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December 2003
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December 1st 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Keep Your Inner Light On

(When a fear arises unbidden,) it's like having to live in a room with a cobra. If you turn off the light you are in great danger, whereas if you turn on the light you can see at every moment where the cobra is.

If you can move in accordance with the cobra's position, it is neutralized, you see. So, it's the same. Don't hesitate to turn on the light, to see your fear.

There's no need to get rid of it because, if you try to come close to the cobra, it will kill you. So don't try to kill your fear, just watch your fear so that your fear can never catch you, can never kill you and can never feed on you. It's very important to face the fear.

Francis Lucille

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 2nd 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Not Through Any Creed

Man cannot come to it (the abiding peace and joy of Self-realization) through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, nor through any philosophic technique.

He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection.

Man has built in himself images as a fence of security -- religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his daily life.

These images are the cause of our problems, for they divide man from man.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 3rd 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Deeply Rooted in Being

Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness.

When you look at a tree and perceive its stillness, you become still yourself. You connect with it at a very deep level. You feel a oneness with whatever you perceive in and through stillness. Feeling the oneness of yourself with all things is true love.

Silence is helpful, but you don't need it in order to find stillness. Even when there is noise, you can be aware of the stillness underneath the noise, of the space in which the noise arises. That is the inner space of pure awareness, consciousness itself.

You can become aware of awareness as the background to all your sense perceptions, all your thinking. Becoming aware of awareness is the arising of inner stillness.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 4th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Lost in Thought.

Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past.

In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. In the ancient teachings, it is the Christ within, or your Buddha nature.

Finding that dimension frees you and the world from the suffering you inflict on yourself and others when the mind-made "little me" is all you know and runs your life. Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting inner peace cannot come into your life except through that unconditioned dimension of consciousness.

If you can recognize, even occasionally, the thoughts that go through your mind as simply thoughts, if you can witness your own mental-emotional reactive patterns as they happen, then that dimension is already emerging in you as the awareness in which thoughts and emotions happen -- the timeless inner space in which the content of your life unfolds.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 5th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Healer of Separation

The human mind, in its desire to know, understand, and control, mistakes its opinions and viewpoints for the truth. It says: this is how it is. You have to be larger than thought to realize that however you interpret "your life" or someone else's life or behavior, however you judge any situation, it is no more than a viewpoint, one of many possible perspectives. It is no more than a bundle of thoughts.

But reality is one unified whole, in which all things are interwoven, where nothing exists in and by itself. Thinking fragments reality -- it cuts it up into conceptual bits and pieces.

The thinking mind is a useful and powerful tool, but it is also very limiting when it takes over your life completely, when you don't realize that it is only a small aspect of the consciousness that you are.

Wisdom is not a product of thought. The deep 'knowing' that is wisdom arises through the simple act of giving someone or something your full attention.

Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness itself. It dissolves the barriers created by conceptual thought, and with this comes the recognition that nothing exists in and by itself. It joins the perceiver and the perceived in a unifying field of awareness. It is the healer of separation.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 6th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Describing the Indescribable

A man born blind comes to me and asks, "What is this thing called green?" How does one describe the color green to someone who was born blind? One uses analogies. So I say, "The color green is something like soft music." "Oh," he says, "like soft music." "Yes," I say, "soothing and soft music.''

So a second blind man comes to me and asks, "What is the color green?" I tell him it's something like soft satin, very soft and soothing to the touch.

So the next day I notice that the two blind men are bashing each other over the head with their white canes. One is saying, "It's soft like music"; the other is saying, "It's soft like satin." And on it goes. Neither of them knows what they're talking about, because if they did, they'd shut up. It's as bad as that.

It's even worse, because one day, say, you give sight to this blind man, and he's sitting there in the garden and he's looking all around him, and you say to him, "Well, now you know what the color green is." And he answers, "That's true. I heard some of it this morning!"

Anthony de Mello -- Awakening

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 7th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- They Think They Know

In his famous commentary on Boethius' 'De Sancta Trinitate', St Thomas Aquinas says there are three ways of knowing God: (1) in the creation, (2) in God's actions through history, and (3) in the highest form of the knowledge of God -- to know God 'tamquam ignotum' (to know God as the unknown).

