding.

Thus the experience can thereby act as a considerable catalyst in the pursuit of more sustained spiritual development so that the existential meaning implicit in the early crisis can find its proper context.