Harnessing Adversity: Growing Through Life's Challenges, with Eckhart Tolle

Adversity is a wonderful opportunity because adversity forces you to go deeper. Are you able to dig and find the foundation within yourself that frees you from fear?

Certain actions take place. You do things, you know they're not the optimal things to do, but you can't help it. It's something acts through you. There seems to be some power there that makes you do things that you know are not right or not good for you, and yet you can't stop it. That seems to be the case. And that, of course, is often the case with people who are with you. It might be many different areas of.

Your life, but.

This is also the case with addictions. For example, people are addicted to a certain substance or who are addicted to eating too much or drinking. There's something that overpowers them in you that seems to obscure the awareness, or the awareness is pushed to the side. And this thing, this powerful thing, does it anyway. And again, my answer is a little bit similar to what I said to the first questioner tonight. The power of presence needs to grow in you so that it is strong enough not to. It's not willpower, because willpower is not the best way of dealing with these things. But it's what I'm talking about could sometimes be confused with willpower. But willpower includes the application of a force to hold something down. Let's say if your addiction is to have a. To indulge in intoxicating beverages. In other words, booze is the British word.

Then.

And you can feel it. It comes on. There it comes. You know the bottles are there. There they are. And you feel you have to go there, and you have to reach out and you have to pour yourself a drink. Now, when you're not aware at all, you don't even know what you're doing. You're so unconscious that you're already holding the drink and you're drinking. Then at that point, you. You even know that you're drinking. The same with food. I've spoken to people who have had addictions to food. They often say they wake up when they're ready. They've already eaten in the middle of the night. They've already unconsciously gone to the fridge, taken out the chocolate cake, and then they're already halfway through the chocolate cake when suddenly they what am I doing? So awareness comes in at a very late point. Willpower would be to hold an urge down. Let's say they have the pull or even what the example you gave. You want to turn on the tv and you know it's not right because I. I'm not here for that. And he actually told us not to do it. And I. But I can't help it. I have to go. I can't, I can't, I can't. No willpower, you would say. I'm going to hold this. I'm not going to do it. And I can feel the urge. But you're holding it down. When you hold things down, often after a while an explosion happens. It's like a boiling kettle. You can't hold it for that long. And then you have some kind of rationalization in your mind.

You'll do it anyway.

The mind will give you a reason. I spoke to a man who is addicted to food. And his body was very unhealthy. He was extremely dangerously overweight. Unfortunately, he's passed away. But he was a wonderful man and he talked to me.

And.

Often before he goes to indulge in excessive eating, his mind would say something like, you've had a rough day. You really deserve a treat. It explains why it's the right thing. I'm not going to do it for much longer, but just today I really need to treat. Life hasn't been treating me, but it's the only pleasure I have. What I do. It's all I have. There's no other pleasure in my life. Okay, go to the French. You listen. I attempted to be able to show him that this thought is a deception. And I had a little bit of success. But unfortunately, it was too late to save him. Well, he's no longer in the body, but that's okay. The essence of never. He probably reincarnates now into the opposite, perhaps in order to learn a lesson. Again, what I said to the first questioner to practice presence, power. When you're not particularly tempted by anything and you're just your room, there's no particular temptation. Go into the body, feel the inner body. Be aware, be present when you sense perception. I recommended that practice sense perception. Feel the presence pervading every cell in your body, the inner body, awareness. And so that there is enough presence for when this impulse comes, you use it as. Don't say go away or something like that, because it won't go away. It'll do it anyway. The impulse comes, whatever it may be, and you observe, you realize it's not a good thing that it wants you to do. And if there's enough awareness, use it as. Every time an impulse of that kind comes. This is your special spiritual practice. So instead of wanting to get rid of it welcome when an impulse of that kind comes. And see that this is a spiritual practice specially designed for you. Of course it is. And so how do you transform this into spiritual practice? First, you realize this is an opportunity for practicing. And the first thing you could do is you practice delaying, obeying the impulse, not obeying it immediately, but delaying it. And you observe. Then let's say you wanted to go to the TV and turn the thing on, or you feel the impulse, or say, okay, oh, here's my next spiritual practice. I'm now going to delay the turning on of this show on TV for three minutes. And during those three minutes, you observe this, the impulse in you. It's an energy form. And you observe it. Oh, there you are. There you are.

Do you feel it?

