August 2006
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August 1st 2006
From Consciousness -- Taking On God's Job
The conditioned mind is always taking on God's job, wondering what people are doing and why they do it. But that is none of your business, none of your concern.
You can just start walking through life with this natural openness to what is and be that way under all conditions at all times. That's what the true Self has been doing all along.
When your true nature is realized, it is not as if you will have some amazing experience, and after that you say, "Okay world, I'm ready."
The deepest experience is when you realize that this open, radiant, empty mind and open, radiant heart have always been open. They don't need to open; they are not going to open; openness has always been here. You no longer see two, you see the One in and as everything.
Adyashanti -- Emptiness Dancing www.adyashanti.org
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August 2nd 2006
From Consciousness -- This Silly Little Coat
People feel so vulnerable and put up defenses. But putting up defenses is like walking out into the starry night and trying to wrap a little coat around vast infinite space.
The vastness just flies out through the arms and the hood.
You have this silly little coat out in the vast space and protect yourself inside it and think maybe someday you will open the buttons and be spiritually liberated. Probably not. It's more likely that someday you will stop identifying with the silly little coat.
Free yourself of all limiting identities and embrace the infinite.
Adyashanti -- Emptiness Dancing www.adyashanti.org
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August 3rd 2006
From Consciousness -- Opening Into Our Openness
What allows this opening to take place at a great depth is to realize we are already the openness into which we are opening.
If we keep identifying with the human aspect of ourselves, we think, "My God, I am opening into something too big for me."
When we really let go and fall into this open silence, we can't find any end to it. It has been eternally here from before the beginning and, in that, our humanness finds a welcoming to open itself.
This is so because we are not opening ourselves into a mystery that is alien, or foreign, or different, but into what we have always been.
Adyashanti -- Emptiness Dancing www.adyashanti.org
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August 4th 2006
From Consciousness -- Returning to the Essential
If you touch the sacred quality of winter inside yourself that quality of everything returning to its most essential form -- you find yourself falling off the end of the mind and into openness.
You will start to experience this by not resisting the wintertime and just going with it as it opens you. It can be tremendously revealing, tremendously liberating to just return, return, return. It takes courage to do this.
You want to ask, "Who will I be? Will it all be okay?" But just return to the essential. When you find the courage to allow yourself to return to the essential, you are actually returning to the very root of your own self.
That's the fullness that the winter has to offer. It's as if you return all the way to the seed, and only there do you see that the seed contained the whole truth.
Adyashanti -- Emptiness Dancing www.adyashanti.org
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August 5th 2006
From Consciousness -- Stop Waiting To Let Go
When you reach the core of your own being, then you realize that the seed, which seemed very empty when you opened it, is full of the potential of everything that is. Like the seed of a tree, everything that the tree will ever become is contained in that seed. Only in the full return does a full springtime become possible.
These are not ideals I speak about, not goals or potentials. This openness is actually the core of who everybody is. Stop waiting to let go of everything, and then your true nature is realized. When it is realized, then live it.
When the living of it happens, life happens spontaneously. Then finally, for once in our lives, we can say with honesty and integrity that it is the most amazing mystery. It is unfathomable. You cannot know it.
You can only be it, either consciously or unconsciously. But to be it consciously is a whole lot easier than to be it unconsciously. Realize yourself and be free.
Adyashanti -- Emptiness Dancing www.adyashanti.org
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August 6th 2006
From Consciousness -- You Are Silence
We are surrounded by coarse consciousness. This kind of consciousness is heavy, thick, and dense. When you turn on the TV, you encounter coarse consciousness, for the most part. Most movies you go to have a coarse consciousness. Coarse means asleep within the dream state.
From this coarse state of consciousness, silence is seen to be an object. Quietness is something that seems to happen to you. But that is not real silence. Real silence is your true nature.
To say "I am silent" is actually quite ridiculous. When you look at it, it's not that you are silent, it's that you are silence.
Conceptually it may seem to be a small difference between the experiences of "I am silent" and "I am silence," but this is actually the difference between bondage and freedom, heaven and hell.
Adyashanti -- Emptiness Dancing www.adyashanti.org
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August 7th 2006
From Consciousness -- Forgetfulness of Being
The essence of who you are is consciousness. When consciousness (you) becomes completely identified with thinking and thus forgets its essential nature, it loses itself in thought.
