December 2005
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December 1st 2005
From Consciousness -- The Divine Life Essence,
Once there is a certain degree of Presence, of still and alert attention in human beings' perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form, recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves.
Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of the inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify only with their own physical and psychological form.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Windows Into The Formless
When you are alert and contemplate a flower, crystal, or bird without naming it mentally, it becomes a window for you into the formless.
There is an inner opening, however slight, into the realm of spirit.
This is why these three "enlightened" life-forms have played such an important part in the evolution of human consciousness since ancient times; why, for example, the jewel in the lotus flower is a central symbol of Buddhism and a white bird, the dove, signifies the Holy Spirit in Christianity.
They have been preparing the ground for a more profound shift in planetary consciousness that is destined to take place in the human species. This is the spiritual awakening that we are beginning to witness now.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- You Are That Light
An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks, and acts, as well as the recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate the unawakened state. That is why I write about the main aspects of the ego and how they operate in the individual as well as in the collective. This is important for two related reasons:
The first is that unless you know the basic mechanics behind the workings of the ego, you won't recognize it, and it will trick you into identifying with it again and again. This means it takes you over, an imposter pretending to be you.
The second reason is that the act of recognition itself is one of the ways in which awakening happens. When you recognize the unconsciousness in you, that which makes the recognition possible 'is' the arising consciousness, 'is' awakening.
You cannot fight against the ego and win, just as you cannot fight against darkness. The light of consciousness is all that is necessary. You are that light.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Human Dysfunction
If we look more deeply into humanity's ancient religions and spiritual traditions, we will find that underneath the many surface differences there are certain core insights that most of them agree on. The words they use to describe those insights differ, yet they all point to a fundamental truth. The first part of this truth is the realization that the "normal" state of mind of most human beings contains a strong element of what we might call dysfunction or even madness.
Certain teachings at the heart of Hinduism perhaps come closest to seeing this dysfunction as a form of collective mental illness. They call it 'maya', the veil of delusion. Ramana Maharshi, one of the greatest Indian sages, bluntly states: "The mind is maya."
According to the Buddha, the human mind in its normal state generates 'dukkha', which can be translated as suffering, unsatisfactoriness, or just plain misery. He sees it as a characteristic of the human condition.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, says the Buddha, you will encounter dukkha, and it will manifest in every situation sooner or later.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Living Unskillfully
According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of humanity is one of "original sin."
'Sin' is a word that has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted. Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence.
It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering.
Again, the term, stripped of its cultural baggage and misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human condition.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Collective Insanity
The achievements of humanity are impressive and undeniable. We have created sublime works of music, literature, painting, architecture, and sculpture.
More recently, science and technology have brought about radical changes in the way we live and have enabled us to do and create things that would have been considered miraculous even two hundred years ago. No doubt:
The human mind is highly intelligent. Yet its very intelligence is tainted by madness. Science and technology have magnified the destructive impact that the dysfunction of the human mind has upon the planet, other life-forms, and upon humans themselves.
That is why the history of the twentieth century is where that dysfunction, that collective insanity, can be most clearly recognized. A further factor is that this dysfunction is actually intensifying and accelerating.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Accepting the Changes
The law of changing conditions is obviously a basic law of this planet. Every 'thing' is subject to change -- all objects, thoughts, feelings, states of mind, health, and governments -- in short, every circumstance changes.
Change is the law of the five elements of our universe. Change is the law of the weather, of the seasons, of the hours in a day.
If those changing conditions can be surrendered to rather than resisted, then feelings of unhappiness are simply feelings of unhappiness. They have no more significance than that they are feelings of unhappiness.
Following this recognition, you can experience them as you can the sun or the rain. You don't 'always' have to have the sun; in fact, you won't. Whatever is appearing is just the way it is.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
From Consciousness -- Changelessly Present
Every 'thing' is subject to change. What is not subject to change? Your true nature. Whatever you think you are, see if it is subject to change.
If it is, then as an experiment discard that belief and tell the truth about what remains.
What does not change with the changing of your body? What does not change with the changing of your circumstances? What does not change when your emotions change?
Tell the truth all the way. Don't settle for a superficial, relative truth. Tell the truth all the way until you 'know' yourself as 'changelessly' present.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
From Consciousness -- Living a Lie
Telling the truth has to be even more important than enlightenment, more important than happiness.
Through devotion to telling the truth, and then the ever deeper truth, your personal story in all of its shocking dimensions is revealed to have no final reality.
To identify yourself as only a body or a passing state or condition is the root of all personal suffering. At the same time, directly underneath any experience of suffering, the truth of who you are lies waiting to be revealed. You are radiant, free consciousness.