It's like a little gremlin or. And so this time gap can be a very useful first practice that you introduce. A time gap before you give in. You're not saying, I'm not going to give in. No, you say three minutes. During those three minutes, I'm going to observe you. And you shine the light of consciousness, the light of awareness, on this impulse, which is an energy form. And it can be an energy form that is in you as a kind of emotion. It can also dangerously invade your mind and make you the explanation I gave just now with this friend of mine. The thought comes into your head that explains why you should give in to this impulse. That can happen easily. And there too, you need to be present enough, sufficiently aware, so that you do not believe in every thought, especially those kinds of thoughts. You don't believe in every thought that comes into your head. You observe the thought because the thought is part of it. And even to the thought you say, oh, there you are. There's the thought, and there's the feeling behind the thought. And you set aside three minutes. During those three minutes, you observe that isn't that interesting, Wonderful spiritual practice. And you as. While you observe, you grow in consciousness. You apply consciousness to it. Only three minutes. Three minutes. And then after the three minutes, see how you feel. It may not. It may have dissolved, but probably not yet. It's still there. And then you can see, can I do another two or three minutes? Am I strong enough for that? Is my awareness strong enough? And yes, it is. Don't believe you might stop this nonsense. Do it anyway. And so you. And then you achieve five or six minutes of.

And then.

What happens after that? We don't know. It is possible that the impulse has receded, gone back to a dormant state. And you suddenly, you don't have to do it. It's also possible that the impulse is still there and you cannot. After five minutes there's not enough awareness left and you have to go and do it. But at least the five minute interval, the time gap was very important. And when anything like that happens, you always introduce a time gap for your spiritual practice during which you do not hold it down, but you observe it. So you don't push it down, you observe, oh, there you are. So if it's a gremlin, you don't, you don't say, hold you down, there's a gram, you look at it, there it is.

Oh.

Now the interesting thing, when you apply awareness to something, you shine the light of consciousness on it. The possibility of transformation is also there. It arises as you shine the light of consciousness on it. This is the famous example from fairy stories and so on. The frog, you don't kill the frog or do something with it, you kiss the frog. And the moment you kiss the frog, it turns into the prince. And so the frog stands for. This is like mythology. There's some wisdom embedded in these fairy stories, which by the way, many of them were not created by the people who wrote them. They were already orally transmitted over long periods of time. So they are mythologies that often contain a lot of wisdom and the terminal knot of wisdom in kissing the frog, which then turns into something beautiful. So there's something ugly, but you give it kind of, you give it an acceptance and love. You look at it and then transformation happens. So that is the spiritual practice. And after a while you will find that initially, perhaps after the time gap, you still do it. But then gradually this time gap gets longer. And then you may observe that the energy behind the impulse weakens and it subsides until next time. But gradually it weakens and all these self sabotage mechanisms then begin to gradually disappear. If you apply the awareness to it.

Observe them, there it is.

So think of the frog. These are all the frogs and whatever they are, gremlins, frogs that live in you as energy fields. And the energies are trapped there. They are not in themselves bad, they are trapped. Like the pain body is an energy that is emotional energy that's trapped. When the pain body dissolves, it transformed into presence. It's like a fire. You put a log into a fire, so it's consumed and transmuted perhaps is the word, it's transmuted into presence. And here we have again the famous example of. In Middle Ages certain philosophers were very interested in alchemy Alchemy was supposed to be the transformation of base metal into gold through a chemical process of transformation. But the true meaning behind alchemy was the transformation of human consciousness. And they have many images and so on. They could not speak and write about this openly because they would have been executed by the church at the time. So they had to hide all these symbols as if it were to do the transformation of base metal into gold, of something that is first of all not very desirable into something wonderful. And that's the alchemical process of transmutation, which really is something in the human psyche. There's an entire long treatise written by Carl Jung, the psychologist, on alchemy with countless illustrations and just fascinating things. But it's all the transformation of something undesirable initially into awareness, into consciousness. And this is so you're lucky to have that tailor designed spiritual practice for you.

So it's wonderful practice. That's your practice. It doesn't matter where you practice. Wherever you are in your life, you practice every situation, every moment is the two dimensions. And the end of fear comes with that. Fear being a normal human condition for most people, sometimes buried under something else. Fear, in its many manifestations, nervousness, tension, anxiety, anger, really comes out of fear. Stress really is a form of fear. All many forms of fear, quite normal.

Why?

That's all you know, that's fear. You don't know that. Once you know that also it's the end of fear. Because there nothing can be destroyed. That's why the course in miracles starts, which is all you need to know. The prologue, the first before it all starts, it says, this course can be summarized in the following. Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. Nothing real can be threatened. And that is.

Here.

Because nothing unreal ultimately exists in the world of form. The form is ultimately not real in itself. Nothing unreal exists herein, which means knowing that lies the peace of God. God, of course, is the formless, timeless, eternal, unmanifested, that is both within and beyond the world. Some of you, as I mentioned earlier, are able to step out of their mind. And you can practice that through a conscious choice. Be present. Nothing to think about right now.

Just be present.

Wow.