The highest form of talking about the Trinity is to know that one does not know. Now, this is not an Oriental Zen master speaking. This is a canonized saint of the Roman Catholic Church, the prince of theologians for centuries. To know God as unknown. In another place St. Thomas even says: as unknowable.

Reality, God, divinity, truth, love are unknowable; that means they cannot be comprehended by the thinking mind. That would set at rest so many questions people have because we're always living under the illusion that we know. We don't. We cannot know.

What is scripture, then? It's a hint, a clue, not a description. The fanaticism of one sincere believer who thinks he knows causes more evil than the united efforts of two hundred rogues. It's terrifying to see what sincere believers will do because they think they know. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a world where everybody said, "We don't know"? One big barrier dropped. Wouldn't that be marvelous?

Anthony de Mello -- Awakening

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 8th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Known Beyond Knowledge

The heart is nothing but the Sea of Light ... the place of the vision of God.

Rumi

Here there is nothing but an eternal seeing and staring at that Light, by that Light, and in that Light.

Jan Van Ruysbroeck

He that knows the Truth knows what that Light is , and he that knows It, knows eternity.

St Augustine

Who says that Spirit is not known, knows; who claims that he knows, knows nothing. The ignorant think that Spirit lies within knowledge; the wise man knows It beyond knowledge. Spirit is known through revelation. The living man who finds Spirit, finds Truth.

Kena Upanishad

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 9th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- And So It Came

Too late came I to love thee, O thou Beauty both so ancient and so fresh, Yea, too late came I to love thee. And behold, thou were within me, and I out of myself, where I made search for thee.

St Augustine

And so it came ... It tiptoed itself into my heart, silently, imperceptibly, and I looked at it with wonder. It was a still, small, light-blue flame, trembling softly, It had the infinite sweetness of a first love, like an offering of fragrant flowers with gentle hands, the heart full of stillness and wonder and peace.

Irina Tweedie

The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw -- and knew I saw -- all things in God and God in all things.

Mechthild of Magdeber

I see without eyes, and I hear without ears. I feel without feeling and taste without tasting. I know neither form nor measure; for without seeing I yet behold an operation so divine that the words I first used, perfection, purity and the like, seem to me now mere lies in the presence of truth ... Nor can I any longer say, 'My God, my all.' Everything is mine, for all that is God's seems to be wholly mine. I am mute and lost in God.

St Catherine of Genoa

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 10th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- High Noon

If the soul knows God in creatures, night falls. If it sees how they have their being in God, morning breaks. But if it sees the Being that is in God himself alone, it is high noon! See! This is what one ought to desire with mad fervour -- that all his life should become Being.

Meister Eckhart

Then the soul neither sees, nor distinguishes by seeing, nor imagines that there are two things: but becomes as it were another thing, ceases to be itself and belong to itself. It belongs to God and is one with Him, like two concentric circles: concurring they are One; but when they separate they are two ... Since in this conjunction with the Deity there were not two things, but the perceiver was one with the perceived ...

Plotinus

To be of heaven is to be in Tao. Tao is forever and he that possesses it, Though his body ceases, is not destroyed.

Lao Tzu

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 11th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Tears of Joy

I seemed alone with immensity, and there came at last that melting of the divine darkness into the life within me for which I prayed.

A.E.

From about half past ten in the evening to about half an hour after midnight. Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, Not the God of philosophers and scholars. Absolute Certainty: Beyond Reason, Joy. Peace. Forgetfulness of the world and everything but God. The world has not known thee, but I have known thee, Joy! joy! joy! tears of joy!

Blaise Pascal

It is the time of union, It is the time of vision, It is the time of resurrection, It is the time of grace, It is the time of generosity, The treasure of gifts has arrived. The brilliance of the sea has flashed forth. The dawn of blessing has arisen 'What' is this ancient wisdom The source of these living waters is in your head and in your eyes.

Rumi

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 12th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- I am Consciousness

I am neither the mind, the intellect, nor the whispering voice within; Neither the eyes, the ears, the nose, nor the mouth. I am not water, fire, earth, nor ether -- I am Consciousness and Bliss

Shankaracharya

Cloud pregnant with a million bolts of lightning, Love gives birth to the philosopher's stone. My soul is flooded by your Sea of splendor, Being and cosmos drown there silently.

Rumi

Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said, Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence: and according as I am able, I strive to cleanse my heart of thought: now what more should I do? The Elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be totally changed into fire?