When it becomes identified with mental-emotional formations such as wanting and fearing -- the primary motivating forces of the ego -- it loses itself in those formations. Consciousness also loses itself when it identifies with acting and reacting to what happens.
Every thought, every desire or fear, every action or reaction, is then infused with a false sense of self that is incapable of sensing the simple joy of Being and so seeks pleasure, and sometimes even pain, as substitutes for it. This is living in forgetfulness of Being.
In that state of forgetfulness of who you are, every success is no more than a passing delusion. Whatever you achieve, soon you will be unhappy again, or some new problem or dilemma will draw your attention in completely.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 8th 2006
From Consciousness -- Being Comfortable With Uncertainty
There may be a period of insecurity and uncertainty. What should I do? As the ego is no longer running your life, the psychological need for external security, which is illusory anyway, lessens. You are able to live with uncertainty, even enjoy it.
When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change.
The Roman philosopher Tacitus rightly observed that "the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise."
If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable to you, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 9th 2006
From Consciousness -- Acting From a Deeper Level
Being at one with what is doesn't mean you no longer initiate change or become incapable of taking action.
But the motivation to take action comes from a deeper level, not from egoic wanting or fearing.
Inner alignment with the present moment opens your consciousness and brings it into alignment with the whole, of which the present moment is an integral part.
The whole, the totality of life, then acts through you.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 10th 2006
From Consciousness -- Why Things Look Separate
There are two reasons why we don't see the unity of all that is, why we see things as separate. One is perception, which reduces reality to what is accessible to us through the small range of our senses: what we can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.
But when we perceive without interpreting or mental labeling, which means without adding thought to our perceptions, we can actually still sense the deeper connectedness underneath our perception of seemingly separate things.
The other more serious reason for the illusion of separateness is compulsive thinking, it is when we are trapped in incessant streams of compulsive thinking that the universe really disintegrates for us, and we lose the ability to sense the interconnectedness of all that exists. Thinking cuts reality up into lifeless fragments.
Extremely unintelligent and destructive action arises out of such a fragmented view of reality.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 11th 2006
From Consciousness -- The Flowering Consciousness.
The whole is made up of existence and Being, the manifested and the unmanifested, the world and God. So when you become aligned with the whole, you become a conscious part of the interconnectedness of the whole and its purpose: the emergence of consciousness into this world.
As a result, spontaneous helpful occurrences, chance encounters, coincidences, and synchronistic events happen much more frequently. Carl Jung called synchronicity an "acausal connecting principle."
This means there is no causal connection between synchronistic events on our surface level of reality. It is an outer manifestation of an underlying intelligence behind the world of appearances and a deeper connectedness that our mind cannot understand.
But we can be conscious participants in the unfolding of that intelligence, the flowering consciousness.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 12th 2006
From Consciousness -- Our Purpose and Destiny
Nature exists in a state of unconscious oneness with the whole. This, for example, is why virtually no wild animals were killed in the tsunami disaster of 2004.
Being more in touch with the totality than humans, they could sense the tsunami's approach long before it could be seen or heard and so had time to withdraw to higher terrain. Perhaps even that is looking at it from a human perspective. They probably just found themselves moving to higher terrain.
Doing this because of that is the mind's way of cutting up reality; whereas nature lives in unconscious oneness with the whole.
It is our purpose and destiny to bring a new dimension into this world by living in conscious oneness with the totality and conscious alignment with universal intelligence.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 13th 2006
From Consciousness -- Discovery
What is Awakening, Enlightenment, Realization? Awakening from what? Enlightenment as to what? Realization of what?
It is waking up from all your dreams and imaginings and preoccupations, becoming enlightened as to the given facts, realizing what you clearly are in your first-hand experience right now. It is being perfectly honest to yourself about yourself, at last.
It is having the courage and effrontery, even the idiocy, to go by what you see, instead of by what you are told. It is questioning all mental habits and conventional assumptions, however commonsensible or sanctified. It is total open-mindedness, transparency, simplicity, and taking nothing for granted.
In one word, it is discovery.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
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August 14th 2006
From Consciousness -- Cosmic Enlightenment
What is to be discovered is your own nature. Who are you? Only you are in a position to find out because everyone else is elsewhere, off-center. Only you can investigate what it is to be you.
