May 2005
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May 1st 2005
From Consciousness -- Being Has No Needs
Enlightened or not, you are either a man or a woman, so on the level of your form identity you are not complete. You are one-half of the whole.
This incompleteness is felt as male-female attraction, the pull toward the opposite energy polarity, no matter how conscious you are. But in that state of inner connectedness, you feel this pull somewhere on the surface or periphery of your life.
This does not mean that you don't relate deeply to other people or to your partner. In fact, you can relate deeply only if you are conscious of Being. Coming from Being, you are able to focus beyond the veil of form. In Being, male and female are one.
Your form may continue to have certain needs, but Being has none. It is already complete and whole. If those needs are met, that is beautiful, but whether or not they are met makes no difference to your deep inner state.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 2nd 2005
From Consciousness -- The Split Within
It is perfectly possible for an enlightened person, if the need for the male or female polarity is not met, to feel a sense of lack or incompleteness on the outer level of his or her being, yet at the same time be totally complete, fulfilled, and at peace within.
If you cannot be at ease with yourself when you are alone, you will seek a relationship to cover up your unease. You can be sure that the unease will then reappear in some other form within the relationship, and you will probably hold your partner responsible for it.
All you really need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself. But do you need to have a relationship with yourself at all? Why can't you just be yourself?.
When you have a relationship with yourself, you have split yourself into two: "I" and "myself," subject and object. That mind-created duality is the root cause of all unnecessary complexity, of all problems and conflict in your life.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 3rd 2005
From Consciousness -- The Healing of the Split Self
In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself -- "you" and "yourself" merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on.
The split caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no "self" that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore.
When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the relationship with yourself. Once you have given that up, all your other relationships will be love relationships.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 4th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Realm of Being
When you surrender to what is and so become fully present, the past ceases to have any power.
The realm of Being, which had been obscured by the mind, then opens up.
Suddenly, a great stillness arises within you, an unfathomable sense of peace. And within that peace, there is great joy. And within that joy, there is love.
And at the innermost core, there is the sacred, the immeasurable, That which cannot be named.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 5th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Cycles of Life
There are cycles of success, when things come to you and thrive, and cycles of failure, when they wither or disintegrate, and you have to let them go in order to make room for new things to arise, or for transformation to happen.
If you cling and resist at that point, it means you are refusing to go with the flow of life, and you will suffer. Dissolution is needed for new growth to happen. One cycle cannot exist without the otller.
The down cycle is absolutely essential for spiritual realization. You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very success became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be failure.
Failure lies concealed in every success, and success in every failure. In this world, which is to say on the level of form, everybody "fails" sooner or later, of course, and every achievement eventually comes to naught. All forms are impermanent.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 6th 2005
From Consciousness -- Accept Each Cycle
A life cycle can last for anything from a few hours to a few years. There are large cycles and small cycles within these large ones. Many illnesses are created through fighting against the cycles of low energy which are vital for regeneration.
The compulsion to do, and the tendency to derive your sense of self-worth and identity from external factors such as achievement, is an inevitable illusion as long as you are identified with the mind.
This makes it hard or impossible for you to accept the low cycles and allow them to be. Thus, the intelligence of the organism may take over as a self-protective measure and create an illness in order to force you to stop, so that the necessary regeneration can take place.
As long as a condition is judged as "good" by your mind, whether it be a relationship, a possession, a social role, a place, or your physical body, the mind attaches itself to it and identifies with it. It makes you happy, makes you feel good about yourself, and it may become part of who you are or think you are.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 7th 2005
From Consciousness -- What Animates Form?
The spiritual teacher is not merely the one who stands before you. That is only the teacher's form. That which is animating the form called "teacher" is the true Self of the teacher.
See that your teacher is that which is animating the form called "teacher." What is that which animates form?
Utilize the form called teacher to find the ultimate principle that is animating all forms, including yourself. Then see that ultimate principle as your own Self, as everything that is.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 8th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Ignorance of Worship.
True devotion has no projection. Otherwise it's being devoted to a fantasy, to an image. This is better known as worship. Worshipping is when you put any head above your own. This is simply ignorance and causes further and further separation.