Thomas Merton

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 13th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Angel of Mind

The metaphor of Lucifer, God's very favorite angel, the angel of light, the angel of mind, is a story of, "My, me, mine. My power, my glory, my life, my actions, my attainments, my victories." ...

When this is recognized, then Lucifer is no longer the devil, no longer in opposition, no longer in service to delusions of "me" and "mine."

Then Lucifer once again can serve God. The mind can serve its source. The return is the surrender.

Let God have you. Give up every idea and every image of what God is. Stop placing a limitation on God. Let God have your life. It may not always be comfortable, but what is a life of comfort in comparison to this holy servitude?

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 14th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Be Eternally Found

When you were a child, you played hide and seek, and at first you resisted being found. Then you began to recognize that actually you wanted to be found. There is a great joy in being found, even though you may have thought you had the perfect hiding place.

Maybe now you begin to recognize that this game (of LIfe) is actually about being found. You had thought it was only about hiding. The prelude is to hide, but the real pinnacle of this game you have played on yourself is to be found. Then you are done with resistance. Resistance may arise, but let it arise in the willingness to be found.

There may be the temptation to stay hidden, but still there is the recognition of something bigger in being found, regardless of expectations of how you will be found, when you will be found, or what it will look like when you are found. Opening your mind, opening your disguises, opening your resistance, is the announcement of availability to be found....

So, be eternally found. Finding is limitless revela tion -- so subtle, so immense, so indescribable. Find your Self everywhere.

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 15th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Getting to the Root of Desire

Instead of controlling desires, I suggest you surrender to that from which the desire arises. In order to discover where the desire arises, you have to turn right into the desire. The usual mental activity is either to be very afraid of our desires or very in love with them.

The usual is to indulge desires, and through indulgence finally to discover that indulgence doesn't make for satisfaction. Indulgence makes for dissatisfaction. With indulgence, the demon of desire grows ever larger.

Some have also attempted to repress desires, and this repression usually leads to rigidity and covert indulgence.

Discover directly what is at the core of the desire, what is at the root of it. In that, you discover directly what it is you are really desiring, having nothing to do with alcohol or sex or any other pleasure.

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 16th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Truth is Permanent

If you attend to truth, you are acknowledging what no phenomena have ever touched. You are acknowledging the truth of your Self.

It doesn't mean you hate phenomena, and it doesn't mean you love phenomena. It means you are attending to truth.

Truth is permanent. Phenomena are impermanent. You know this essential distinction from your day to day experience. This is not esoteric. It is very concrete. Phenomena come and go. Thoughts come and go. Emotions come and go. People's responses come and go. Your attitude about yourself comes and goes. Good, bad, up, down, excited, flat; all of that comes and goes.

Truth remains present, alive, available, blissful. Attend to truth, and phenomena are simply comings and goings. Not only are they simply comings and goings, but they are actually vehicles for deeper realization of truth.

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 17th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- No End to Who You Are

Surrender (spiritual awakening) is not something that 'happened' to me one day. It is something that is.

The great fear of surrender is that some kind of nihilistic force will take over, or some kind of brainwashing will come in, but it is obvious we have all already been brainwashed. That is the nature of conditioned existence.

Are you willing to surrender all conditioning? Not to substitute a new philosophy or a new point of view, but surrender it all, so that that which is before all points of view can be revealed.

Realization is something that happened yesterday, in the past. Realization is absolutely new, and at the same time it is seeing that which has always been.

There is no end to surrender, no end to awareness, no end to being, no end to God, no end to truth, no end to who you are.

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 18th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Making Others Wrong

I have a small amount of experience being involved in political groups. Once, I even went to jail for nonviolently protesting some action taken by the government. In my involvement, I discovered something interesting.

I discovered that the root of most political action is based on making somebody else wrong so that one's own enormous sense of emptiness or incompleteness or wrongfulness does not have to be felt, does not have to be experienced.

I discovered within my own mind, and I observed in others, that there was primarily an investment in keeping the struggle going. Ironically, there was more energy directed to the struggle than to the resolution of the struggle.

Unfortunately, this same dynamic is present in most nations, most societies, most cultures, most sub-cultures, most religious groups, most families, and most individuals.

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 19th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Willingness to be Nothing

Most action of any kind is an attempt to run from the fear of being nothing. There is the hope that, If I do this, then I will be something, and this something is worth something. That worth will, at least for a moment, make me forget that perhaps I am really nothing.