You don't carry your history with you when you're present, your life situation, I use that word in power of now, very important, your life situation. Everybody has one. Past, future relationships, job, health, finances, where you live, what happens to you and all your life situation. You have a life. You're here with you have a life situation, of course you do, but you also have. It's not that you have a life, you are life itself. And when your life situation is all you know about yourself, which is another way of putting that's all you know, then you miss life. Now, you're very good at dealing with your life situation, but you miss life. You do all the right things, but it never really gets you anywhere because you missed life. Life is now. And life is not in the doing. Life is in the being.

Now.

Step out of thinking into a large stillness if you can. And also another way is not to completely believe in every thought that comes into your head. Realize it's a thought, it's a position, it's a judgment, not completely identified with it. It's a story that you are telling yourself. It's amazing how many stories people tell themselves in their head. Many are completely distorted. It's not the reality, it's the story. It's how you see the reality. The reality usually is much more simple and more benign than the story. One of the early lessons in A Course in Miracles says you're supposed to look at things around you in the room and say, nothing that I see in this room means anything. This table doesn't mean anything. This glass doesn't mean anything. This hand doesn't mean anything. This floor doesn't mean anything. Now, what does that lesson mean? It doesn't mean anything. What it means is it's attempting to erase the continuous conceptualization of reality. Like scribbling on a blackboard. Because whatever you think it means is a concept in your mind. And if you deny the continuous and compulsive conceptualization of reality, it's like erasing the conditioning of your mind.

And coming.

To the place where the Dalai Lama is. Don't know. So this lesson in the Course of Miracles, all it's teaching is to come to the place of spacious emptiness.

Alertness.

No longer trapped in conceptual thinking, doesn't mean anything. And of course, that's another. You're moving into a different dimension by living in this way. It's just you inhabit. Suddenly life opens up and all the narrowness that the mind had imposed on it dissolves. And life becomes spacious because you found the space within. There's suddenly a spaciousness to life, not a threatening place anymore. What's life going to do? Where's my next threat coming from? And again, the same thing. For example, there's an entire spiritual teaching based on denying the reality of your story. Byron, Katie's teachings is based on the simple fact of denying your story of how do I know? Do I really know that this is true? No, I can't really know that. So you take you to the same place where the Dalai Lama is. Don't know. So it's a wonderful thing. You can enter that not knowing, but it's only not knowing from the viewpoint of the conceptual mind. You're actually connected with a deeper intelligence, unconditioned. And if you really need to know something, it comes, but it comes out of the spaciousness of not knowing. Well, it's a little bit like jumping off a cliff and then seeing if you can fly to the ego. It's a little bit like that. The ego says don't go there. Because the ego has worked it all out. It explains the whole. It has its philosophy of life. It might be very defective, limiting philosophy, but it has some kind of philosophy of life. Every person has their story through which they interpret reality. And usually it's not a pleasant work of fiction, but at least you think you know. It gives you some illusory foothold. And of course the ego thinks if I let go of that, I won't know anything anymore. Which in a way is true, but not completely true. In a deeper sense. You only let go of a distortion.

Of reality.

Created by the conditioned mind, which is part of the collective human mind in its present state of evolution. And so the collective mind of which your mind is part has created this human made world which is full of problems. And they seem to be, they pop out one after another. When you think one thing is better now suddenly, oh God, now it's the economy and then it's that, and then it's that another war.

What has happened through the gradual evolution of thinking is that now humans tend to overthink. There is a lot of not only unnecessary thinking that generates unnecessary and in many cases non existent problems, such as when you lie awake at night in bed and start worrying, it generates a lot of unnecessary unhappiness. So people don't realize that a significant part of the unhappiness in their lives is actually generated by unnecessary, negative, often destructive mind activity. And they don't even know it. Mindfulness is first of all discovering the simple fact that there is a voice in your head that continuously comments on your life or on what's happening around you. The self talk. Everybody knows what the self talk is in the head. You talk to yourself. Sometimes you talk to yourself in the first person. I, some people talk to themselves in the second person, you, so you can get annoyed with yourself. And then you say, you shouldn't have done that. And then you have another thought and says, yes, but I couldn't help it. And you might even get a third voice come in. And whatever it says, why can't I get out of my self talk? That's self talk too. But it's an amazing first thing. What I call the first awakening, spiritual awakening is something very basic and something very simple. It's a discovery that there is a voice in your head that always talks, talks to you, mostly silently. If it talks out aloud, then you're continuously and there's nobody around, then you are considered insane. But. And that's only if it's loud. But most people have that inside their heads and they are not considered insane. It is considered normal, but there's not such a big difference between the two. And sometimes when you, when you listen to, there might be a man walking in the street muttering.

And you say.

Oh, he's really insane. But it might be that you are doing the same, but it's just not out aloud. It's in your head. Why didn't I should have said that? Why didn't I say that? Next time he does that, I'm not exactly know what I'm going to reply. And it goes on and on. Or you lie awake at night and start worrying, you wake up and oh.

My God, what's going to happen?

What if that doesn't work? And if that goes wrong? And what if he does that?

