All problems are illusions of the mind~ Are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess?
Posted by Sally on December 21, 2001 at 22:00:09:

Hi all,
I thought that maybe some of you would like a little 'background' on
Tolle, as it seems this teacher is saying the same 'stuff" as John.
Read on and 'see' if this taste helps any of the rest of
us 'oldtimers'.
The Power of Now - a Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment"
by Eckhart Tolle

(Some excerpts)

"Realise deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the
Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time
and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now
and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the
practical aspects of your life situation. Always say 'yes' to the
present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create
inner resistance to something that already is? What could be more
insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now?
Surrender to what is. Say 'yes' to life and see how life suddenly
starts working for you rather than against you.

To make the journey into The Power of Now we will need to leave our
analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. We are
not our mind, we can find our way out of psychological pain; authentic
human power is found by surrendering to the Now. We also find that
the body is actually one of the keys to entry into a stage of inner
peace, as are the silence and space all around us. It is here we find
our joy and are able to embrace our true selves. It is here we
discover that we are already complete and perfect.

Many of us will find that our biggest obstacle to this realisation is
our relationships, especially our intimate relationships. But again,
we are in "new territory" and all is not what it had seemed before.
We come to see that our relationships are yet another doorway into
spiritual enlightenment if we use them wisely, meaning if we use them
to become more conscious and therefore more loving human beings. The
result? Real communication between self and others.

All problems are illusions of the mind

The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity
of sorts. This is normal and it is insane. "Problem" means that you
are dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a true
intention or possibility of taking action now and that you are
unconsciously making it part of your sense of self. You become so
overwhelmed by your life situation that you lose your sense of life, of
Being. Or you are carrying in your mind the insane burden of a hundred
things that you will or may have to do in the future instead of
focusing your attention on the one thing that you can do now. When you
create a problem you create pain. All it takes is a simple choice, a
simple decision; no matter what happens, I will create no more pain
for myself. I will create no more problems. Although it is a simple
choice, it is also very radical. You won't make that choice unless
you are truly fed up with suffering, unless you have truly had
enough. And you won't be able to go through with it unless you access
the power of the Now. If you create no more pain for yourself, then
you create no more pain for others. You also no longer contaminate
the beautiful Earth, your inner space, and the collective human psyche
with the negativity of problem-making.

For most people, presence is experienced either never at all or only
accidentally and briefly on rare occasions without being recognised for
what it is. Most humans alternate not between consciousness and
unconsciousness but only between different levels of unconsciousness.
What I call ordinary unconsciousness means being identified with your
thought processes and emotions, your reactions, desires and aversions.
It is most people's normal stage. In that state, you are run by the
egoic mind, and you are unaware of Being. It is a state not of acute
pain or unhappiness but of an almost continuous low level of unease,
discontent, boredom, or nervousness - a kind of background static. You
may not realise this because it is so much a part of "normal" living
just as you are not aware of a continuous low background noise, such as
the hum of an air conditioner, until it stops. When it suddenly does
stop, there is a sense of relief. Many people use alcohol, drugs,
sex, food, work, television, or even shopping as anaesthetics in an
unconscious attempt to remove the basic unease. When this happens, an
activity that might be very enjoyable if used in moderation becomes
imbued with a compulsive or addictive quality, and all that is ever
achieved through it is extremely short-lived symptom relief.

The unease of ordinary unconsciousness turns into the pain of deep
unconsciousness - a state of more acute and more obvious suffering or
unhappiness - when things "go wrong,." when the ego is threatened or
there is a major challenge, threat, or loss, real or imagined, in your
life situation or conflict in a relationship. It is an intensified
version of ordinary unconsciousness, different from it not in kind but
in degree.
This can bring up intense negativity such as anger, acute fear,
aggression, depression, and so on. Physical violence would be
impossible without deep unconsciousness.

The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with
life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already
unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a
conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge
to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper
sleep.

Dissolving ordinary unconsciousness

So how can we be free of this affliction? Make it conscious.
Observe the many ways in which unease, discontent and tension arise
within you through unnecessary judgement, resistance to what is, and
denial of the Now. Anything unconscious dissolves when you shine the
light of consciousness on it. Once you know how to dissolve ordinary
unconsciousness, the light of your presence will shine brightly, and it
will be much easier to deal with deep unconsciousness whenever you feel
its gravitational pull.

Make it a habit to monitor your mental-emotional state through self-
observation. "Am I at ease this moment" is a good question to ask
yourself frequently. Or you can ask: "What is going on inside me at
this moment?" Be at least as interested in which goes on inside you as
what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will
fall into place.

Are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess? You are
responsible for your inner space; nobody else is, just as you are
responsible for the planet. As within, so without: if humans clear
inner pollution, then they will also cease to create outer pollution."

I am all for "cleaning" up.....cya, Sally ;-)

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