Devotion comes out of an intuitive sense of unity or oneness. This oneness can be the source of great devotion and great love. But if your devotion makes you feel separate from the object of your devotion, you have fallen into the ignorance of worship.
When you truly allow the teacher's presence into yourself, that presence will stay with you even when you are not with the teacher in form. The teacher's presence will be with you always, and the teaching will continue to come from that presence.
This is called the transmission of the teaching. Once you let the transmission in, everything happens spontaneously, but you must trust it more than you trust your mind and your fears.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 9th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Presence of the Teacher
Spoken teachings are meant to orient you to deeper truths about yourself and to provide an intellectual context into which the mind can relax. This relaxation of the mind is ultimately the aim of any spoken teaching.
Unspoken teachings arise out of Presence, out of Silence, and may or may not contain words. These teachings are the most powerful and profound and also lead to deeper and deeper silence.
In working with a teacher, the aim is to first internalize the teacher's Presence and teaching inside yourself. Eventually, you and the internal Presence of the teacher begin to merge and become one and the same. Only then is it truly perceived that the teacher's Presence was your own Self all along.
It is not necessary, and is even unwise, to hold onto the form of the teacher or to internalize the image you have of the teacher. What I am speaking about is the Presence of the teacher. That Presence takes you beyond to the Self.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 10th 2005
From Consciousness -- The True Teacher's Transmission
A true teacher is one who opens space within your mind. If you turn your attention away from everything else and merge with that space, you awaken as that consciousness.
This space is the true teacher's gift.
It is an open door, but you must walk through it. Surrender to the space within yourself that the teacher awakens.
Emptiness is the true teacher's transmission. Surrender to that alone, and you will discover limitless fullness of being.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 11th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Passing of the Flame
All words spoken by the teacher are simply meant to get the mind to relax enough so that the transmission can get in.
What is the transmission?
Transmission is a mystery. It is not something that the teacher controls, manipulates, or even intends. It is spontaneous. It has a wisdom all its own that is unfathomable.
The transmission is the teaching. It is the passing of the flame. When the flame of transmission ignites fully within your heart, that is Self realization.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 12th 2005
From Consciousness -- No Negotiation
A true teacher does not negotiate. A true teacher manifests the highest Truth. That is his only concern.
Through the teacher's reflection of Truth, students have the opportunity to see where they are negotiating with the Truth within themselves. In order to be free, all negotiation must come to an end.
WheN you feel you have no more time to waste, everything is oriented toward the now. The correct attitude is that there is no such thing as an awakening that happens tomorrow. Tomorrows never come. The time is now.
You must be sincere. Sincerity and earnestness are the most beneficial attitudes to have in seeking truth..
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 13th 2005
From Consciousness -- Inner Dependency on Form
To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad.
It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly.
Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them -- while they last.
All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 14th 2005
From Consciousness -- A Deep Inner Core of Peace
The happiness that is derived from some secondary source is never very deep.
It is only a pale reflection of the joy of Being, the vibrant peace that you find within as you enter the state of nonresistance.
Being takes you beyond the polar opposites of the mind and frees you from dependency on form.
Even if everything were to collapse and crumble all around you, you would still feel a deep inner core of peace. You may not be happy, but you will be at peace.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 15th 2005
From Consciousness -- Negativity Is Resistance
All inner resistance is experienced as negativity in one form or another. All negativity is resistance. In this context, the two words are almost synonymous.
Negativity ranges from irritation or impatience to fierce anger, from a depressed mood or sullen resentment to suicidal despair.
Sometimes the resistance triggers the emotional pain-body, in which case even a minor situation may produce intense negativity, such as anger, depression, or deep grief.
The ego believes that through negativity it can manipulate reality and get what it wants. It believes that through it, it can attract a desirable condition or dissolve an undesirable one.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 16th 2005
From Consciousness -- Identification WIth Negativity
If "you" -- the mind -- did not believe that unhappiness works, why would you create it? The fact is, of course, that negativity does not work.
Instead of attracting a desirable condition, it stops it from arising. Instead of dissolving an undesirable one, it keeps it in place. Its only "useful" function is that it strengthens the ego, and that is why the ego loves it.
Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry, or hard-done-by person.