And then you go into, you get.

Drawn, one thought leads to another thought and another thought, oh my God. And then the body, the body cannot distinguish between an actual reality, an event that's happening in the real life and what your mind is saying. So when you have fearful thoughts, the body reacts to every fearful thought. And that's an emotion. The body reacts with an emotion, the emotion you feel in your body. The body cannot distinguish between an actual event and a thought. So when you think fearful thoughts, the emotions you feel are the emotions that are saying, I am in danger. There is an actual danger here. So you feel the emotion of fear, anxiety, you might feel agitated. And it's not only not pleasant if you indulge in that kind of useless, dysfunctional, destructive thinking year after year after year. It has its effect on the body and it decreases the ability of the body to have the energy to fight disease. Even mainstream medicine is discovering the connection between your state of mind and your state of health. And so gradually we are seeing in the past they denied it completely. They only looked at Your body. And not only they didn't just look at the totality of the body, even within the body, they just looked at one particular symptom, what's wrong with that particular organ. And you have, of course, in mainstream medicine, you have specialists, I'm a specialist for the liver and specialist for this and this and that. Not only not taking into account the totality of the body, but more importantly, not taking into account the totality of the person, which includes the physical body and the mind. So it's vitally important to discover first of all that there is a voice in your head that indulges in self talk most of the time. And for many people, interestingly enough, that self talk for many people is not always negative, but for many people, it is more negative than positive. A good event that happened yesterday, a nice, you might have gone to a nice reunion or you went out into nature and you witnessed a beautiful sunset, okay, you can remember it today and think that was a beautiful sunset, or we had a nice talk yesterday. But you can't do that much thinking about a nice event. But the mind, when there's something negative that happens yesterday, somebody offended you or didn't give you the attention that you needed that you wanted from him, then you can start thinking of, oh my God, what he did. He's really. Next time he just said, I'm going to say that, or he's really soon, why doesn't he. You can go on for a long time dwelling on something negative, much longer than dwelling on something positive. It is so seemingly a negative event is much more food for useless mind activity than a positive event. And this is why for many people, a significant percentage of their mind activity is negative. For some people, it is almost 100% negative. But it is unlikely that these people would get a job in this company. And I mean that because the. Your predominant state of consciousness, your predominant mental emotional state, there's a certain correlation between who you associate with, where you find yourself, and even what kind of things happen to you. There is a correlation which is not always immediately recognizable, but there is a correlation between one's. A person's predominant mental emotional state and who they are with, who their friends are, where they work, and even what happens to them. So if you are, if you are in a very negative state a long time, you tend to attract also negative events. But you can only have to find that out for yourself. I'm not saying, believe me, I know it from my own life because when I first discovered this, I was still very young. I Discovered that there is a correlation between my mind activity and what happens to me. I found a book and that somebody. Several books that somebody left with us. When I was 17 and there for the first time, I read about a person's mind. And I suddenly realized my mind was predominantly negative. I was a very unhappy child. And so my childhood was not pleasant. And so the initial conditioning of my life was that my mind was continuously commenting and saying how bad my life was. And whenever something bad happened to me, that I had a phrase that would.

Occur again in my mindset.

Of course, bad things always happen to you, don't they? They're bound to happen to you. It always happens to you. So I was talking to myself and saying that bad things would always happen to me. And they did. So you can discover first what the spiritual awakening is to discover that there is continuous mind activity. And for some people it's the discovery that a significant part of their mind activity is negative. But the vital thing is to discover that there is this continuous talk in my head which is considered the normal human state. And of course you cannot abolish thinking. Of course there will be thinking. But the question is, is there an awareness behind the thinking? If you can become aware that you are indulging or caught up in that useless mind activity. And you suddenly become aware of perhaps certain repetitive thoughts, they tend to occur in your mind again and again. You might see it in others too, more easily in others. When you go for your Thanksgiving dinner, I think, is it next week? You will meet your family members or relatives, and some of you may realize you already know what they are going to say this year. Because it's the same thing they said last year and five years and 10 years ago. And if they have negative judgments about you or somebody else, then it's the same thing you will hear again next week when you go to them. So it's easier to see how others are caught up in repetitive thought forms. Not as easy to see it in oneself. This is why there's a saying that self knowledge is the most difficult knowledge. It's easier to see others. But if you can discover, even in the midst, perhaps in the moment of a certain thought appearing in your mind realizing, oh, that thought is, I've had this thought for years. It comes again and again and again. And so there is an observing presence. From there you can. And that observing presence isn't a thought. It's just the ability to realize that there is a voice in your head and that there are thoughts. And you realize that some of those thoughts are negative. And many of those thoughts actually are not only unnecessary, but make your life very difficult, such as worry. So most people live with what I call a cluttered mind. A cluttered mind means they are completely unaware that there's a continuous stream of mental commentary. And wherever they meet somebody, immediately certain judgments form and everything they feel they need to immediately adopt a position towards it. Immediately I'm against it. I dislike later. Immediately adapt. Adapt a mental position and being identified with one's mental position, which is a.

