Out of the Darkness From Turmoil to Transformation by Steve Taylor

In Out of the Darkness, bestselling author Steve Taylor tells the stories of more than 30 people who have undergone permanent spiritual awakening after intense trauma and turmoil in their lives.

Read about the young woman who was reborn after suffering terrible injuries in the 7/7 bombings in London, the man who found enlightenment after becoming paralyzed in a fall, the man who underwent transformation after attempting suicide, and the recovering alcoholic who shifted to a permanent state of enlightenment after hitting ‘rock bottom’ and losing everything.

Steve has also interviewed several spiritual teachers whose awakening occurred after intense psychological turmoil, including Eckhart Tolle. In addition to telling these people’s stories, Out of the Darkness explains why turmoil has this transformational effect and illustrates the almost infinite capacity of human beings to overcome suffering. It shows how close – and how natural – spiritual awakening is to all of us.

Steve Taylor is an author and teacher whose main interests are spirituality and psychology. He taught courses on personal development at the University of Manchester in the UK for several years, and is now a researcher in transpersonal psychology at Liverpool John Moores University. He is the author of Waking from Sleep, The Fall and Making Time. Steve lives in Manchester with his wife and young children.

Steve Taylor: Out of the Darkness: Part 1

Steve Taylor is a lecturer in psychology at Leeds Metropolitan University and researcher in transpersonal psychology at Liverpool John Moores University. He has written for many magazines, newspapers and academic journals, including Psychologies, The Daily Express, The Guardian The Journal of Humanistic Psychology and The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. Steve lives in Manchester with his wife and young children.

Out of the Darkness tells the stories of more than 30 people who have undergone permanent psychological rebirth after intense trauma and turmoil in their lives. From suffering terrible injuries or developing life-threatening diseases, to hitting rock bottom as a result of addiction, these people have all shifted into a state of appreciation, connection and intense well-being.
Steve Taylor: Out of the Darkness: part 2

Steve Taylor – Out of the Darkness and The Fall (Turmoil to Enlightenment)

Steve’s research looks at how humanity suddenly changed from being peaceful to war like from around 6000 years ago. Humanity suddenly had an ego explosion where people became more individualistic and separate. Also in his new book “Out of the Darkness” Steve discusses a number of cases where people were going through some of kind of inner turmoil to then suddenly transform into an enlightened state of awareness. Where the ego collapses and allows a higher awareness of consciousness to shine through.

Listen to Steve’s fascinating interview and learn about his popular books on the subject.

Relationships – True Love and the Transcendence of Duality (by Kim Eng)

KE: During my travels, one of the most frequently asked question is “What is it like to be in relationship with an enlightened being?” Why this question? Perhaps they have the idea or image of an ideal relationship,and want to know more about it. Perhaps their mind wants to project itself to a future time when they, too,will be in an ideal relationship and find themselves through it. What is it like to be in relationship with an enlightened being?

As long as I have the idea in my head “I have a relationship” or “I am in a relationship,” no matter with whom, I suffer. This I have learnt.With the concept of “relationship” come expectations, memories of past relationships, and further personally and culturally conditioned mental concepts of what a “relationship” should be like. Then I would try to make reality conform to these concepts. And it never does. And again I suffer. The fact of the matter is: there are no relationships. There is only the present moment, and in the moment there is only relating.How we relate, or rather how well we love, depends on how empty we are of ideas, concepts,expectations.

Recently, I asked Eckhart to say a few words on the ego’s search for “love relationships.” our conversation quickly went deeper to touch upon some of the most profound aspects of human existence.Here’s what he said:

ET: What is conventionally called “love” is an ego strategy to avoid surrender. You are looking to someone to give you that which can only come to you in the state of surrender. The ego uses that persona s a substitute to avoid having to surrender. The Spanish language is the most honest in this respect. It uses the same verb, te quiero, for “I love you” and “I want you.” To the ego, loving and wanting are the same, whereas true love has no wanting in it, no desire to possess or for your partner to change.

The ego singles someone out and makes them special. It uses that person to cover up the constant underlying feeling of discontent, of “not enough,” of anger and hate, which are closely related. These are facets of an underlying deep seated feeling in human beings that is inseparable from the egoic state.When the ego singles something out and says “I love” this or that, it’s an unconscious attempt to cover up or remove the deep-seated feelings that always accompany the ego: the discontent, the unhappiness, the sense of insufficiency that is so familiar.

For a little while, the illusion actually works. Then inevitably, at some point, the person you singled out, or made special in your eyes, fails to function as a cover up for your pain, hate, discontent or unhappiness which all have their origin in that sense of insufficiency and incompleteness. Then, out comes the feeling that was covered up, and it gets projected onto the person that had been singled out and made special – who you thought would ultimately “save you.” Suddenly love turns to hate.

