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September 2004
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September 1st 2004
From Consciousness -- Only Through Love and Wisdom
As many spiritual seekers know, to realize the truth of being is one thing, but to live it is quite another.
In order to live the truth realized, we must be willing to embrace change, insecurity, and risk.
Fear must be overcome by the motivation of love.
Only through love and wisdom can we find the way to live the truths of inner revelation.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 2nd 2004
From Consciousness -- Powerful Experiences
Many seekers do not take full responsibility for their own Liberation, but wait for one big, final spiritual experience which will catapult them fully into it.
It is this search for the final liberating experience which gives rise to a rampant form of spiritual consumerism in which seekers go from one teacher to another, shopping for enlightenment as if shopping for sweets in a candy store.
This spiritual promiscuity is rapidly turning the search for enlightenment into a cult of experience seekers.
And, while many people indeed have powerful experiences, in most cases these do not lead to the profound transformation of the individual, which is the expression of enlightenment.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 3rd 2004
From Consciousness -- Charisma Isn't Enlightenment
In speaking regularly with spiritual seekers, it dawned on me one day how addicted so many of them are to the power of charisma.
They swap stories about how powerful this or that teacher is and compare experiences. They get a charge from it, many mistaking charisma for enlightenment.
Charisma attracts at all levels: political, sexual, spiritual, etc., and it feeds the ego's desire to feel special.
The ego loves getting hits of power -- it's like a form of spiritual candy. The candy may be sweet but can you live on it? Does it make you free?
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 4th 2004
From Consciousness -- Not Necessarily Exciting
Freedom is not necessarily exciting; it's just free.
It's also very peaceful and quiet, so very quiet.
Of course, it is also filled with joy and wonder, but it is not what you imagine. It is much, much less.
Many mistake the intoxicating power of otherworldly charisma for enlightenment. More often than not it is simply otherworldly, and not necessarily free or enlightened.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 5th 2004
From Consciousness -- Truth More Than Anything
In order to be truly free, you must desire to know the truth more than you want to feel good. Because, if feeling good is your goal, then as soon as you feel better you will lose interest in what is true.
This does not mean that feeling good or experiencing love and bliss is a bad thing.
Given the choice, anyone would choose to feel bliss rather than sorrow. It simply means that if this desire to feel good is stronger than the yearning to see, know, and experience Truth, then this desire will always be distorting the perception of what is Real, while corrupting one's deepest integrity.
In my experience, everyone will say they want to discover the Truth, right up until they realize that the Truth will rob them of their deepest held ideas, beliefs, hopes, and dreams.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 6th 2004
From Consciousness -- Unimaginable Liberation
The freedom of enlightenment means much more than the experience of love and peace.
It means discovering a Truth that will turn your view of self and life upside-down.
For one who is truly ready, this will be unimaginably liberating. But for one who is still clinging in any way, this will be extremely challenging indeed.
How does one know if they are ready? One is ready when they are willing to be absolutely consumed, when they are willing to be fuel for a fire without end.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 7th 2004
From Consciousness -- Exposed! Oh No!
If you start playing the game of being an "enlightened somebody," the true teacher is going to call you on it.
He or she is going to expose you, and that exposure is going to hurt. Because the ego will be there, standing in the light of Truth, exposed and humiliated.
Of course, the ego will cry "foul!" It will claim that the teacher made a mistake and begin to justify itself in an effort to put its protective clothing back on. It will begin to spin justifications with incredible subtlety and deceptiveness.
This is where real spiritual sadhana (practice) begins.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 8th 2004
From Consciousness -- Discovering "Nobodyness"
Sooner or later, the spiritual student discovers whether he or she truly wants to be free, or merely wants to remain as a false, separate, and self-justifying ego.
This crossroad inevitably comes and is always challenging. It separates the true seeker from the false one.
The true seeker will be willing to bare the Grace of humility, whereas the false seeker will run from it. Thus begins the true path to enlightenment, granted only to those willing to be nobody.
Discovering your "nobodyness" opens the door to awakening as beingness, and beyond that to the Source of all beingness.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 9th 2004
From Consciousness -- Emotional Energy Charges
Mind, in the way I use the word, is not just thought. It includes your emotions as well as all unconscious mental-emotional reactive patterns.
Emotion arises at the place where mind and body meet. It is the body's reaction to your mind -- or you might say a reflection of your mind in the body.