Thought and a few more practical.

Tips.

So that you don't get distracted too much while you take your attention more deeply while you're here, take your attention more deeply into being or into attention itself. Purely practical. Don't turn on the TV in your room, please. I have not installed hidden cameras to check on you. Second, limit your interaction the interaction with your devices. If you cannot eliminate interaction with your devices completely, and I understand that you may not survive if you do at least put aside just maybe Once a day, 15 minutes when you check your whatever it is that comes through whatever text, email, Facebook, Snapchat, Tinder, it's all very important, but there's something more important and that's why you're here. If you.

So now, let's see.

I suggest to you that you make an agreement with yourself that not to go there unless any more than is absolutely necessary. And I mean, if you. Occasionally you have, you get it out and to take a photo is okay, but also don't interact with things around you, only through imagining what it would look like as a photo on your phone. And then say, okay, I'm going to.

Fully experience this beautiful thing when I.

Get home and look in my photos. In the meantime, I'm more interested in taking this photo because that's what the There's a species that has developed out of Homo sapiens, a branch species called Homo turisticus. And they walk around continuously with either camera or things. You see them every day they come in buses. And then in the evening the Homo touristic goes home mostly. And then you are left here. And you might notice it becomes quite still outside at this time. And the days are very, very long here.

You may find it unusual if you.

Come from a more southern place that there's still daylight around. Even at 10:30, there's still light in the sky. So then it becomes very still here. So you can walk along the lake or just wherever you are and just become aware of that surrounding stillness. And as you become aware of the surrounding stillness of Course, you become still yourself. And if you are still, it means you're not thinking or very little thinking. And it means you're aware, it means you're present, it means you are living through the deep.

I.

So use nature that is around you. Live through the deep eye. And during the daytime, if you're walking and there's lots of. There's a long weekend here and tomorrow is a holiday in Canada here, so there's more tourists, homo touristicus, than usual. And if you get upset by the fact that there are so many tourists walking around, then you just practice this beautiful spiritual practice of acceptance of the isness of this moment. And immediately you become still too, without needing external silence, complete acceptance of this moment, including the tourists. And you still are. I don't know how tourists will develop in the future as a species. In Thailand, just near Bangkok, somebody they interviewed some near Buddhist monastery, they interviewed some farmers and farm workers.

They would give food to the monks.

That's a tradition in Buddhism. In the South Theravada tradition of Buddhism, the monks come with their begging bowls every morning. They just stand there. And then the local people come and put food. They are dependent. It's done on purpose. There's a wisdom behind it. Or the Westerner would say, why don't they work for a living? It's the monks stand there with their begging bones. And then the poor people who hardly have enough, who hardly have enough themselves, they come and put some food, a bit of rice, whatever, in the begging bolt. And the monks just stand. They don't say thank you because it's a privilege for you to give food to the monks. That's part of the tradition. So the Westerners interviewed the farm workers. Why do you give your food to the monks when you have so little yourself? And they began talking to each other and said, well, because we want a better incarnation next time. So we are accumulating merit, so next time we come, we are born into better condition. And then the Westerner asked, so what do you want to come back as in your next lifetime? And then they talked amongst each other. And finally the agreement was we want to come back as tourists. Because they observe these people.

They, they are.

They step out of their buses, they're well dressed. And some are obviously so privileged that they are quite big bodies, which means.

They have plenty of money, they can.

Eat as much as they like, so that's a great thing. And then they do all kinds of things. They seem to have sex all the time. And so it's a great thing. Wouldn't it be great in my next lifetime to spend my whole lifetime as being a tourist? They don't realize it would be a dreadful nightmare. Oh, yes, one more practical thing. Intoxicating beverages. There's no prohibition here on anything. There's just a recommendation, and that is to refrain as much as possible from intoxicating. If English is not your native language, it means alcohol. Refrain as much as possible from intoxicating beverages. However, if you cannot enjoy dinner without a glass of wine, then you can have a glass of wine. One glass of wine would not unduly interfere with the arising presence in you, but two might, and three, it will, unless you are really already deeply engaged in presence, deeply rooted in presence, in.

Which case you wouldn't even want to.

