9 Simple Steps to Live in the "NOW"

by Zeenat Merchant Syal -

Learning to be in the NOW is at the heart of all spiritual practice and the secret of enlightenment. However, getting the mind to this moment is not the easiest thing in the world. Our monkey mind often plays funny tricks.

“Life is now,” says Eckhart Tolle, author of the bestseller 'The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment.' The key to unlocking one’s innate creative potential is to step out of tensions from the past and expectations about the future and being fully in the present moment. Eckhart Tolle was under 30 years of age, fed up with living when he chanced upon this truth which forms the core of his teachings.

A self-made millionaire, Shannon Duncan was under 30 when disenchanted with his riches and success, he embarked upon a similar set of revelations which led him to write 'Present Moment Awareness: A Simple, Step-by-Step Guide to Living in the Now.'

The wisdom these New Age teachers bring to us isn’t exactly new. New age, or call it simply timeless – cultivating present moment awareness is a technique that could help you realize your own highest potential.

SIMPLE STEPS TO LIVE IN THE 'NOW'

1st: Mindset recognition

Most of us tend to be either wallow-ers or wait-ers. The wallow-ers carry into each moment baggage from the past. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness and non-forgiveness typify the wallow-er mindset.

The wait-er mindset is typical of those who are so busy getting to the future – that perfect job, house, or relationship – that the present is reduced to a mere means of getting there. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress and worry go with living too much in the future. Recognizing which side one tends towards is an important first step.

2nd: Negative Psychological Time vs. Clock Time

Distinguishing between negative psychological time and clock time is an important second step.

Clock time enhances our productivity and effectiveness – enabling us to plan things, keep appointments, schedule work. For instance, learning from a past mistake and not repeating it is using clock time, but dwelling upon it in guilt and regret is to be in negative psychological time. Similarly, setting a goal and working towards it is to function in clock time, but believing all happiness and fulfillment will come from it, is falling into the trap of negative psychological time.

Psychological time is blurred with emotions and impairs the ability to function optimally. “Think of these emotions as raindrops on a car’s windshield. If we become absorbed in them, then we can’t see where we are going or what we are going to crash into. But, if we take a deep breath and look through them, we still know they are there and that there is also the road ahead,” explains Shannon Duncan.

Becoming aware of the grip of negative psychological time and shrugging it off and returning into clock time or present moment awareness, creates the clear space for accomplishing our goals in life.

3rd: Infuse Mindfulness in your life

The practice of specific techniques, incorporated into daily living, can also provide a way forward. You can add daily positive affirmations to your day, daily time for meditation and a little time to just be and do nothing.
“It is essential to bring more consciousness into your life in ordinary situations when everything is going relatively smoothly. In this way you grow in presence power,” advises Eckhart Tolle.

4th: Routine Task Mindfulness

Mindfulness can be practiced in the most ordinary situations. You can begin by choosing any routine chore- brushing your teeth, doing the dishes, watering the plants, typing a page, anything. Now devote your full attention to the task. Try brushing your teeth mindfully by being aware of smell, taste, texture, touch, and movement. By paying attention to the minutest detail. The quality of your attention can transform the ordinary moment and reveal its unique potential.

This magical quality can be transferred too, to your relationships. Simply take a few minutes off to observe without labeling those closest to you. Just try looking at your child, at your partner, your mother. Really pay attention to them as they are. Whenever you’re caught evaluating what you see, just note thinking and come back to seeing with bare attention. In sharing the pure essence of their being, you enter into a deeper communion with them and with yourself.

5th: Listen

Shutting the eyes and focusing on listening to all the sounds around is another technique for fully entering the present. The trick is to be still and attentive to sound. Let sound in, hearing sounds as they are without judging what you hear. There’s no right or wrong sound. Just listen – a dog barking, birds singing, a car honking, traffic whirring past, a faucet dripping, a colleague’s cough, a phone ringing.

As you listen to this medley of noises of life playing out, you experience the richness of being connected to all life and are able to detect the harmony within. It’s all right here in this moment.

6th: Body Scan

Developing a conscious awareness of the body helps to keep the mind in the present moment. Practice this age-old yogic technique:

Lie down in a relatively quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Lie on your back with your legs outstretched and your arms at your sides. Feel the alignment of your body as a whole, and feel the floor support your body. It is important not to try to relax or to try to achieve anything. Just pay close attention and notice sensations as precisely as you can.

There is no right or wrong thing to feel. Bring your attention to the toes of your left foot and become aware of any sensation of temperature, touch, moisture, or air currents. Let your attention rest there for a few seconds. Then, as you inhale, let go of the toes and bring attention to the bottom of the foot, then to the top of the foot, then to the ankle, then the lower leg. Follow all the way to the left hip and then start with the toes of the right leg. Scan your whole body this way.

Regular practice creates a connection with the energy field of your body. When faced with a challenge -creative or otherwise – a few moments of retreating into body consciousness can create that space from which to jump forth with confidence.

7th: Breath Awareness

“What’s nice about using the breath as a focus for mindfulness is that it is portable, always available to our attention, and is a natural rhythm of the body,” says Dr Ernest Shaw.

