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November 1st 2006
Today’s Gem -- The Power of Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm brings an enormous empowerment into what you do, so that all those who have not accessed that power would look upon "your" achievements in awe and may equate them with who you are.
You, however, know the truth that Jesus pointed to when he said, "I can of my own self do nothing.”
Unlike egoic wanting, which creates opposition in direct proportion to the intensity of its wanting, enthusiasm never opposes. It is non-confrontational.
Its activity does not create winners and losers. It is based on inclusion, not exclusion, of others.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- Enthusiasm Gives
Enthusiasm does not need to use and manipulate people, because it is the power of creation itself and so does not need to take energy from some secondary source.
The ego's wanting always tries to take from something or someone; enthusiasm gives out of its own abundance.
When enthusiasm encounters obstacles in the form of adverse situations or uncooperative people, it never attacks but walks around them or by yielding or embracing turns the opposing energy into a helpful one, the foe into a friend.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- The Center of the Wheel
Enthusiasm and the ego cannot coexist. One implies the absence of the other.
Enthusiasm knows where it is going, but at the same time, it is deeply at one with the present moment, the source of its aliveness, its joy, and its power.
Enthusiasm "wants" nothing because it lacks nothing.
It is at one with life and no matter how dynamic the enthusiasm-inspired activities are, you don't lose yourself in them. And there remains always a still but intensely alive space at the center of the wheel, a core of peace in the midst of activity that is both the source of all and untouched by it all.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- The Journey Home
Through enthusiasm you enter into full alignment with the outgoing creative principle of the universe, but without identifying with its creations, that is to say, without ego.
Where there is no identification, there is no attachment -- one of the great sources of suffering.
Once a wave of creative energy has passed, structural tension diminishes again and joy in what you are doing remains. Nobody can live in enthusiasm all the time. A new wave of creative energy may come later and lead to renewed enthusiasm.
When the return movement toward the dissolution of form sets in, enthusiasm no longer serves you. Enthusiasm belongs to the outgoing cycle of life. It is only through surrender that you can align yourself with the return movement -- the journey home.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- Concealed Forms of Ego,
Enjoyment of what you are doing, combined with a goal or vision that you work toward, becomes enthusiasm.
Even though you have a goal, what you are doing in the present moment needs to remain the focal point of your attention; otherwise, you will fall out of alignment with universal purpose.
Make sure your vision or goal is not an inflated image of yourself and therefore a concealed form of ego, such as wanting to become a movie star, a famous writer, or a wealthy entrepreneur.
Also make sure your goal is not focused on having this or that, such as a mansion by the sea, your own company, or ten million dollars in the bank.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- Being An Opening
An enlarged image of yourself or a vision of yourself having this or that are all static goals and therefore don't empower you.
Instead, make sure your goals are dynamic, that is to say, point toward an activity that you are engaged in and through which you are connected to other human beings as well as to the whole.
Instead of seeing yourself as a famous actor and writer and so on, see yourself inspiring countless people with your work and enriching their lives.
Feel how that activity enriches or deepens not only your life but that of countless others. Feel yourself being an opening through which energy flows from the unmanifested Source of all life through you for the benefit of all.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- The Quiet of Your True Nature
When you become quiet, you let yourself relax into the moment, into your true nature. When this happens, you realize you cannot avoid any part of your experience.
If you are looking for quietness to help avoid some feeling, then you are not going to experience the real quietness.
The nakedness of quiet or presence disarms you so that you can't avoid any experience, any event, anything.
You might avoid things by experiencing a numb kind of quiet, but within the quietness of your true nature, you cannot avoid any part of experience. It is all right here, waiting.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- There Doesn't Have to be a Struggle
There are many stories or spiritual myths that are created and continue to be perpetuated that portray this coming back to our true nature as a battleground, as if there is something about you that doesn't want to return to itself.
Whether it is called the ego, or the me, or the mind that doesn't really want to be quiet, spiritual people can buy into this myth that there is something about them that doesn't want to wake up and that there has to be some struggle.
When you are really quiet, you can see that this is total nonsense. You can see that the thought arose in the mind out of emptiness, and only if you accepted it as true could it start a battle. But you see clearly it really isn't true: it's just a spontaneous arising of thought.
