This is the second book I have read by Steve Taylor. The first book I read was titled ‘Waking from sleep’ in which Steve Taylor talked about awakening experiences. An awakening experience is also known as a spiritual experience.
You may have felt this experience for yourself but perhaps didn’t have the words for it. It’s a moment when everything feels perfect, you are completely in the moment, not thinking of the past or the future, but you feel at peace and at one with everything. In ‘Waking from sleep’ Steve Taylor explains these experiences perfectly. He explains the many ways they come about and goes some way into explaining how to keep them.
In his new book ‘Out of Darkness’ Taylor has picked one of the ways awakening can take place such
as: near death experiences, being diagnosed with a terminal illness, extreme suffering, and other
great life traumas. In this book he creates a kind of anthology of stories from many people that not
only had awakening experiences but also had a shift of consciousness that made them permanent.
Perhaps the most famous person who has achieved this awakening is Eckhart Tolle. In this book there is a beautiful interview with Tolle in which he explains how thoughts of suicide lead him to master his ego and the thoughts in his mind.
To understand the idea of awakening you must first believe that when we are in a form of unconsciousness. It’s the belief that what we know as reality might not be. Awakening experiences often feel more real than normal life; certainly there is a feeling of intensely loving life. If you haven’t come across this idea before I would encourage you to read Steve Taylors book ‘Waking from sleep’ before this book. Although he still makes the subject accessible it’s easy to get caught in the personal stories.
What I took from reading this book is that no matter how difficult life gets, not just for us as individuals but globally. You never know just how far we are from an awakening. Those difficult situations are not an indication of how far we are away from love, but just guiding us to choose love. The darkest part of night is just before the dawn.
Out of the Darkness: From Turmoil to Transformation on Amazon