Drink too much, and you certainly wouldn't get drunk. So as little as possible, I recommend none at all would be great. But since everybody here is spiritually advanced, if you do have a glass of wine, you will not be judged. I'm not one of these spiritual teachers who are very unconventional ways of teaching. I know of two or three that did that. They give their students as much alcohol as they want and say drink up in order to observe if they can stay conscious even while they are intoxicated. A very questionable practice, but I won't do that here with you. I think one or two are feeling sorry now. So we've talked about the distractions on the external level. Television devices, intoxicating beverages or other intoxicating substances. I would advise against it, at least here, and never indulge, even when you're not here. As you probably know, I've already mentioned I tried it a couple of times. I have to, because people ask me questions about it I cannot answer if I haven't tried. Wasn't that great? I prefer my normal state of consciousness. It felt a little bit almost oppressive. But I can see a person who is tortured on a daily basis by their mind. It can be a relief to have a smoke. But here we have something better. We are not falling below thinking, we are rising above thinking. And that is the next step in human evolution. As you rise above thinking, you don't need to fall below thinking anymore because you become liberated from your mind in the dimension that is transcendent to thought. So, and another practice, of course here is the daily, the moment to moment practice of accepting the isness of the present moment. Just that's a powerful way of. And a quick way of going beyond the surface self, the egoic self, which means stop complaining either internally or externally. Of course, if there's something that needs to be changed, of course, you go to the reception or you make a phone call. If suddenly there's water coming through the ceiling, Hopefully I'm not manifesting it by talking about it. There's water coming to the ceiling and the matters and you on it getting drenched, you don't say, except what is. Stay, stay on the bed. Eckhart said, don't complain. So that's not the practice. But it does mean that when you finally go to the telephone and tell them what happened, it's not done in a complaining manner that says how dreadful this place is. How can you allow something like this to happen to me? This is dreadful. That strengthens the ego. No, you just explain what is and what can we do about it. And in the meantime you surrender to the fact that you are wet. That's what is.

The dark night of the soul is a term from. It goes back a long time, maybe goes back to the Spanish mystic, Saint John of the Cross. I'm not sure if it does, but it goes back a long time. It describes something. Well, the questioner seems to imply that he is. He or she is going through something like this at the moment. The dark night of the soul, which, yes, I have also experienced. That's a term then used to describe what one could call a collapse of a perceived meaning in life. An eruption into your life of a deep sense of meaninglessness. And the inner state, in some cases is very close to depression. Maybe some dark night of the soul, often to do with what is conventionally called depression. But it is basically a sense of emptiness or meaninglessness. Nothing makes sense anymore. There's no purpose to anything. And sometimes it's triggered by some external event, some disasters, perhaps on an external level. External rather than within. The death of someone close to you could trigger it, especially premature death, for example, if your child died or you had built up your life and given it meaning, and the meaning that you had given your life. This is what my life is about. Your activities, your achievements, where you're going, what is considered important. And so the meaning that you had given your life for some reason collapses. So as I said, it can happen if something happens that you can't explain away anymore, some desire which seems to invalidate the meaning that your life had before. And really what has collapsed then is the whole conceptual framework for your life, the meaning that. That your mind had given it. And so that results in a sense of darkness, a dark place. But people have gone into that. You're in that dark place for a while.

And then.

You emerge out of that. There is the possibility that you emerge out of that. You can emerge out of that into a transformed state of consciousness where life has meaning again, but it is no longer a conceptual meaning that you could necessarily explain. It is often from the dark night of the soul. Not necessarily, but quite, quite often it's from there that people awaken out of their conceptual sense of reality which has collapsed. They awaken into something deeper which is no longer based on concepts in your mind. A deeper sense of power, purpose or connectedness with a greater life that is not dependent on explanations or anything conceptual any longer. It's a kind of rebirth. And the dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die. What dies in the dark night of the soul is the egoic sense of self. And of course, yes, death is always painful. But nothing real has actually died there. Only an illusory identity. Now it is probably the case that some people who have gone through this transformation, they have been through the dark night of the soul. And they discovered that out of that a new self emerged that was a non conceptual self, but a deeper being, the awakened consciousness. And they somehow, looking back, they realized that they had to go through that. Not, not everybody does of course have to go through that, but some people do and they've even in some spiritual traditions they try to recreate the experience of the dark night of the soul in order to bring about a spiritual awakening. And that was probably part of the so called mystery schools of ancient Greece and Egypt which were designed, they even survived into Roman times, mystery schools and with rituals and so on. Not much, we don't know much about it because they were kept secret. Not much was written about it. And in one tradition you spend a prolonged period of time in darkness, sometimes even in a coffin, coffin like place, in complete isolation and darkness. That is an attempt, I would say, on the part of someone who has gone through the natural dark night of the soul to recreate the experience of it in a kind of artificial, more artificial way of actually experience that utter darkness where things break down. To what extent that worked when it's not a natural experience, but a created experience. For how many people that worked and actually did bring about an awakening and a collapse of the mind made self. I don't know whether it truly worked for many people, but it must have worked to some extent because. Because it's an. The tradition went on for a very long time. They are other, in other forms of. In mythological forms also. They speak of similar things, sometimes described as the. The night journey in mythological tradition or also the descent to the underworld. They all point to the same experience, which is not ultimately negative, it just seems negative when you are in it. But it is part of a larger purpose. It's part of the awakening. Not for everyone, it doesn't have to be, but. But often it is part of the awakening process. The death of the old self, the birth of the true self. So once you know that if it should come or if you should even be in the middle of it now, you can just. The more you surrender, the more quickly you go through it. Surrender means don't judge it anymore. You accept whatever it is. That's your experience at this moment. But as I said, not everybody has to go through that. For many people, the awakening process starts and begins without that. Sometimes even after the awakening process begins, it might still happen and then finally you will break through. But that's fine. Allow life to do what it does. You don't need to seek that and we don't need to recreate it in some artificial way. So don't shut yourself in a dark room for days on end. It's unlikely to work. It's unnecessary. The first lesson in the Course in miracles says nothing I see in this room means anything. And you're supposed to look around the room and whatever you happen to be looking at, you say, this doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean anything. This table doesn't mean anything. This hand doesn't mean anything. What's the purpose of a lesson like that? Well, that's a little bit like recreating what can happen during the dark night of the soul, which is the collapse of a mind made meaning, conceptual meaning of life, believing that you understand what's it all about. So with the Course in Miracles in lesson one, it's a voluntary relinquishment of the human mind made meaning that is projected. And you go voluntarily into saying, I don't know what this means, this doesn't mean anything. You wipe the board clean. In the dark night of the soul, it collapses. And in some spiritual traditions then you can actually, you are encouraged to relinquish your conceptual reality. And so you are then meant to arrive at a place of conceptual. One could say meaninglessness or one could say a state of ignorance where you don't things lose the meaning that you had given them, which was all condition and cultural and so on. And you can then look upon the world without imposing a mind made framework of meaning.