Find a comfortable chair or cushion to sit on. Sit erect, but relaxed. You can close your eyes or leave them partially open. Now bring your attention to your stomach. Notice it fill with the intake of breath, and then fall when you exhale. Just pay attention to the rising and falling of the belly. Do not try to alter your breathing in any way.

Just be with it as it is. When your mind wanders, which it will and you realize you’re no longer with the breath, but caught up in thinking, just make a conscious mental note that you’re thinking and come back to the breath. This is all you have to do – return to this moment whenever you realize you’ve drifted away.

8th: Thought Awareness

Paying attention to the mind itself can paradoxically serve to still it. Just sit quietly and direct your mind to watch the next thought as it comes. For a while, as you wait in perfect alertness, there will be no thought – only your watching presence as it stands guard.

9th: Take Witness Breaks

The essence of transformation is “a non-judgmental witnessing, viewing, or seeing of yourself and how you interact with your life.” If through the helter skelter of our daily routines we can take a few moments to catch ourselves in the act of living, the self-awareness can serve as a powerful torch illuminating the way ahead.

With the aid of an alarm in your wristwatch or through a timer on your PC, randomly schedule a witness break or two through your day. As the alarm goes off take a few seconds to observe yourself – what are you doing?

Make it a habit to monitor your mental-emotional state through self-observation. “Am I at ease at this moment?” is a good question to ask. Or you can ask: “What’s going on inside me at this moment?” Just a few seconds of observation before you carry on with whatever task you are engaged in is all that is required.

Learning the grammar of present moment awareness could help you write a new chapter in your life. Infuse your life with the current moment and the present could be your best ever gift to yourself!

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Inner Space Consciousness

by Eckhart Tolle -

Whenever there is beauty, kindness, the recognition of the goodness of simple things in your life, look for the background to that experience within yourself.

Don’t look for it as if you were looking for something, you cannot pin it down and say, “Now I have it” or grasp it mentally and define it in some way.

It is like the cloudless sky. It has no form. It is space; it is stillness, the sweetness of Being and infinitely more than these words, which are only pointers. 

When you are able to sense it directly within yourself, it deepens. 

So when you appreciate something simple — a sound, a sight, a touch — when you see beauty, when you feel loving kindness toward another, sense the inner spaciousness that is the source and background to that experience.

Many poets and sages throughout the ages have observed that true happiness — I call it the joy of Being — is found in simple, seemingly unremarkable things.

Most people, in their restless search for something significant to happen to them, continuously miss the insignificant, which may not be insignificant at all. 

The philosopher Nietzsche, in a rare moment of deep stillness, wrote,

“For happiness, how little suffices for happiness! . . . the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance — little maketh up the best happiness. Be still.” 

Why is it the “least thing” that makes up “the best happiness”? 

Because true happiness is not caused by the thing or event, although this is how it first appears.

The thing or event is so subtle, so unobtrusive that it takes up only a small part of your consciousness—and the rest is inner space, consciousness itself unobstructed by form.

Inner space consciousness and who you are in your essence are one and the same. In other words, the form of little things leaves room for inner space and it is from inner space, the unconditioned consciousness itself, that true happiness, the joy of Being emanates.

To be aware of little, quiet things however, you need to be quiet inside. A high degree of alertness is required. Be still. Look. Listen. Be present.

Here is another way of finding inner space: 

Become conscious of being conscious. Say or think “I Am” and add nothing to it. Be aware of the stillness that follows the I Am. 

Sense your presence, the naked, unveiled, unclothed beingness. It is untouched by young or old, rich or poor, good or bad or any other attributes. It is the spacious womb of all creation, all form.

excerpt from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, pages 235-236

To access more of Eckhart’s teachings click here  Eckhart Tolle TV

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Finding Balance in the Present Moment

by Eckhart Tolle -

Finding balance between our will and the natural flow of life:

By living aligned with the present moment, you also align your will with the universal will which you could call “the will of God”.

The separate will wants to enhance or strengthen one’s sense of self. The separate will is concerned with the “me”, the “I”, the ego.

There is a divine Consciousness, the one Consciousness, there is an evolutionary impulse. What we are doing here at every moment, is to align ourselves with that.

Non-resistance is vital because as long as you are in resistance to the present moment, you will be trapped in the little egoic will.

 The egoic will needs to subside – that’s surrender to the present moment, and surrender to what is. When you align yourself with what is internally, it looks at first almost like a position of weakness, and it can be misinterpreted as something that prevents you from taking effective action.

The acceptance of what is, is totally compatible with responding to whatever the present moment requires. Whatever wants to be created, manifested, done, at this moment – to be aligned with that, you need to first accept whatever form this moment takes.

Single out this moment only.

For example, when you are ill, you don’t say “I need to accept this illness, the fact that I am ill, that I am suffering from this” because that is a whole conceptual story. 

All you need to accept is this moment as it is. There is never actually an illness in this moment, there is only a physical condition.

