CHAPTER ONE: YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND
THE GREATEST OBSTACLES TO ENLIGHTENMENT
But don't seek to grasp it (the being) with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Being is the eternal, ever-present One life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The greatest obstacle to experiencing this reality is identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Not being able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgements, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and women, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate "other".
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity- the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
FREEING YOURSELF FROM YOUR MIND
You realize that all things that truly matter- beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace- arise from beyond the mind.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The voice (inner dialogue) comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Start listening to the voice inside your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. Be there as the witnessing presence.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
With practice the sense of stillness and peace will deepen. In fact, there is no end to its depth. You will also feel a subtle emanation of joy arising from deep within: the joy of Being.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
In this state of inner connectedness, you are much more alert, more awake than in the mind identified state. You are fully present. It also raises the vibrational frequency of the energy field that gives life to the physical body.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Become intensely conscious of the present moment.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Take any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and give it your fullest attention, so that it becomes an end in itself.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
ENLIGHTENMENT: RISING ABOVE THOUGHT
This kind of compulsive thinking is actually an addiction. What characterizes an addiction? Quite simply this: you no longer feel that you have the choice to stop. It seems stronger than you. It also gives you strong sense of pleasure, pleasure that invariably turns into pain.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Thinking and consciousness are not synonymous. Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you do use you mind, and particularly when a creative solution is needed, you oscillate every few minutes or so between thought and stillness, between mind and no-mind. No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power. Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
EMOTION: THE BODY'S REACTION TO YOUR MIND
The more you get identified with your thinking, your likes and dislikes, judgements and interpretations, which is to say the less present you are as the watching consciousness, the stronger the emotional energy charge will be, whether you are aware of it or not.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection, so look at the emotion or rather feel it in your body.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
One of the main tasks of the mind is to fight or remove that emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up temporarily. In fact, the harder the mind struggles to get rid of the pain, the greater the pain.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Love, Joy and Peace are deep states of Being or rather three aspects of the state of inner connectedness with Being. As such, they have no opposite.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Don't seek to become free of desire or "achieve" enlightenment. Become present. Be there as the observer of the mind. Instead of quoting Buddha, be the Buddha, be "the awakened one", which is what the word Buddha means.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind, which is to say as long as you are unconscious, spiritually speaking.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Resentment, hatred, self-pity, anger, depression, jealously, and so on, even the slightest irritation, are all forms of pains. And every pleasure or emotional high contains within itself the seed of pain: its inseparable opposite, which will manifest in time.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHAPTER TWO: CONSCIOUSNESS- THE WAY OUT OF PAIN
CREATE NO MORE PAIN IN THE PRESENT
The pain that you create now is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The intensity of pain depends of the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering- and free of the egoic mind.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to the past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say "yes" to life- and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Accept -- then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you
had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally,
not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
PAST PAIN: DISSOLVING THE PAIN-BODY
The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it
can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it. It can then rise
up, take you over, "become you," and live through you. It needs to get its "food"
through you.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Once the pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a
victim or a perpetrator. You want to inflict pain, or you want to suffer pain, or
both. There isn't really much difference between the two. You are not conscious
of this, of course, and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain. But
look closely and you will find that your thinking and behavior are designed to
keep the pain going, for yourself and others. If you were truly conscious of it,
the pattern would dissolve, for to want more pain is insanity, and nobody is
consciously insane.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Be the ever-alert guardian of your inner space.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
"Unconscious," the way that I use the word here, means to
be identified with some mental or emotional pattern. It implies a complete
absence of the watcher.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
EGO IDENTIFICATION WITH THE PAIN-BODY
Once you have understood the basic principle of being
present as the watcher of what happens inside you -- and you "understand" it by
experiencing it -- you have at your disposal the most potent transformational
tool.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Observe the resistance within yourself. Observe the
attachment to your pain. Be very alert. Observe the peculiar pleasure you derive
from being unhappy. Observe the compulsion to talk or think about it. The
resistance will cease if you make it conscious. You can then take your attention
into the pain-body, stay present as the witness, and so initiate its transmutation.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE ORIGIN OF FEAR
The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any concrete and true
immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness,
tension, dread, phobia, and so on. This kind of psychological fear is always of
something that might happen, not of something that is happening now. You are
in the here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety
gap. And if you are identified with your mind and have lost touch with the
power and simplicity of the Now, that anxiety gap will be your constant
companion. You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope
with something that is only a mind projection -- you cannot cope with the future.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE EGO'S SEARCH FOR WHOLENESS
As long as you are identified with your mind, the ego runs your life. Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate
defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as
constantly under threat.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Fear seems to have many causes, Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt,
and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To
the ego, death is always just around the corner.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
True power
is within, and it is available to you now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Since the ego is a derived
sense of self, it needs to identify with external things. It needs to be both
defended and fed constantly. The most common ego identifications have to do
with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and
education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and
family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial,
religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Death is a stripping away
of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" -- and find that
there is no death.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHAPTER THREE: MOVING DEEPLY INTO THE NOW
DON'T SEEK YOUR SELF IN THE MIND
The ego's needs are endless. It feels vulnerable and threatened and so lives in a
state of fear and want. It is always seeking
for something to attach itself to in order to uphold and strengthen its illusory
sense of self, and it will readily attach itself to your problems.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
So once you recognize the root of unconsciousness as identification with the
mind, which of course includes the emotions, you step out of it. You become
present. When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without
getting entangled in it. The mind in itself is not dysfunctional. It is a wonderful
tool. Dysfunction sets in when you seek your self in it and mistake it for who
you are. It then becomes the egoic mind and takes over your whole life.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
END THE DELUSION OF TIME
End the delusion of time. Time and mind are inseparable. Remove time from the mind and it stops -- unless you choose to use it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be. The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
NOTHING EXISTS OUTSIDE THE NOW
Nothing ever happened in the past;
it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in
the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace --
and you do so now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind.
When the future comes, it comes as the Now. When you think about the future,
you do it now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The personality that has a past and a
future momentarily recedes and is replaced by an intense conscious presence,
very still but very alert at the same time. Whatever response is needed then
arises out of that state of consciousness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Now -- that intensely alive state that is free of time,
free of problems, free of thinking, free of the burden of the personality.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Since ancient times, spiritual masters of all traditions have pointed to the Now as
the key to the spiritual dimension.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor's edge of Now --
to be so utterly, so completely present that no problem, no suffering, nothing that
is not who you are in your essence, can survive in you. In the Now, in the
absence of time, all your problems dissolve. Suffering needs time; it cannot
survive in the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater
obstacle to God than time.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
ACCESSING THE POWER OF THE NOW
With the timeless dimension comes a different kind of
knowing, one that does not "kill" the spirit that lives within every creature and
every thing.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
There is a place for mind and mind knowledge. It is in the practical realm of
day-to-day living. However, when it takes over all aspects of your life, including
your relationships with other human beings and with nature, it becomes a
monstrous parasite that, unchecked, may well end up killing all life on the planet
and finally itself by killing its host.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
What is
needed and what we are concerned with is a permanent shift in consciousness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Make it your practice to withdraw attention from past and future
whenever they are not needed. Step out of the time dimension as much as
possible in everyday life.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You will observe that the future is usually imagined as either better or worse than
the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable
anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The moment you
realize you are not present, you re present.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Notice how often your
attention is in the past or future. Don't judge or analyze what you observe.
Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don't make a
personal problem out of them.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Identification with the mind gives it more energy; observation of the mind
withdraws energy from it. Identification with the mind creates more time;
observation of the mind opens up the dimension of the timeless. The energy that
is withdrawn from the mind turns into presence.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Once you can feel what it
means to be present, it becomes much easier to simply choose to step out of the
time dimension whenever time is not needed for practical purposes and move
more deeply into the Now. This does not impair your ability to use time -- past
or future -- when you need to refer to it for practical matters. Nor does it impair
your ability to use your mind. In fact, it enhances it. When you do use your
mind, it will be sharper, more focused.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
LETTING GO OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME
But even here, within the sphere of practical living, where we cannot do without
reference to past and future, the present moment remains the essential factor:
Any lesson from the past becomes relevant and is applied now. Any planning as
well as working toward achieving a particular goal is done now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The enlightened person's main focus of attention is always the Now, but they are
still peripherally aware of time. In other words, they continue to use clock time
but are free of psychological time.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If you set yourself a goal and work toward it, you are using clock time. You are
aware of where you want to go, but you honor and give your fullest attention to
the step that you are taking at this moment. If you then become excessively
focused on the goal, perhaps because you are seeking happiness, fulfillment, or a
more complete sense of self in it, the Now is no longer honored. It becomes
reduced to a mere stepping stone to the future, with no intrinsic value. Clock
time then turns into psychological time.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
There is never a time when your life is not "this moment." Is this not
a fact?
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE INSANITY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME
Are you always trying to get
somewhere other than where you are? Is most of your doing just a means to an
end? Is fulfillment always just around the corner or confined to short-lived
pleasures, such as sex, food, drink, drugs, or thrills and excitement? Are you
always focused on becoming, achieving, and attaining, or alternatively chasing
some new thrill or pleasure? Do you believe that if you acquire more things you
will become more fulfilled, good enough, or psychologically complete? Are you
waiting for a man or woman to give meaning to your life?
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
In the normal, mind-identified or unenlightened state of consciousness, the
power and infinite creative potential that lie concealed in the Now are
completely obscured by psychological time. Your life then loses its vibrancy, its
freshness, its sense of wonder. The old patterns of thought, emotion, behavior,
reaction, and desire are acted out in endless repeat performances, a script in your
mind that gives you an identity of sorts but distorts or covers up the reality of the
Now. The mind then creates an obsession with the future as an escape from the
unsatisfactory present.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
NEGATIVITY AND SUFFERING HAVE THEIR ROOTS IN TIME
If your
mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The
past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your
consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future -- which, of course, can
only be experienced as the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the
future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? Your
degree of presence. So the only place where true change can occur and where
the past can be dissolved is the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of
the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry -- all forms of fear -- are
caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment,
grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by
too much past, and not enough presence.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Ultimately,
there is only one problem: the time- bound mind itself.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
There is no salvation in time. You cannot be free in the future. Presence is the
key to freedom, so you can only be free now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
FINDING THE LIFE UNDERNEATH YOUR LIFE SITUATION
You cannot be both unhappy and fully present in the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Your life situation exists in time.
Your life is now.
Your life situation is mind-stuff.
Your life is real.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don't
interpret. See the light, shapes, colors, textures. Be aware of the silent presence
of each thing. Be aware of the space that allows everything to be. Listen to the
sounds; don't judge them. Listen to the silence underneath the sounds. Touch
something -- anything -- and feel and acknowledge its Being. Observe the
rhythm of your breathing; feel the air flowing in and out, feel the life energy
inside your body. Allow everything to be, within and without. Allow the
"isness" of all things. Move deeply into the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
ALL PROBLEMS ARE ILLUSIONS OF THE MIND
Ultimately, this is not about solving your problems. It's about
realizing that there are no problems. Only situations -- to be dealt with now, or
to be left alone and accepted as part of the "isness" of the present moment until
they change or can be dealt with. Problems are mind-made and need time to
survive. They cannot survive in the actuality of the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity
of sorts.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
"Problem" means that you are
dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a true intention or
possibility of taking action now and that you are unconsciously making it part of
your sense of self. You become so overwhelmed by your life situation that you
lose your sense of life, of Being. Or you are carrying in your mind the insane
burden of a hundred things that you will or may have to do in the future instead
of focusing your attention on the one thing that you con do now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You also no longer contaminate the
beautiful Earth, your inner space, and the collective human psyche with the
negativity of problem-making.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
A great deal of what people say, think, or do is actually motivated by fear, which
of course is always linked with having your focus on the future and being out of
touch with the Now. As there are no problems in the Now, there is no fear either.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
A QUANTUM LEAP IN THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The time-bound mode of consciousness is deeply embedded in the human
psyche. But what we are doing here is part of a profound transformation that is
taking place in the collective consciousness of the planet and beyond: the
awakening of consciousness from the dream of matter, form, and separation.
The ending of time. We are breaking mind patterns that have dominated human
life for eons. Mind patterns that have created unimaginable suffering on a vast
scale. I am not using the word evil. It is more helpful to call it unconsciousness
or insanity.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE JOY OF BEING
To alert you that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological
time, you can use a simple criterion. Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and
lightness in what I am doing? If there isn't, then time is covering up the present
moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you act out of present-moment
awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and
love -- even the most simple action.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
So do not be concerned with the fruit of
your action -- just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its
own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of
the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, non-attachment to
the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a
presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment
and satisfaction -- you don't look to it for salvation. Therefore, you are not
attached to the results.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
In the absence of psychological time, your sense of self is derived from Being,
not from your personal past. Therefore, the psychological need to become
anything other than who you are already is no longer there. In the world, on the
level of your life situation, you may indeed become wealthy, knowledgeable,
successful, free of this or that, but in the deeper dimension of Being you are
complete and whole now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Everything is honored, but nothing matters. Forms are born and die, yet you are
aware of the eternal underneath the forms. You know that "nothing real can be
threatened."