The more you are identified with your thinking, your likes and dislikes, judgments and interpretations, which is to say the less present you are as the watching consciousness, the stronger the emotional energy charge will be, whether you are aware of it or not.
If you cannot feel your emotions, if you are cut off from them, you will eventually experience them on a purely physical level, as a physical problem or symptom.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 10th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Inner Energy Field
If you have difficulty feeling your emotions, start by focusing attention on the inner energy field of your body.
Feel the body from within. This will also put you in touch with your emotions.
If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection, so look at the emotion, or rather feel it in your body.
If there is an apparent conflict between them, the thought will be the lie, the emotion will be the truth. Not the ultimate truth of who you are, but the relative truth of your state of mind at that time.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 11th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Observing Presence
You may not yet be able to bring your unconscious mind activity into awareness as thoughts, but it will always be reflected in the body as an emotion, and of this you can become aware.
To watch an emotion in this way is basically the same as listening to or watching a thought. The only difference is that, while a thought is in your head, an emotion has a strong physical component and so is primarily felt in the body.
You can then allow the emotion to be there without being controlled by it. You no longer are the emotion; you are the watcher, the observing presence.
If you practice this, all that is unconscious in you will be brought into the light of consciousness.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 12th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Doorway Into Being
Make it a habit to ask yourself: What's going on inside me at this moment?
That question will point you in the right direction. But don't analyze, just watch.
Focus your attention within. Feel the energy of the emotion.
If there is no emotion present, take your attention more deeply into the inner energy field of your body. It is the doorway into Being.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 13th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Origin of Fear
The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any concrete and true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety nervousness, tension, dread, phobia, and so on.
This kind of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now.
You are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap. And if you are identified with your mind and have lost touch with the power and simplicity of the Now, that anxiety gap will be your constant companion.
You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection you cannot cope with the future.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
September 14th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Ego Under Threat
As long as you are identified with your mind, the ego runs your life.
Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.
Now remember that an emotion is the body's reaction to your mind. What message is the body receiving continuously from the ego, the false, mind-made self?.
Danger, I am under threat. And what is the emotion generated by this continuous message? Fear, of course.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 15th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Fear of Death
Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To the ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear of death affects every aspect of your life.
For example, even such a seemingly trivial and "nor- real" thing as the compulsive need to be right in an argument and make the other person wrong .... defending the mental position with which you have identified -- is due to the fear of death.
If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind- based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die.
Wars have been fought over this, and countless relationships have broken down.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 16th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Funny Thing
Do not think that enlightenment is going to make you special, it's not. If you feel special in any way, then enlightenment has not occurred.
I meet a lot of people who think they are enlightened and awake simply because they have had a very moving spiritual experience.
They wear their enlightenment on their sleeve like a badge of honor. They sit among friends and talk about how awake they are while sipping coffee at a cafe.
The funny thing about enlightenment is that when it is authentic, there is no one to claim it.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 17th 2004
From Consciousness -- Beyond Enlightenment
Enlightenment is very ordinary; it is nothing special. Rather than making you more special, it is going to make you less special. It plants you right in the center of a wonderful humility and innocence.
Everyone else may or may not call you enlightened, but when you are enlightened the whole notion of enlightenment and someone who is enlightened is a big joke.
I use the word enlightenment all the time; not to point you toward it but to point you beyond it.
Do not get stuck in enlightenment.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 18th 2004
From Consciousness -- The "Me" That Suffers
Ego is the movement of the mind toward objects of perception, in the form of grasping; and, away from objects, in the form of aversion. This fundamentally is all the ego is.
This movement of grasping and aversion gives rise to a sense of a separate "me," and in turn the sense of "me" strengthens itself this way.
It is this continuous loop of causation that tricks consciousness into a trance of identification. Identification with what? Identification with the continuous loop of suffering.
After all, who is suffering? The "me" is suffering. And "who" is this me? It is nothing more than a sense of self caused by identification with grasping and aversion.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 19th 2004
From Consciousness -- Just Be the Answer
The egoic "poor me" story is a creation of the mind, an endless movie, a terrible dream.
Don't try to change the dream, because trying to change it is just another movement in the dream.
Look at the dream. Be aware of the dream. That awareness is It. Become more interested in the awareness of the dream than in the dream itself.