There may be pain, there may be weakness, disability, discomfort. Those things may be there and that’s the only thing you accept. This moment is as it is now.

If you are stuck in the mud somewhere, you don’t say, “Okay, I am in the mud, I have to accept it, and here I am – I’m not taking any action because I have to accept what is”.

This moment is already always as it is, and there’s nothing you can do about that. That’s what you accept. Then, action that arises has a different energy to it. 

The will that flows into what you do is no longer egoic. When you have not accepted this moment, the will goes against the Universe – that is what the ego does. It is negative, it fights something that it says shouldn’t be there.

If you use negativity, you are trapped in ego.

The “little will” has to subside for the more powerful will to flow through and deal with the situation. It creates, it is not isolated from the totality.

It is one with the totality.

When that operates, another word for that universal will is intelligence.

It’s only when you look at a situation, completely accept the is-ness of this moment, and then of course action may be required.

RIGHT ACTION: 

Once the opening is there, through acceptance, the next step that you take will be much more powerful. There’s a Buddhist term “right action”, that can only arise out of the right state of Consciousness. You have to get out of the ego first before you can have right action.

The Buddha was talking about that which flows from the awakened state of consciousness. To surrender the little will is to say ‘yes’ to the present moment. It’s not a big thing, just say yes to what is – because it already is anyway. Why complain about something that is? It’s insane, but normal.

To give up the egoic will, all you have to do is not complain about what is. Be aligned with the isness – people, situations, whatever – this is already as it is. It’s the inevitability of is. Become friendly with what is, and you become intelligent for the first time.

With the simple act of surrender to the inevitability of the present moment, another energy comes.

You could call that universal will, you could call that intelligence, you could call that the creative solution to whatever the so-called “problem” is.

 You could call that power coming in, that is greater than the limited power of your mind. Or it may use your mind, and suddenly you say the right thing, if that’s what the situation requires.

Suddenly the words come – where do the words come from? You don’t know what you’re going to say next. They come from a deeper level because that intelligence uses the mind.

You and the Universe become one, and as such it creates through you as this form. That’s the beauty of it. When the unmanifested flows into this world, it assumes form. Most thoughts that people have in the unawakened state are repetitive old thoughts, conditioned thinking, conditioned by the past. All you can rely on then is what you have accumulated in the past, you deal with things through conditioned thinking.

 When the simple act of surrender opens your mind, it can then be used as an instrument. Then, a thought may come in that is original and fresh and new. That is the birth of form. The birth of thought creates the birth of form.

The Universe uses you as a vehicle or a channel through which to create. You are one. It can use your mind, and become thought, words, physical things. That’s the way in which the mind can actually be a helpful tool – alignment with the greater Intelligence, the One Consciousness.

It all starts with the present moment and your relationship with the present moment.

Friend or enemy? Are you allowing it or are you fighting it, resisting it? That’s the end of ego – because the ego needs resistance. The ego survives through complaining, it survives through denying or wanting something else.

The present moment is the teacher.

Work with that – that’s all you need, really. That’s the end of the “little will”, which isn’t all that powerful anyway. Whatever it creates, creates more problems.

It seems so simple and it is simple. And yet, because of the many thousands of years of habit-patterns, often people tell me “It’s so difficult to be in the present moment and allow it to be”.

Of course, the opposite is true.  Life becomes difficult if you don’t.

What you accept is the form of this moment. No more. Then, see what’s needed. You are not truly intelligent until that happens. Sometimes holding that space of simple Presence activates other factors that then come in, seemingly from the outside to change the situation.

You have activated the intelligence of the totality. 

 It’s not necessarily coming through this form. That is why people speak of synchronistic things happening, suddenly a helpful factor comes in, suddenly the right person appears, the right thing happens. Almost miraculous when you don’t know that it’s natural, it seems like a miracle at first because most humans are not used to that.

When you hold Presence, sometimes the change may not happen through your action. There are many situations where action at this moment is not possible. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do, however you can continue to be present. Then a greater intelligence is activated. Very often you will find change happening in the situation.

This greater intelligence is not the conceptual intelligence that you can measure with IQ tests. It is non-conceptual intelligence. Conceptual intelligence is the ability to retain information, analyze, compare and so forth. It’s a tiny fragment of what intelligence is. There is a vastness of non-conceptual intelligence.

Our destiny is to be in that way, so that our whole life is to become a work of art. Not just be confined to that state of consciousness when you do your creative work. Any creative thing has a spark, an aliveness, a quality, a newness, a freshness. 

You connect with non-conceptual intelligence in the alert Stillness within. Everybody has that, as their essence. That is true intelligence. To what extent you are connected with that could not possibly be measured through any IQ test. Ultimately you cannot measure creativity.

Very often, the form of the present moment seems like a limitation on your life, something that is impinging on your freedom. The body could become ill, you may find it hard to move.

When something drastic happens, if you can learn to accept it, a little bit of spaciousness comes into your life. You say, “this is what is”. A little bit of space just opened up, and you’re no longer just a resisting entity. Then, you realize that you are essentially formless space. In other words, you find inner peace.