The truth is you really are nothing (not an object or a 'thing')! Left unexperienced, this nothing is terrifying, and frantic mental activity is generated to fill the seeming void of nothingness. The sublime joke and the great discovery is that in the willingness to be nothing, you realize fulfillment; you realize inherent peace.

Then there is no need for them to do something so that you can feel whole. Action that follows fulfillment is pure, spontaneous, creative, and intuitive, having nothing to do with any perceived lack.

Once this discovery has been made, then yes, there can be enlightened politics, enlightened religions, enlightened families, enlightened relationships of all kinds.

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 20th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Hurting Comes and Goes

Many bodies have conditions that hurt. Some bodies hurt more than other bodies. If you experience hurt totally, you discover that which is closer than the body, closer than the hurt. Rest in that. The pain comes, the pain goes, you rest in that which is closer.

Don't struggle any more with trying to do something with pain. Tend the body, but if your body will not be tended with its migraines, rest in that which does not come and go. Give up the struggle.

The body will have better days and worse days. This is the nature of bodies. But That which doesn't go away has no judgment of good days and bad days.

If you imagine that truth is only present in good physical feeling or good emotional feeling, that is a limited truth.

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 21st 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Absolute Freedom

Direct Self-inquiry is the gift of the Indian sage, Ramana Mahashi. It cuts through all denial and all affirmation.

If, for instance, you cry out, "I am unenlightened," Ramana asks, "Who is unenlightened?" If you cry out, "I am enlightened," Ramana asks, "Who is enlightened?" (Then you realise that the ego can be neither)

Then you will find that your real Self is no thing at all (to be in one state or another, but rather it is) free of both bondage and enlightenment. Free of whatever feeling arises. Free of whatever thought passes through. Free.

It is a freedom that has nothing to do with bondage. Only relative freedom has to do with bondage. Absolute freedom is untouched by relative freedom or relative bondage, and you are That.

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 22nd 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- You Are Not a Personality

You identify yourself as personality, until you actually see that personality is nothing but habits. When you look at habits and dissect them even closer, you will see they are nothing but gestures.

What is a gesture? Who owns a gesture? Personality, habit, and gesture are all inert. It's as if you are saying what a wonderful day your dress had yesterday.

You are not a personality, even though you wear a personality. Perhaps you wear it so tightly that you have overlooked that if you drop it, you remain whole and full, while it lies lifeless on the floor.

The mistake is objectifying yourself and assigning that objectification to a body, a personality, or an emotional state. You are the awareness of all -- all states, all bodies, all personalities, all everything, all nothing. Awareness is not a 'thing'.

Gangaji (Antoinnette Roberson Varner)

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 23rd 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Ego Needs Conflict

The egoic sense of self needs conflict because its sense of a separate identity gets strengthened in fighting against this or that, and in demonstrating that this is "me" and that is not "me."

The ego needs to be in conflict with something or someone. That explains why you are looking for peace and joy and love but cannot tolerate them for very long. You say you want happiness but are addicted to your unhappiness.

Built into the very structure of the egoic self is a need to oppose, resist, and exclude to maintain the sense of separateness on which its continued survival depends. So there is "me" against the "other," ... "us" against "them."

Not infrequently, tribes, nations, and religions derive a strengthened sense of collective identity from having enemies. Who would the "believer" be without the "unbeliever"?

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 24th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- The Ego Needs Guilt

Do you carry feelings of guilt about something you did -- or failed to do -- in the past? This much is certain: you acted according to your level of consciousness or rather unconsciousness at that time. If you had been more aware, more conscious, you would have acted differently.

Guilt is another attempt by the ego to create an identity, a sense of self. To the ego, it doesn't matter whether that self is positive or negative. What you did or failed to do was a manifestation of unconsciousness -- human unconsciousness. The ego, however, personalizes it and says, "I did that," and so you carry a mental image of yourself as "bad."

Throughout history humans have inflicted countless violent, cruel, and hurtful acts on each other, and continue to do so. Are they all to be condemned; are they all guilty? Or are those acts simply expressions of unconsciousness, an evolutionary stage that we are now growing out of?

Jesus' words, "Forgive them for they know not what they do," also apply to yourself.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 25th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Never Not Now

Putting away the dishes, drawing up a business strategy, planning a trip -- what is more important: the doing or the result that you want to achieve through the doing? This moment or some future moment?