The ego doesn’t realize that the hatred is a projection of the universal pain that you feel inside. The ego believes that this person is causing the pain. It doesn’t realize that the pain is the universal feeling of not being connected with the deeper level of your being – not being at one with yourself.The object of love is interchangeable, as interchangeable as the object of egoic wanting. Some people go through many relationships. They fall in love and out of love many times. They love a person for a while until it doesn’t work anymore, because no person can permanently cover up that pain.Only surrender can give you what you were looking for in the object of your love.

The ego says surrender is not necessary because I love this person. It’s an unconscious process of course. The moment you accept completely what is, something inside you emerges that had been covered up by egoic wanting. It is an innate, indwelling peace, stillness, aliveness. It is the unconditioned, who you are in your essence. It is what you had been looking for in the love object. It is yourself. When that happens, a completely different kind of love is present which is not subject to love / hate. It doesn’t single out one thing or personas special. It’s absurd to even use the same word for it. Now it can happen that even in a normal love / hate relationship, occasionally, you enter the state of surrender.

Temporarily, briefly, it happens: you experience a deeper universal love and a complete acceptance that can sometimes shine through, even in an otherwise egoic relationship. If surrender is not sustained, however, it gets covered up again with the old egoic patterns. So, I’m not saying that the deeper, true love cannot be present occasionally, even in a normal love / hate relationship. But it is rare and usually short-lived.

Whenever you accept what is, something deeper emerges then what is. So, you can be trapped in the most painful dilemma, external or internal, the most painful feelings or situation, and the moment you accept what is, you go beyond it, you transcend it. Even if you feel hatred, the moment you accept that this is what you feel, you transcend it. It may still be there, but suddenly you are at a deeper place where it doesn’t matter that much anymore.The entire phenomenal universe exists because of the tension between the opposites. Hot and cold,growth and decay, gain and loss, success and failure, the polarities that are part of existence, and of course part of every relationship.

KE: Then it’s correct to say, we can never get rid of the polarities?

ET: We cannot get rid of polarities on the level of form. However, you can transcend the polarities through surrender. You are then in touch with a deeper place within yourself where, as it were, the polarities no longer exist. They continue to exist on the outer level. However, even there, something changes in the way in which the polarities manifest in your life when you are in a state of acceptance or surrender. The polarities manifest in a more benign and gentle way.The more unconscious you are, the more you are identified with form. The essence of unconsciousness is this:

identification with form, whether it is an external form (a situation, place, event or experience), a thought form or an emotion. The more attached to form, the more unsurrendered you are, and the more extreme, violent or harsh your experience of the polarities becomes.

There are people on this planet who live virtually in hell and on the same planet there are others who live a relatively peaceful life. The ones who are at peace inside will still experience the polarities, but in a much more benign way, not the extreme way in which many humans still experience them. So, the way in which the polarities are experienced does change. The polarities themselves cannot be removed, but one could say, the whole universe becomes somewhat more benevolent. It’s no longer so threatening. The world is no longer perceived as hostile, which is how the ego perceives it.

KE: If awakening or living a life in an awakened state does not change the natural order of things, duality,the tension between the opposites, what does living a life in the awakened state do? Does it affect the world, or only one’s subjective experience of the world?

ET: When you live in surrender, something comes through you into the world of duality that is not of this world.

KE: Does that actually change the outer world?

ET: Internal and external are ultimately one. When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently. Love and compassion arise, and they affect the world. Even if you find yourself in a conflict situation, there is an outflow of peace into the polarities. So then, something does change. There are some teachers or teachings that say, nothing changes. That is not the case. Something very important does change. That which is beyond form shines through the form, the eternal shines through the form into this world of form.

KE: Is it right to say that it is your lack of “reaction against,” your acceptance of the opposites of this world, that brings about changes in the way the opposites manifest?

ET: Yes. The opposites continue to happen, but they are not fueled by you anymore. What you said is a very important point: the “lack of reaction” means that the polarities are not fueled. This means, you often experience a collapse of the polarities, such as in conflict situations. No person, no situation is made into an “enemy.”

KE: So, the opposites, instead of becoming strengthened, become weakened. And perhaps this is how they begin to dissolve.

ET: That’s right. Living in that way is the beginning of the end of the world

How My Husband Taught Me To Enjoy Every Sandwich ~ Kathy Chang-Lipsenthal

When my husband was diagnosed in July 2009 with esophageal cancer — a disease with a 25% survival rate beyond 18 months — my initial instinct was to talk about inner strength. “You’re going to beat this,” I told him. “You’re strong. You’re healthy. You’re young.” I think I was trying to convince myself that he would be ok just as much as I was trying to comfort him.