At first it is very gentle in the background in the midst of any situation. That peace is powerful. It can become so powerful that is obliterates almost anything.

Peace is the formless in you. By accepting the form, the formless within you opens up. This is how something seemingly bad – a limitation – becomes an opening for realization of who you truly are.

eckharttolle.com

The Core of the Ego

by Eckhart Tolle -

Most people are so completely identified with the voice in the head--the incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the emotions that accompany it--that we may describe them as being possessed by their mind. 

As long as you are completely unaware of this, you take the thinker to be who you are. This is the egoic mind. We call it egoic because there is a sense of self, of I (ego), in every thought--every memory, every interpretation, opinion, viewpoint, reaction, emotion. This is unconsciousness, spiritually speaking. 

Your thinking, the content of your mind, is of course conditioned by the past: your upbringing, culture, family background, and so on. 

The central core of all your mind activity consists of certain repetitive and persistent thoughts, emotions, and reactive patters that you identify with most strongly. This entity is the ego itself.

In most cases, when you say "I," it is the ego speaking, not you, as we have seen. 

It consists of thought and emotion, of a bundle of memories you identify with as "me and my story," of habitual roles you play without knowing it, of collective identifications such as nationality, religion, race, social class, or political allegiance. 

It also contains personal identifications, not only with possessions, but also with opinions, external appearance, long-standing resentments, or concepts of yourself as better than or not as good as others, as a success or failure.

The content of the ego varies from person to person but in every ego the same structure operates. In other words: Egos only differ on the surface. Deep down they are all the same. 

In what way are they the same? 

 They live on identification and separation. When you live through the mind-made self comprised of thought and emotion that is the ego, the basis for your identity is precarious because thought and emotion are by their very nature ephemeral, fleeting. 

So every ego is continuously struggling for survival, trying to protect and enlarge itself. 

To uphold the I-thought, it needs the opposite thought of "the other." The conceptual "I" cannot survive without the conceptual "other." The others are most other when I see them as my enemies. 

At one end of the scale of this unconscious egoic patter lies the egoic compulsive habit of faultfinding and complaining about others. Jesus referred to it when he said, 

"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" 

At the other end of the scale, there is physical violence between individuals and warfare between nations. In the Bible, Jesus' question remains unanswered but the answer is, of course: Because when I criticize or condemn another, it makes me feel bigger, superior.

Complaining is one of the ego's favorite strategies for strengthening itself. 

Every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in. Whether you complain aloud or only in thought makes no difference. 

Some egos that perhaps don't have much else to identify with easily survive on complaining alone. When you are in the grip of such an ego, complaining, especially about other people, is habitual and of course, unconscious, which means you don't know what you are doing. 

Applying negative mental labels to people, either to their face or more commonly when you speak about them to others or even just think about them, is often part of this pattern. 

Name-calling is the crudest form of such labeling and of the ego's need to be right and triumph over others: "jerk, bastard, bitch"--all definitive pronouncements that you can't argue with. 

On the next level down on the scale of unconsciousness, you have shouting and screaming, and not much below that, physical violence.

Resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mental labeling of people and adds even more energy to the ego. 

Resentment means to feel bitter, indignant, aggrieved, or offended. You resent other people's greed, their dishonesty, their lack of integrity, what they are doing, what they did in the past, what they said, what they failed to do, what they should or shouldn't have done. 

The ego loves it. Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity. Who is doing that? The unconsciousness in you, the ego. Sometimes the "fault" that you perceive in another isn't even there. 

It is a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior. At other times, the fault may be there, but by focusing on it, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else, you amplify it. And what you react to in another, you strengthen in yourself.

Non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego. 

But you can only be in a state of non-reaction if you can recognize someone's behavior as coming from the ego, as being an expression of the collective human dysfunction. 

When you realize it's not personal, there is no longer a compulsion to react as if it were. By not reacting to the ego, you will often be able to bring out the sanity in others, which is the unconditioned consciousness as opposed to the conditioned. 

At times you may have to take practical steps to protect yourself from deeply unconscious people. This you can do without making them into enemies. 

Your greatest protection, however, is being conscious. 

Somebody becomes an enemy if you personalize the unconsciousness that is the ego. Non-reaction is forgiveness. To forgive is to overlook or rather to look through. You look through the ego to the sanity that is in every human being as his or her essence.

The ego loves to complain and feel resentful not only about other people but also about situations. 

What you can do to a person, you can also do to a situation: make it into an enemy. The implication is always: This should not be happening; I don't want to be here; I don't want to be doing this; I'm being treated unfairly. And the ego's greatest enemy of all is, of course, the present moment, which is to say, life itself.

Complaining is not to be confused with informing someone of a mistake or deficiency so that it can be put right. And to refrain from complaining doesn't necessarily mean putting up with bad quality or behavior. 

There is no ego in telling the waiter that your soup is cold and needs to be heated up--if you stick to the facts, which are always neutral. "How dare you serve me cold soup..." That's complaining. There is a "me" here that loves to feel personally offended by the cold soup and is going to make the most of it, a "me" that enjoys making someone wrong. 