Do you treat this moment as if it were an obstacle to be overcome? Do you feel you have a future moment to get to that is more important?

Almost everyone lives like this most of the time. Since the future never arrives, except as the present, it is a dysfunctional way to live. It generates a constant undercurrent of unease, tension, and discontent. It does not honor life, which is Now and never not Now.

Feel the aliveness within your body. That anchors you in the Now.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 26th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Taking Responsibility

Ultimately you are not taking responsibility for life until you take responsibility for this moment -- Now. This is because Now is the only place where life can be found.

Taking responsibility for this moment means not to oppose internally the suchness of Now, not to argue with what is. It means to be in alignment with life.

The Now is as it is because it cannot be otherwise. What Buddhists have always known, physicists now confirm: there are no isolated things or events. Underneath the surface appearance, all things are interconnected, are part of the totality of the cosmos that has brought about the form that this moment takes.

When you say "yes" to what is, you become aligned with the power and intelligence of Life itself. Only then can you become an agent for positive change in the world.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 27th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- A Radical Spiritual Practice

A simple but radical spiritual practice is to accept whatever arises in the Now -- within and without.

When your attention moves into the Now, there is an alertness. It is as if you were waking up from a dream, the dream of thought, the dream of past and future. Such clarity, such simplicity. No room for problem-making. Just this moment as it is.

The moment you enter the Now with your attention, you realize that life is sacred. There is a sacredness to everything you perceive when you are present. The more you live in the Now, the more you sense the simple yet profound joy of Being and the sacredness of all life.

Most people confuse the Now with what happens in the Now, but that's not what it is. The Now is deeper than what happens in it. It is the space in which it happens. So do not confuse the content of this moment with the Now. The Now is deeper than any content that arises in it.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 28th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- Step Into the Now

When you step into the Now, you step out of the content of your mind. The incessant stream of thinking slows down. Thoughts don't absorb all your attention anymore, don't draw you in totally. Gaps arise in between thoughts -- spaciousness, stillness. You begin to realize how much vaster and deeper you are than your thoughts.

Thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and whatever you experience make up the content of your life. "My life" is what you derive your sense of self from, and "my life" is content, or so you believe.

You continuously overlook the most obvious fact: your innermost sense of 'I Am' has nothing to do with what happens in your life, nothing to do with content. That sense of 'l Am' is one with the Now. It always remains the same.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 29th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- I Am Consciousness

In childhood and old age, in health or sickness, in success or failure, the 'I Am' the space of Now -- remains unchanged at its deepest level. It usually gets confused with content, and so you experience 'I Am' or the Now only faintly and indirectly, through the content of your life. In other words: your sense of Being becomes obscured by circumstances, your stream of thinking, and the many things of this world. The Now becomes obscured by time.

And so you forget your rootedness in Being, your divine reality, and lose yourself in the world. Confusion, anger, depression, violence, and conflict arise when humans forget who they are.

Yet how easy it is to remember the truth and thus return home:

I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now. I Am.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 30th 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- What Really Matters

Many things in your life matter, but only one thing matters absolutely.

It matters whether you succeed or fail in the eyes of the world. It matters whether you are healthy or not healthy, whether you are educated or not educated. It matters whether you are rich or poor -- it certainly makes a difference in your life. Yes, all these things matter, relatively speaking, but they don't matter absolutely.

There is something that matters more than any of those things and that is finding the essence of who you are beyond that short-lived entity, that short-lived personalized sense of self.

You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks

--- Anthologist and Mentor - Peter Stafford Sumner

December 31st 2003

From the OmniRead Treasuries -- You Are The One Life

Many expressions that are in common usage, and sometimes the structure of language itself, reveal the fact that people don't know who they are. You say: "He lost his life" or "my life," as if life were something that you can possess or lose.

The truth is: you don't have a life, you are life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or a blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy.

All the misery on the planet arises due to a personalized sense of "me" or "us." That covers up the essence of who you are. When you are unaware of that inner essence, in the end you always create misery. It's as simple as that. When you don't know who you are, you create a mind-made self as a substitute for your beautiful divine being and cling to that fearful and needy self.

Can you sense deep within that you already know that? Can you sense that you already are That?

Eckhart Tolle -- Stillness Speaks