What is that awareness? Who is that awareness? Don't go spouting out an answer, just be the answer. Be It.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 20th 2004
From Consciousness -- The End of All Division
Enlightenment means the end of all division.
It is not simply having an occasional experience of unity beyond all division, it is actually being undivided.
This is what nonduality truly means. It means there is just One Self, without a difference or gap between the profound revelation of Oneness and the way it is perceived and lived every moment of life. Nonduality means that the inner revelation and the outer expression of the personality are one and the same.
So few seem to be interested in the greater implication contained within profound spiritual experiences, because it is the contemplation of these implications which quickly brings to awareness the inner divisions existing within most seekers.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 21st 2004
From Consciousness -- One Step Backward
Spiritual people can be some of the most violent people you will ever meet. Mostly, they are violent to themselves. They violently try to control their minds, their emotions, and their bodies.
They become upset with themselves and beat themselves up for not rising up to the conditioned mind's idea of what it believes enlightenment to be. No one ever became free through such violence.
Why is it that so few people are truly free? Because they try to conform to ideas, concepts, and beliefs in their heads. They try to concentrate their way to heaven. But Freedom is about the natural state, the spontaneous and un-self-conscious expression of beingness.
If you want to find it, see that the very idea of "a someone who is in control" is a concept created by the mind. Take one step backward into the unknown.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 22nd 2004
From Consciousness -- Self-Doubt and Cynicism
There is nothing more insidiously destructive to the attainment of liberation than self-doubt and cynicism.
Doubt is a movement of the conditioned mind that always claims that "it's not possible ... that freedom is not possible for me."
Doubt always knows; it "knows" that nothing is possible. And in this knowing, doubt robs you of the possibility of anything truly new or transformative from happening.
Furthermore, doubt is always accompanied by a pervasive cynicism that unconsciously puts a negative spin on whatever it touches.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 23rd 2004
From Consciousness -- Protecting The Ego
Cynicism is a world view which protects the ego from scrutiny by maintaining a negative stance in relationship to what it does not know, does not want to know, or cannot know.
Many spiritual seekers have no idea how cynical and doubt-laden they actually are.
It is this blindness and denial of the presence of doubt and cynicism that makes the birth of a profound trust impossible. A trust without which final liberation will always remain simply a dream.
Adyashanti (Stephen Gray)
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September 24th 2004
From Consciousness -- Disidentify From the Mind
Once you have disidentified from your mind, whether you are right or wrong makes no difference to your sense of self at all, so the forcefully compulsive and deeply unconscious need to be right, which is a form of violence, will no longer be there.
You can state clearly and firmly how you feel or what you think, but there will be no aggressiveness or defensiveness about it.
Your sense of self is then derived from a deeper and truer place within yourself, not from the mind.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 25th 2004
From Consciousness -- Ending Power Games
Watch out for any kind of defensiveness within yourself. What are you defending? An illusory identity, an image in your mind, a fictitious entity.
By making this pattern conscious, by witnessing it, you disidentify from it. In the light of your consciousness, the unconscious pattern will then quickly dissolve.
This is the end of all arguments and power games, which are so corrosive to relationships.
Power over others is weakness disguised as strength. True power is within, and it is available to you now.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 26th 2004
From Consciousness -- Honor and Accept the Now
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.
If you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, if you no longer want to add to the residue of past pain that still lives on in you, then don't create any more time, or at least no more than is necessary to deal with the practical aspects of your life.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 27th 2004
From Consciousness -- Now is All We Have
How to stop creating time?
Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.
Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation.
Always say "yes" to the present moment.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 28th 2004
From Consciousness -- The Illusion of Past and Future
Here is the key: End the delusion of time. Time and mind are inseparable. Remove time from the mind and it stops -- unless you choose to use it.
To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.
This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be.
The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 29th 2004
From Consciousness -- Into the Timeless Realm
The more you are focused on time -- past and future -- the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.
Why is it the most precious thing? Firstly, because it is the only thing. It's all there is. The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant.
Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.
Secondly, the Now is the only point that can take you beyond the limited confines of the mind. It is your only point of access into the timeless and formless realm of Being.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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September 30th 2004
From Consciousness -- A Shift in Consciousness
Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now? Do you think you ever will? Is it possible for anything to happen or be outside the Now? The answer is obvious, is it not?
Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.
The essence of what I am saying here cannot be understood by the mind. The moment you grasp it, there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence.
Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, emanates Being.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