I'd like to share with you a short passage from the Bible. Doesn't happen very often that I read from the Bible as part of a teaching. This is from the New Testament, and it is a parable that Jesus tells that is very profound and absolutely relevant to the present time. So here we go. Everyone who listens to these words of mine and does them will be like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against the house, but it did not collapse. It had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not do them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came.

And.

The wind blew and beat against the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined. So let's understand the deeper meaning of this. Everyone who listens to these words and does them means obviously anybody who listens to the teaching and practices the teaching, and of course, Jesus teaching. Find the kingdom of heaven that is within you, not anywhere else in space or time. Find the transcendent dimension, the kingdom of heaven that is within you, which is a deeper dimension or higher dimension of consciousness, accessible to everyone. And the man that's building the house is you. The house is you. The floods come, the rain comes. Beating against the house obviously means.

Some.

Form of adversity you encounter, as you inevitably will in your life, some form of fairly extreme adversity, whether it's in a personal level or as we're experiencing now, on a collective level. Now, if you haven't gone deep enough, because remember, you are the house. If you haven't gone deep enough, you have not found anything beyond the conceptual, thinking mind. Then the floods, the rain, the wind, the adversity, whatever it may be, in this case we know what it is, will devastate you. And even if you do not fall ill or contract the virus, the fear will consume you as it's consuming millions of humans at the present time. And why do you fear? What is fear? Fear are certain thought forms. You project yourself into some future moment, and you're not present because if you were present, you would realize that in this moment there is nothing to fear. Only when you leave this moment, fear arises as a thought form which then creates an emotion. So what does it mean then, to dig deep and to find the foundation on the rock. What is that rock? The foundation for the house that you are. You are that house. And I'd like you to take into little meditation. Meditation. Now in Order to illustrate and to enable you to experience at first hand what it means to dig deep for a moment. Just become aware that you're breathing. Become aware of yourself, not the conceptual self. Not become aware of your personal history or become aware of some imagined future moment. But become aware of yourself as the conscious presence, a field of conscious presence. And thinking does not help you there. Thinking is an obstacle. So you go deeper than thinking, and you can be completely awake and present and yet with very little mind activity. And that is the beginning of the realization of your deep identity, what I sometimes call your essence identity. And your essence identity is inseparable from the present moment. It is the timeless, eternal present. It is a deeper dimension of consciousness than the one that you ordinarily identify with. And that is the meaning of digging deep and finding that unshakable foundation that is deep within you, within everyone. Adversity is a wonderful opportunity because adversity forces you to go deeper. Adversity forces you to awaken to the deeper dimension of who you are. Why does adversity force you? Because life becomes almost unbearable when you live only on the surface, the surface of sense perceptions and your conceptual mind. And then you listen to the newscasts and you read all kinds of things, and everybody's in a state of fear. That is the house built on the sand, that when the floods come, the wind comes, the storms come, the house collapses. Meaning, since you are the house in this parable, you are devastated, in a state of extreme anxiety, extreme suffering, although nothing actually has happened yet unless you contract a disease. And this is something we'll talk about next time, right? Is the house your house, the house that you are? Are you living on the surface? Is your house built on sand? Or are you able to dig and find the foundation within yourself that frees you from fear? Now, when things are going well, it's unlikely that most humans can't be bothered with going deeper. What for things are going okay. Looking forward to my next vacation. Weekend is coming up, and whatever it is, a nice meal is waiting for me. Everything is comfort zone. You're in your comfort zone. I've never heard of anybody who awakens in their comfort zone. There's nothing wrong with comfort zone. Enjoy them when they're there. They last for a while, and then some form of adversity arises, either on a personal level or on a collective level. Minor forms of adversity, and occasionally huge forms of adversity. Potential calamities, whether it's you could suddenly control, confronted with the fact of mortality, some great Loss, serious illness, on a personal level, or on a collective level, war, civil strife, civil war, financial