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHAPTER FOUR: MIND STRATEGIES FOR AVOIDING THE NOW
LOSS OF NOW: THE CORE DELUSION
When every cell of your body
is so present that it feels vibrant with life, and when you can feel that life every
moment as the joy of Being, then it can be said that you are free of time.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Tomorrow's bills are not the problem. The dissolution of the physical body is
not a problem. Loss of Now is the problem, or rather: the core delusion that
turns a mere situation, event, or emotion into a personal problem and into
suffering. Loss of Now is loss of Being.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
So before you are firmly established
in the state of presence, which is to say before you are fully conscious, you shift
back and forth for a while between consciousness and unconsciousness, between
the state of presence and the state of mind identification. You lose the Now, and
you return to it, again and again. Eventually, presence becomes your
predominant state.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
ORDINARY UNCONSCIOUSNESS AND DEEP UNCONSCIOUSNESS
In ordinary unconsciousness, habitual resistance to or denial of what is creates
the unease and discontent that most people accept as normal living. When this
resistance becomes intensified through some challenge or threat to the ego, it
brings up intense negativity such as anger, acute fear, aggression, depression,
and so on.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Deep unconsciousness often means that the pain-body has been
triggered and that you have become identified with it. Physical violence would
be impossible without deep unconsciousness. It can also occur easily whenever
and wherever a crowd of people or even an entire nation generates a negative
collective energy field.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If you cannot be present even in normal circumstances, such as when you are
sitting alone in a room, walking in the woods, or listening to someone, then you
certainly won't be able to stay conscious when something "goes wrong" or you
are faced with difficult people or situations, with loss or the threat of loss. You
will be taken over by a reaction, which ultimately is always some form of fear,
and pulled into deep unconsciousness. Those challenges are your tests.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
DISSOLVING ORDINARY UNCONSCIOUSNESS
Anything unconscious dissolves when you shine the
light of consciousness on it. Once you know how to dissolve ordinary
unconsciousness, the light of your presence will shine brightly, and it will be
much easier to deal with deep unconsciousness whenever you feel its
gravitational pull. However, ordinary unconsciousness may not be easy to detect
initially because it is so normal.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Direct your
attention inward. Have a look inside yourself. What kind of thoughts is your
mind producing? What do you feel? Direct your attention into the body. Is
there any tension? Once you detect that there is a low level of unease, the
background static, see in what way you are avoiding, resisting, or denying life --
by denying the Now. There are many ways in which people unconsciously resist
the present moment.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Primary reality is within, secondary
reality without.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
FREEDOM FROM UNHAPPINESS
Maybe you are being taken advantage of, maybe the activity you are engaged in
is tedious, maybe someone close to you is dishonest, irritating, or unconscious,
but all this is irrelevant. Whether your thoughts and emotions about this
situation are justified or not makes no difference. The fact is that you are
resisting what is. You are making the present moment into an enemy. You are
creating unhappiness, conflict between the inner and the outer.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The
pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic
pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their
inner space.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Anything that is done with negative energy
will become contaminated by it and in time give rise to more pain, more
unhappiness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
WHEREVER YOU ARE, BE THERE TOTALLY
To complain is always nonacceptance of
what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Ordinary unconsciousness is always linked in some way with denial of the Now.
The Now, of course, also implies the here. Are you resisting your here and
now? Some people would always rather be somewhere else. Their "here" is
never good enough. Through self- observation, find out if that is the case in
your life. Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now
intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself
from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take
responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you
must choose now. Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity.
No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Is fear preventing you from
taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be
fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking.
Don't let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear
cannot prevail against it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Only a
surrendered person has spiritual power. Through surrender, you will be free
internally of the situation. You may then find that the situation changes without
any effort on your part. In any case, you are free.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Are you stressed? Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is
reduced to a means of getting there? Stress is caused by being "here" but
wanting to be "there," or being in the present but wanting to be in the future. It's
a split that tears you apart inside.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Die to the past every moment. You don't need it. Only refer to it when it is
absolutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this moment and the
fullness of Being. Feel your presence.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Ask yourself what "problem" you
have right now, not next year, tomorrow, or five minutes from now. What is
wrong with this moment? You can always cope with the Now, but you can never
cope with the future -- nor do you have to. The answer, the strength, the right
action or the resource will be there when you need it, not before, not after.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
It is not uncommon for people
to spend their whole life waiting to start living.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you
don't want the present. You don't want what you've got, and you want what you
haven't got. With every kind of waiting, you unconsciously create inner conflict
between your here and now, where you don't want to be, and the projected
future, where you want to be. This greatly reduces the quality of your life by
making you lose the present.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
There is
nothing wrong with setting goals and striving to achieve things. The mistake lies
in using it as a substitute for the feeling of life, for Being. The only point of
access for that is the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of
life now is true prosperity. It cannot come in the future. Then, in time, that
prosperity manifests for you in various ways.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
But beware: The false, unhappy self, based on mind
identification, lives on time. It knows that the present moment is its own death
and so feels very threatened by it. It will do all it can to take you out of it. It
will try to keep you trapped in time.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE INNER PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE'S JOURNEY
Your life's journey has an outer purpose and an inner purpose. The outer
purpose is to arrive at your goal or destination, to accomplish what you set out to
do, to achieve this or that, which, of course, implies future. But if your
destination, or the steps you are going to take in the future, take up so much of
your attention that they become more important to you than the step you are
taking now, then you completely miss the journey's inner purpose, which has
nothing to do with where you are going or what you are doing, but everything to
do with now. It has nothing to do with future but everything to do with the
quality of your consciousness at this moment.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Your outer journey
may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are
taking right now. As you become more deeply aware of this one step, you
realize that it already contains within itself all the other steps as well as the
destination. This one step then becomes transformed into an expression of
perfection, an act of great beauty and quality.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Ultimately, of course, every
outer purpose is doomed to "fail" sooner or later, simply because it is subject to
the law of impermanence of all things. The sooner you realize that your outer
purpose cannot give you lasting fulfillment, the better. When you have seen the
limitations of your outer purpose, you give up your unrealistic expectation that it
should make you happy, and you make it subservient to your inner purpose.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE PAST CANNOT SURVIVE IN YOUR PRESENCE
You may think that you
need more time to understand the past or become free of it, in other words, that
the future will eventually free you of the past. This is a delusion. Only the
present can free you of the past. More time cannot free you of time. Access the
power of Now. That is the key.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The more attention you give to
the past, the more you energize it, and the more likely you are to make a "self"
out of it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You cannot find
yourself by going into the past. You find yourself by coming into the present.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHAPTER FIVE: THE STATE OF PRESENCE
IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS
You can't think about presence, and the mind can't
understand it. Understanding presence is being present.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
As long as you are in a state of intense presence, you are free of
thought. You are still, yet highly alert. The instant your conscious attention
sinks below a certain level, thought rushes in. The mental noise returns; the
stillness is lost. You are back in time.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
To stay present in everyday life, it helps to be deeply rooted within yourself;
otherwise, the mind, which has incredible momentum, will drag you along like a
wild river.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Body awareness keeps you present. It anchors you in the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE ESOTERIC MEANING OF "WAITING"
There is a qualitatively different kind of
waiting, one that requires your total alertness. Something could happen at any
moment, and if you are not absolutely awake, absolutely still, you will miss it.
