back to archive index
January 2005
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Use the "back" button on your browser to return to the top of the page.
From Consciousness -- Ceasing to Become
Ceasing to become means that in the face of that which the mind can never know, you do not move. As long as you are trying to become, trying to get somewhere, trying to attain something, you are quite literally moving away from the Truth itself.
In order to cease becoming, you must reject the path and the journey. You must reject time, which means the future, which means that tomorrow is never going to come.
Enlightenment will never happen tomorrow. Tomorrow is becoming, and becoming is time, and time is thought. Thought is the garbage can. If you look into the garbage can, all you will get is garbage.
To rest in the Unknown literally means that your mind knows absolutely nothing about how to get you to your goal. It means that you've stopped looking toward the mind to tell you how, when, and where.
By absolutely ceasing to become, you stop. This stopping is effortless. It comes out of wisdom.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 2nd 2005
From Consciousness -- That Ever-Unfolding Mystery
Seeing, perceiving, that there is nothing that you can do to cease anything -- that itself brings the ceasing. As long as there is a belief that you can do the ceasing, then ceasing will never happen.
Only when it's perceived that the you who is trying to cease is just a thought, and therefore an illusion, does ceasing happen spontaneously.
To be lost in not knowing is a wonderful place to be. When you're lost in not knowing, you come to know, but not in the way that you knew before. You come to know as a moment-to-moment experience of being. That's your knowing.
And you know that That is who you really are. You are that ever-unfolding mystery beyond the mind.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 3rd 2005
From Consciousness -- The Ultimate Principle
You know Enlightenment has happened when the dream called "me" has stopped holding any importance or significance whatsoever.
When you realize that the individual me is completely insignificant, this is the fulfillment of the seeking, the realization of no seeker. You realize that it is all a dream of consciousness.
This could be called the direct path, where the seeker is never allowed to take the first step.
Go to the pure I AM. Not I am this or I am that, but simply I AM. Then throw out the I, so that there is only AM. This is the stateless state, the ultimate principle, the absolute Self. Everything, in essence, is this absolute principle called the Self.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 4th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Need to Grow Up.
It is said that the ego must die in order for you to truly live. But nothing need die, you simply need to grow up.
A child does not die in order to grow into an adult. The child simply grows up; it evolves and leaves behind what is no longer appropriate.
See that the ego is no longer useful or appropriate and leave it behind. Only the ego makes its own demise seem dramatic.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 5th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Ultimate Perceiver
What needs to cease in order to find out who we are is the very idea that you, as a separate entity, are going to cease or not cease.
The problem is that most people are paying attention to objects, to what they perceive -- rather than to the ultimate perceiver, the background. Either way, awareness is happening 100% of the time.
The light is on brightly. It never goes off, but where is it looking? The human condition is characterized by a complete fascination with objects, starting with this object that we interpret as "me." Me is only a thought. You are before this me thought.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 6th 2005
From Consciousness -- What Doesn't Come and Go
This life is a dream. To call it a dream is not to disparage it; that doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile. It's no different from dreams you have at night.
You wake up from your dreams into this dream we call life, and when you go to sleep, you wake up in another dream world.
But that which is awake in both worlds, the Dreamer, is always the same. Awareness is always present. That's the reality.
What doesn't come and go, even in the dream-state? That's who you are.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 7th 2005
From Consciousness -- You Have to Be It
The Truth doesn't care about consequences. It's concerned with the Truth. It doesn't care if you're liked or not liked. You won't always be liked for it, and sometimes you will be disliked for it.
As long as you're acting in the world based on what you like or don't like, or what others like or don't like, you're not in the realm of Truth.
Truth insists that we not only be truthful, but that we act truthfully. It's not enough just to know the Truth. You have to be it -- to act it, and to do it.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 8th 2005
From Consciousness -- Rooted Within Yourself;
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.
It means to inhabit your body fully. To always have some of your attention in the inner energy field of your body. To feel the body from within, so to speak. Body awareness keeps you present. It anchors you in the Now.
The body that you can see and touch cannot take you into Being. But that visible and tangible body is only an outer shell, or rather a limited and distorted perception of a deeper 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
---
January 9th 2005
From Consciousness -- Reclaiming Consciousness
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 when you are not in your body.
The mind absorbs all your consciousness and transforms it into mind stuff. You cannot stop thinking.
To become conscious of Being, you need to reclaim consciousness from the mind. This is one of the most essential tasks on your spiritual journey. It will free vast amounts of consciousness that previously had been trapped in useless and compulsive thinking.
A very effective way of doing this is simply to take the focus of your attention away from thinking and direct it into the body, where Being can be felt in the first instance as the invisible energy field that gives life to what you perceive as the physical body.
Eckhart Tolle
---
January 10th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Light of Your Essence
Having access to the formless realm through the inner body is truly liberating. It frees you from bondage to form and identification with form.
We may call it the Unmanifested, the invisible Source of all things, the Being within all beings. It is a realm of deep stillness and peace, but also of joy and intense aliveness.
