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October 2004
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October 1st 2004
From Consciousness -- Uncreated Music Within
And deep within you there is a music which is not created by anybody, which is not created by hands, which is not produced on any instrument. There is a special name for it; it is called 'anahad'. When you play, on a guitar it is called 'ahad', because you strike on the strings with your fingers.
'Ahad' means striking. It is created out of conflict, there is a little aggression in it, there is struggle. The musician is struggling to create music on the instrument, there is a kind of fight.
But in the innermost recess of your being there is neither instrument nor musician, but music is there, without the musician and without the instrument.
Zen people call it 'the sound of one hand clapping'. The Christian mystics call it 'the soundless sound'. It is a silence and yet it is musical silence.
Osho
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October 2nd 2004
From Consciousness -- The Still Point
T.S. Eliot spoke of "the still point of the turning world." and suggested, "Except for the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance."
The still point.... There is a point within you where nothing ever moves -- no movement from or to, no stirring, no sound created by any instrument. Nobody is there, just stillness, but that stillness is the dance and that stillness is the music. It is called 'anahad'.
And the moment you have heard that music, a great fountain bursts forth, of joy, of bliss. You become a rejoicing, you become a dance yourself, you become a song yourself.
Then your life is religious -- not like the so-called saints, sad, serious and ugly. The really religious person is one whose inner wells have started flowing, who has become a fountain of joy, of song and dance and celebration.
Osho
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October 3rd 2004
From Consciousness -- This Impulse or Spark
The impulse to be free is an evolutionary spark within consciousness which originates from beyond the ego. It is an impulse toward the divine, unity, and wholeness. It is an impulse originating from the Truth itself.
This impulse to evolve is often co-opted by the ego, which then creates the illusion of the spiritual seeker. This impulse, which is inherently innocent, is something that, in and of itself, has nothing to do with any seeking to attain.
It is only when the ego co-opts the impulse and then tries to attain something, that the seeker is born. This impulse, this spark of evolution, becomes almost instantly corrupted by a wanting which gives birth to the seeker.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 4th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Great Good News
The great good news is that you don't have to be worthy of enlightenment. Nobody's worthy of it. Despite unworthiness, it is given. Enlightenment is too big to be worthy of. Who could be worthy of it?
Who is separate from it to be worthy? That's the Love. Worthiness doesn't count. Nothing can ostracize you from the Truth of your Self.
You have to allow yourself to be humbled. That humbling can take place in an instant or over a lifetime; it doesn't matter. Finally, when you become humble enough to come back to being nothing and to discovering your perfect nothingness, you discover everything.
When that is discovered, it's important to be true to that and to not shrink away from it by saying, "Not me, no. It couldn't be me."
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 5th 2004
From Consciousness -- Many Are Called
The impulse to be free is predestined in the sense that it does not originate in the ego. It is non-personal. When I say that the impulse is non-personal, I mean that it has nothing to do with you as a separate entity.
In that sense it could be called predestined. But destiny is just another concept created by the ego, which exists and operates in terms of time. So the only conclusions that the ego can make will have to do with time.
Both predestined and not predestined don't even exist outside the ego because when you are outside the ego, you are outside of time. The impulse to be free is not for the few. Many are called, few respond.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 6th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Self That Hears
Be with an enlightened teacher and listen. What I mean by that is, don't concern yourself with your mind's interpretation of the words. Just let the words in, without thinking about them or trying to understand them.
Then they can penetrate to a place that is beyond the mind, and instead of your mind hearing them, your Self hears them.
Doing this elicits what the words are meant to elicit -- the Self. If you're not running the words through the mind, they go beyond the ego to Silence, to the Heart.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 7th 2004
From Consciousness -- In This Moment
Enlightenment depends to a large extent on believing that you are born for Freedom in this lifetime, and that it is available now, in this moment.
The mind, which creates the past and future, keeps you out of the moment where the Truth of your Being can be discovered.
In this moment, there is always Freedom and there is always peace. This moment in which you experience Stillness is every moment.
Don't let the mind seduce you into the past or future. Stay in the moment, and dare to consider that you can be free now.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 8th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Different Kind of Knowing
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. A knowing that does not destroy the sacredness and mystery of life but contains a deep love and reverence for all that is. A knowing of which the mind knows nothing.