This is the kind of waiting Jesus talks about. In that state, all your attention is in
the Now. There is none left for daydreaming, thinking, remembering,
anticipating. There is no tension in it, no fear, just alert presence. You are
present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. In that state, the
"you" that has a past and a future, the personality if you like, is hardly there
anymore. And yet nothing of value is lost. You are still essentially yourself. In
fact, you are more fully yourself than you ever were before, or rather it is only
now that you are truly yourself.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
BEAUTY ARISES IN THE STILLNESS OF YOUR PRESENCE
Zen masters use the word satori to describe a flash of insight, a moment of
no-mind and total presence. Although satori is not a lasting transformation, be
grateful when it comes, for it gives you a taste of enlightenment.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The wider the time gap between perception and thought, the more depth there is
to you as a human being, which is to say the more conscious you are.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Many people are so imprisoned in their minds that the beauty of nature does not
really exist for them.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Because we live in such a mind-dominated culture, most modem art,
architecture, music, and literature are devoid of beauty, of inner essence, with
very few exceptions. The reason is that the people who create those things
cannot -- even for a moment -- free themselves from their mind. So they are
never in touch with that place within where true creativity and beauty arise. The
mind left to itself creates monstrosities, and not only in art galleries. Look at our
urban landscapes and industrial wastelands. No civilization has ever produced
so much ugliness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
REALIZING PURE CONSCIOUSNESS
When Being becomes conscious of itself-- that's
presence. Since Being, consciousness, and life are synonymous, we could say
that presence means consciousness becoming conscious of itself, or life attaining
self-consciousness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Everything that exists has Being, has God-essence, has some degree of
consciousness. Even a stone has rudimentary consciousness; otherwise, it would
not be, and its atoms and molecules would disperse. Everything is alive. The
sun, the earth, plants, animals, humans -- all are expressions of consciousness in
varying degrees, consciousness manifesting as form.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Whenever you watch the mind, you withdraw
consciousness from mind forms, which then becomes what we call the watcher
or the witness. Consequently, the watcher -- pure consciousness beyond form --
becomes stronger, and the mental formations become weaker.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When consciousness frees itself from its identification with physical and mental
forms, it becomes what we may call pure or enlightened consciousness, or
presence.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off, you will go
down with it. The collective egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and
destructive entity ever to inhabit this planet. What do you think will happen on
this planet if human consciousness remains unchanged?
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Consciousness is evolving throughout the universe in billions of
forms. So even if we didn't make it, this wouldn't matter on a cosmic scale. No
gain in consciousness is ever lost, so it would simply express itself through some
other form. But the very fact that I am speaking here and you are listening or
reading this is a clear sign that the new consciousness is gaining a foothold on
the planet.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Silence is an even more potent carrier of' presence, so when you read this or
listen to me speak, be aware of the silence between and underneath the words.
Be aware of the gaps. To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and
direct way of becoming present. Even if there is noise, there is always some
silence underneath and in between the sounds. Listening to the silence
immediately creates stillness inside you. Only the stillness in you can perceive
the silence outside. And what is stillness other than presence, consciousness
freed from thought forms? Here is the living realization of what we have been
talking about.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHRIST: THE REALITY OF YOUR DIVINE PRESENCE
Many misunderstandings and false beliefs about Christ will clear if you realize
that there is no past or future in Christ. To say that Christ was or will be is a
contradiction in terms. Jesus was. He was a man who lived two thousand years
ago and realized divine presence, his true nature.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Jesus attempted to convey directly, not
through discursive thought, the meaning of presence, of self-realization. He had
gone beyond the consciousness dimension governed by time, into the realm of
the timeless. The dimension of eternity had come into this world. Eternity, of
course, does not mean endless time, but no time. Thus, the man Jesus became
Christ, a vehicle for pure consciousness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Egos are drawn to bigger egos.
Darkness cannot recognize light. Only light can recognize light. So don't
believe that the light is outside you or that it can only come through one
particular form. If only your master is an incarnation of God, then who are you?
Any kind of exclusivity is identification with form, and identification with form
means ego, no matter how well disguised.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Use the master's presence to reflect your own identity beyond name and form
back to you and to become more intensely present yourself. You will soon
realize that there is no "mine" or "yours" in presence. Presence is one.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHAPTER SIX: THE INNER BODY
BEING IS YOUR DEEPEST SELF
In Being, subject and object merge into one.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Being can be felt as the ever-present I am that is beyond name and form. To feel
and thus to know that you are and to abide in that deeply rooted state is
enlightenment, is the truth that Jesus says will make you free.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
FINDING YOUR INVISIBLE AND INDESTRUCTIBLE REALITY
In your natural state of connectedness with Being,
this deeper reality can be felt every moment as the invisible inner body, the
animating presence within you. So to "inhabit the body" is to feel the body from
within, to feel the life inside the body and thereby come to know that you are
beyond the outer form.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
But that is only the beginning of an inward journey that will take you ever more
deeply into a realm of great stillness and peace, yet also of great power and
vibrant life.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You are cut off from Being as long as your mind takes up all your attention.
When this happens -- and it happens continuously for most people -- you are not
in your body. The mind absorbs all your consciousness and transforms it into
mind stuff. You cannot stop thinking. Compulsive thinking has become a
collective disease. Your whole sense of who you are is then derived from mind
activity. Your identity, as it is no longer rooted in Being, becomes a vulnerable
and ever-needy mental construct, which creates fear as the predominant
underlying emotion. The one thing that truly matters is then missing from your
life: awareness of your deeper self- your invisible and indestructible reality.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CONNECTING WITH THE INNER BODY
The feeling of your inner body is formless, limitless, and unfathomable. You can
always go into it more deeply.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The inner body lies at the threshold between
your form identity and your essence identity, your true nature. Never lose touch
with it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
TRANSFORMATION THROUGH THE BODY
The fact is that no one has ever become enlightened through denying or fighting
the body or through an out-of-the-body experience. Although such an
experience can be fascinating and can give you a glimpse of the state of
liberation from the material form, in the end you will always have to return to
the body, where the essential work of transformation takes place.
Transformation is through the body, not away from it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
All spiritual teachings originate from the same
Source. In that sense, there is and always has been only one master, who
manifests in many different forms.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
SERMON ON THE BODY
Do
not turn your attention elsewhere in your search for the Truth, for it is nowhere
else to be found but within your body.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Do not fight against the body, for in doing so you are fighting against your own
reality. You are your body. The body that you can see and touch is only a thin
illusory veil. Underneath it lies the invisible inner body, the doorway into Being,
into Life Unmanifested. Through the inner body, you are inseparably connected
to this unmanifested One Life -- birthless, deathless, eternally present. Through
the inner body, you are forever one with God.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
HAVE DEEP ROOTS WITHIN
The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body -- to
feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life. The more
consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher its vibrational frequency
becomes. At this higher energy level, negativity
cannot affect you anymore, and you tend to attract new circumstances that reflect
this higher frequency.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored
in the Now. You won't lose yourself in the external world, and you won't lose
yourself in your mind. Thoughts and emotions, fears and desires, may still be
there to some extent, but they won't take you over.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
See if you can be in touch with your inner body at the same
time. Keep some of your attention within. Don't let it all flow out. Feel your
whole body from within, as a single field of energy. It is almost as if you were
listening or reading with your whole body. Let this be your practice in the days
and weeks to come.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Do not give all your attention away to the mind and the external world. By all
means focus on what you are doing, but feel the inner body at the same time
whenever possible. Stay rooted within. Then observe how this changes your
state of consciousness and the quality of what you are doing.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Instead of
mentally projecting yourself away from the Now, go more deeply into the Now
by going more deeply into the body.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The art of inner-body awareness will develop into a completely new way of
living, a state of permanent connectedness with Being, and will add a depth to
your life that you have never known before.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
It is easy to stay present as the observer of your mind when you are deeply
rooted within your body. No matter what happens on the outside, nothing can
shake you anymore.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you focus within and feel
the inner body, you immediately become still and present as you are withdrawing
consciousness from the mind. Ira response is required in that situation, it will
come up from this deeper level. Just as the sun is infinitely brighter than a
candle flame, there is infinitely more intelligence in Being than in your mind.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
BEFORE YOU ENTER THE BODY, FORGIVE
Attention is the key to transformation -- and full
attention also implies acceptance. Attention is like a beam of light -- the focused
power of your consciousness that transmutes everything into itself.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Non-forgiveness is often toward another person or yourself, but it may just as
well be toward any situation or condition -- past, present or future -- that your
mind refuses to accept. Yes, there can be non-forgiveness even with regard to the
future. This is the mind's refusal to accept uncertainty, to accept that the future
is ultimately beyond its control.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Forgiveness is to relinquish your grievance and
so to let go of grief. It happens naturally once you realize that your grievance
serves no purpose except to strengthen a false sense of self. Forgiveness is to
offer no resistance to life -- to allow life to live through you. The alternatives are
pain and suffering, a greatly restricted flow of life energy, and in many cases
physical disease.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The moment you truly forgive, you have reclaimed your power from the mind. The mind cannot forgive.