The complaining we are talking about is in the service of the ego, not of change. Sometimes it becomes obvious that the ego doesn't really want to change so that it can go on complaining.

See if you can catch, that is to say, notice, the voice in the head, perhaps in the very moment it complains about something and recognize it for what it is: the voice of the ego, no more than a conditioned mind-pattern, a thought. 

Whenever you notice that voice, you will also realize that you are not the voice, but the one who is aware of it. In fact, you are the awareness that is aware of the voice. In the background, there is the awareness. In the foreground, there is the voice, the thinker. 

In this way you are becoming free of the ego, free of the unobserved mind. 

The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-patter. Ego implies unawareness. 

Awareness and ego cannot coexist. The old mind-patter or mental habit may still survive and reoccur for a while because it has the momentum of thousands of years of collective human unconsciousness behind it but every time it is recognized, it is weakened.

excerpt from 'A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life's Purpose'

eckharttolle.com

The Present Moment

by Eckhart Tolle -

HONOR THE SMALL THINGS:

The great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for. Everybody’s life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego.  

The paradox is that the foundation for greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment instead of pursuing the idea of greatness. 

The present moment is always small in the sense that it is always simple but concealed within it lies the greatest power. Like the atom, it is one of the smallest things yet contains enormous power.  

Only when you align yourself with the present moment do you have access to that power. Or it may be more true to say that - it then has access to you and through you to this world.

excerpt from 'A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose'

eckharttolle.com

Key to the Spiritual Dimension

by Eckhart Tolle -

In life-threatening emergency situations, the shift in consciousness from time to presence sometimes happens naturally.

The personality that has a past and a future momentarily recedes and is replaced by an intense conscious presence, very still but very alert at the same time. Whatever response is needed then arises out of that state of consciousness.

The reason why some people love to engage in dangerous activities, such as mountain climbing, car racing and so on, although they may not be aware of it, is that it forces them into the Now — that intensely alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, free of the burden of the personality.

Slipping away from the present moment even for a second may mean death. Unfortunately, they come to depend on a particular activity to be in that state. But you don’t need to climb the north face of the Eiger.

You can enter that state now.

Since ancient times, spiritual masters of all traditions have pointed to the Now as the key to the spiritual dimension. 

Despite this, it seems to have remained a secret. It is certainly not taught in churches and temples. If you go to a church, you may hear readings from the Gospels such as

“Take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” or “Nobody who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

Or you might hear the passage about the beautiful flowers that are not anxious about tomorrow but live with ease in the timeless Now and are provided for abundantly by God.

The depth and radical nature of these teachings are not recognized. No one seems to realize that they are meant to be lived and so bring about a profound inner transformation.

The whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor’s edge of Now — to be so utterly, so completely present that no problem, no suffering, nothing that is not who you are in your essence, can survive in you. In the Now, in the absence of time, all your problems dissolve. Suffering needs time; it cannot survive in the Now.

The great Zen master Rinzai, in order to take his students’ attention away from time, would often raise his finger and slowly ask:

“What, at this moment, is lacking?” 

A powerful question that does not require an answer on the level of the mind. It is designed to take your attention deeply into the Now.

A similar question in the Zen tradition is this: “

If not now, when?” 

The Now is also central to the teaching of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. Sufis have a saying:

“The Sufi is the son of time present.” 

And Rumi, the great poet and teacher of Sufism, declares:

“Past and future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them with fire.”

Meister Eckhart, the thirteenth-century spiritual teacher, summed it all up beautifully:

“Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time.”

excerpt from 'The Power of Now'

eckharttolle.com

True Abundance

by Eckhart Tolle -

Who you think you are is intimately connected with how you see yourself treated by others. Many people complain that others do not treat them well enough. "I don't get any respect, attention, recognition, acknowledgment," they say. "I'm being taken for granted." When people are kind, they suspect hidden motives. "Others want to manipulate me, take advantage of me. Nobody loves me."

Who they think they are is this: "I am a needy 'little me' whose needs are not being met." This basic misperception of who they are creates dysfunction in all their relationships. They believe they have nothing to give and that the world or other people are withholding to give and that the world or other people are withholding from them what they need. Their entire reality is based on an illusory sense of who they are. It sabotages situations, mars all relationships.

If the thought of lack - whether it be money, recognition, or love - has become part of who you think you are, you will always experience lack. Rather than acknowledge the good that is already in your life, all you see is lack. Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance.

The fact is: Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world. You are withholding it because deep down you think you are small and that you have nothing to give.

Try this for a couple of weeks and see how it changes your reality. 

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."

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: "When can I give here; how can I be of service to this person, this situation?" You don't need to own anything to feel abundant, 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."

excerpt from 'A New Earth'

eckharttolle.com

Your Innermost Sense

by Eckhart Tolle -

Thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions and whatever you experience make up the content of your life.

'My life' is what you derive your sense of self from and 'my life' is content or so you believe. You continuously overlook the most obvious fact: your innermost sense of I Am has nothing to do with what happens in your life, nothing to do with content.

That sense of I Am is one with the Now. It always remains the same.

