According to the great masters and many of the more modern interpretations of science, anything that can be perceived or thought of is always considered to be subjective in some sense. This is why the law of attraction works so well in our lives. Ideas about “nothingness” or the “void” do not have any real existence apart from a person’s subjective experience. We are the ultimate creators of our own reality and coming to this realization is the only thing we need to do before our own happiness can become a priority. We eventually learn that there could never be a “void” if there were not someone like us to experience it in the first place.

The observer, our Self, is the subjective reality which becomes the very proof that the “void” does not exist. We become our own proof about the reality of the world around  us. This has been the natural progression of many great mystics over time, many of whom have experienced deep periods of depression or what is often called ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’ before they have reached Enlightenment. Eckhart Tolle has expressed this idea about his own fear and the idea of the “void” in his book The Power of Now.

I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as though the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that. I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before…..Tears came into my eyes…..I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before…For the next five months, I lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss.

Eckhart Tolle’s experience of the “void” was an extremely profound experience and one that he seemed to attract into his life before he found the ability to overcome it and thereby let it go. After his experience, it is plain to see that another focus took over his attention and the negative ideas were seen as truly non-existent. Tolle could not recollect anything from his experience of the void because such an experience is actually non-existent in ultimate reality. He went on to have many subsequent experiences which had a positive quality because he let go of his false conception of the void. Theodore Nottingham has also expressed a similar idea about negative emotions in his reference to the teachings of Peter Ouspensky.

The purpose of dealing with negative emotions is to a) clean up our inner life so that b) we can use the energies precisely for experience of higher consciousness.

– PETER OUSPENSKY –

After working on our negative emotions for so long, a saturation point is eventually reached and a new realization crystallizes in our minds. In terms of the grand lesson that many spiritual teachers have tried to impart to us, Dr. David R. Hawkins’ published works are widely recognized as evidence of a very advanced state of spiritual awareness such as the one being discussed here. Dr. Hawkins has also spoken extensively on the idea of the “void” and has given valuable insights into the interpretation of this idea about “nothingness” in spiritual experience.

Void is a state created solely by the mind’s belief in it as an actual possibility. The only actual possibilities in Reality are Is-ness, Allness and Beingness. It is obvious that theoretical opposites to these would then be conceived.

– HAWKINS –

Although theoretical opposites to what “Is” are often conceived, these opposites are only temporary diversions from the truth. They are not accurate pictures of reality. Dr. Hawkins explains that concepts such as “off” when used to designate the condition of a light switch, do not actually refer to a separate state. “Off” is merely a convenient idea that we use to designate what would more accurately be referred to as “not on”.

Although this sounds like an insignificant point, Dr. Hawkins explains that it is actually very significant to our underlying perceptions about the world around us. We keep imagining that there are objective realities to the negative ideas we possess. Dr. Hawkins stresses the importance of understanding that there is never an actual state of “offness” in an electrical circuit but only the presence of electricity or the absence of electricity.21 The problems that we experience between love and separation always stem from a misconception that there are certain states in our lives where there is “lack” or “emptiness”. Lack or emptiness, however, is simply not a reality that holds any true existence beyond our own perception of it. Without realizing what we are doing, we attract certain ideas into our lives. Oftentimes we cannot see this because we don’t see the immense power that our minds possess. We find later that we are very depressed and experiencing a sense of emptiness in our lives but we don’t know why. Many spiritual practices attempt to get us to a place where we are feeling good more of the time. If we can eliminate our negative tendencies, then we tend to attract more positive things that improve our feelings. Ideas, in general, tend to be magnetic.

They attract more of the same and we see a momentum that eventually starts to go in the right direction. By gently guiding our thoughts and our feelings to a better place, we become more adept at this practice. We learn to take a nice walk when we are feeling bad or spend some time in appreciation of nature. We learn meditation and how to guide our thoughts and emotions into a more harmonious stream and the good events will only follow once we learn to change our minds. In a universe that is based upon the law of attraction, what could be more important than our own good feelings?