Whenever you are present, you become "transparent" to some extent to the light, the pure consciousness that emanates from this Source.
You also realize that the light is not separate from who you are but constitutes your very essence.
Eckhart Tolle
---
January 11th 2005
From Consciousness -- A Reality Within Yourself
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.
Then, when your consciousness comes back to the manifested world, you reassume the form identity that you temporarily relinquished. You have a name, a past, a life situation, a future.
But in one essential respect, you are not the same person you were before: You will have glimpsed a reality within yourself that is not "of this world," although it isn't separate from it, just as it isn't separate from you.
Eckhart Tolle
---
January 12th 2005
From Consciousness -- A Bridge Between God and the World
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.
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
---
January 13th 2005
From Consciousness -- Turn Up the Dimmer Switch.
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, much like a light that grows brighter as you turn up the dimmer switch and so increase the flow of electricity.
At this higher energy level, negativity cannot affect you anymore, and you tend to attract new circumstances that reflect this higher frequency.
Eckhart Tolle
---
January 14th 2005
From Consciousness -- Don't Let It All Flow Out.
Please examine where your attention is at this moment.
You are are reading these words on your computer screen. That is the focus of your attention. You are also peripherally aware of your surroundings, other people, and so on. Furthermore, there may be some mind activity around what you are reading, some mental commentary.
Yet there is no need for any of this to absorb all your attention. 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 reading with your whole body. Let this be your practice in the days and weeks to come.
Eckhart Tolle
---
January 15th 2005
From Consciousness -- You Go Beyond.
Many spiritual people are involved in a radical denial of what is happening. They want to transcend it, get rid of it, get out of it, get away from it.
There's nothing wrong with that feeling, but the approach doesn't work because it's escapism in spiritual clothing. It's wearing spiritual clothing and spiritual concepts, but it is really no different than a drunk in the gutter who doesn't want to feel the pain anymore.
When you abide and accept everything completely and fully, you automatically go beyond.
No beliefs and no concepts are true. Throw them all out and let the flame of silence burn you awake.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 16th 2005
From Consciousness -- Awakening
At the moment of enlightenment everything falls away -- everything. Suddenly the ground beneath you is gone, and you are alone. You are alone because you have realized that there is no other; there is no separation. There is only you, only Self, only limitless Emptiness, pure Consciousness.
To the mind, the ego, this appears terrifying. When it looks at limitlessness and infinity, it sees meaninglessness and despair. However, the view changes to unending joy and wonder once the mind is let go of.
When you are enlightened, you stand alone. You need no supports of any kind because there is nothing to support; a separate you no longer exists. You realize that the whole ego experience was a flimsy illusion.
You stand alone but are never, never lonely because everywhere you look, all you see is That, and You are That.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 17th 2005
From Consciousness -- Being Awakeness.
Awakening doesn't mean you awaken. It means that there is only awakening. There is no "you" who is awake, there is only awakeness.
As long as you identify with a "you" who is either awake or not awake, you are still dreaming.
Awakening is awakening from the dream of a separate you into simply being Awakeness.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 18th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Truth of Your Being
When you awaken, all becoming ceases. Being awake means that you realize by direct experience who and what you are. You do not become anything. All becoming is in time, which is mind.
Awakening is outside of time: You awaken from time to That which is timeless. Wisdom and love are aspects of your own Self and as such do not need to be created or pursued.
Many people try to become wiser and more loving, and they remain in a constant battle with themselves. This approach never works because it assumes a separate "you" who wants to be a better person.
It is the you that is the dream, a thought only. In taking yourself to be a separate entity, you blind yourself to the truth of your being, which is Love and Wisdom.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 19th 2005
From Consciousness -- it's a Paradox
The word "enlightenment" points to who you are. Who you are is not a state that can be gained or lost. It is not a spiritual experience.
All states and experiences come and go. Who you are is the permanence existing right now, regardless of states and experiences.
In one sense, the enlightened life is one of total insecurity; you live and act from the Unknown. We're used to acting from the distorted sense of security that our mind provides, but Freedom doesn't operate that way.
It's a paradox. Precisely because you don't know, and you know you don't know, the door is wide open to know in each moment. That's when you know -- in each moment. By resting in not knowing, knowing becomes available.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 20th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Evolutionary Force of Consciousness
Looking inside yourself and not finding yourself is the finding!
When fascination with the me dissolves, when it simply no longer holds center stage in your awareness, then all that remains in the absence of the me, is revealed.
The person whose realization is profound has become the evolutionary force of consciousness. They've become that.
And the evolutionary force of consciousness to awaken is only concerned with the truth.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 21st 2005
From Consciousness -- Gradual Embodiment
First you awaken out of life, then you awaken as Life itself.
After sudden Awakening to the Self, there begins a process of gradual embodiment of the transcendent into the human personality. By gradual I mean the deepening of realization after the experience of enlightenment.