In childhood and old age, in health or sickness, in success or failure, the I Am - the space of Now - remains unchanged at its deepest level.

It usually gets confused with content and so you experience I Am or the Now only faintly and indirectly, through the content of your life.

In other words: your sense of Being becomes obscured by circumstances, your stream of thinking and the many things of this world.

The Now becomes obscured by time. And so you forgot your rootedness in Being, your divine reality and lose yourself in the world. Confusion, anger, depression, violence and conflict arise when humans forget who they are.

Yet how easy it is to remember the truth and thus return home: 

I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen.

I am consciousness. I am the Now. I Am.

excerpt from 'Stillness Speaks'

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Deeper Than Thought

by Eckhart Tolle -

The Most Important Dimension of Human Existence:

We’re here to find that dimension within ourselves that is deeper than thought. This teaching isn’t based on knowledge, on new interesting facts, new information. The world is full of that already.

You can push any button on the many devices you have and get information. You’re drowning in information. And ultimately, what is the point of it all? More information, more things, more of this, more of that.

Are we going to find the fullness of life through more things and greater and bigger shopping malls? Are we going to find ourselves through improving our ability to think and analyze, and accumulate more information, more stuff?

Is “more” going to save the world? It’s all form. You can never make it on the level of form. You can never quite arrange and accumulate all the forms that you think you need so that you can be yourself fully.

Sometimes you can do it for a brief time span. You can suddenly find everything working in your life: your health is good; your relationship is great; you have money, possessions, love, and respect from other people. But before long, something starts to crumble here or there, either the finances or the relationship, your health or your work or living situation. It is the nature of the world of form that nothing stays fixed for very long — and so it starts to fall apart again.

The voice in the head that never stops speaking becomes a civilization that is obsessed with form and therefore knows nothing of the most important dimension of human existence: the sacred, the stillness, the formless, the divine.

“What does it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose yourself?”

It has been said that there are two ways of being unhappy: not getting what you want, and getting what you want. 

When people attain what the world tells us is desirable — wealth, recognition, property, achievement — they’re still not happy, at least not for long.

They’re not at peace with themselves. They don’t have a true sense of security, a sense of finally having arrived. Their achievements have not provided them with what they were really looking for — themselves. They have not given them the sense of being rooted in life or as Jesus calls it, the fullness of life.

The form of this moment is the portal into the formless dimension.

It is the narrow gate that Jesus talks about that leads to life. Yes, it’s very narrow: it’s only this moment. To find it, you need to roll up the scroll of your life on which your story is written, past and future. Before there were books, there were scrolls and you rolled them up when you were done with them.

So put your story away. It is not who you are. 

People usually live carrying a burden of past and future, a burden of their personal history, which they hope will fulfill itself in the future. It won’t, so roll up that old scroll. Be done with it.

You don’t solve problems by thinking; you create problems by thinking.

The solution always appears when you step out of thinking and become still and absolutely present, even if only for a moment. Then, a little later when thought comes back, you suddenly have a creative insight that wasn’t there before.

Let go of excessive thinking and see how everything changes. 

Your relationships change because you don’t demand that the other person should do something for you to enhance your sense of self.

You don’t compare yourself to others or try to be more than someone else to strengthen your sense of identity. You allow everyone to be as they are. You don’t need to change them; you don’t need them to behave differently so that you can be happy.

There’s nothing wrong with doing new things, pursuing activities, exploring new countries, meeting new people, acquiring knowledge and expertise, developing your physical or mental abilities, and creating whatever you’re called upon to create in this world. It is beautiful to create in this world, and there is always more that you can do.

Now the question is, Are you looking for yourself in what you do?

Are you attempting to add more to who you think you are? Are you compulsively striving toward the next moment and the next and the next, hoping to find some sense of completion and fulfillment?

The preciousness of Being is your true specialness.

What the egoic self had been looking for on the level of the story — I want to be special — obscured the fact that you could not be more special than you already are now.

Not special because you are better or more wretched than someone else but because you can sense a beauty, a preciousness, an aliveness deep within.

When you are present in this moment, you break the continuity of your story, of past and future.

Then true intelligence arises and also love. 

The only way love can come into your life is not through form but through that inner spaciousness that is Presence. Love has no form.

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Finding Your State of Enjoyment

by Eckhart Tolle -  

Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you.

The peace that comes with surrendered action turns to a sense of aliveness when you actually enjoy what you are doing. Enjoyment is the second modality of awakened doing. 

On the new earth, enjoyment will replace wanting [the focusing on lack type of wanting] as the motivating power behind people's actions.

Wanting arises from the ego's delusion that you are a separate fragment that is disconnected from the power that lies behind all creation. Through enjoyment, you link into that universal creative power itself.

When you make the present moment, instead of past and future, the focal point of your life, your ability to enjoy what you do -- and with it the quality of your life -- increases dramatically.

 Joy is the dynamic aspect of Being. 

When the creative power of the universe becomes conscious of itself, it manifests as joy. You don't have to wait for something "meaningful" to come into your life so that you can finally enjoy what you do. 