It won't be true unless you believe it and bring it into the story of the heroic spiritual seeker's struggle. As soon as you involve yourself in the seeker's struggle, you've already lost the war.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- Entering Silence
You'll see from the silence that every way the mind moves is just a movement of thought that has no reality to it and becomes real only if you believe it. Thoughts are just moving through consciousness. They have no power. Nothing has reality until you reach it, grab it, and somehow impregnate it with the power of belief.
The only way to enter silence is on its own terms. You can't go there with something, only with nothing. You can't be somebody, only nobody. Then entrance is easy. But this nothing is actually the highest price we ever pay. It's our most sacred commodity.
We will give our ideas, our beliefs, our heart, our body, our mind, and our soul. The last thing that we'll give is nothing. We hold on to our nothingness because that's our most sacred commodity, and somewhere inside we know this.
Only the nothing enters the silence; that's the only thing that gets in. The rest of what we are just bangs at the nonexistent door. As soon as you want something from the silence, you are moved outside of silence again.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- The Ultimate Teacher
Silence reveals itself only to itself. Only when we enter as nothing and stay as nothing, will silence open its secret. Its secret is itself.
That's why I say all the words, all the books, all the teachings, and all the teachers can only get you to the door, and perhaps entice you to enter.
Once there, you start to feel the presence of silence very powerfully. When this happens, something spontaneously arises that's willing to enter it without being somebody. That is the sacred invitation.
Inside you find that silence is the final and ultimate teacher and the final and ultimate teaching. It's the only teacher that won't speak to you. Silence is the only teacher and teaching that keeps our humanness on its knees all the time.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- It's Always There
We can think, "Oh, I heard Adya said dah-dah-dah, and it sounds good," and we find ourselves lifting up off the floor of surrender. We turn away from our most sacred and beautiful humility.
Silence is the ultimate and best teacher because in silence is the never-ending welcoming to do that which our human heart truly desires, which is to always be with our knees on the floor, always be in that sort of devotion to Truth.
Silence is the only teaching and the only teacher that is there all the time. Every minute that you are awake, every minute that you are alive, every minute that you breathe, it’s right there.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- The Blip
When consciousness or spirit decides to manifest as an object -- a tree, a rock, a possum, or a car -- it doesn't present much of a problem. However, when it manifests and endeavors to become self-conscious, or self-aware, this seems to be quite a tricky business.
I'm talking about human life, when consciousness or spirit is manifest as a human being. In this process, consciousness almost always gets lost. Human beings are by nature self-aware, but it seems that the price paid for consciousness to become self-aware is almost always the loss of true identity.
Consciousness comes into manifestation, which is not a problem, but then it tries to become self-aware. In the process of becoming self-aware, it almost always makes what you could call a mistake.
It is not a mistake so much as a blip in the evolution of becoming truly self-conscious. In that blip, consciousness loses itself in what it created and identifies itself with that creation. This blip is called the human condition.
From: 'Emptiness Dancing', by Adyashanti www.adyashanti.org
Today’s Gem -- Manifest What You Already Have
Your (non-egoic) goal or vision is already a reality within you, on the level of mind and of feeling. Enthusiasm is the power that transfers the mental blueprint into the physical dimension.
That is the creative use of mind, and that is why there is no wanting involved.
You cannot manifest what you want; you can only manifest what you already have. You may get what you want through hard work and stress, but that is not the way of the new earth.
Jesus gave the key to the creative use of mind and to the conscious manifestation of form when he said, "Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- Movement Into Form
The outward movement into form does not express itself with equal intensity in all people. Some feel a strong urge to build, create, become involved, achieve, make an impact upon the world.
If they are unconscious, their ego will, of course, take over and use the energy of the outgoing cycle for its own purposes. This, however, also greatly reduces the flow of creative energy available to them and increasingly they need to rely on "efforting" to get what they want.
If they are conscious, those people in whom the outward movement is strong will be highly creative.
Others, after the natural expansion that comes with growing up has run its course, lead an outwardly unremarkable, seemingly more passive and relatively uneventful existence.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- The Frequency-Holders
There is no place, it seems, for contemplatives or teachers of Being, in our contemporary civilization.
On the arising new earth, however, their role is just as vital as that of the creators, the doers, the reformers.
