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November 2004
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November 1st 2004
From Consciousness -- Beyond the Mind
Only when your noisy mind subsides can you connect with nature at a deep level and go beyond the sense of separation created by excessive thinking.
When human beings become still, they go beyond thought. There is an added dimension of knowing, of awareness, in the stillness that is beyond thought.
To go beyond the mind and reconnect with the deeper reality of Being, very special qualities are needed -- surrender, nonjudgment, an openness that allows life to be instead of resisting it, the capacity to hold all things in the loving embrace of your knowing.
Eckhart Tolle
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November 2nd 2004
From Consciousness -- Beyond Names and Labels
Go beyond good and bad by refraining from mentally labeling anything as good or bad.
Go beyond the mental habit of naming and labeling. When you go beyond the habitual naming, the power of the universe moves through you. . . The moment you look beyond mental labels, you feel that ineffable dimension of nature that cannot be understood by thought or perceived through the senses. It is a harmony, a sacredness that permeates not only the whole of nature but is also within you.
Eckhart Tolle
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November 3rd 2004
From Consciousness -- Letting Go of Concepts
In order to find what the concept of God is pointing to, you must let go of your image of God and every concept you have about God. You must dare to be void of all concepts and enter into perfect Emptiness, perfect stillness, and perfect silence.
You must forget everything you have ever learned about God. It won't help you. It may comfort you, but such comfort is imaginary; it is an illusion.
Let go of all the false comforts of the mind. Let them all come to an end. The end must be experienced fully in Stillness. When you let all images, all concepts, all hopes, and all beliefs end, Stillness is experienced.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 4th 2004
From Consciousness -- That To Which It Points
Experience the core of Stillness. Dive into it and surrender fully.
In full surrender to Stillness, you directly experience That to which the concept of God points.
In that direct experience, you awaken from the dream of the mind and realize that the concept of God points to who you truly are.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 5th 2004
From Consciousness -- True Safety and Security
If you choose Freedom, life will become magical. The life you'll step into is one in which the Self is in hidden agreement with your humanness.
The Self begins to harmonize with your life, and it may proceed in a way that you could never have predicted.
The magical part is that the more you let go, the better it feels. The more you step into insecurity, the more you notice how secure and safe it is. Where you just stepped out of was unsafe.
Everyone is so miserable because they seek security in things that are limited and always moving and changing unpredictably.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 6th 2004
From Consciousness -- True Meditation
True meditation has no direction, goals, or method. All methods aim at achieving a certain state of mind. All states are limited, impermanent, and conditioned.
Fascination with states leads only to bondage and dependency. True meditation is abidance as primordial consciousness.
True meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when awareness is not fixated on objects of perception.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 7th 2004
From Consciousness -- Out of the Dream into the Present.
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.
You are leaving behind the deadening world of mental abstraction, of time. You are getting out of the insane mind that is draining you of life energy, just as it is slowly poisoning and destroying the Earth.
You are awakening out of the dream of time into the present.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 8th 2004
From Consciousness -- Deal With It or Accept It
Focus your attention on the Now and tell me what problem you have at this moment.
I am not getting any answer because it is impossible to have a problem when your attention is fully in the Now. A situation needs to be either dealt with or accepted. Why make it into a problem?
The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity of sorts. This is normal, and it is insane.
"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
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 9th 2004
From Consciousness -- Ending Problem Making
When you create a problem, you create pain.
All it takes is a simple choice, a simple decision: No matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself. I will create no more problems.
Although it is a simple choice, it is also very radical. You won't make that choice unless you are truly fed up with suffering, unless you have truly had enough. And you won't be able to go through with it unless you access the power of the Now.
If you create no more pain for yourself, then you create no more pain for others. You also no longer contaminate the beautiful Earth, your inner space, and the collective human psyche with the negativity of problem making.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 10th 2004
From Consciousness -- Intuitive Response
Should a situation arise that you need to deal with now, your action will be clear and incisive if it arises out of present-moment awareness.