There is more meaning in joy than you will ever need. The "waiting to start living" syndrome is one of the most common delusions of the unconscious state.

Expansion and positive change on the outer level is much more likely to come into your life if you can enjoy what you are doing already, instead of waiting for some change so that you can start enjoying what you do.

Don't ask your mind for permission to enjoy what you do. 

All you will get is plenty of reasons why you can't enjoy it. "Not now," the mind will say. "Can't you see I'm busy? There's no time. Maybe tomorrow you can start enjoying...."

That tomorrow will never come unless you begin what you are doing now.

When you say, I enjoy doing this or that, it is really a misperception. It makes it appear that the joy comes from what you do, but that is not the case.

Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you. 

The misperception that joy comes from what you do is normal, and it is also dangerous, because it creates the belief that joy is something that can be derived form something else, such as an activity or thing.

You then look to the world to bring you joy, happiness. But it cannot do that. This is why many people live in constant frustration. The world is not giving them what they think they need.

Then what is the relationship between something that you do and the state of joy?

You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present, any activity that is not just a means to an end. It isn't the action you perform that you really enjoy, but the deep sense of aliveness that flows into it. 

That aliveness is one with who you are. 

This means that when you enjoy doing something, you are really experiencing the joy of Being in its dynamic aspect. That's why anything you enjoy doing connects you with the power behind all creation.

Here is a spiritual practice that will bring empowerment and creative expansion into your life. 

Make a list of a number of everyday routine activities that you perform frequently. Include activities hat you may consider uninteresting, boring, tedious, irritating, or stressful.

Don't include anything that you hate or detest doing. That's a case either for acceptance or for stopping what you do.

The list may include traveling to and from work, buying groceries, doing your laundry, or anything that you find tedious or stressful in your daily work. Then, whenever you are engaged in those activities, let hem be a vehicle for alertness.

Be absolutely present in what you do and sense the alert, alive stillness within you in the background of the activity.

You will soon find that what you do in such a state of heightened awareness, instead of being stressful, tedious, or irritating, is actually becoming enjoyable. To be more precise, what you are enjoying is not really the outward action but the inner dimension of consciousness hat flows into the action. 

This is finding the joy of Being in what you are doing. 

If you feel your life lacks significance or is too stressful or tedious, it is because you haven't brought that dimension into your life yet. Being conscious in what you do has not yet become your main aim.

The new earth arises as more and more people discover that their main purpose in life is to bring the light of consciousness into this world and so use whatever they do as a vehicle for consciousness.

The joy of Being is the joy of being conscious.

Awakened consciousness then takes over from ego and begins to run your life. You may then find that an activity that you have been engaged in for a long time naturally begins to expand into something much bigger when it becomes empowered by consciousness.

Some of those people who, through creative action, enrich the lives of many others simply do what they enjoy doing most without wanting to achieve or become anything through that activity.

They may be musicians, artists, writers, scientists, teachers or builders or they may bring into manifestation new social or business structures (enlightened businesses). 

Sometimes for a few years their sphere of influence remains small; and then it can happen that suddenly or gradually a wave of creative empowerment flows into what they do, and their activity expands beyond anything they could have imagined and touches countless others.

In addition to enjoyment, an intensity is now added to what they do and with it comes a creativity that goes beyond anything an ordinary human could accomplish.

Don't let it go to your head, because up there is where a remnant of ego may be hiding. You are still an ordinary human.

What is extraordinary is what comes through you into this world. That essence you share with all beings.

The fourteenth century Persian poet and Sufi master Hafiz expresses this truth beautifully: 

"I am a hole in a flute that the Christ's breath moves through. Listen to this music. "

excerpt from 'A New Earth'
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How to Initiate Positive Change in Your Life

by Eckhart Tolle - 

If you find your life situation unsatisfactory or even intolerable, it is only by surrendering first that you can break the unconscious resistance pattern that perpetuates that situation.

Surrender is perfectly compatible with taking action, initiating change or achieving goals. 

In the surrendered state, a totally different energy, a different quality, flows into your doing. 

Surrender reconnects you with the source-energy of Being, and if your doing is infused with Being, it becomes a joyful celebration of life energy that takes you more deeply into the Now.

Through non-resistance, the quality of your consciousness and, therefore, the quality of whatever you are doing or creating is enhanced immeasurably. The results will then look after themselves and reflect that quality. 

We could call this surrendered action. 

It is not work as we have known it for thousands of years. As more humans awaken, the word work is going to disappear from our vocabulary and perhaps a new word will be created to replace it.

The quality of your consciousness at this moment is the main determinant of what kind of future you will experience, so to surrender is the most important thing you can do to bring about positive change.

Any action you take is secondary. No truly positive action can arise out of an unsurrendered state of consciousness.

I can see that if I am in a situation that is unpleasant or unsatisfactory and I completely accept the moment as it is, there will be no suffering or unhappiness.

I will have risen above it. But I still can’t quite see where the energy or motivation for taking action and bringing about change would come from if there isn’t a certain amount of dissatisfaction.

