How Awareness Becomes the First Step Out of Darkness | Eckhart Tolle

So, in the middle of the Dark Night of the Soul, what you experience is, on an emotional level, I would say, in some cases, a sense of dread. Sometimes also heightened anxiety. It's always there. A sense of dread— if you are in it, you know what I mean. If you're not in it, it might require some explanation. The sense of dread is: you look at the world and you feel everything is alien to you. I'm speaking from experience because a long time ago I experienced that state. So you look at the world and you feel totally disconnected from everybody and everything, and everything is strange and alien to you. Even looking at a wall, there's a strangeness to it. There's a word that can be used to describe that state that is perhaps quite an apt word. It's called alienation. Alienation, alienness. You become alienated from your surroundings, from other human beings. You cannot sense your connectedness anymore to others. You become alienated from yourself. you cannot sense yourself anymore. So it's a state of disconnectedness from everything, very extremely unpleasant and painful. Not painful— I wouldn't say painful, it's not physical pain but emotional pain. So that sense of dread, "Oh, nothing means anything." As I mentioned the other day, the preacher in the Old Testament, in the book of Ecclesiastes, says, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Vanity means meaningless, it's the old meaning of the word. Everything is totally meaningless, and a sense of dread comes over you, and that is the emotional level. Then the dark night of the soul on a mental level, if you are in it, you need to identify what that means to you on the level of thinking. What kind of thoughts are you thinking while you are trapped prisoner in the dark night of the soul? What is your mind saying? And you will find what your mind is saying is not very pleasant. It will be saying things, but what it will be saying is it reflects the emotions that you feel. And what your mind is thinking, saying, the voice in the head is telling you, reflects the meaninglessness and perpetuates the sense of meaninglessness. So it says, "It's all so pointless. What's the point of it all? I've done all that work, it's come to nothing. Life is just so dreadful." Perhaps you begin to hate everybody. Everybody is— I can't stand people anymore. The whole of the structure of society is horrible, horrible stuff. So every thought that you have will be reinforcing what you feel, the opinion you have about yourself, opinion about other people will be destructive, very negative, continuous negative self-talk. Now, he becomes your beginning of possible liberation, is for you to become aware on the level of mind what your mind is saying. So, by asking yourself the question, "What is my mind saying?" that can create a little bit of awareness in you. The awareness is not thinking, the awareness is aware of the thinking. Now, I'm talking again, if you are in the middle of the dark night of the soul, when I say that, be aware Can you be aware of what your mind is saying? You may find that immediately your mind will answer back and say, "What's the point? What's the point of being aware of what my mind is saying? Of course I'm aware of what my mind is saying. What are you talking about? Completely doesn't make sense." I know what your mind is saying, I've been knowing it for months now. Listen to that. Don't believe in what the mind is saying because it will mislead you completely. Be aware of the voice in your head and what it is telling you. How it is interpreting the world. You might as well try it out because you tried everything else and it didn't work, so why not try that? Unless you are so deeply identified with the negativity of this that you don't want to get out of it, because now after a little while the negative mental-emotional state can become part of yourself, your sense of self, a delusion, but it can become a very strong delusion and you are then trapped in a an angry, deeply unhappy sense of self. Some humans are trapped in that for years, and whatever they look at is interpreted through the toxic, mental-emotional toxicity of their self, the egoic self. So if you want to get out of that prison that you are trapped in, ask yourself, can I be aware of what my mind is saying? And no matter what your mind is saying, You're aware of it, but you don't believe in it. Just let your mind say what it wants to say, just be aware of what it is saying. And then there's the beginning of possibly becoming free of how your mind perpetuates and continuously recreates the dark night of the soul.