When radiant, free consciousness is obscured by the identification of yourself as only a body, a thought, an emotion, or a circumstance, then you are living a lie; and with a lie there is always suffering.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
From Consciousness -- Stop and Tell the Truth
Many of us live our lives very superficially. We suffer for that superficiality, because within each one of us lives a depth of being that wants itself known, wants itself felt, wants itself expressed and met.
As long as we settle for the superficial truths, we tragically miss the deeper revelation.
We experience a huge collective suffering on this planet, yet at any point we have the full capacity to stop and tell the truth -- what is here? Sadness may be here, anger may be here, but what else is here?
What is deeper than that? At any point we have the opportunity to direct our attention away from the future or the past, and toward this moment so that we can truly self-inquire into what is final, what is always present.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
From Consciousness -- The True Self
We all have the capacity to swim naked in the ocean of consciousness that is the true self.
The true self is not 'your' self. It is what your mind and body are 'in', what nothing alive can exist without, but which is limitless and blessedly exists without your effort.
I say blessedly, because if it depended on you for its existence, then you would have to make some huge effort to establish it, to maintain it, and to make sure that it didn't die.
Generally, once people have tasted the nectar of their true self, this is what they get very busy trying to do.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
From Consciousness -- The Nectar of Pure Consciousness
The taste (of the nectar of our true self) itself is a mystery to which we can apply numerous metaphysical theories, but the mystery continually defies all theories.
The idea that the truth of who you are can penetrate your individual consciousness for even an instant and reveal what individual consciousness is made of, while remaining independent of individual consciousness, flattens your mind.
Then the mind usually goes to work; it tries to retrieve that moment of absolute awe, or keep it, or understand it, or serve it -- to generally 'do' something with it. The mind makes many attempts to "keep" what is already always here, and these attempts feed the mind's activities of working to understand. Then one day individual consciousness is finished. As the joke goes, "... and then you die."
The ever-present possibility in your life right now is to stop trying to do anything to 'get' who you are and simply rest in this nectar of pure consciousness that is always here.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
From Consciousness -- Trying To Become Good
A number of spiritual teachings tell us to let go of fear and desire. But those spiritual practices are usually unsuccessful. They haven't gone to the root of the dysfunction. Fear, greed, and desire for power are not the ultimate causal factors.
Trying to become a good or better human being sounds like a commendable and high-minded thing to do, yet it is an endeavor you cannot ultimately succeed in unless there is a shift in consciousness.
This is because it is still part of the same dysfunction, a more subtle and rarified form of self-enhancement, of desire for more and a strengthening of one's conceptual identity, one's self-image.
You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- The Beginning of Healing
To recognize one's own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.
A new dimension of consciousness had begun to emerge on the planet, a first tentative flowering.
Those rare individuals then spoke to their contemporaries. They spoke of sin, of suffering, of delusion. They said, "Look how you live. See what you are doing, the suffering you create."
They then pointed to the possibility of awakening from the collective nightmare of "normal" human existence. They showed the way.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Who Am I Then?
What is arising now is not a new belief system, a new religion, spiritual ideology, or mythology. We are coming to the end not only of mythologies but also of ideologies and belief systems.
The change goes deeper than the content of your mind, deeper than your thoughts. In fact, at the heart of the new consciousness lies the transcendence of thought, the newfound ability of rising above thought, of realizing a dimension within yourself that is infinitely more vast than thought.
You then no longer derive your identity, your sense of who you are, from the incessant stream of thinking that in the old consciousness you take to be yourself. What a liberation to realize that the "voice in my head" is not who I am.
Who am I then? The one who sees that. The awareness that is prior to thought, the space in which the thought -- or the emotion or sense perception -- happens.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Identification With form
Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. If evil has any reality -- and it has a relative, not an absolute, reality -- this is also its definition: complete identification with form -- physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms.
This results in a total unawareness of my connectedness with the whole, my intrinsic oneness with every "other" as well as with the Source.
This forgetfulness is original sin, suffering, delusion. When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say, and do, what kind of world do I create?
To find the answer to this, observe how humans relate to each other, read a history book, or watch the news on television tonight.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- A New Earth
The term 'a new Earth' comes from a Bible prophecy that seems more applicable now than at any other time in human history. It occurs in both the Old and the New Testament and speaks of the collapse of the existing world order and the arising of "a new heaven and a new earth.'
We need to understand here that heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness. This is the esoteric meaning of the word, and this is also its meaning in the teachings of Jesus. Earth, on the other hand, is the outer manifestation in form, which is always a reflection of the inner.