In the state of surrender, you see very clearly what needs to be done and you take action, doing and focusing on one thing at a time.

Learn from nature. See how everything gets accomplished and how the miracle of life unfolds without dissatisfaction or unhappiness. That’s why Jesus said, “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin…”

If your overall situation is unsatisfactory or unpleasant, separate out this instant and surrender to what is. That’s the flashlight cutting through the fog. Your state of consciousness then ceases to be controlled by external conditions. 

You are no longer coming from reaction and resistance.

Ask yourself, “Is there anything I can do to change the situation, improve it or remove myself from it?” If so, take appropriate action.

Focus not on the one hundred things that you will, or may, have to do at some future time, but on the one thing that you can do now. 

This doesn’t mean you should not do any planning. It may well be that planning is the one thing you can do now. But make sure you don’t start to run “mental movies,” project yourself into the future and so lose the Now.

Any action you take may not bear fruit immediately. Until it does, do not resist what is.

If there is no action you can take and you cannot remove yourself from the situation, use the situation to make yourself go more deeply into surrender, more deeply into the Now, more deeply into Being.

When you enter this timeless dimension of the present, change often comes about in strange ways without the need for a great deal of doing on your part. 

Life becomes helpful and cooperative. 

If inner factors such as fear, guilt or inertia prevented you from taking action, they will dissolve in the light of your conscious presence.

Start by acknowledging that there is resistance. 

Look at the thought process involved. 

Feel the energy of the emotion. By witnessing the resistance, you will see that it serves no purpose. By focusing all your attention on the Now, the unconscious resistance is made conscious and that is the end of it.

You cannot be conscious and unhappy, conscious and in negativity. Negativity, unhappiness or suffering in whatever form means that there is resistance and resistance is always unconscious.

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Should

by Eckhart Tolle -

'Should' is an interesting concept. 

Either it is someone else's expectation of you -- in which case you can let go of it and move on toward whatever is most important to you -- or 'should' is something you really want more than anything else.  

Simply be honest with yourself about what 'should' really means and then trust -- and act on -- that which you value most deeply.

excerpt from 'The Power of Now'

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Dissolving Emotional Pain

by Eckhart Tolle -

As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain.

It merges with past pain and lodges in your mind and body. This accumulated pain is a negative energy field and if you look upon it as an invisible entity in its own right, you are getting quite close to the truth. It’s the emotional pain-body.

It has two modes of being: dormant and active. 

A pain-body may be dormant 90 percent of the time; in a deeply unhappy person, it may be active up to 100 percent of the time.

Some people live almost entirely through the pain-body while others experience it only in certain situations, such as in intimate relationships or situations linked with past loss, abandonment and physical or emotional hurt.

Anything can trigger it, particularly if it resonates with a pain pattern from your past. When it is ready to awaken from its dormant stage, even a thought or an innocent remark can activate it.

Some pain-bodies are obnoxious but relatively harmless – a child who won’t stop whining, for example. Others are vicious and destructive monsters.

Some are physically violent; many more are emotionally violent. Some will attack people around you, while others may attack you, their host. 

Your thoughts and feelings about your life then become deeply negative and self-destructive. Illnesses and accidents are often created in this way.

Some pain-bodies drive their hosts to suicide. When you thought you knew a person and are suddenly confronted with this alien, nasty creature for the first time, you are in for quite a shock. 

However, it’s more important to observe it in yourself. 

Watch out for any sign of unhappiness; it may be the awakening pain-body. This can take the form of irritation, impatience, a sombre mood, a desire to hurt, anger, rage, depression, or a need to have some drama in your relationship. Catch it the moment it awakens.

The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive through your unconscious identification.

It needs to get its food through you. It will feed on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain. When it has taken you over, it will create a situation in your life that reflects its own energy frequency for it to feed on. Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible.

Once the pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim or a perpetrator or both; there really isn’t much difference.

You are unconscious of this of course and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain. But look closely and you will find that your thinking and behaviour keep the pain going. 

If you were truly conscious of it, the pattern would dissolve for to want more pain is insanity and nobody is consciously insane.The pain-body, the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness. It is afraid of being found out.

Its survival depends on your unconscious identification and unconscious fear of facing your pain. But if you don’t face it, you will be forced to relive it again and again.

The pain-body may seem like a dangerous monster that you cannot bear to look at but I assure you that it is an insubstantial phantom that cannot prevail against the power of your presence. Some spiritual teachings state that all pain is ultimately an illusion, and this is true. 

The question is: “Is it true for you?” 

A mere belief doesn’t make it true. Do you want to experience pain for the rest of your life and keep saying that it is an illusion? Does that free you from the pain?

What we are concerned with here is how you can realize this truth – that is, make it real in your own experience.

The pain-body doesn’t want you to observe it directly and see it for what it is. The moment you observe it, the identification is broken.

A higher dimension of consciousness has come in. I call it presence. You are now the witness or the watcher of the pain-body. It can no longer use you by pretending to be you and it can no longer replenish itself through you. 

You have found your own innermost strength. 

You have accessed the power of Now.

adapted from 'The Power of Now'

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