collapse, invasion of your country, all, all kinds of things can happen. And at the present time, we are experiencing the so called pandemic, collective adversity. Not affecting just one person, now affecting millions at the same time. And this is an invitation to go deeper. Because if you don't, you suffer unnecessarily. Millions are in a state of fear and anxiety. But use this as an opportunity to either awaken out of the mind identified state of consciousness that continuously projects itself into the future that you have no control over. It is never present. This mind identified state of consciousness, it's the house built on the sand. It's an opportunity to come to this realization that you are much deeper than you had known before. You are forced to go deeper because you can't stand the suffering anymore, the unhappiness or whatever you want to call it, the anxiety. And so the most vital thing in any situation is the state of consciousness with which you meet the situation. And you should pay more attention to that than to the newscasts and whatever it is that you listen to and watch. Yes, you can do that also. But what is your state of consciousness? That's something you can do something about. It's not very much that you can do about the external situation. You can take precautions, you can help other people to the extent to which it is possible. All that's good, you do all the things that you need to do. And perhaps many people are now forced to stay at home. And suddenly you have to be suddenly on a private retreat at home. Now that's an opportunity too. So use this precious time that is here because. Because it is part of the awakening consciousness of humanity. It seems almost paradoxical to say that something that on the surface looks very negative and looks like an obstacle to the well being of humanity. And yes, it's an obstacle to the well being of humanity on a pure physical level, perhaps temporarily, yes. But something that looks like an obstacle from a conventional point of view is actually an opportunity for you to awaken to a deeper, or you could say higher level of consciousness. Humans don't awaken when they're in their comfort zone. They awaken when they are taken out of their comfort zone. Not everybody does. It's an opportunity. If you do not awaken when you're no longer in your comfort zone, you suffer, you are unhappy, you are anxious, you are fearful, you haven't found the rock. Now, the difference between this parable and actual life is in this parable, the man had already dug deep and he had already built his house on the rock. And then the floods came and so on, and the house was unshakable. In real life, often it is the case that the wind, the floods, the rains beating against the house, which means adversity arising in your life. The adversity forces you. If you haven't already gone deeper, it forces you to go deeper. And so it's not too late to start digging now in the face of adversity. Many of you are already in the process of awakening, probably most of you listening to this and what's happening to us now is a wonderful opportunity for you to go deeper, a deepening of that, an acceleration of the awakening. So as much as possible, especially whenever you feel yourself drifting off into a fearful state of consciousness and a fearful emotional state, whenever you realize that, realize that in this present moment there's nothing fear. And you have to verify this for yourself. Whether this is true or not. When you fear something, it's of some imagined future moment. Am I going to catch this disease? Am I going to die? Is a loved one going to catch it? Is a loved one, my child, My. Are they going to die? Imagine it, it could happen. But it's right now, it's not happening. So whenever you feel yourself drifting off into fear, realize, okay, I have lost the present moment. And I lost myself in my mind, in the thinking mind, and over and over. And then the emotion reflects that mind activity. So the moment you notice it, okay, I've lost the present moment. I am lost in the mind. Come back into the present moment. A few little things are helpful. Be aware of your breathing. Be aware of the inner energy field in your body. The body is alive. This energy, this life energy that pervades the body. You feel that you're breathing. You feel the aliveness in the body. You're aware of sense perceptions. You look around, you're present, and then you become aware of that presence that is inseparable from who you are. That presence that is inseparable from who you are. That's an amazing realization. There's more to you than the person. That presence is deeper than the person. Person. And you had. You needed the adversity either to find it or to deepen that which you had already found it. But it was not yet a deep realization. So this is a time of great opportunity. Use it, don't waste it. There's a saying that goes, when the ego. Ego weeps for what it has lost, the spirit rejoices. For what it has found. So what looks bad on the surface has an essential function. I will speak to you again soon. In the meantime.

Be here.

Be present. Don't lose yourself in the mind. Don't lose yourself in fear. Find and be rooted in this rock that is your essence. Identity. Thank you.