In his serene way (the neurotic guy from NJ I’d married had become a lot more zen after discovering meditation in his early twenties), he immediately said to me, with a smile, that he was fine, that he was going to be okay, and that he was really more worried about us, his family. I was astounded. As physicians, we were taught in medical school about Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and then acceptance.

“You can’t go right to acceptance!” I remember saying to him. “You have to be angry about this! You have to fight this!”

“I don’t feel the need to fight cancer,” he replied calmly. “Fight comes out of fear of dying. And I don’t have that fear.”

Don’t get me wrong. He was not exactly happy about having cancer. Of course, if he had a choice, he would have preferred to live, and not leave his loved ones. But I found it so incredibly amazing how at peace he was with this journey – not sure where it would take him, but going along with the ride anyway. He wasn’t fighting the disease; he wasn’t battling it. He was just living with it. While he was going through chemo and radiation, which were brutal, I felt helpless that I couldn’t help him. In addition to being a physician — a healer by trade — I’m someone who likes to be doing something all the time. It was hard for me to stand by and just hold his hand and love him. It didn’t feel like enough.

Throughout treatment, and in the ensuing months, there was a calm that came over him. He had always taught in his workshops and lectures to physicians, medical students and many others in health care that “today is a good day to die,” an age-old Native American adage. I think he found it curiously satisfying that in the face of death, he could continue to live each day as he had in the past 30 years, loving and appreciating family, friends, and life, and living without fear. As he reflected back over his life, he realized that he was not the same person as that anxious child growing up in New Jersey. Moreover, the lessons and skills he learned throughout the latter half of his life, living fully, with love and gratitude, freed him from feeling fear of the unknown. Asked if he had a bucket list when he was first diagnosed with the cancer, Lee replied without hesitation that he really did not. There was no need to travel to exotic countries, climb mountains, jump out of planes. He had lived his life, having loved and been loved. No regrets. This was the basis for his book.

On Sept. 20th, 2011, my husband Lee Lipsenthal–physician, teacher, healer, devoted father of two–passed away from complications of metastatic lower esophageal cancer. The miracle that I had hoped for did not happen. He was prepared to die, but I was not prepared to let him go. I miss him terribly every day. I have read, and re-read Lee’s book many times. I can hear his clear, strong yet soothing voice recounting our story, and my heart aches for him.

But I also take great comfort in reading Enjoy Every Sandwich. I am grateful for my life with this remarkable man, who loved and adored me unconditionally, and taught me to unconditionally love and adore him. I am reminded of our first dates, when at the end of an evening together, my abdominal muscles were sore from laughing. He continued to make me laugh throughout our married life, and I am grateful that he taught me how to savor every aspect of our life. I will always remember his genuine smile and hearty laugh.

Before he passed away, I promised Lee that I would help him spread his life-affirming message of the importance of practicing gratitude, connecting with our loved ones, and living each day to the fullest, to enjoy every sandwich, every ingredient, be it bitter, sour, spicy, or sweet, layered in that sandwich of life–a guaranteed path to a life well-lived.

For more information and to read an excerpt, visit www.enjoyeverysandwich.net

Forgiveness and the Freedom of Letting go

Forgiveness is the mental, emotional and/or spiritual process of ceasing to feel resentment, indignation or anger against another person for a perceived offense, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution

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Liberate Yourself: Develop a Healthy Ego Through Meditation ~ Jeanne Ball

When you hear the word “ego,” does it make you shudder? We blame it for selfishness, haughtiness, false pride and according to Oprah Winfrey’s first “Lifeclass,” even for identifying too much with our thoughts. The former queen of daytime recently urged millions of viewers to find the “space beyond thoughts” where we don’t overly identify with appearance, job, self-image, or how others might see us, but instead with a deeper level: a quiet self-knowingness free of ego constraints.

Whether we’re in need of an ego boost or ego break, most of us would gladly welcome a higher state of consciousness, less burdened by attachment and insecurity. Some people try to restrain the ego in an effort to become detached or non-judgmental. However, there’s another approach to developing a healthy ego, easier than struggling to modify attitude or behavior.

Transcendence, ego and the brain

In university research labs across the country, neuroscientists are discovering correlations between different meditative states and brain patterns. For example, among people practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique, brain researchers consistently see high amplitude alpha coherence, especially in the prefrontal cortex (seat of executive functions).1

This increased brain integration correlates to the experience of pure awareness, where ego confinements are transcended. Meditators report that during a meditation practice, as attention settles inward — beyond worries, thoughts, and mental fluctuations — awareness expands and boundaries of time and space fall away. The meditator is at peace with herself and her universe, experiencing her true identity. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi called this “cosmic ego.”