Break the old pattern of present-moment denial and present-moment resistance.
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 -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 9th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Witnessing Presence
If you find it hard to enter the Now directly, start by observing the habitual tendency of your mind to want to escape from the 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.
Through self-observation, more presence comes into your life automatically. The moment you realize you are not present, you are present.
Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it. Another factor has come in, something that is not of the mind: the witnessing presence.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 10th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Silent Watcher
Be present as the watcher of your mind -- of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations. Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes you to react.
Notice also 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.
You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
October 11th 2004
From Consciousness -- It Isn't You
Intense presence is needed when certain situations trigger a reaction with a strong emotional charge, such as when your self-image is threatened, a challenge comes into your life that triggers fear, things "go wrong," or an emotional complex from the past is brought up.
In those instances, the tendency is for you to become "unconscious." The reaction or emotion takes you over -- you "become" it. You act it out. You justify, make wrong, attack, defend.., except that it isn't you, it's the reactive pattern, the mind in its habitual survival mode.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 12th 2004
From Consciousness -- Once You Feel It
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.
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.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 13th 2004
From Consciousness -- Free of Psychological Time.
Moving more deeply into the Now.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.
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 -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 14th 2004
From Consciousness -- Ego is Just Ego
Ego is neither positive nor negative. Those are simply concepts that create more boundaries.
Ego is just ego, and the disaster of it all is that you, as a spiritual seeker, have been conditioned to think of the ego as bad, as an enemy, as something to be destroyed.
This simply strengthens the ego. In fact, such conclusions arise from the ego itself.
Pay no attention to them. Don't go to war with yourself; simply inquire into who you are.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 15th 2004
From Consciousness -- Wanting to be Happy
Every human being on the face of this planet simply wants to be happy. The spiritual yogi and the strung-out drug addict both want to be happy. One of them is going about it in a wise way and the other in an ignorant way, but the impulse is the same.
When the impulse to be happy or free is immature, it takes the form of addictions of all sorts, desires of all sorts, indulgences of all sorts. But when the impulse is mature, it stops taking those forms, and there is no longer a moving away from anything.
When one realizes that all the ways I have ever tried to be happy and all the ways I've tried to be free have not worked -- at the moment that is seen, the impulse has shifted from something very immature to something mature.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 16th 2004
From Consciousness -- That One Self.
The whole point is to arrive at the place where the impulse or the yearning to be free is no longer driving you at all.
This means that the impulse has accomplished its task -- it has come to fulfillment, quietness, stillness, cessation.
Even when this impulse has accomplished a good part of its task, very often the ego will cling to it as a distorted means of saving itself. So in the end, the impulse must be allowed to come to fruition.
Fruition means that we have died into it. There is nothing for it to push anymore because we have become that impulse, that spark, that one Self.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 17th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Play of the Mind
Inherent in the impulse to be free, is insecurity. The impulse to be free comes from outside of the mind, and because of this, it makes the mind feel very insecure.
Most spiritual seekers move away from this insecurity by seeking and striving for a distant spiritual goal. That's how they avoid feeling insecure.
In an effort not to feel insecure, in an attempt not to directly face the Unknown -- which is where the impulse to be flee originates -- the ego creates a spiritual seeker as a means to avoid it.
It is a very intelligent play of the mind, a show, a fantasy.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 18th 2004
From Consciousness -- You Are the Sought
The impulse to be free, since it comes from outside of the mind, outside of the "me," is completely unknown to the mind, to the me.
So the way the mind deals with this vast Unknown and this insecurity is by seeking.
For many people, the impulse to be flee simply solidifies the sense of a separate self rather than taking them beyond it.
Seeking happens, but the seeker who is separate from the sought is purely a creation of the mind. You are not the seeker; you are the sought. You are the Self.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 19th 2004
From Consciousness -- Stop and Be Taken
The whole point is receptivity to the impulse to be free. The impulse is like a seed that consciousness puts in the me, and all you have to do is be receptive to the seed.
This means that in the presence of the impulse to be flee, the truest most mature response would be simply to stop, be still, rest, and be taken.