You will then ignore, deny, or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also insane.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 17th 2005
From Consciousness -- Learn from Plants and Animals
Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now.
Let it teach you Being.
Let it teach you integrity -- which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real.
Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 18th 2005
From Consciousness -- Becoming More Present
Recurring negative emotions do sometimes contain a message, as do illnesses. But any changes that you make, whether they have to do with your work, your relationships, or your surroundings, are ultimately only cosmetic unless they arise out of a change in your level of consciousness.
And as far as that is concerned, it can only mean one thing: becoming more present.
When you have reached a certain degree of presence, you don't need negativity anymore to tell you what is needed in your life situation. But as long as negativity is there, use it. Use it as a kind of signal that reminds you to be more present.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 19th 2005
From Consciousness -- A Matter of Intuition
There's nothing of the mind that will tell you that you have met your teacher. It's a matter of intuition. It's a knowingness, beyond any emotion or any feeling. It's simply a knowing, "Yes, this is the one."
Once you have found your true teacher, that finding is outside of time. It has nothing to do with lasting one's entire life.
The true teacher puts an end to your illusion of time, so that tomorrow is no longer a consideration.
The true student is not bound to their teacher by loyalty or obligation, but by love and respect.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 20th 2005
From Consciousness -- Beyond Dependency-
Most students come to a spiritual teacher with certain dependencies. This is to be expected.
However, if the relationship with the teacher is based upon these dependencies, then it is doomed to failure.
Like a child who is dependent upon its mother but later grows beyond that dependency, the student should, from the very start, be endeavoring to grow beyond their dependency on the spiritual teacher.
This is a very delicate and subtle process that requires a very sincere student and a very clear teacher.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 21st 2005
From Consciousness -- Enlightened Relationship.
It is important when we consider the subject of relationship, that we not limit our consideration only to relationship between human beings, but broaden it to include our relationship to the whole of life.
From the ego's limited point of view, relationship is always between objects -- between a personal "me" and something other than me. It is from this limited point of view that most human beings begin their consideration of what enlightened relationship is.
However, in order to find out what enlightened relationship is, it is imperative that the ego's reality as a separate entity be questioned.
Because as long as we perceive our self to be a separate ego, enlightened relationship to others and to life as a whole will remain impossibilities.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 22nd 2005
From Consciousness -- You Are Life Itself.
If you want to be free, you cannot hide from anything. Many spiritual seekers are using spiritual practices as a means to avoid many aspects of themselves.
The problem with this is that as long as you are avoiding anything, you are not living in truth. You are avoiding truth. No one ever became enlightened by avoiding truth.
If you want to be free, then you must face yourself and face your life as it is. Do not use spirituality or spiritual experience as something to hide behind. As long as you are avoiding parts of yourself, or life in general, then even very profound spiritual experiences and revelations will have very little permanent effect on you.
Do not simply seek to transcend life, but realize that you are all of Life. You are Life itself.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 23rd 2005
From Consciousness -- Are You Ready
What's important about spiritual experiences is how you relate to them. Two people can relate very differently to the same experience. One can be set free as a result of profound spiritual experience, while another will cling to old habits of conditioning, attachment, and ego.
Everything depends upon your readiness and willingness to let go into the Unknown, and live from that mysterious and precious condition. The question is: Are you ready to give up everything when God comes knocking at your door?
This willingness to completely let go and surrender to the divine determines how free you will ultimately become. Whatever you hold back for yourself will become your prison.
My advice is to give your whole heart, mind, body, and soul to Grace when it comes. Ask yourself now: Am I ready?
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 24th 2005
From Consciousness -- Free of Dependency
Many seek support in relationships as compensation for their own lack of earnestness and dedication to the Truth.
This dependency, which masquerades as support, is something that many spiritual seekers ask of their partners because they have not yet found it within themselves.
Support, as it relates to Truth, is more like a hand held open in which someone can unfold if they desire. It is not compensation.
Relationship based on Truth, which means a relationship that is free of dependency and demands, is a relationship centered upon celebration. It's a mutual coming together for no other reason than being together.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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May 25th 2005
From Consciousness -- Drop It Completely.
Whenever you feel negativity arising within you, whether caused by an external factor, a thought, or even nothing in particular that you are aware of, look on it as a voice saying, "Attention. Here and Now. Wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present."
