Eckhart Tolle's profound teachings on consciousness, awareness and being present in the moment are thankfully making it into the mainstream (and this is part of his teaching, too, that the rising of awareness itself -- our salvation -- is on the rise amongst humanity). I subscribed to a feed (@ eckharttolletv.com) through which he generates these brief "Present Moment Reminders", and will gather and add to them here to share with you.
What a simple and rich treasure it is to have brief teachings that you can carry in your throughts throughout the day to practice being in the present moment!
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It's all in you. If a book or any other teaching is powerful, how else do you feel it? There must be something in you that recognizes it because there are others to whom a spiritual book or teaching would be meaningless.
Change is absolutely necessary in this world, and the dissolution of many of the ego-based structures is necessary for humanity to survive. What's happening isn't 'dreadfully bad.' It needs to happen; the intelligence behind phenomena is doing it, so it's a good thing.
The challenge that many people are encountering at this time is actually that which will push them into a new state of consciousness; that is the possibility-the promise whenever you encounter a crisis, whether personal or collective. It's an opening into the new way of being, the new state of consciousness.
Suffering the consequences of unconsciousness is the fire that ultimately burns up the false ego, but that's the long, slow, painful way. The short cut is any spiritual teaching that cuts through the long way, the painful way of waking up.
Take responsibility for your state of consciousness Now. This is what the entire teaching really is about. What is my state of consciousness in this moment?
It's your state of consciousness in the present moment that determines what kind of world you create, because you are humanity. Humanity as an abstract doesn't exist; humanity is the 'human being.'
Is it possible for you to embrace uncertainty, and not demand that you should know what is going to happen to you in your life situation? To embrace uncertainty?
What grace to see that the very thing that looked so heavy in the world of form, the very thing that seemed to be limiting me on all sides, that very thing is the doorway into the formless and into who I am beyond form. What grace to see that ultimately they are one. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. They are one.
Welcome to the present moment. Here. Now. The only moment there ever is.
There's no need to wait for the next moment or some other bit of information before you can become present, alert, still, and aware in the Now.
A transformation of consciousness is already happening at this moment. How do we know? Because you are here, listening, watching, sensing the power of presence within yourself.
An amazing realization is in the present moment there is only what is, but there are no problems. And if your attention remains in the Now, you no longer inhabit a world of problems. Challenges you may still face, but they come to you in the space of Now.
With whatever spontaneous action arises out of presence, an intelligence is then at work in the situation. Whatever the situation, that intelligence is far greater than the intelligence of the thinking mind.
There's a veil, a density of mind between you and the universe, and that is dissolving now in you. And that is the liberation, the arising of the new consciousness. It's not necessarily a spectacular event with drums and trumpets. It's a very still thing . . .
What people really want is to be fully themselves. They want the sense of aliveness, of being myself fully. But they want it through this, that, or the other. They don't realize that nothing can give it to you because you already have it. And not only do you have it, you are it, you are what you're looking for already. You don't know that because you're always looking somewhere else. You can only know that in the Now by aligning yourself with the Now and with the power that is there within you.
With whatever spontaneous action arises out of presence, an intelligence is then at work in the situation. Whatever the situation, that intelligence is far greater than the intelligence of the thinking mind.
Untouched by any happening or event is the eternal 'I amness' that underlies all the manifestations. You can look at the manifestations and recognize yourself, the one in every manifestation. You recognize the beingness, not through words but through stillness. And in that moment you recognize yourself in the other and the sense of separation goes away that was created by excessive thinking. And there is love.
I was going for a walk near Los Angeles and there was a collapsed building that had burned down 40 years ago. The roof was gone and trees were growing inside the building and it struck me as beautiful, wonderful to see how form returns to the formless. The city council had put up a sign which to me was a sacred sutra. The sign said: 'Danger, all structures are unstable.' To me, that was a holy sign. I said, 'thank you.'
It is a radical, revolutionary, amazing thing for a human being to discover in him or herself that dimension of consciousness where you can be aware of awareness. You become self-aware. To put it in other words, awareness consciousness becomes conscious of itself. No object in it.