Their function is to anchor the frequency of the new consciousness on this planet. I call them the frequency-holders.
They are here to generate consciousness through the activities of daily life, through their interactions with others as well as through just being.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- Bringing Stillness into the World
The people I call 'frequency-holders' on the arising new earth will endow the seemingly insignificant with profound meaning.
Their task is to bring spacious stillness into this world by being absolutely present in whatever they do. There is consciousness and therefore quality in what they do, even the simplest task.
Their purpose is to do everything in a sacred manner.
As each human being is an integral part of the collective human consciousness, they affect the world much more deeply than is visible on the surface of their lives.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- A New Heaven and a New Earth
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth," writes the biblical prophet. The foundation for a new earth is a new heaven -- the awakened consciousness. The earth -- external reality -- is only its outer reflection.
The arising of a new heaven and by implication a new earth are not future events that are going to make us free. Nothing is 'going' to make us free because only the present moment can make us free. That realization is the awakening.
Awakening as a future event has no meaning because awakening is the realization of Presence. So the new heaven, the awakened consciousness, is not a future state to be achieved.
A new heaven and a new earth are arising within you at this moment, and if they are not arising at this moment, they are no more than a thought in your head and therefore not arising at all.
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a prediction that to this day few people have understood. He says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'' In modern versions of the Bible, "meek" is translated as humble. Who are the meek or the humble, and what does it mean that they shall inherit the earth?
The meek are the egoless. They are those who have awakened to their essential true nature as consciousness and recognize that essence in all "others," all life-forms. They live in the surrendered state and so feel their oneness with the whole and the Source.
They embody the awakened consciousness that is changing all aspects of life on our planet, including nature, because life on earth is inseparable from the human consciousness that perceives and interacts with it. That is the sense in which the meek will inherit the earth.
A new species is arising on the planet. It is arising now, and you are it!
From: 'A New Earth', by Eckhart Tolle www.eckharttolle.com
Today’s Gem -- Know-How
In the Kingdom of Heaven, you are much more efficient.
Here, you come to recognize and increasingly give way to the practical flair, the astounding know-how of the very Source of things.
More and more, Who you are is allowed to look after what you are, unhindered.
The technique is very simple and very precise -- and by no means automatic. It is this: whatever you are attending to there, you attend also to the Attender here, so that your gaze is at least as much inward as outward.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- The Real Virtuoso.
See yourself as Space for those busy hands or feet doing their thing, for that strangely dexterous scalpel or brush or bow or chisel or pen, animated by the real Virtuoso.
In fewer and fewer circumstances do you overlook the Looker-Adept, until eventually it's impossible to do so.
And gradually it sinks in that this is the very One who has the ultimate know-how, the "impossible" knack of being its own Origin and Inventor, of seeing to its own ceasless emerging, for no reason and with no help.
Consciously handing over to this Expert (not surprisingly) ensures that whatever is done, from the humblest of chores to the sublimest work of art, is better done -- more smoothly and swiftly and pleasurably than it would be if a mere person had the sense of doing it.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Humility
Now, you may say that what we're talking about is blasphemous, that it is pride to find that where you are is none other than the mystery and majesty behind the universe.
The real pride is when I say I run a separate little corner shop of Being Here, in addition to and independent of, or quasi-independent of God, who runs a hypermarket of Being. Real humility says that my being is that Being. Real humility is to see in what and in whom lies my being.
At the same time, this Reality is in a certain sense wholly other than me. That is to say, it is wholly mysterious and adorable and unknowable and extraordinary, the great Self-originating One from which all comes.
Here we sink our differences -- or rather, we sink and leave our differences floating. All action is stooping to conquer, where stooping is absolute abasement.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Meaning
Whereas the Experience of our Nature is served up (if at all) complete, in one infinitely generous helping, its meaning is for the most part withheld. Normally, it's doled out in driblets, at other times poured out more generously, but never given in its entirety.
The last word about This is never said, the ultimate and all-embracing idea of it is never conceived, the deepest feeling never plumbed.
Truly speaking, our Source has no meaning whatever. In Itself it is infinitely beyond all that limited and limiting stuff, for nothing that can be said or thought or felt about It is It.