There exists for none of us, not even the most "spiritual," a merely human or personal liberation that leaves out the natural world. There's no such thing as a true enlightenment that doesn't light up every creature on Earth and in the skies, however grotesque or remote or unlovable.
How could we begin to disentangle ourselves from any part of the One in whom we live and move and have our being?
Enlightenment is cosmic or an illusion.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
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August 15th 2006
From Consciousness -- Unmoved Mover
The art of handling these inexorable goings-on is the art of resting on what underlies them ... the art and science of consciously being the ground that supports all that commotion without itself becoming disturbed in the slightest.
Here, you are the bedrock of the world, where it all begins and where it all ends. Eternally one and the same, you are the Unmoved Mover.
The great obstacle is self-satisfaction, absence of need. How much that man loses who, because he is so good at being human, is never driven to find out what else he is! He cannot gain even this world if he loses his soul, which belongs to all the world.
It is the worst kind of eccentricity to be so well-balanced that you are never upset in the direction of the Whole.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
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August 16th 2006
From Consciousness -- Embracing the World
When you see the truth, you are doing it for others as much as for yourself because Who is doing it is not an individual. Who is doing it is the One who is the inside story of all these contestants on the face of the Earth. Our enlightenment cannot help but spill out on all beings, for the simple reason that we 'are' them.
If I'm suffering from the disease of confrontation in my relationship with you at this moment, what's the use of trying to deal with the same problem of confrontation at other levels -- national and international -- confrontation between the sexes, ethnic groups, religions, ideologies, power blocs, and so on?
In other words, service to the world begins at home because when you've found out Who you are, you find you are the world.
When I identify with the guy in the mirror, he turns his back on the world. He says, "I've got enough troubles of my own. Keep out." The One you really are never can turn her back on the world. She embraces the world. She 'is' the world. This is not because you are special; you were always this way.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
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August 17th 2006
From Consciousness -- The Light Indivisible
Exactly what (I ask myself) is this shocking He, this shameless She, this unbowdlerized It, in reality? Its essence is Awareness, the One Light of Consciousness that lights up the world and every creature the world comes into.
I locate this Light Indivisible right where I am, plumb in the Center of this world as I find it, nearer than near, at the heart of the heart of me.
Look around you for a million years, ransack the universe, probe with every instrument into everything, and nowhere and nowhen will you find a glimmer of consciousness, a will that is not your will, a hint of a hint of another I AM.
Never will you find anything or anyone faintly resembling the Self-being of yours: It is absolutely unique, one-time, and indescribable.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
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August 18th 2006
From Consciousness -- All of God
All of God is right where you are now and nowhere else.
I AM is one. There is no second I AM to stand in your light, to put up the feeblest opposition.
All is as you would have it because you are Who you are.
Here is no spark of that Fire, but the blazing Furnace itself.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Copyright 2005 by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
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August 19th 2006
From Consciousness -- Our Relationship to the Whole
The whole comprises all that exists. It is the world or the cosmos. But all things in existence, from microbes to human beings to galaxies, are not really separate things or entities, but form part of a web of interconnected multidimensional processes.
However, there is an even deeper level to the whole than the interconnectedness of everything in existence. At that deeper level, all things are one. It is the Source, the unmanifested one Life. It is the timeless intelligence that manifests as a universe unfolding in time.
If asked, "Can the whole use the human mind to create things or bring about situations that are in alignment with its purpose?" I would say, "Yes ..."
Whenever there is inspiration, which translates as “in spirit,” and enthusiasm, which means "in God," there is a creative empowerment that goes far beyond what a mere person is capable of.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 20th 2006
From Consciousness -- The Outer and Inner Purpose
If you look within rather than only without, however, you discover that you have an inner and an outer purpose and since you are a microcosmic reflection of the macrocosm, it follows that the universe too has an inner and outer purpose inseparable from yours.
The outer purpose of the universe is to create form and experience the interaction of forms -- the play, the dream, the drama, or whatever you choose to call it. Its inner purpose is to awaken to its formless essence.
Then comes the reconciliation of outer and inner purpose: to bring that essence –- consciousness -– into the world of form and thereby transform the world.