The more the transcendent Self becomes embodied within our humanness, the more vast our view becomes, and the more we express and manifest transcendent realization in the way we live life.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 22nd 2005
From Consciousness --
The process of embodiment (of the transcendent) is a continual stripping away of every remnant of attachment and ego.
It is a movement of continual surrender to the vast implications contained within true spiritual Awakening.
It is a phase of spiritual unfolding fraught with many dangers, self-deceptions, and misunderstandings. It is where many seekers of liberation succumb to fear, doubt, and a lack of conviction.
The process of embodiment can be simultaneously very thrilling and quite disorienting. It is an area of incredible subtlety and complexity which few truly understand.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 23rd 2005
From Consciousness -- Stay Rooted Within
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.
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. Please don't just accept or reject this. Put it to the test.
Eckhart Tolle
---
January 24th 2005
From Consciousness -- To Strengthen Your Immune System
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.
Close your eyes. Lie flat on your back. Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention on briefly at first: hands, feet, arms, legs, abdomen, chest, head, and so on. Feel the life energy inside those parts as intensely as you can. Stay with each part for fifteen seconds or so.
Then let your attention run through the body like a wave a few times, from feet to head and back again. This need only take a minute or so. After that, feel the inner body in its totality, as a single field of energy. Hold that feeling for a few minutes.
Be intensely present during that time, present in every cell of your body.
Don't be concerned if the mind occasionally succeeds in drawing your attention out of the body and you lose yourself in some thought. As soon as you notice that this has happened, just return your attention to the inner body.
Eckhart Tolle
---
January 25th 2005
From Consciousness -- When A Solution is Needed
If you need to use your mind for a specific purpose, use it in conjunction with your inner body. Only if you are able to be conscious without thought can you use your mind creatively, and the easiest way to enter that state is through your body.
Wheneveer 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. 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
---
January 26th 2005
From Consciousness -- Conscious Breathing
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.
Follow the breath with your attention as it moves in and out of your body. Breathe into the body, and feel your abdomen expanding and contracting slightly with each inhalation and exhalation.
If you find it easy to visualize, close your eyes and see yourself surrounded by light or immersed in a luminous substance -- a sea of consciousness. Then breathe in that light. Feel that luminous substance filling up your body and making it luminous also.
Then gradually focus more on the feeling. Don't get attached to any visual image. You are now in your body. You have accessed the power of Now.
Eckhart Tolle
---
January 27th 2005
From Consciousness -- Dissolving the Pain-Body
The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.
On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity.
The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it.
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
---
January 28th 2005
From Consciousness -- Triggering the Pain-Body
The pain-body has two modes of being: dormant and active. It may be dormant 90 percent of the time; in a deeply unhappy person, though, it may be active up to 100 percent of the time.
Some people live almost entirely through their pain-body, while others may experience it only in certain situations, such as intimate relationships, or situations linked with past loss or abandonment, physical or emotional hurt, and so on.
Anything can trigger it, particularly if it resonates with a pain pattern from your past. When it is ready to awaken from its dormant stage, even a thought or an innocent remark made by someone close to you can activate it.
Eckhart Tolle
---
January 29th 2005
From Consciousness -- Your True Body.
Embodiment (of truth) starts with the realization that every manifest thing and non-thing constitutes your true body.
Your humanness is simply a reflection of the depth of your realization. So it's not that you have to do something to the human body to make it a bigger, vaster, or wider container for the truth of being to come through.
What's most important is to perceive your entire body, which is everything. Then, your humanness will reflect the depth of that realization.
Embodiment is not something that you do; it is something that is a result of how far you take enlightenment and how much of yourself you give to it. The entire cosmos is your body. Let your humanness reflect and manifest the whole.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 30th 2005
From Consciousness -- Enlightened Behavior Liberates
Embodiment is usually a gradual process that begins after the event called "awakening," so we can't really speak about embodiment in absolute terms. The indications of embodiment are peace, love, wisdom, and enlightened action.
What effect we have on others is a good indication of exactly how enlightened we are. If we think we are very enlightened, but have a negative effect on others, we are probably not nearly as enlightened as we'd like to believe.
This is not to say that others will always like the way we behave, since enlightened behavior is often misunderstood by a mind still dwelling in separation.
Enlightened behavior liberates. It doesn't matter if someone likes it or not, the question is, does it liberate? That's the only question worthwhile, and it's the only proof of enlightenment.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
---
January 31st 2005
From Consciousness -- A Reflection of the Heart
Perceive the teaching as an expression of your own Self, then you won't see yourself as distant from it. Then it won't become a goal for you to obtain; it will be seen as a reflection of your own heart.
Seeing it in this way orients you to the most effective attitude. If you see a spiritual teaching as a reflection of your own Self, your own depth, then your relationship with it is going to be far different than if you perceived the teaching as coming from other than yourself.
It's the difference between teaching that leads to more isolation and separation, and teaching that leads to less isolation and separation. Your attitude is all-important.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