Invite the opening to the new state of consciousness, instead of waiting for life to do it to you. We can voluntarily invite the opening into our lives through portals into the state of presence. All portals take you, of course, deep into Now. No matter what portal, you will end up in the Now.
Can you wake up out of thought into the aliveness, the alertness that you only have, that is inseparable from present moment? That is ultimately the meaning of now.
When you drop your expectations that a person, a situation, a place, or an object should fulfill you, it's easier to be present in this moment because you're no longer looking to the next one. Most people want to get what they want, whereas the secret is to want what you get at this moment.
If you are aligned with the moment, the kind of action that you take is qualitatively totally different from the kind of action that you take when you deny or dislike the present moment out of the feeling that you want to get somewhere better than this moment.
Instead of creating expectations of what should or should not be happening, cooperate with the form that this moment takes. Bring a 'yes' to the isness, because it's pointless to argue if it already is. A greater intelligence is available to you when you no longer reject, deny, or 'don't want' what is.
If you are aligned with the moment, the kind of action that you take is qualitatively totally different from the kind of action that you take when you deny or dislike the present moment out of the feeling that you want to get somewhere better than this moment.
If you go into a forest with your mind only, you'll only notice the sounds and the mind will try to interpret them. You might think you're present; but you're not really, you're simply judging what you hear. But if you become aware of the silent dimension underneath the sounds and in between the sounds, then you become present because the moment you become aware of the silence, you also have become silent.
Obstacles come all the time. If you get upset that means the ego is back. When obstacles come if you're not upset and you're still present, you will look at whatever the obstacle is with a penetrating gaze of presence, which is stillness also. You look at whatever obstacle arises, you bring this penetrating stillness to it, and that is like a light that shines on it and dissolves the obstacle or shows you a way around it. That's the power of consciousness.
Some may do great things; others may do things that look less significant on the surface. Ultimately what you do is secondary. But how you do it is primary.
It is from that place of intense aliveness, spacious presence, that you can appreciate the aliveness in all things. It is more than just the sense perception of the chair or the perception of the table or the glass of water. Within the sense perceptions you can sense that there is more than what you are perceiving on the surface; that everything has a presence, an alive presence to it. When you touch that within you, then you don't have to wait for something to happen in your life to feel more alive.
Don't underestimate the power that is in presence. Even if seemingly nothing much is happening yet, there's enormous power that comes through you and flows into this world. Don't even try to understand what it wants; you can only ever get glimpses of what its ultimate purpose is. There's no single human being who knows intellectually what that ultimate purpose of that vast power is that wants to come into this world through you.
So really what it comes down to, it's God. Wherever you look, it's God appearing as this, that, that…and what you really love and appreciate in each form is the divine formless out of which each form comes. But to be able to sense that you have to sense it in yourself first. And that is seeing the beauty in everything, that's really what it means.
If you go into a forest with your mind only, you'll only notice the sounds and the mind will try to interpret them. You might think you're present; but you're not really, you're simply judging what you hear. But if you become aware of the silent dimension underneath the sounds and in between the sounds, then you become present because the moment you become aware of the silence, you also have become silent.
All that we perceive in this world is existence. Underneath existence is being, the formless, timeless dimension within yourself. The sense of lack in so many of us has to do with our inability to sense the being within us, the "I AM" within, the primordial sense of beingness.
Attention is the vital thing—and there is no tension in attention. It just happens to be a similar word. It's not concentration or straining. Attention has the openness of a young child not yet dominated by the conceptual mind.
Using your logic means to live in alignment with the universal intelligence. You cannot live in alignment with that if you resist life, if you resist what is, if you complain about life, or have a quarrel with the present moment.
What determines ultimately whether your life has meaning or not is whether the dimension of depth—the stillness, the spaciousness, the formless essence—whether you realize that within yourself. Or whether your life is consumed completely by the world of form, which includes the thinking mind…
