The Seer

For two years, a small man sits quietly on a park bench. People walk by, lost in their thoughts. One day someone asks him a question. In the weeks that follow there are more people and more questions. Word spreads that the man is a “mystic,” and has discovered something that brings peace and meaning into our lives.

It sounds like fiction, but today that man, Eckhart Tolle, is known worldwide for his teachings on spiritual enlightenment through the power of the present moment. His first book, The Power of Now, is an international bestseller, and has been translated into 17 languages.

More than 20 years have passed since Eckhart Tolle answered his first question on that park bench. While his audience has grown, his message remains the same: that it is possible to stop struggling in your life, and find joy and fulfillment in this moment, and no other.

Sounds True: Can you describe to us your own experience of spiritual awakening (and of course, can you define spiritual awakening as well)? Was there a singular event that occurred or has it been a gradual process?

Eckhart Tolle: Since ancient times the term awakening has been used as a kind of metaphor that points to the transformation of human consciousness. There are parables in the New Testament that speak of the importance of being awake, of not falling back to sleep.

The word Buddha comes from the Sanskrit word Budh, meaning, “to be awake.” So Buddha is not a name and ultimately not a person, but a state of consciousness.

All this implies that humans are potentially capable of living in a state of consciousness compared to which normal wakefulness is like sleeping or dreaming. This is why some spiritual teachings use terms like “shared hallucination” or “universal hypnotism” to describe normal human existence. Pick up any history book, and I suggest you begin with studying the 20th century, and you will find that a large part of the history of our species has all the characteristics we would normally associate with a nightmare or an insane hallucination.

~ From an Interview with Eckhart Tolle: The Power of Now and the End of Suffering, by publisher: Sounds True. circa July/2008

~ Read More of Eckhart’s interview.

~ Watch a YouTube video clip of a talk on ‘Enlightenment’ given by Eckhart two years ago.

Beneath the assumption ‘that you are the body’ is an even deeper one. The idea ‘that you are the body’ is predicated on the assumption that you exist, that you are a ‘me’ — a separate, individual self. The most intimate sense of your self is often this sense of ‘me’, which is a limited and incomplete sensing of your self. It doesn’t include the far reaches of your greater Being. This sense of a separate ‘me’ is not bad or wrong; it’s just limited and incomplete.

In the midst of a very profound and large experience of truth, the sense of your self can become so large and inclusive that it no longer has much of a sense of being your Being. When you awaken to the oneness of all things, the sense of a ‘me’ can thin out quite dramatically. If you are the couch you are sitting on, the clouds in the sky, and everything else, then it simply doesn’t make sense to call it all ‘me’. If it is so much more than what you usually take yourself to be, then the term ‘me’ is just too small.

In a profound experience of truth, the sense of ‘me’ softens and expands to such a degree that there is only a slight sense of ‘me’ as a separate self remaining, perhaps just as the observer of the vastness of truth. Beyond these profound experiences of the truth, is the truth itself. When you are in touch with the ultimate truth and the most complete sense of Being, there is nothing separate remaining to sense itself — there is no experience and no experiencer, no Heart, and no sense of self. There is only Being.

The experience of bigger truths and even the biggest truth doesn’t obliterate your capacity to experience a small truth and therefore, a separate self. But with many experiences of shifting in and out of a small sense of self, this separate self feels more like a suit of clothes you can take on and off rather than something permanent.

As you move in and out of many dimensions of Being and even beyond experience itself, the boundaries between all of these dimensions become very permeable and inconsequential. It turns out that these boundaries are just thoughts anyway. They don’t actually separate anything.

The question isn’t how to get rid of a small sense of self, but what is the sense of your self like? Is it fixed or is it constantly shifting — opening and closing, expanding and contracting, tightening and loosening, and sometimes even disappearing altogether?

The sense of a separate self can therefore be loosely held even though it continues to contract appropriately when a small truth is triggered. What is your sense of self like right now? What is true right now? Your Heart is the only guide you need for exploring even the biggest truths.

~ From: Living from the Heart (part 2). by Nirmala . (Sent in by Elena — Thanks Elena)

It is easy to turn awareness into a static mental conclusion. Instead of abiding in and as actual awareness, there is a tendency of the mind to repeatedly play the conclusion, “I am awareness” or “there is only awareness” or some other conclusory non-dual label.

A conclusion cannot see. It just repeats itself. A false sense of mental certainty often comes with this repetition. If any conclusion is repeated enough, it turns into a rigidly held position. Conflict is right around the corner. The need to be right arises directly from egoic insecurity. Conflict arises from attachment to thought — from an attempt to take ownership of reality. No one owns reality.

