If you are deeply depressed -- if you've come to hate your
own existence, as well as the world -- then I hope you'll find comfort in the
story of Eckhart Tolle.
Tolle, who was born in Germany ,
is now about 65 years-old. He is widely regarded as one of the few enlightened
spiritual teachers in the Western world. But when he was 29, Eckhart Tolle almost
killed himself. I am going to quote the first few paragraphs of Tolle's
magnificent book, THE POWER OF NOW. If anything he says resonates with you, I
hope you'll buy a copy of the book, and read it slowly. It might change your
life.
"I have little use for the past and rarely think about
it. However, I would briefly like to tell you how I came to be a spiritual
teacher, and how this book came into existence."
"Until my 30th year, I lived in a state of almost
continuous anxiety, interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels
now as if I am talking about some past lifetime, or somebody else's life."
"One night, not long after my 29th birthday,
I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up
with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than
it had ever been before."
"The silence of the night, the vague outlines of
furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train -- everything
felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless, that it created a deep loathing
in me: a deep loathing of the world."
"The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own
existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery?
Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing
for annihilation, for non-existence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive
desire to continue to live."
"'I cannot live with myself any longer.' This was the
thought that kept repeating itself in my mind."
End of excerpt.
To find out how Eckhart Tolle conquered his depression, and
completely remade himself, spiritually and emotionally, you should read the
book. It will repay its cost a thousand fold and open Doors for you that need
to be opened.
The terrible night that Tolle described above, was his Dark
Night of the Soul; the very lowest point in what had been a lifelong descending
slide. Lots of very famous spiritual gurus went through precisely the same
emotional crisis.
Buddha spent six years trying to become enlightened. He was
a disciple, at one time or another, to every famous spiritual teacher of his
time. But none of them could help him. So Buddha finally gave up. He sat
himself down under a Bodhi tree for 43 days, and became more and more depressed
at his failure.
Finally, Buddha, like Tolle and others, reached his absolute
lowest point. He gave up his desire to become enlightened, he gave up all his
desires, and waited to die. It was Buddha's Dark Night of the Soul.
Instead of dying, Buddha awoke the next morning as an
enlightened being. By giving up all his desires, he connected with his soul,
the Divine Essence which was inside him (and is inside all of us), and was literally
reborn. Buddha spent the next 40 years helping others to feel their connection
with all beings and all things.
Swami Rama is one of the most famous mystics who ever came
to America . In
the 1970's, Swami Rama dazzled the doctors at the Mayo Clinic with his magical
abilities
to completely control every aspect of his body. He could
willfully stop his heart, or cause it to beat at 360 cycles per minute. Rama
could drain every drop of blood from the right side of his body -- it turned white
and dead -- and send the blood to his left side. Later, he founded The
Himalayan Institute in Pennsylvania ,
which survives and thrives to this day.
But Swami Rama tried to kill himself when he was in his mid
20's. He lived in India ,
and had been apprenticed to enlightened gurus all his life. However, the young
Bhole Baba (as he was known then) could not make that final jump into his own enlightenment.
So he told his mentor, Babaji, that he was going to tie rocks to his legs, and
throw himself into the Ganges River
Babaji followed his young disciple to the riverbank. This
was the Dark Night of the Soul for young Bhole. He'd failed for 20 years to
achieve his only desire. It was time to die.
Bhole tied ropes around the big rocks, and then attached the
ropes to his legs. He stood on a platform above the deep water, and looked back
one last time at his mentor, Babaji. And at that dark moment, Babaji walked
forward, touched Bhole Baba on the forehead, and the young man fell backwards
on the bank, and went into a 24-hour swoon. When he awoke, Bhole Baba was no more.
The young man had become enlightened, and was known thereafter as Swami Rama.
So if you're feeling very depressed, and have even flirted
with the idea of suicide, know that some of the greatest men and women in
history have felt exactly as you do. Recall Jesus' Dark Night of the Soul, when
he called out to God, "My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Don't give up hope! Work on yourself, educate yourself about
true spirituality. You are not your body, and you are not your mind. Begin with
Eckhart Tolle's book, and go from there. Your Soul wants you to live, and so
does God, the Universal Soul. Find a way to make it happen.
Blessings,
Owen
