In the world of form, everything changes and evolves. So, there was a certain evolution of the teaching. Different pointers came in, different stories, different approaches to the truth, which always is the same.
Work to recognize the primary importance of the present moment. A good little pointer toward that is to ask yourself, What is my relationship with the present moment? How am I relating to it?
To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment.
True salvation is freedom from negativity, and above all from past and future as a psychological need.
The remnants of pain left behind by every strong negative emotion that is not fully faced, accepted, and then let go of join together to form an energy field that lives in the very cells of your body.
Then, if action is possible or necessary, you take action or rather right action happens through you. Right action is action that is appropriate to the whole. When the action is accomplished, the alert, spacious stillness remains.
Ask yourself what problem you have right now. Not next year, tomorrow or five minutes from now. You can always cope with the now, but you can never cope with the future. Nor do you have to. The answer, the strength and the right action will be there when you need it. Not before or after.
With awareness there comes choice. And so you are able to say: I allow this moment to be as it is. And then, suddenly, where before there was irritation, there is now a sense of aliveness and peace. And out of that comes right action.
You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.
If I accept the fact that my relationships are here to make me conscious, instead of happy, then my relationships become a wonderful self mastery tool that keeps realigning me with my higher purpose for living.
Significant things often happen when you are present. Things come to you, and then you respond to what is required. The response very often comes without a premeditated idea of what you want. It is simply a response to the situation.
Pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still. A portal is opening up.
Sometimes it's easier to see the madness in others -- but we also have to see it in ourselves.
In any relationship, especially marriage, be as free of compulsive thinking as possible. In other words, the more space there is in the relationship -- inner space -- the more love there is because love arises out of the inner spaciousness.
If I thought it was my identity to be a spiritual teacher, that would be a delusion. It's not an identity. It's simply a function in this world.
It is very hard to tell when I started to be a spiritual teacher. There was a time when occasionally somebody would come and ask me questions. One could say at that point I became a spiritual teacher, although the term did not occur to me then.
If the only teacher you have is your suffering, you will need a substantial dose of it for the ego to dissolve. But if the power of spiritual teaching is already at work, then a minor event can dissolve the ego.
Although all spiritual teachings originate from the same Source, once they become verbalized and written down they are obviously no more than a collection of words-and a word is nothing more than a signpost.
Every spiritual teaching points to the possibility of the end of suffering -- Now. It is true that most teachers have had to go through the Dark Night of the Soul, although for one or two it was very, very quick.
Thought alone cannot recognize spiritual truths no matter how highly developed thought is. It's impossible.
Ego is an immature stage of development for humans, and that's what it will be recognized as when the consciousness changes on the planet. Children will develop an ego and quickly outgrow it. That's very different from developing an ego and being stuck with it for the rest of your life.
To become aware of the subtlety of nature you need to be alert. The moment you become alert you become still... thinking subsides. That is actually a higher state of consciousness than thinking.
Movies really have replaced what traditionally were mythologies, that every culture had their mythological beliefs and their collective 'stories.' There is now the possibility for movies to embody that arising new state of consciousness.
You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.
What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.
The planet will not survive another hundred years of the same state of consciousness that produced the external effects of recent history.
What you encounter at your destination once you get there depends on the quality of this one step. Another way of putting it: What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.
Whenever you step out of the noise of thinking, that is meditation, and a different state of consciousness arises.
Spiritual awakening -- is becoming awake to the aliveness of this moment.
That is the challenge of a spiritual teacher: not to take on board the projections of specialness people have. This is especially dangerous for spiritual teachers who only have contact with disciples or followers, who may live in an ashram.
To be conscious of Being, you need to reclaim consciousness from the mind. This is one of the most essential tasks on your spiritual journey.
The mental suffering you create is always some form of non-acceptance,
some form of unconscious resistance to what is.
On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgement.
The intensity of the suffering depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.
Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that's the ego in you.
Stillness is the only thing in this world that has no form. But then, it is not really a thing, and it is not of this world.
Internal and external are ultimately one. When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently. Love and compassion arise, and they affect the world.
Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. Death is the opposite of birth.
Whenever you deeply accept this moment as it is -- no matter what form it takes -- you are still, you are at peace.
Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking, you are avoiding what is. You don't want to be where you are. Here, Now.
How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in your relationships. Love does not want or fear anything.
You don't 'have' a life, you 'are' life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy.
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 that lives on in you.
If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion and peace.
The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much.
Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry.
Longer Version:
Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry -- all forms of fear -- are caused by too much future, and not enough presence.
Going with the flow is for some people an excuse for not taking action and it refers usually to one's life situation.
The thinking mind can be so noisy that it cannot relate to stillness. It doesn't even recognize it and certainly can't remember it.
The thinking mind is a useful and powerful tool, but it is also very limiting when it takes over your life completely, when you don't realize that it is only a small aspect of the consciousness that you are.
Go within. Use the inner body as a starting point for going deeper and taking your attention away from where it's usually lodged, in the thinking mind.
Humans eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. Suddenly, they start cutting reality up into bits and pieces, which is what the thinking mind does.
If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored in the Now. You won't lose yourself in the external world, and you won't lose yourself in your mind. Thoughts and emotions, fears and desires may still be there to some extent, but they won't take you over.
If you are trying to get from here to there, and you already are late, you know that you are late, and yet you are aligned with the present moment while you are stuck in a traffic jam. You are totally accepting of the moment.
In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.
Whatever is arising in this moment, whatever condition, is part of the isness of life and therefore accepting it fully makes you an expression of the enormous power of life itself-true intelligence, which only comes when you stop obstructing the power of the present moment.
If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the 'I' and the 'self' that 'I' cannot live with. Maybe, I thought, only one of them is real.
What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.
A life changing event comes when we are not looking.Inspired and blessed are we by the presence of Eckart Tolle among us.Thank you is not enough but know that my heart is filled with Joy!Rev. Rina A González.
The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am.
Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Be present as the watcher of your mind -- of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations. Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes you to react.
Vipassana is fine until it becomes a technique that has many stages and that takes time to develop. That can be okay for people for a while, but then you have to leave the technique behind.
All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.
Longer Version:
All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no "I" except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted.
Being an outsider to some extent, someone who does not fit in with others or is rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force.
The evolutionary impulse is towards disidentification from thinking and the arising of awareness or presence, but the gravitational pull of the old consciousness, or rather unconsciousness, is still quite heavy. It's been around for thousands of years.
Consciousness is a vast ocean and thinking is the waves and ripples on the surface of the ocean.
Resistance is weakness and fear masquerading as strength. What the ego sees as weakness is your Being in its purity, innocence, and power. What it sees as strength is weakness.
I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don't know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.
What is God? The eternal one life underneath all the forms of life. What is love? To feel the presence of the one life deep within yourself and all creatures; to be it! Therefore, all love is the love of God.
I usually congratulate people when they tell me, I don't know who I am anymore.
There are two ways of being unhappy: One is not getting what you want, and the other is getting what you want.
Above all, the only thing you have to heal is the present thought. Get that right and the whole picture will change into one of harmony and joy.
Peace comes from being aligned with the present moment. Wherever you are, you feel that you are home--because you are home.
To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present.
Stress is a form of suffering. Look at your body and see what stress does to the body and its functions -- what it does to the heart, the circulation, the immune system, the digestive function, the liver.
Die to the past every moment. You don't need it. Only refer to it when it is absolutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this moment and the fullness of Being. Feel your presence.
The other person's presence ultimately is the same as your presence, because it is in presence that there is true meeting.
Some people thought I was crazy to have let go of all the worldly things I had achieved. They didn't understand that I didn't want or need any of that anymore.
You can't argue with what is.... Well, you can, but if you do, you suffer.
Do not pollute your beautiful, radiant Being nor the Earth with negativity. Do not give unhappiness in any form whatsoever a dwelling place inside you.
No practice can take you to liberation. That is important to know. It can be a little step that is useful until you realize you don't need it anymore, because after a certain point it becomes a hindrance.
Every practice at some point will become a hindrance. No practice can ever take you there, to freedom, to liberation. That's important to realize.
The pas has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that.
Even running to catch a train or a taxi, you can enjoy the high energy of the moment.
If we don't change, if the egoic consciousness continues, I don't believe that humanity as a species can survive, or at least human civilization can survive, for another hundred years.