Only you can. You become present, you enter your body, you feel the vibrant
peace and stillness that emanate from Being.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
YOUR LINK WITH THE UNMANIFESTED
Awareness of the
inner body is consciousness remembering its origin and returning to the Source.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Feeling will get you closer to the truth of who you are than
thinking. I cannot tell you anything that deep within you don't already know.
When you have reached a certain stage of inner connectedness, you recognize
the truth when you hear it. If you haven't reached that stage yet, the practice of
body awareness will bring about the deepening that is necessary.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
SLOWING DOWN THE AGING PROCESS
As soon as your habitual state changes from being out-of the-body and trapped in your mind to being in-the-body and present in the Now,
your physical body will feel lighter, clearer, more alive. As there is more
consciousness in the body, its molecular structure actually becomes less dense.
More consciousness means a lessening of the illusion of materiality.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you become identified more with the timeless inner body than with the
outer body, when presence becomes your normal mode of consciousness and
past and future no longer dominate your attention, you do not accumulate time
anymore in your psyche and in the cells of the body.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The accumulation of time
as the psychological burden of past and future greatly impairs the cells' capacity
for self- renewal.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
STRENGTHENING THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
The more
consciousness you bring into the body, the stronger the immune system
becomes. It is as if every cell awakens and rejoices. The body loves your
attention. It is also a potent form of self-healing.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
It is not only your physical immune system that becomes strengthened; your
psychic immune system is greatly enhanced as well. The latter protects you
from the negative mental-emotional force fields of others, which are highly
contagious. Inhabiting the body protects you not by putting up a shield, but by
raising the frequency vibration of your total energy field, so that anything that
vibrates at a lower frequency, such as fear, anger, depression, and so on, now
exists in what is virtually a different order of reality.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you are unoccupied for a few minutes, and especially last thing at night
before falling asleep and first thing in the morning before getting up, "flood"
your body with consciousness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
LET THE BREATH TAKE YOU INTO THE BODY
If at any time you are finding it hard to get in touch with the inner body, it is
usually easier to focus on your breathing first. Conscious breathing, which is a
powerful meditation in its own right, will gradually put you in touch with the
body.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CREATIVE USE OF MIND
Whenever an answer, a solution, or a creative idea is needed, stop
thinking for a moment by focusing attention on your inner energy field. Become
aware of the stillness. When you resume thinking, it will be fresh and creative.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
In any thought activity, make it a habit to go back and forth every few minutes or
so between thinking and an inner kind of listening, an inner stillness. We could
say: don't just think with your head, think with your whole body.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE ART OF LISTENING
When listening to another person, don't just listen with your mind, listen with
your whole body. Feel the energy field of your inner body as you listen. That
takes attention away from thinking and creates a still space that enables you to
truly listen without the mind interfering. You are giving the other person space -
- space to be. It is the most precious gift you can give.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Of course, you cannot feel someone else's Being except
through your own. This is the beginning of the realization of oneness, which is Love. At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Most human relationships consist mainly of minds interacting with each other,
not of human beings communicating, being in communion. No relationship can
thrive in that way, and that is why there is so much conflict in relationships. Being in touch with your inner body creates a clear space of no-mind within
which the relationship can flower.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHAPTER SEVEN: PORTALS INTO THE UNMANIFESTED
THE SOURCE OF CHI
The Unmanifested is the source of chi. Chi is the inner energy field
of your body. It is the bridge between the outer you and the Source. It lies
halfway between the manifested, the world of form, and the Unmanifested.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If you take the focus of your
consciousness deeply into the inner body, you are tracing the course of this river
back to its Source. Chi is movement; the Unmanifested is stillness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When your consciousness is directed
outward, mind and world arise. When it is directed inward, it realizes its own
Source and returns home into the Unmanifested.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Now let your spiritual practice be this: As you go about your life, don't give 100
percent of your attention to the external world and to your mind. Keep some
within. I have spoken about this already. Feel the inner body even when
engaged in everyday activities, especially when engaged in relationships or
when you are relating with nature. Feel the stillness deep inside it. Keep the
portal open. It is quite possible to be conscious of the Unmanifested throughout
your life. You feel it as a deep sense of peace somewhere in the background, a
stillness that never leaves you, no matter what happens out here. You become a
bridge between the Unmanifested and the manifested, between God and the
world. This is the state of connectedness with the Source that we call
enlightenment.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
DREAMLESS SLEEP
You take a journey into the Unmanifested every night when you enter the phase
of deep dreamless sleep. You merge with the Source. You draw from it the vital
energy that sustains you for a while when you return to the manifested, the world
of separate forms. This energy is much more vital than food: "Man does not live
by bread alone."
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
OTHER PORTALS
The Now can be seen as the main portal. It is an essential aspect of every other
portal, including the inner body. You cannot be in your body without being
intensely present in the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Another portal into the Unmanifested is created through the cessation of
thinking. This can start with a very simple thing, such as taking one conscious
breath or looking, in a state of intense alertness, at a flower, so that there is no
mental commentary running at the same time. There are many ways to create a
gap in the incessant stream of thought. This is what meditation is all about.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Surrender -- the letting go of mental-emotional resistance to what is -- also
becomes a portal into the Unmanifested. The reason for this is simple: inner
resistance cuts you off from other people, from yourself, from the world around
you. It strengthens the feeling of separateness on which the ego depends for its
survival. The stronger the feeling of separateness, the more you are bound to the
manifested, to the world of separate forms.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
In the state of surrender, your form identity softens and becomes
somewhat "transparent," as it were, so the Unmanifested can shine through you.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Love isn't a portal; it's what comes through the
portal into this world. As long as you are completely trapped in your form
identity, there can be no love. Your task is not to search for love but to find a
portal through which love can enter.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
SILENCE
Pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to
outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still. A portal is opening
up.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its life span
is surrounded by silence. Silence enables the sound to be. It is an intrinsic but
unmanifested part of every sound, every musical note, every song, every word.
The Unmanifested is present in this world as silence. This is why it has been
said that nothing in this world is so like God as silence.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
SPACE
Just as no sound can exist without silence, nothing can exist without no-thing,
without the empty space that enables it to be. Every physical object or body has
come out of nothing, is surrounded by nothing, and will eventually return to
nothing.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The essence of all things is emptiness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Everybody pays attention to the things in space, but who
pays attention to space itself?