It is only the seeker that has absolutely no interest in stopping, but you are not the seeker.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 20th 2004
From Consciousness -- Tasting Your Self
You have to become more interested in the silent background than in the foreground, the phenomena: thoughts, emotions, sounds, smells, etc. Most people are focused on the foreground and what their five senses bring them, but the Self is discovered in the background. The Self is the source from which the phenomena spring and the ground in which this display of phenomena is happening, from the subtlest feelings and experiences to the grossest matter.
When you rest as this background, you can taste your Self. You just give yourself to it.
Actually, you're giving your idea of yourself to your true Self. The idea comes out of the Silence, so you give the idea of who you are back to Silence.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 21st 2004
From Consciousness -- Honor Each Step
Learn to use time in the practical aspects of your life -- we may call this "clock time" m but immediately return to present-moment awareness when those practical matters have been dealt with.
In this way, there will be no buildup of "psychological time," which is identification with the past and continuous compulsive projection into the future.
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.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 22nd 2004
From Consciousness -- Mere Stepping-Stones
If you become excessively focused on your 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. Your life's journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to "make it."
You no longer see or smell the flowers by the wayside either, nor are you aware of the beauty and the miracle of life that unfolds all around you when you are present in the Now.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 23rd 2004
From Consciousness -- The Script in Your Mind
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?
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 -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 24th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Quality of Your Consciousness
What you perceive as future is an intrinsic part of your state of consciousness now. 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.
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 -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 25th 2004
From Consciousness -- Attachment to Past and Future
You may find it hard to recognize that time is the cause of your suffering or your problems. You believe that they are caused by specific situations in your life, and seen from a conventional viewpoint, this is true.
But until you have dealt with the basic problem-making dysfunction of the mind -- its attachment to past and future and denial of the Now- problems are actually interchangeable.
If all your problems or perceived causes of suffering or unhappiness were miraculously removed for you today, but you had not become more present, more conscious, you would soon find yourself with a similar set of problems or causes of suffering, like a shadow that follows you wherever you go.
Ultimately, there is only one problem: the time-bound mind itself. 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 -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 26th 2004
From Consciousness -- Our LIfe & Life Situation
What you refer to as your "life" should more accurately be called your "life situation." It is psychological time: past and future.
Certain things in the past didn't go the way you wanted them to go. You are still resisting what happened in the past, and now you are resisting what is.
Hope is what keeps you going, but hope keeps you focused on the future, and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the Now and therefore your unhappiness.
Forget about your life situation for a while and pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time. Your life is now. Your life situation is mind-stuff. Your life is real.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 27th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Narrow Gate
Find the "narrow gate that leads to life." It is called the Now. Narrow your life down to this moment.
Your life situation may be full of problems -- most life situations are -- but find out if you have any problem at this moment. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now. Do you have a problem now?
When you are full of problems, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution.
So whenever you can, make some room, create some space, so that you find the life underneath your life situation.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 28th 2004
From Consciousness -- Listen to the Silence
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.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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October 29th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Separate Sense of I
The insecurity of the Unknown is the very thing that you don't want to avoid. Within the insecurity, within the Unknown -- the Mystery -- lies the fulfillment of all seeking.
Not until you come to absolute rest in that insecurity, in the Unknown, will it show its true face.., which is beauty itself, beyond all fear.
Total security arises out of total insecurity.
Both security and insecurity refer to a personal, separate sense of I. Who is this I? In the absence of the personal I, all fears cease.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 30th 2004
From Consciousness -- Eternal Being-ness is There.
You could look for yourself inside and think there's absolutely nothing there.
But there is something there. Consciousness-ing is there. Awareness is there. That which has no image is there. That which is timeless is there. Eternal being-ness is there. Love is there.
It is only the mind that looks into emptiness and says, "Nothing's there." What that really means is, there is no individual "I" there. It shows you just how much interest the mind has in anything other than itself: none! It shows you just what the mind is focused on.
And the not finding of the I is freedom.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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October 31st 2004
From Consciousness -- The Content of Perception
The seeing is outside of what's being seen.
That's where the wisdom lies: in the seeing itself, in the awareness itself, and in the consciousness of what's happening. That's where the wisdom is.
The mind will always want to remain fixated on the content of perception. But wisdom arises from the consciousness of the content.
So it's important to see that the content of perception is the dream, is unimportant, 'is' illusion.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