It is also more likely to be effective.
It will not be a reaction coming from the past conditioning of your mind but an intuitive response to the situation.
In other instances, when the time-bound mind would have reacted, you will find it more effective to do nothing -- just stay centered in the Now.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 11th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Simple Criterion
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.
If there is no joy, ease, or lightness in what you are doing, it does not necessarily mean that you need to change what you are doing. It may be sufficient to change the how. "How" is always more important than "what."
See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it. Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents.
This implies that you also completely accept what is, because you cannot give your full attention to something and at the same time resist it.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 12th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Powerful Spiritual Practice
As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.
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.
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.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 13th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Joy of Being
When the compulsive striving away from the Now ceases, the joy of Being flows into everything you do.
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. Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being. You have found the life underneath your life situation.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 14th 2004
From Consciousness -- Meditation WIthout Effort
When you first start to meditate you notice that awareness is always focused on objects: on thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, memories, sounds, etc.
This is because the mind is conditioned to focus and contract upon objects.
Then the mind compulsively interprets what it is aware of (the object) in a mechanical and distorted way. It begins to draw conclusions and make assumptions according to past conditioning.
In true meditation, all objects are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to manipulate or suppress any object of awareness.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 15th 2004
From Consciousness -- Being Awareness
In true meditation, the emphasis is on being awareness; not on being aware of objects, but on resting as primordial awareness itself.
Primordial awareness, consciousness, is the source in which all objects arise and subside.
As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the mind's compulsive contraction around objects will fade. Silence of being will come more clearly into your consciousness, welcoming you to rest and abide.
An attitude of open receptivity, free of any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of silence and stillness, and reveal them to be your natural condition.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 16th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Non-State of Presence
Silence, stillness, and awareness are not states and therefore cannot be produced or created.
Silence is the non-state in which all states arise and subside. Silence is itself the eternal witness without form or attribute.
As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on their natural functionality, and awareness becomes free of the mind's compulsive contractions and identifications, and returns to its natural non-state of Presence.
The simple yet profound question "Who Am I?" can then reveal one's self not to be the endless tyranny of the ego-personality, but objectless Freedom of Being -- the Primordial Consciousness in which all states and all objects come and go as manifestations of the eternal unborn Self that YOU ARE.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 17th 2004
From Consciousness -- Silent Emptiness
The purpose of meditation is to find the meditator. When you look for the meditator, you won't find him, her, or it. All you'll find is silent Emptiness.
In finding Emptiness, the mind stops. If you let it, Emptiness will stop the mind -- unless you run back into the mind's drama of thinking, striving, and confusion.
When you allow Emptiness to stop your mind, you'll awaken and realize that you are that Emptiness. You'll realize that you are not the mind or the body or any meditative phenomena.
You are Emptiness. Emptiness means limitless, boundless, Pure Consciousness.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 18th 2004
From Consciousness -- You Are Not A Thing
You are not a thing. You are not a body-thing or a mental-thing or an emotional-thing or a thing with a history in time. You are no-thing. You are Consciousness itself.
Let go of your attachment to thing-ness, and you will awaken to that which is the Source of all things. You are that Source.
Go directly to that Source. Don't waste your lifetime defining yourself as a thing. Wake up from that dream, and you are Free.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 19th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Fire of Stillness
Your thoughts, concepts, ideas, and imaginings cannot touch Truth. There is nothing you can do to awaken to it. Absolutely nothing.
When you realize that there is nothing you can do, that all doing will only lead you further away from it, you must stop all doing. Stop and be still. Stopping and stillness require no doing and no effort.
All of your life you have been taught to do, to strive, to effort. You have been sold a self-improvement plan. You have been conditioned to believe that you are the body and the mind. All of this is a reflection of ignorance. It has been the blind leading the blind.
The truth of your being is Openness. It needs no practice, technique or manipulation to realize. Who you are is free, now! Who you are will not become free or liberated at some point in the future; who you are is Liberated, now!