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Space has no "existence." "To exist" literally means "to stand out." You cannot
understand space because it doesn't stand out. Although in itself it has no
existence, it enables everything else to exist. Silence has no existence either, nor
does the Unmanifested.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If you remain in conscious connection with the Unmanifested, you value, love,
and deeply respect the manifested and every life form in it as an expression of
the One Life beyond form. You also know that every form is destined to
dissolve again and that ultimately nothing out here matters all that much. You
have "overcome the world," in the words of Jesus, or, as the Buddha put it, you
have "crossed over to the other shore."
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE TRUE NATURE OF SPACE AND TIME
That stillness and vastness that enables the universe to
be, is not just out there in space -- it is also within you. When you are utterly
and totally present, you encounter it as the still inner space of no-mind. Within
you, it is vast in depth, not in extension. Spatial extension is ultimately a
misperception of infinite depth -- an attribute of the one transcendental reality.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Whereas space is the still, infinitely deep realm of no-mind, the inner equivalent of time is presence, awareness of the eternal Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You may have heard the Buddhist saying: "If there were no illusion,
there would be no enlightenment." It is through the world and ultimately through
you that the Unmanifested knows itself. You are here to enable the divine
purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are!
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CONSCIOUS DEATH
Even if you
have missed all the other opportunities for spiritual realization during your
lifetime, one last portal will open up for you immediately after the body has
died.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
This portal opens up only very briefly, and unless you have
already encountered the dimension of the Unmanifested in your lifetime, you
will likely miss it. Most people carry too much residual resistance, too much
fear, too much attachment to sensory experience, too much identification with
the manifested world. So they see the portal, turn away in fear, and then lose
consciousness. Most of what happens after that is involuntary and automatic.
Eventually, there will be another round of birth and death. Their presence wasn't
strong enough yet for conscious immortality.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Nothing that is of value,
nothing that is real, is ever lost.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Every portal is a portal of death, the death of the false self. When you go
through it, you cease to derive your identity from your psychological, mind made form. You then realize that death is an illusion, just as your identification
with form was an illusion. The end of illusion -- that's all that death is. It is
painful only as long as you cling to illusion.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHAPTER EIGHT: ENLIGHTENED RELATIONSHIPS
ENTER THE NOW FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE
Salvation is not elsewhere in place
or time. It is here and now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is to be who you
are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that
depends on nothing outside itself. True salvation is to know
yourself as an inseparable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which
all that exists derives its being.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
True salvation is a state of freedom -- from fear, from suffering, from a perceived
state of lack and insufficiency and therefore from all wanting, needing, grasping,
and clinging. It is freedom from compulsive thinking, from negativity, and
above all from past and future as a psychological need.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Your mind is telling you
that you cannot get there from here. Something needs to happen, or you need to
become this or that before you can be free and fulfilled. It is saying, in fact, that
you need time -- that you need to find, sort out, do, achieve, acquire, become, or
understand something before you can be free or complete. You see time as the
means to salvation, whereas in truth it is the greatest obstacle to salvation.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You "get" there by realizing
that you are there already.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You find God the moment you realize that you don't
need to seek God.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIPS
Unless and until you access the consciousness frequency of presence, all
relationships, and particularly intimate relationships, are deeply flawed and
ultimately dysfunctional.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
I am speaking here of what is commonly called romantic
relationships -- not of true love, which has no opposite because it arises from
beyond the mind.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Love as a continuous state is as yet very rare -- as rare as
conscious human beings. Brief and elusive glimpses of love, however, are
possible whenever there is a gap in the stream of mind.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
ADDICTION AND THE SEARCH FOR WHOLENESS
The reason why the romantic love relationship is such an intense and universally
sought-after experience is that it seems to offer liberation from a deep-seated
state of fear, need, lack, and incompleteness that is part of the human condition
in its unredeemed and unenlightened state. There is a physical as well as a
psychological dimension to this state.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
As long as you are identified with the
mind, you have an externally derived sense of self. That is to say, you get your
sense of who you are from things that ultimately have nothing to do with who
you are: your social role, possessions, external appearance, successes and
failures, belief systems, and so on. This false, mind-made self, the ego, feels
vulnerable, insecure, and is always seeking new things to identify with to give it
a feeling that it exists. But nothing is ever enough to give it lasting fulfillment.
Its fear remains; its sense of lack and neediness remains.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
True love has no opposite. If your
"love" has an opposite, then it is not love but a strong ego-need for a more
complete and deeper sense of self, a need that the other person temporarily
meets. It is the ego's substitute for salvation, and for a short time it almost does
feel like salvation.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through
your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever
the substance you are addicted to -- alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a
person -- you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
That is
why, after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappiness, so much
pain in intimate relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappiness. They
bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you. Every addiction does
that. Every addiction reaches a point where it does not work for you anymore,
and then you feel the pain more intensely than ever.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
FROM ADDICTIVE TO ENLIGHTENED RELATIONSHIPS
For love to flourish, the light of your presence needs to be
strong enough so that you no longer get taken over by the thinker or the pain body and mistake them for who you are. To know yourself as the Being
underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and
joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete
acceptance of your partner as he or she is, without needing to judge or change
them in any way. That immediately takes you beyond ego.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can
never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body,
some external form.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not
make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God
but the "love" of ego.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
True communication is communion -- the realization of oneness, which is love.
Usually, this is quickly lost again, unless you are able to stay present enough to
keep out the mind and its old patterns.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Although brief glimpses are possible, love cannot flourish unless you are
permanently free of mind identification and your presence is intense enough to
have dissolved the pain-body -- or you can at least remain present as the
watcher. The pain-body cannot then take you over and so become destructive of
love.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
RELATIONSHIPS AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
As far as inner
transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot
transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody
else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and
love to enter.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
So whenever your relationship is not working, whenever it brings out the
"madness" in you and in your partner, be glad. What was unconscious is being
brought up to the light. It is an opportunity for salvation. The relationship then becomes your sadhana, your spiritual practice.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Never before have relationship been as problematic
and conflict ridden as they are now. As you may have noticed, they are not here
to make you happy or fulfilled. If you continue to pursue the goal of salvation
through a relationship, you will be disillusioned again and again. But if you
accept that the relationship is here to make you conscious instead of happy, then
the relationship will offer you salvation, and you will be aligning yourself with
the higher consciousness that wants to be born into this world.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Instead of fighting the darkness, you
bring in the light. Instead of reacting to delusion, you see the delusion yet at the
same time look through it. Being the knowing creates a clear space of loving
presence that allows all things and all people to be as they are. No greater
catalyst for transformation exists. If you practice this, your partner cannot stay
with you and remain unconscious.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Giving space to others -- and to
yourself- is vital. Love cannot flourish without it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you have removed the
two factors that are destructive of relationships: When the pain-body has been
transmuted and you are no longer identified with mind and mental positions, and
if your partner has done the same, you will experience the bliss of the flowering
of relationship.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If there isn't an emanation of love and joy, complete presence and openness
toward all beings, then it is not enlightenment.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
DISSOLVING THE COLLECTIVE FEMALE PAIN-BODY
The pain-body usually has a collective as well as a personal aspect. The
personal aspect is the accumulated residue of emotional pain suffered in one's
own past. The collective one is the pain accumulated in the collective human
psyche over thousands of years through disease, torture, war, murder, cruelty,
madness, and so on. Everyone's personal pain-body also partakes of this
collective pain- body.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Your main task as a
woman now is to transmute the pain-body so that it no longer comes between
you and your true self, the essence of who you are. Of course, you also have to
deal with the other obstacle to enlightenment, which is the thinking mind, but the
intense presence you generate when dealing with the pain-body will also free
you from identification with the mind.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
So do not use the pain-body to give you an identity. Use it for enlightenment
instead. Transmute it into consciousness. One of the best times for this is during
menses.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
GIVE UP THE RELATIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF
Coming from Being, you are able to focus beyond the veil of form. In Being,
male and female are one. Your form may continue to have certain needs, but
Being has none. It is already complete and whole. If those needs are met, that is
beautiful, but whether or not they are met makes no difference to your deep inner
state.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If you cannot be at ease with yourself when you are alone, you will seek a
relationship to cover up your unease.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
All you really need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the
here and now and at ease with yourself.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
But do you need to have a relationship with yourself at all? Why can't you just
be yourself?. When you have a relationship with yourself, you have split
yourself into two: 'T' and "myself," subject and object. That mind-created
duality is the root cause of all unnecessary complexity, of all problems and
conflict in your life.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself -- "you" and
"yourself" merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for
yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate
yourself, and so on. The split caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed,
its curse removed. There is no "self" that you need to protect, defend, or feed
anymore. When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer
have: the relationship with your- self. Once you have given that up, all your
other relationships will be love relationships.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHAPTER NINE: BEYOND HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS THERE IS PEACE
THE HIGHER GOOD BEYOND GOOD AND BAD
Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace
does not.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Whenever anything negative happens to you, there is a deep lesson concealed
within it, although you may not see it at the time.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
And when
you live in complete acceptance of what is -- which is the only sane way to live -
- there is no "good" or "bad" in your life anymore. There is only a higher good -
- which includes the "bad." Seen from the perspective of the mind, however,
there is good- bad, like-dislike, love-hate.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Forgiveness of the present is even more important than forgiveness of the past.