Actual awareness is not a conclusion. It is a deeply and relentlessly compassionate and loving awakeness to everything that is arising now including to any particular conclusion that may be arising or being held onto as “truth.” The degree of conflict and self-righteousness in your life are good indicators of whether awareness is being treated as a static mental conclusion or whether there is true abiding as actual timeless awareness.

Awareness is naturally secure and confident. It has nothing to prove. This confidence is different than mental certainty. It is a confidence of the heart. It is a confidence with a deep resonance of love, compassion, and pure openness to what is arising now. Conclusions fragment life into pieces. Awareness reveals that the fragments are illusory. It reveals wholeness.

From: Reflections of the One Life, by Scott Kiloby

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“Jesus was the Christ, but the Christ is much more than what we see as Jesus. The body of Jesus had a beginning in the womb of Mary, but the Christ exists eternally — long before the body of Jesus came into being. The Christ is never born and, therefore, never dies. There is only one Christ in all eternity. Our confusion over the nature of Jesus stems from our inability to see the body as nothing more than a garment. Jesus knew he was the Christ and not the perishable body.”

~ by Ethan Walker III, from The Mystic Christ pp 103.

The good man may not be aware that somewhere on Earth, while he slept, other men were seeking the true Light and meditating upon it. And this Light that I speak of is the Light behind the light — the same that kindled the Sun and Moon and stars in the beginning. And this Light — the Light of the world — is what every man born is seeking all the days of his earthly life, whether he knows it or not.

I will mention the feeblest of all lights — the candle that burns all night in a cold cell of this monastery. The monks here are all frail creatures like the men of the ploughshare and the net and given to error, but now and then, here and there, in cell and sanctuary, all over the world, a great company of minds and hearts is set on a quest for the ultimate meaning of things — for that goodness and truth and beauty that are at the heart of life.

The world is wrapped in night and sleep: a solitary sits at his candle and his spirit is abroad on the ocean of God’s love. Presently, the night-watcher is aware that the flame of his candle is so thin as to be invisible. The Sun, new risen, is flooding through his window. It is not the Sun of all vanity, but the Sun of holy wisdom, and under it, wonderful things are done day after day to the end of time.

These truths are not given only to a solitary here and there in the long watches of the night, they aught to be part of every man, woman and child. If we are true to that Light, we shall know when our last day on Earth, if not before, that life is a thing of beauty beyond price. The peace of the Light that we tend and trim in our hearts will outlast the darkness and the dust of death. And so, dear children of the Light, go out in peace to your fields and your fishing boats.

~ From the novel: Vinland by George MacKay Brown, Ch. 5.
(the conclusion of a short sermon given many centuries ago by Abbot Peter in a monastery chapel in the Orkney Isles)

You’ll remember, from the previous humor item (see below), the circus that came to a small outback town and needed local acts.

Well, the old Ringmaster had just seen off the bloke that did bird imitations when two strapping young bushmen presented themselves.

“What’s your act?” asked the Ringmaster.

“It’s our Dad,” answered one of the youths, “He drinks molten lead.”

“You mean no trickery, dead set dinkum — he drinks molten lead?!”

“Yep”

“That’s amazing!” what’s the performance fee?”

“Well there’s $500 for Dad and another $500 each for me and my brother.”

The old Ringmaster exclaimed, “Why should I pay you blokes more than a booking fee, seeing as your Dad is the real talent?”

“Well we’re needed to hold him down,” was the answer, “He doesn’t like it …”

~ Sent in by Sam Blight — Thanks Sam

You could say that intuition is a kind of knowing, but you don’t know how you got there. You know something, but you don’t know by what path you’ve arrived at what you know. It’s a sudden arising of knowledge or knowing something, but “I don’t know how I know this.”

What is at work here is non-conceptual intelligence, when intuition arises.Intuition is not arrived at by thinking, not by logic. It’s arrived at in a way that we cannot explain. It is closely related to creativity and inspiration. Inspiration also comes from that place.

Intuition is given to you. [It is given to] all great artists, musicians, writers, and even great scientists who made deep discoveries that were revolutionary — like Einstein. Einstein had a ’sense’ of his theory of relativity. Before he could fully prove it, he already knew it was true.

It was intuition that came to him. Of course, he had done a lot of thinking before that happened.