Even the slightest irritation is significant and needs to be acknowledged and looked at; otherwise, there will be a cumulative buildup of unobserved reactions.
You may be able to just drop it once you realize that you don't want to have this energy field inside you and that it serves no purpose. But then make sure that you drop it completely.
If you cannot drop it, just accept that it is there and take your attention into the feeling.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 26th 2005
From Consciousness -- Becoming Transparent
As an alternative to dropping a negative reaction, you can make it disappear by imagining yourself becoming transparent to the external cause of the reaction. I recommend that you practice this with little, even trivial, things first.
Let's say that you are sitting quietly at home. Suddenly, there is the penetrating sound of a car alarm from across the street. Irritation arises. What is the purpose of the irritation? None whatsoever. Why did you create it? You didn't. The mind did. It was totally automatic, totally unconscious.
Why did the mind create it? Because it holds the unconscious belief that its resistance, which you experience as negativity or unhappiness in some form, will somehow dissolve the undesirable condition. This, of course, is a delusion.
The resistance that it creates, the irritation or anger in this case, is far more disturbing than the original cause that it is attempting to dissolve. All this can be transformed into spiritual practice.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 27th 2005
From Consciousness -- Letting Annoyance Pass Through
Feel yourself becoming transparent, as it were, without the solidity of a material body. Now allow the annoyance, or whatever causes a negative reaction, to pass right through you. It is no longer hitting a solid "wall" inside you.
As I said, practice with little things first. The car alarm, the dog barking, the children screaming, the traffic jam.
Instead of having a wall of resistance inside you that gets constantly and painfully hit by things that "should not be happening," let everything pass through you.
Offer no resistance. It is as if there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. That is forgiveness. In this way, you become invulnerable.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 28th 2005
From Consciousness -- No Longer Run By Your Mind
Whether it is a car alarm, a rude person, a flood, an earthquake, or the loss of all your possessions, the resistance mechanism is the same.
Suppose somebody says something to you that is rude or designed to hurt. Instead of going into unconscious reaction and negativity, such as attack, defense, or withdrawal, you let it pass right through you.
You can still tell that person that his or her behavior is unacceptable, if that is what you choose to do.
But that person no longer has the power to control your inner state. You are then in your power -- not in someone else's; nor are you run by your mind.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 29th 2005
From Consciousness -- The Miracle of Surrender
If you are still seeking outside, and you cannot get out of the seeking mode. If you think, 'Maybe the next workshop will have the answer, maybe some new technique will make me happy.'.
To you I would say: don't look for peace; don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance.
Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace.
Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender. When you accept what is, every moment is the best moment. That is enlightenment.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 30th 2005
From Consciousness -- Abide in Being
Having gone beyond the mind-made opposites, you become like a deep lake. The outer situation of your life, whatever happens there, is the surface of the lake. Sometimes calm, sometimes windy and rough, according to the cycles and seasons.
Deep down, however, the lake is always undisturbed. You are the whole lake, not just the surface, and you are in touch with your own depth, which remains absolutely still.
You don't resist change by mentally clinging to any situation. Your inner peace does not depend on it. You abide in Being -- unchanging, timeless, deathless and you are no longer dependent for fulfillment or happiness on the outer world of constantly fluctuating forms.
You can enjoy them, play with them, create new forms, appreciate the beauty of it all. But there will be no need to attach yourself to any of it.
Eckhart Tolle -- Practicing the Power of Now
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May 31st 2005
From Consciousness -- There Is No Other
Deeply inquiring into the question "Who is another?" can lead to the direct experience that the other is one's own Self -- -that in fact, there is no other. However, I have seen that for most seekers, even this experiential revelation is not enough to transform the painfully personal ways that they relate.
To come to this profound transformation requires a very deep investigation of the implications inherent in the experiential revelation that there is no other.
It is in the daily living of these implications that most seekers fail. Why? Because, fundamentally, most people want to remain separate and in control.
Simply put, most people want to keep dreaming that they are special, unique, and separate. They want to remain separate more than they want to wake up to the perfect unity of an Unknown which leaves no room for any separation from the whole.
Adyashanti -- The Impact of Awakening
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