If you forgive every moment -- allow it to be as it is -- then there will be no
accumulation of resentment that needs to be forgiven at some later time.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suffering before they
will relinquish resistance and accept -- before they will forgive. As soon as they
do, one of the greatest miracles happens: the awakening of Being-consciousness
through what appears as evil, the transmutation of suffering into inner peace.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE END OF YOUR LIFE DRAMA
Ego is the unobserved mind that runs your life when you are not present as the
witnessing consciousness, the watcher. The ego perceives itself as a separate
fragment in a hostile universe, with no real inner connection to any other being,
surrounded by other egos which it either sees as a potential threat or which it
will attempt to use for its own ends.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When egos come together, whether in personal relationships or in organizations
or institutions, "bad" things happen sooner or later: drama of one kind or
another, in the form of conflict, problems, power struggles, emotional or
physical violence, and so on.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Whenever you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are
creating drama.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in
your life. Nobody can even have an argument with you, no matter how hard he
or she tries.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
IMPERMANENCE AND THE CYCLES OF LIFE
All suffering
is ego-created and is due to resistance.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Growth is usually considered positive, but nothing can grow
forever. If growth, of whatever kind, were to go on and on, it would eventually
become monstrous and destructive. Dissolution is needed for new growth to
happen. One cannot exist without the other.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The down cycle is absolutely essential for spiritual realization. You must have
failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn
to the spiritual dimension.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You can still be active and enjoy manifesting and creating new forms and
circumstances, but you won't be identified with them. You do not need them to
give you a sense of self. They are not your life -- only your life situation.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The cyclical nature of the universe is closely linked with the impermanence of
all things and situations.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
As long as a condition is judged as "good" by your mind, whether it be a
relationship, a possession, a social role, a place, or your physical body, the mind
attaches itself to it and identifies with it. It makes you happy, makes you feel
good about yourself, and it may become part of who you are or think you are.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Nothing out there will ever satisfy you except temporarily and superficially, but
you may need to experience many disillusionments before you realize that truth.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Things and conditions can give you pleasure, but they will also give you pain.
Things and conditions can give you pleasure, but they cannot give you joy.
Nothing can give you joy. Joy is uncaused and arises from within as the joy of
Being.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Joy is your natural state, not something that you need to
work hard for or struggle to attain.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
All that arises passes away.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This
state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or
bad.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is
gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve
greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your
happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are
free to enjoy and appreciate them -- while they last. All those things, of course,
will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is
no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
USING AND RELINQUISHING NEGATIVITY
All
negativity is resistance.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Whenever you
are unhappy, there is the unconscious belief that the unhappiness "buys" you
what you want.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
No other life form on the planet
knows negativity, only humans, just as no other life form violates and poisons
the Earth that sustains it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender
to the Now. Let it teach you Being. Let it teach you integrity -- which means to
be one, to be yourself, to be real. Let it teach you how to live and how to die,
and how not to make living and dying into a problem.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When
you have reached a certain degree of presence, you don't need negativity
anymore to tell you what is needed in your life situation. But as long as
negativity is there, use it. Use it as a kind of signal that reminds you to be more
present.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Whenever you notice that some form of negativity has
arisen within you, look on it not as a failure, but as a helpful signal that is telling
you: "Wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present."
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Feel yourself becoming
transparent, as it were, without the solidity of a material body. Now allow the
noise, or whatever causes a negative reaction, to pass right through you.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Somebody says something to you that is rude or designed to hurt. Instead of
going into unconscious reaction and negativity, such as attack, defense, or
withdrawal, you let it pass right through you. Offer no resistance. It is as if
there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. That is forgiveness. In this way, you
become invulnerable. You can still tell that person that his or her behavior is
unacceptable, if that is what you choose to do. But that person no longer has the
power to control your inner state. You are then in your power -- not in someone
else's, nor are you run by your mind.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is
the miracle of surrender.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you accept what is, every
piece of meat -- every moment -- is the best. That is enlightenment.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE NATURE OF COMPASSION
As long as you are unaware of Being, the reality of other
humans will elude you, because you have not found your own. Your mind will
like or dislike their form, which is not just their body but includes their mind as
well.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
True relationship becomes possible only when there is an awareness of
Being. Coming from Being, you will perceive another person's body and mind
as just a screen, as it were, behind which you can feel their true reality, as you
feel yours.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Compassion is the awareness of a deep bond between yourself and all
creatures.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
True compassion goes beyond
empathy or sympathy. It does not happen until sadness merges with joy, the joy
of Being beyond form, the joy of eternal life.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
TOWARD A DIFFERENT ORDER OF REALITY
However, you cannot escape from the body, nor do you have to. The body is an
incredible misperception of your true nature. But your true nature is concealed
somewhere within that illusion, not outside it, so the body is still the only point
of access to it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Every moment, your consciousness creates the
world that you inhabit.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Every being is a focal point of consciousness, and every such focal point creates
its own world, although all those worlds are interconnected.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The world as it appears to us now is, as I said, largely a reflection of the egoic
mind. Fear being an unavoidable consequence of egoic delusion, it is a world
dominated by fear. Just as the images in a dream are symbols of inner states and
feelings, so our collective reality is largely a symbolic expression of fear and of
the heavy layers of negativity that have accumulated in the collective human
psyche. We are not separate from our world, so when the majority of humans
become free of egoic delusion, this inner change will affect all of creation. You
will literally inhabit a new world. It is a shift in planetary consciousness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Only those who have transcended the world can bring about a better
world.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
When you are
fully present and people around you manifest unconscious behavior, you won't
feel the need to react to it, so you don't give it any reality. Your peace is so vast
and deep that anything that is not peace disappears into it as if it had never
existed. This breaks the karmic cycle of action and reaction.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
True change happens within, not without.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Stay alert and very, very present. The causal level needs to
remain your primary focus, the teaching of enlightenment your main purpose,
and peace your most precious gift to the world.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
CHAPTER TEN: THE MEANING OF SURRENDER
ACCEPTANCE OF THE NOW
To some people, surrender may have negative connotations, implying defeat,
giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, becoming lethargic, and so on.