Sometimes you have to do a lot of thinking, and then suddenly, thinking doesn’t get you anywhere anymore, and you stop thinking, and you go out and take a few deep breaths. Or you go out into nature and sit under a tree. And suddenly, intuition is there. Something you couldn’t have arrived at through thinking.

It’s vital for every human being to contact that place within, where intuition arises, because otherwise you are confined to the limitations of your conceptual mind … your life is just repetitive, and no new ideas can come. If it’s a fresh and new idea, it comes from a place where all creativity arises — which ultimately, is the stillness within. That’s where intuition arises.

If you can be still even for a moment, then there’s a possibility that some intuitive thing arises as a thought or as a spontaneous thing that you say, and you’ve surprised yourself. Maybe somebody needs your help or advice, and rather than thinking “I should be helping that person. What can I say next to help them?”, rather than that, you just become still, listen, look. And suddenly you may find yourself saying something. It’s intuitive. Suddenly a deeper intelligence comes and uses your mind. That’s what we call intuition.

Realize that this is at the basis of all creative activities, all truly creative activities. Perception is something that comes from the outside, and intuition comes from the inner. It comes from you. It is essentially one with who you are, intelligence itself.

The easiest way to develop intuition is to develop the ability to be still at times. Rather than ‘trying’ to develop intuition, go to the place where all intuition arises. You don’t need to worry about becoming more intuitive if you focus more on being still. Not necessarily for long periods of time, but have moments of stillness in your life, so that every day is interspersed with moments of stillness.

You could just close your eyes and take one or two deep breaths. Or you don’t even have to close your eyes, but while you’re listening or looking at somebody, feel yourself breathing. Feel the inner aliveness within your body. If you are looking at your computer screen, look away for a moment, or close your eyes for a moment, and take one or two conscious breaths. It brings you to stillness.

Wherever you are, there are always opportunities for a moment of stillness. And that is vital, because otherwise your life is unbalanced. If you don’t find stillness, all you have is activity — one thing after another. And this covers up your potential intuitive faculty, continuously.

Seek out moments of stillness. Even the busiest person can do it. If you’re driving home, or driving to work, every traffic light is an invitation to stillness. [There are] so many opportunities for stillness. Stillness is where intuition arises.

~ by Eckhart Tolle (who was born on this day in 1948 — Happy Birthday Eckhart: )

“Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48)

Perfection is not a flawless state, a state when one ceases to make “mistakes”, but a state where one has transcended the need to judge seeming flaws and faults. It is unconditional love and unconditional acceptance that allow us to see the perfection beyond the duality of good and bad.

What we call “pain”‘ results from our belief in separation, in the belief of the reality of the egoic self which lives in a state of perpetual fear and desire. What we call “evil” also stems from ignorance of our Oneness but is coupled with willful actions to maintain and enhance a separate self — at the expense of others.

Believing in separation from the One Self, we produce on-going cycles of individual and collective winners and losers, victims and perpetrators. It is by willfully acting on our Oneness that we will bring these negative and destructive cycles to an end.

Unconditional love means to love without condition, to see only perfection — then that is what exists. The Divine One Self sees all as perfect, since it sees with the eyes of unconditional acceptance and love.

Do you love your life as it is? This is not easy, the human egoic mind has developed many stipulations on what it takes to be perfect. These conditioned beliefs keep us from seeing our perfection.

How do you respond to your life with its seeming ups and downs? Is this present moment good enough for you? Are you attentive to life and patient enough with it so that you can see the light behind the shadow, the sacred fire in the darkest experiences?

Can you see your life is just perfect because you chose to create it just as it is right now? If you created a shadow,it was in order to better see your light in contrast to it. Our humanity does not interfere with our divinity:, it simply makes it more evident.

~ From: Living As God by P. Raymond Stewart pp 101

Stand up, wake up, take note!
New possibilities have arrived
For these lives we had thought were our own.

The possible human stands free now
Of its past constraints,
Of the cage it grew up in, that served it well,
Trembling now with wonder at what it sees.

Old habits of mind fall away like old skin
No longer needed, no longer helpful
Outgrown and abandoned.

A different world, a new earth
Comes into view, fresh and alive
By a change of perception,
A new way of seeing.

We are joined together now
In a new maturity
A new awareness of how it is,
How we are carried on a new wind,
And a new response stirs.

~ by Alice Gardner, © 2009

“Standing at the masthead of my ship during a sunrise that crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east, all heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with peaked flukes.* As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of the fire worshippers.

As Ptolemy Philopator testified of the African elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of all beings. For according to King John, the military elephants of antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the profoundest silence.”

~ by Henry Melville — Moby Dick (*tails)