Maharishi explained that there are layers to the mind: Thinking takes place on the mind’s active, surface level, and subtler than thinking is feeling. Deeper than feeling is myness or individual ego. Deeper than myness is amness or “I am” — the cosmic ego.

I first shook hands with the cosmic ego when, as a teenager, I began experiencing transcendence. Not by thinking about it, watching for it or believing in it, but through the natural course of effortless meditation. Like a river merging with the ocean, transcending happens spontaneously during TM practice. I soon found that my friends who had learned this meditation were having experiences very similar to mine.

I went from a shy, introverted bookworm to a more well-rounded, socially comfortable young adult. My newfound self-esteem was based not on what high school clique I belonged to, but on this deeper connection with my true self and the freedom it brings.

How to liberate the ego

Almost everyone has had a glimpse of ego liberation, perhaps after a humbling incident or when awestruck. During such moments, the bigger picture might flash into view and we see our self part of the woof and weave of the universe — more fully present, more appreciative of others — our perception more acute.

Yet, all too often, no sooner are we set free than we find ourselves ensnared or overshadowed again — by flattery from an admirer, a big credit-card bill, or the return of an old craving.

Venerated sages past and present have explained that we become bound when our individual ego is disconnected from its transcendent source. We then identify with the surface, changing aspects of life — as if our true, unbounded nature is lost or veiled.

This is why wise council throughout the ages has advised: Know thyself. Deep within us there is something momentous to be discovered, something that completes us, something not available when attention is localized on the surface.

Transcending during meditation, the conscious mind spontaneously identifies with deeper, more expansive states of consciousness, until we’re left experiencing our true, cosmic self. Awareness becomes non-localized, unbounded. Home at last, individual ego is not obliterated, but elevated, its incessant cravings fulfilled. This is ego at its healthiest. Here, beyond ego-tripping and ego bashing, one’s ego resides in its most dynamic, vibrant state.

Total self/total brain

Twice daily transcending changes how the brain functions and thereby supports stronger self-identity in meditators. Brain researcher and professor of Vedic science at the Maharishi University of Management Dr. Fred Travis said:

We’ve found that during TM practice, the brain becomes more integrated, all its different parts communicating better, working together better as a whole. We call it ‘total brain functioning.’ The person’s whole sense of self — who they are, where they’re thinking from, where they’re appreciating the world from — becomes deeper, fuller, more expanded.

This wholeness of self becomes increasingly stabilized in daily life as brain wave coherence carries over outside of meditation. As coherence grows, studies show, meditators perform better on tests for IQ, creativity, and moral reasoning; there is decreased neuroticism and heightened self-actualization.

Healing the bruised ego

We know the ego can be tender. A word misspoken or lack of recognition from others can hurt, if we’re vulnerable. Transcending daily in meditation, one becomes bigger than that. And transcendence is powerfully healing: the physiological rest dissolves deep-seated stresses, even the residue of trauma. The most ego-challenging or stressful situations eventually lose their ability to shatter a meditator’s composure.

This expanded state of self is not selfish. When we are secure within ourselves, we are less obsessed with our own needs and more sensitive to others. Ego liberation begets forgiveness and compassion.

Old-school psychologists may startle to hear that the human psyche is fundamentally cosmic — a word defined as “immeasurably extended in space and time.” Yet the global surge of interest in meditation is opening collective awareness to a different experience and understanding of what it means to be human. Deep within our ego lies a field of pure wakefulness, pure potentiality. Experiencing that expansiveness redefines one’s sense of self and other.

While spiritual teacher, therapist or life coach may offer help and hope, no one can liberate your ego for you. A gentle, effortless technique of transcending is one way you can do it for yourself.

VIDEO: Dr. Fred Travis speaks on transcending, wholeness of self and brain function

Transcending, like every other experience, affects the brain. Transcending increases EEG coherence, which means that all parts of the brain start to function together.

Jeanne Ball is a writer for the David Lynch Foundation — a non-profit, philanthropic organization that supports meditation projects for such diverse groups as gifted children, at-risk kids, prison inmates, veterans, Native Americans, high school and college students and the homeless.

Her blog, Meditation for Women, addresses common concerns and stressors that women face, as well as women’s growth to full awakening of consciousness.

As a meditation teacher, she has lectured on theory and practice for over 25 years, instructing children and adults of all ages and backgrounds. She specializes in teaching meditation to people with ADHD, ADD, addiction, anxiety, depression, hypertension and other stress-related disorders.