The ultimate purpose of that transformation goes far beyond anything the human mind can imagine or comprehend. And yet, on this planet at this time, that transformation is the task allotted us. That is the reconciliation of outer and inner purpose, the reconciliation of the world and God.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 21st 2006
From Consciousness -- Only the Whole is True
Nothing we say about the nature of the universe should be taken as an absolute truth. Neither concepts nor mathematical formulae can explain the infinite. No thought can encapsulate the vastness of the totality.
Reality is a unified whole, but thought cuts it up into fragments. This gives rise to fundamental misperceptions, for example, that there are separate things and events, or that this is the cause of that.
Every thought implies a perspective, and every perspective, by its very nature, implies limitation, which ultimately means that it is not true, at least not absolutely. Only the whole is true, but the whole cannot be spoken or thought.
Seen from beyond the limitations of thinking and therefore incomprehensible to the human mind, everything is happening now. All that ever has been or will be is now, outside of time, which is a mental construct.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 22nd 2006
From Consciousness -- Relative and Absolute Truth.
As an illustration of relative and absolute truth, consider the sunrise and sunset. When we say the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, that is true, but only relatively. In absolute terms, it is false.
Only from the limited perspective of an observer on or near the planet's surface does the sun rise and set. If you were far out in space, you would see that the sun neither rises nor sets, but that it shines continuously.
And yet, even after realizing that, we can continue to speak of the sunrise or sunset, still see its beauty, paint it, write poems about it, even though we now know that it is a relative rather than an absolute truth.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 23rd 2006
From Consciousness -- Returning Home
The coming into manifestation of the world as well as its return to the unmanifested -- its expansion and contraction -- are two universal movements that we could call the outgoing and the return home.
Those two movements are reflected throughout the universe in many ways, such as in the incessant expansion and contraction of your heart, as well as in the inhalation and exhalation of your breath.
They are also reflected in the cycles of sleep and wakefulness.
Each night, without knowing it, you return to the unmanifested Source of all life when you enter the stage of deep, dreamless sleep, and then reemerge again in the morning, replenished.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 24th 2006
From Consciousness -- The Pursuit of Expansion
The two movements, the outgoing and the return, are also reflected in each person's life cycles.
Out of nowhere, so to speak, "you" suddenly appear in this world. Birth is followed by expansion. There is not only physical growth, but also growth of knowledge, activities, possessions, experiences. Your sphere of influence expands and life becomes increasingly complex.
This is a time when you are mainly concerned with finding or pursuing your outer purpose. Usually there is also a corresponding growth of the ego, which is identification with all the above things, and so your form identity becomes more and more defined.
This is also the time when outer purpose — growth -- tends to become usurped by the ego, which unlike nature does not know when to stop in its pursuit of expansion and has a voracious appetite for 'more'.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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August 25th 2006
From Consciousness -- The Truth is Here Now
Many of the people I encounter sincerely want to realize the truth of their being. They ask me, "What do I do? How do I do that?" Paradoxically, this desire for true freedom finally can only be realized if you don't "do" anything to realize it.
There are practices where you do mantras, visualizations, prostrations, or some kind of selfless service. They are all designed to still the mind so that it is not obsessing on what is needed to reveal true fulfillment.
Practices are excellent for honing the capacity of the mind both to focus and to surrender. Let us acknowledge that our spiritual practices have served us, that they are gifts from masters who have come before us.
But let us also recognize that the truth of who we are is here now, and that all our practices have been ways of searching for what is already here, of trying to clear a path back to our own hearts.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket www.gangaji.org
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August 26th 2006
From Consciousness -- The Secret of the Ages
The problem is that finally, any attempt to go somewhere implies that you are not already there. In fact, any activity you undertake to achieve this is an obstruction to the deepest recognition of what has always been fully realized.
In this moment you can realize what does not need to be practiced to exist. This is the easiest, simplest, and most obvious truth. What has kept it a secret throughout the ages is its absolute simplicity and its immediate availability.
This simplicity is difficult, because we are taught from childhood that to achieve something, we have to learn what the steps are and then practice them. This works beautifully for any number of things. The mind is an exquisite learning tool.
But self-realization, as well as the deepest inspiration and creativity, come directly from the source of the mind. Realization does not come from any doing; it comes from surrendering the mind to the source.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket www.gangaji.org
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August 27th 2006
From Consciousness -- A Meditation of Suffering
If spiritual practices serve the purpose of stopping the mind, they are strong allies. But if they deepen the belief that you are someone in particular who practices something in particular in order to get something that you do not believe is already here, then they are an obstruction. They keep you spinning around yourself rather than allowing you to deepen into yourself.