True surrender, however, is something entirely different. It does not mean to
passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing
about it. Nor does it mean to cease making plans or initiating positive action.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing
the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the
Now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and
without reservation.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Acceptance of what is
immediately frees you from mind identification and thus reconnects you with
Being. Resistance is the mind.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
It is not the overall
situation that you need to accept when you surrender, but just the tiny segment
called the Now.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Not only your psychological form but also your physical form -- your body --
becomes hard and rigid through resistance. Tension arises in different parts of
the body, and the body as a whole contracts. The free flow of life energy
through the body, which is essential for its healthy functioning, is greatly
restricted.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If you find your life situation unsatisfactory or even intolerable, it is only by
surrendering first that you can break the unconscious resistance pattern that
perpetuates that situation.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Through nonresistance, the quality of your consciousness and, therefore, the
quality of whatever you are doing or creating is enhanced immeasurably. The
results will then look after themselves and reflect that quality. We could call this
"surrendered action."
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
It is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that is the main
determinant of what kind of future you will experience, so to surrender is the
most important thing you can do to bring about positive change. Any action you
take is secondary. No truly positive action can arise out of an un-surrendered
state of consciousness.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
FROM MIND ENERGY TO SPIRITUAL ENERGY
You cannot be conscious
and unhappy, conscious and in negativity. Negativity, unhappiness, or suffering
in whatever form means that there is resistance, and resistance is always
unconscious.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Remove time through intense present-moment awareness and it dies.
But do you want it to die? Have you truly had enough? Who would you be
without it?
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Until you practice surrender, the spiritual dimension is something you read
about, talk about, get excited about, write books about, think about, believe in --
or don't, as the case may be. It makes no difference. Not until you surrender
does it become a living reality in your life. When you do, the energy that you
emanate and which then runs your life is of a much higher vibrational frequency
than the mind energy that still runs our world.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
It is a silent but intense presence that dissolves the unconscious
patterns of the mind. They may still remain active for a while, but they won't
run your life anymore.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
SURRENDER IN PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
It is true that only an unconscious person will try to use or
manipulate others, but it is equally true that only an unconscious person can be
used and manipulated. If you resist or fight unconscious behavior in others, you
become unconscious yourself.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Take
responsibility for your life. Do not pollute your beautiful, radiant inner Being
nor the Earth with negativity. Do not give unhappiness in any form whatsoever a
dwelling place inside you.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Your relationships will be changed profoundly by surrender. If you can never
accept what is, by implication you will not be able to accept anybody the way
they are.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
If you suddenly feel
very light, clear and deeply at peace, that is an unmistakable sign that you have
truly surrendered. Then observe what happens to the other person's mental
position as you no longer energize it through resistance. When identification
with mental positions is out of the way, true communication begins.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Nonresistance doesn't necessarily mean doing nothing. All it means is that any
"doing" becomes nonreactive. Remember the deep wisdom underlying the
practice of Eastern martial arts: don't resist the opponent's force. Yield to
overcome.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
The ego believes that in your resistance lies your strength, whereas in truth
resistance cuts you off from Being, the only place of true power. Resistance is
weakness and fear masquerading as strength. What the ego sees as weakness is
your Being in its purity, innocence, and power. What it sees as strength is
weakness. So the ego exists in a continuous resistance-mode and plays
counterfeit roles to cover up your "weakness," which in truth is your power.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
In surrender, you no longer need ego defenses and false
masks. You become very simple, very real. "That's dangerous," says the ego.
"You'll get hurt. You'll become vulnerable." What the ego doesn't know, of
course, is that only through the letting go of resistance, through becoming
"vulnerable," can you discover your true and essential invulnerability.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
TRANSFORMING ILLNESS INTO ENLIGHTENMENT
Surrender does not transform what is, at least not directly. Surrender transforms
you. When you are transformed, your whole world is transformed, because the
world is only a reflection.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Illness is not the problem. You are the problem -- as long as the egoic mind is in
control. When you are ill or disabled, do not feel that you have failed in some
way, do not feel guilty. Do not blame life for treating you unfairly, but do not
blame yourself either. All that is resistance. If you have a major illness, use it
for enlightenment.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Anything "bad" that happens in your life -- use it for enlightenment. Let it force you into
intense present-moment awareness -- and see what happens.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
WHEN DISASTER STRIKES
So whenever any kind of disaster strikes, or something goes seriously "wrong" --
illness, disability, loss of home or fortune or of a socially defined identity, breakup of a dose relationship, death or suffering of a loved one, or your own
impending death -- know that there is another side to it, that you are just one step
away from something incredible: a complete alchemical transmutation of the
base metal of pain and suffering into gold. That one step is called surrender.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
TRANSFORMING SUFFERING INTO PEACE
Your first chance is to surrender each moment to the reality of that moment.
Knowing that what is cannot be undone -- because it already is -- you say yes to
what is or accept what isn't. Then you do what you have to do, whatever the
situation requires. If you abide in this state of acceptance, you create no more
negativity, no more suffering, no more unhappiness. You then live in a state of
nonresistance, a state of grace and lightness, free of struggle.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Now here is your second chance at surrender: If you cannot accept what is
outside, then accept what is inside. If you cannot accept the external condition,
accept the internal condition. This means: Do not resist the pain. Allow it to be
there. Surrender to the grief, despair, fear, loneliness, or whatever form the
suffering takes. Witness it without labeling it mentally. Embrace it. Then see
how the miracle of surrender transmutes deep suffering into deep peace. This is
your crucifixion. Let it become your resurrection and ascension.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Suffering does not diminish in intensity when you make it unconscious.
When you deny emotional pain, everything you do or think as well as your
relationships become contaminated with it.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
You attract and
manifest whatever corresponds to your inner state.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Presence removes
time. Without time, no suffering, no negativity, can survive.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Do you want an easy death? Would you rather die without pain, without agony?
Then die to the past every moment, and let the light of your presence shine away
the heavy, time-bound self you thought of as "you."
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE WAY OF THE CROSS
At this time, as far as the unconscious majority of humans is concerned, the way
of the cross is still the only way. They will only awaken through further
suffering, and enlightenment as a collective phenomenon will be predictably
preceded by vast upheavals.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
However, there is a growing number of humans alive today whose consciousness
is sufficiently evolved not to need any more suffering before the realization of
enlightenment. You may be one of them.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish
your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the main focus of your
life. It means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It
means saying yes to what is. You then don't need pain anymore.
- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
THE POWER TO CHOOSE
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