Stop all doing and be still. Let the fire of stillness burn everything and reveal That which is Openness.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 20th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Problem With Techniques
Concentration techniques assume that Awareness isn't present and therefore must be found. The problem with these techniques is that they leave you thinking you have to do something to manufacture Awareness, when it's actually present in everyone all the time.
Awareness is something that already is, so there's nothing we need to do to get it. The deeper the relaxation, the more obvious it is that you are this Aware Space.
Abiding means letting everything be as it already is -- no matter what it is. If you're feeling good, let that be as it is. If you're feeling bad, let that be as it is. No matter what your emotional, physical, or mental state, let it be as it is and don't wish it to be otherwise.
If you want it to be different from what it is, you're not abiding; you're picking and choosing and trying to control your experience.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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November 21st 2004
From Consciousness -- Already Complete and Whole
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 -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 22nd 2004
From Consciousness -- Free of Time
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.
To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of the past for your identity and the future for your fulfillment.
It represents the most profound transformation of consciousness that you can imagine.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 23rd 2004
From Consciousness -- That Knowing is Presence
When you have had your first few glimpses of the timeless state of consciousness, you begin to move back and forth between the dimensions of time and presence.
First you become aware of just how rarely your attention is truly in the Now. But to know that you are not present is a great success:
That knowing is presence -- even if initially it only lasts for a couple of seconds of clock time before it is lost again.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 24th 2004
From Consciousness -- Your Predominant State
Choose to have the focus of your consciousness in the present moment rather than in the past or future, and whenever you realize that you had lost the Now, you are able to stay in it not just for a couple of seconds, but for longer periods as perceived from the external perspective of clock time.
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 -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 25th 2004
From Consciousness -- Grow in Presence Power
It is essential to bring more consciousness into your life in ordinary situations when everything is going relatively smoothly.
In this way, you grow in presence power. It generates an energy field in you and around you of a high vibrational frequency.
No unconsciousness, no negativity, no discord or violence can enter that field and survive, just as darkness cannot survive in the presence of light.
When you learn to be the witness of your thoughts and emotions, which is an essential part of being present, you may be surprised when you first become aware of the background "static" of ordinary unconsciousness and realize how rarely, if ever, you are truly at ease within yourself.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 26th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Mind in Resistance Mode.
On the level of your thinking, you will find a great deal of resistance in the form of judgment, discontent, and mental projection away from the Now.
On the emotional level, there will be an undercurrent of unease, tension, boredom, or nervousness.
Both are aspects of the mind in its habitual resistance mode.
Observe the many ways in which unease, discontent, and tension arise within you through unnecessary judgment, resistance to what is, and denial of the Now.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 27th 2004
From Consciousness -- DissolvING 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.
Make it a habit to monitor your mental and emotional state through self-observation. "Am I at ease at this moment?" is a good question to ask yourself frequently.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 28th 2004
From Consciousness -- Primary Reality is Within
Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within, secondary reality without.
You can ask: "What's going on inside me at this moment?" But don't answer the question immediately.. 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.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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November 29th 2004
From Consciousness -- Awakening
To realize your true nature, you must wait for the right moment and the right conditions. When the time comes, you are awakened as if from a dream. You understand that what you have found is your own and doesn’t come from anywhere outside.
Buddhist Sutra
All my rage, all the thoughts that had been troubling me, my whole world, the whole world, was gone. At the same time, laughter welled up from the depths and just poured out.
Everything was unrecognizable. It was as if something else had woken up. It opened its eyes. It was looking through Katie’s eyes. And it was so delighted! It was intoxicated with joy.
There was nothing separate, nothing unacceptable to it; everything was its very own self.
Byron Katie
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November 30th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Lover of What Is
The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.
Baruch Spinoza
Considering that, all hatred driven hence, The [mind] recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will.
William Butler Yeats
Step aside from all thinking, and there is nowhere you can’t go.
Seng-ts’an (the Third Founding Teacher of Zen)