Meditation means many different things to different people. It can mean focusing on the breath, or concentrating on an image, or any number of things. But the meditation practice perpetuated by most people in the world is this: "I am this body, I am these thoughts, I am these emotions”.
There may be breaks where some kind of formal meditation is practiced, but then it's back to the strongest practice: "This is me, I am this body, these are my wants, this is what I have to have, this is what I don't have," and on and on.
This is the meditation! And it is a meditation of suffering. Because it is so widespread, it is overlooked. It is thought of not as a practice but as reality.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket www.gangaji.org
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August 28th 2006
From Consciousness -- Me Meditation
There are exquisite moments when the usual meditation stops - moments of being absorbed in a lover's embrace, in the sound of beautiful music, or in the colors of a sunrise.
There are moments where there is no "you" being practiced, there is simply beingness. And in this simple beingness there are peace, insight, clarity, and naturalness, an effortless grace and ease of being.
But we believe very strongly in our me meditation, and so these are usually just brief moments before the normal practice is picked up again: "I am this body; this is who I am. You are that body; that is who you are. This is my culture; that is your culture. These are my beliefs; those are your beliefs. You are my enemy; you are my friend. You want something from me; I want something from you", etc.
The truth of who you are, however, is simpler than anything that can be practiced. Personal suffering, on the other hand, is very complex, and for it to continue it must be practiced. If you are suffering, just as an investigation, see if you are 'practicing' your suffering.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket www.gangaji.org
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August 29th 2006
From Consciousness -- The Simplicity of Being
Since we are so conditioned and attuned to define who we are by particular activities, we spend our lives overlooking the vast ground of stillness that is the simplicity of being.
When I speak of the "heart," I am speaking of this same being. When I speak of the core of every phenomenon, being is what I am referring to.
When I speak of what is met in self-inquiry, I am also speaking of being, whether it is emotional self-inquiry, such as meeting fear, anger, despair, or mental self-inquiry, such as inquiring into the actual I-thought. To inquire fully into anything is to discover this vast, simple, presence of being - yourself, as you are.
Being is not a practice. A practice involves some technique, a right way and a wrong way, a belief in getting someplace, and a reward or attainment. In the truth of absolute stillness, none of that applies.
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket www.gangaji.org
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August 30th 2006
From Consciousness -- The Invitation to Stop
By the time I met my teacher I had attempted many forms of meditation. I had experienced moments of beauty, of transcendence, of true knowing, and yet the underlying longing that accompanied the thoughts, the underlying "How do I get it? How do I keep it? I've got to find a way”, were still operating.
When I met Papaji, he told me to stop. He extended to me an invitation that I am happy to extend to you. This moment, stop right where you are. Stop all effort to get whatever you think will give you fulfillment, whatever you think will give you truth. All that is required is one instant of truly stopping.
This one instant is elusive for most people, because as they approach the instant of stopping, an enormous welling of fear usually arises: "If I stop, if I really stop, I will slide back and lose the ground that I have gained through my efforts and practices. Even though I am still not fully satisfied, I am more satisfied than I was. I have a better life, my mind is calmer, my circumstances are better, and I might lose all of that."
For me, it was quite extraordinary to hear this "stop." I was certain that he was going to give me some secret knowledge - and he did. But it is only secret because it is so obvious. It is not esoteric. I was certain that he would whisper some magical formula in my ear - and he did. He said, "Stop."
Gangaji -- The Diamond In Your Pocket www.gangaji.org
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August 31st 2006
From Consciousness -- Experiencing the Sunset
Just when you thought you had made it or that you belonged here, the return movement begins. Perhaps people close to you begin to die, people who were a part of your world.
Then your physical form weakens; your sphere of influence shrinks. Instead of becoming more, you now become less, and the ego reacts to this with increasing anxiety or depression. Your world is beginning to contract, and you may find you are not in control anymore.
Instead of acting upon life, life now acts upon you by slowly reducing your world. The consciousness that identified with form is now experiencing the sunset, the dissolution of form.
And then one day, you too disappear. Your armchair is still there. But instead of you sitting in it, there is just an empty space. You went back to where you came from just a few years ago.
Eckhart Tolle -- A New Earth www.eckharttolle.com
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