The Source of all meaning is Itself far beyond and absolutely free from all that proceeds from It. And you are That.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Freedom
Freedom is free.
When I am consciously at large -- no longer a thing among things, a consciousness among consciousnessess -- I am Liberated, and the world, in spite of everything, is all right because it is all me.
Described negatively, it's my way out of the tightest spot, my escape route from the most secure of prisons.
Described positively, it's my way in to the absolute Liberty that I am.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Purpose
What is the purpose of life?
As I see it, and as the great mystics of all the great religions saw it, the purpose of life is a simple one: conscious union with our Source.
As Meister Eckhart said, "God's in, I'm out." He said, "Put on your jumping shoes and jump into God."
Jump from your appearance to your Reality. It is our business to jump into the place we never left.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- Healing
In plain language, my psychological problems all boil down to the problem of my Identity. They are settled only by attending to the One here, to this First Person who is supposed to have them. Here is the only profound analysis, the only therapy that penetrates to the Root of the trouble, the only lasting cure of my disease.
Though the results may be slow to manifest (and then be more manifest to others than to me), this way is economical, thorough, foolproof, well-tested over thousands of years, instantly available, and (though in a sense it costs the Earth) quite 'gratis'.
We are all more or less ill until we find by Self-inquiry our Oneness with everyone else.
Only God, our Whole, is the completion, the healing remedy, of the fragments that we are. He is what we want, and we are not ourselves without Him. We are lost until we are lost in Him.
From: Open to the Source, by Douglas E. Harding. Edited by Richard Lang. Reprinted by arrangement with Inner Directions, Carlsbad, California. www.InnerDirections.org
Today’s Gem -- The Ocean of Consciousness
Mind activity feeds on itself until it creates an enormous complexity of suffering. At the core of all mind activity is a search for self-definition, but the mind searches in all the wrong places.
It searches in thoughts. It searches in objects -- acquiring a new car, a new lover, a better job, a bigger house. It even searches in spirituality, in the quest for the enlightened "me."
The mind's activity is always based on rejecting something or grasping at something. Whatever the mind is rejecting or clinging to is impermanent. When your mind surrenders to the truth of impermanence, this activity has nowhere to go, and the mind is still.
At this point the mind has reached the ocean of consciousness, realizing itself as never separate from that ocean.
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
Today’s Gem -- The Great Laugh
The permanence of your true nature is recognized to be the continuous presence of awareness that was exactly the same when you were five, fifteen, fifty, or ninety years old.
Subtle, radiant awareness is your true identity.
When you realize who you are, and know that all your attempts to get something better so that you can be something better are seen in all their absurdity, a great, deep laugh follows.
Such a release, this laugh. It comes from millions of aeons of hiding from the truth of yourself, and then the exquisite release of finally surrendering to the truth of being.
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
Today’s Gem -- >The Only Obstacle
The only obstacle to realizing the truth of who you are is thinking who you are.
It is really that simple.
I use all of my conversations with people to cut through that thought process, which as you know is very strong.
The thoughts of who you are come from two powers of mind: the power of remembering the past and the power of projecting into the future. Thoughts of past and future create the present thought of who you are.
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
Today’s Gem -- God Overlooked
The powers of memory and projection are very big powers indeed.
There is nothing wrong with remembering the past or projecting into the future. Both are part of the experience and the power of being human.
However, the danger of this power is that in overlooking permanent presence, in being so fascinated by God's fabrications and the permutations of those fabrications, God Itself is overlooked.
Then suffering appears and a yearning arises to reconnect with the truth of God to alleviate the suffering.
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
Today’s Gem -- What Is Aware?
As an exercise, after reading this, I suggest you to close your eyes and generate some thoughts. Everyone is a master at this, so you might as well use it.
See yourself as a child; see who you were then. You may have a picture, or a sensation, or just a sense of knowing who you were then. Now, see yourself as an adolescent or young adult. See who you were then.
See yourself happy, really fulfilled, and imagine how that feels. Now see yourself as miserable, lost, isolated, and separate. See yourself as who you imagine you will be someday. Project yourself into the future.
Now, most importantly, see if it is possible to tell the truth: What is it that sees all these images of you? What is it that is aware of all your feelings?
From: 'The Diamond In Your Pocket', by Gangaji www.gangaji.org
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