Collective human consciousness and life on our planet are intrinsically connected. "A new heaven" is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and "a new earth" is its reflection in the physical realm.
Since human life and human consciousness are intrinsically one with the life of the planet, as the old consciousness dissolves, there are bound to be synchronistic geographic and climatic natural upheavals in many parts of the planet, some of which we are already witnessing now.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Words Are Hypnotic
Words, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sounds or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you.
You easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into implicitly believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is. The fact is: You don't know what it is. You have only covered up the mystery with a label.
Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable. This is because it has unfathomable depth. All we can perceive, experience, think about, is the surface layer of reality, less than the tip of an iceberg.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Just An Old Chair
Underneath the surface appearances, everything is not only connected with everything else, but also with the Source of all life out of which it came. Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself.
When you look at it or hold it and 'let it be' without imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.
This is what great artists sense and succeed in conveying in their art. Van Gogh didn't say: "That's just an old chair." He looked, and looked, and looked. He sensed the Beingness of the chair.
Then he sat in front of the canvas and took up the brush. The chair itself would have sold for the equivalent of a few dollars. The painting of that same chair today would fetch in excess of $25 million.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- You Are The Truth
The Truth is inseparable from who you are. Yes, you 'are' the Truth. If you look for it elsewhere, you will be deceived every time. The very Being that you are is Truth.
Jesus tried to convey that when he said, "I am the way and the truth and the life.'' These words uttered by Jesus are one of the most powerful and direct pointers to the Truth, if understood correctly. If misinterpreted, however, they become a great obstacle. Jesus speaks of the innermost I Am, the essence identity of every man and woman, every life-form, in fact. He speaks of the life that you are. Some Christian mystics have called it the Christ within; Buddhists call it your Buddha nature; for Hindus, it is Atman, the indwelling God.
When you are in touch with that dimension within yourself -- and being in touch with it is your natural state, not some miraculous achievement -- all your actions and relationships will reflect the oneness with all life that you sense deep within. This is love.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Spiritual Realization
What is spiritual realization? The belief that you are spirit? No, that's a thought. A little closer to the truth than the thought that believes you are who your birth certificate says you are, but still a thought.
Spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am, that I cannot find myself in all those things that continuously pass away.
The Buddha was probably the first human being to see this clearly, and so 'anata' (no self) became one of the central points of his teaching.
And when Jesus said, "Deny thyself," what he meant was: Negate (and thus undo) the illusion of self. If the self -- ego -- were truly who I am, it would be absurd to "deny" it.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- All Forms Are Unstable
As I was walking with a friend through a beautiful nature reserve near Malibu in California, we came upon the ruins of what had been once a community house, destroyed by fire several decades ago.
As we approached the property, long overgrown with trees and all kinds of magnificent plants, there was a sign by the side of the trail put there by the park authorities. It read: DANGER. ALL STRUCTURES ARE UNSTABLE. I said to my friend, "That's a profound sutra (sacred scripture)." And we stood there in awe.
Once you realize and accept that all structures (forms) are unstable, even the seemingly solid material ones, peace arises within you.
This is because the recognition of the impermanence of all forms awakens you to the dimension of the formless within yourself that which is beyond death. Jesus called it "eternal life."
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Identification With Form
As tribal cultures developed into the ancient civilizations, certain functions began to be allotted to certain people: ruler, priest or priestess, warrior, farmer, merchant, craftsman, laborer, and so on. A class system developed.
Your function, which in most cases you were born into, determined your identity, determined who you were in the eyes of others, as well as in your own eyes. Your function became a role, but it wasn't recognized as a role: It was who you were, or thought you were.
Only rare beings at the time, such as the Buddha or Jesus, saw the ultimate irrelevance of caste or social class, recognized it as identification with form and saw that such identification with the conditioned and the temporal obscured the light of the unconditioned and eternal that shines in each human being.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- The Birth of God
When another recognizes you, that recognition draws the dimension of Being more fully into this world through both of you. That is the love that redeems the world.
I have been speaking of this with specific reference to the relationship with your child, but it equally applies, of course, to all relationships.
It has been said "God is love" but that is not absolutely correct. God is the One Life in and beyond the countless forms of life. Love implies duality: lover and beloved, subject and object.
So love is the recognition of oneness in the world of duality. This is the birth of God into the world of form. Love makes the world less worldly, less dense, more transparent to the divine dimension, the light of consciousness itself.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Be What You Already Are
Through allowing, you become what you are: vast, spacious. You become whole. You are not a fragment anymore, which is how the ego perceives itself. Your true nature emerges, which is one with the nature of God.
Jesus points to this when he says, "Be ye whole, even as your Father in Heaven is whole.''
The New Testament's "Be ye perfect" is a mistranslation of the original Greek word, which means whole.
This is to say, you don't need to become whole, but 'be' what you already are -- with or without the pain-body.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Outflow Determines Inflow
Whatever you think people are withholding from you -- praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on -- give it to them. You don't have it? Just act as if you had it, and it will come.
Then, soon after you start giving, you will start receiving. You cannot receive what you don't give. Outflow determines inflow.
Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you already have, but unless you allow it to flow out, you won't even know that you have it. This includes abundance.
The law that outflow determines inflow is expressed by Jesus in this powerful image: "Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.''
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- The Source of All Abundance
The source of all abundance is not outside you. It is part of who you are. However, start by acknowledging and recognizing abundance without. See the fullness of life all around you. The warmth of the sun on your skin, the display of magnificent flowers outside a florist's shop, biting into a succulent fruit, or getting soaked in an abundance of water falling from the sky.
The fullness of life is there at every step. The acknowledgment of that abundance that is all around you awakens the dormant abundance within. Then let it flow out. When you smile at a stranger, there is already a minute outflow of energy. You become a giver.
Ask yourself often: "What can I give here; how can I be of service to this person, this situation?" You don't need to own anything to feel abundance although if you feel abundant consistently things will almost certainly come to you. Abundance comes only to those who already have it. It sounds almost unfair, but of course it isn't. It is a universal law.
Both abundance and scarcity are inner states that manifest as your reality. Jesus puts it like this: "For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.''
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth
From Consciousness -- Hereness
To try to keep what is always here is absurd. To try to establish what is already eternally established is ridiculous. That it is impossible is good news. The bad news is that in trying to keep what is already permanently here, the "hereness" is tragically overlooked.
Because we base our energy and thoughts on states of individual consciousness, we constantly overlook the truth of stateless consciousness, which is always present.
Consciousness is not an object. It is hereness itself. Our minds are usually involved with an object that appears and disappears in the hereness, and because of that, we overlook the nature of hereness.
Pure consciousness is what these words appear in, what your screen appears in, what all bodies appear in. It infuses all words and bodies, and it is conscious of itself, and it is you. In your recognition of yourself as pure consciousness, you awaken to yourself.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
From Consciousness -- Aware of Awareness
Normally, when we speak of consciousness, we are referring to particular states of awareness -- being aware of something or not being aware of something -- rather than to the 'awareness' itself.
For instance, we may identify focused consciousness as "awareness," and unfocused consciousness as "unawareness." Unawareness becomes equated with "unspiritual" or "not awake." But consciousness is fully present in each state.
In one state, it is clear, aware of present time, with focused attention. In the other state, it is diffuse, unaware of time, and purely subjective. Each state, awareness or unawareness, is suited to different situations.
For instance, if you are learning something new or performing a task that requires detailed focus, to be focused on the object to be learned or the task performed is more appropriate than being unaware of it. On the other hand, if you're spaciously reflecting, such as prior to discovering the solution to a problem or creating art, it is more appropriate to have no object in mind.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
From Consciousness -- Continuous and Unchanging
For someone conditioned by the corporate world, consciousness focuses on the "real world" of time and getting and keeping objects. Someone committed to this worldview may retreat from their real world for recreation, but it is clear to them where reality is.
Likewise, most religions and spiritual movements place reality in what may be called "heaven", "nirvana", "paradise", or "transcendence". Of course there is overlapping in all worldviews, but the elevated state is considered the ultimate reality.
However, if we stop valuing one state over another -- even for just a moment -- then we can discover that awareness itself is continuous and that all states move in and out of awareness.
Awareness is unchanged by any state that appears in awareness.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
From Consciousness -- A Radical Invitation
This is a radical invitation: Do not try to reach any state of awareness, whether focused or diffused, and do not try to keep any state away. Rather, recognize what is always present. The wonderful result of this recognition is that objective states become clearer, subjective states become softer, and peace is found in all states.
While it is useful to develop your mind, your body, and your work, developing consciousness is a huge mistake. Development happens only because consciousness is already here. If your attention is on "developing" rather than on recognizing this, you go in a circle, chasing your tail and searching for what is still here.
In a moment of truth-telling you can recognize for yourself, "Oh, I picked up the search again". You can deny that you have picked up the search, you can justify picking up the search, or you can stop.
In that moment, you can turn your attention to the silence at the core of whatever is occurring.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket
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