The Power Of Now
BY: ECKHART TOLLE
Chapter 1: You Are Not Your Mind
The Greatest Obstacle To Enlightenment; What Is That?
simply the natural state of felt oneness with being, state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible (12)
finding your true nature beyond name and form (12)
the end of suffering — when you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the now, Being can be felt but never be understood mentally (13)
enlightenment is a state of wholeness, of being at one and therefore at peace (15)
thinking has become a disease — your mind usually uses you, but you believe that you are your mind (16)
the beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity (17)
the moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated (17)
Freeing Yourself From Your Mind
watching the thinker is listening to that voice with no judgement — listening and watching, sense of your own presence (18)
when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought (19)
when a thought subsides, you experience a discontinuity in the mental stream — a gap of ‘no-mind’, when they occur you feel a certain stillness and peace inside you (19)
this is not a selfish but selfless state, it takes you beyond what you previously thought as ‘your self’ (20)
directing the focus of your attention into the now — become intensely conscious of the present moment (20)
can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention — so it becomes an end in itself (20)
most vital step on your journey to enlightenment is to learn to disidentify from your mind (21)
Enlightenment: Rising Above Thought
you form a mental image or who you are based on personal and cultural conditioning— we may call this ego, constant thinking it wants to stay in the past or future not the present (23)
Emotion: The Body’s Reaction To Your Mind
mind includes your emotions as well, emotions arises at the place where mind and body meet (25)
feel the emotion in your body to watch it — can allow the emotion to be there without being controlled by it — you are no longer an emotion, you are the watcher and observing presence (25)
an emotion usually represents an amplified and energized thought pattern — difficult to stay present enough to watch it (27)
one main task of the mind is to fight or remove pain — harder the mind struggles to get rid of pain, the greater the pain (28)
what about joy and love? Glimpses of joy and love or brief moments of deep peace are possible whenever gap occurs in the stream of thought — when the mind is rendered speechless there is inner stillness (29)
such moments are short-lived — joy, love and peace are not emotions they are deeper, they are a state of being (29)
love, joy and peace don’t have a opposite so real love doesn’t make you suffer or turn into hate (29)
don’t need to become free of desires or ‘achieve’ enlightenment; become present, be the observer of the mind (31)
2 levels of pain; pain that you create now, and the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body (32)
Chapter 2: Consciousness: The Way Out Of Pain
Create No More Pain In The Present
the pain that you create now is always some form of non acceptance, some form of judgement (33)
the intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment (33)
why does the mind habitually deny or resist the now? Because it cannot function and remain control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless now as threatening (34)
if you no longer want to create pain for yourself and others, don’t create time — realize that the present moment is all you ever have (34)
accept then act — whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it (35)
Past Pain: Dissolving The Pain-Body
as long as you are unable to access the power of now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you (36)
pain can only feed in pain — pain cannot feed on joy (37)
cannot fight the pain-body, accept it as part of what is at that moment (38)
focus attention on the feeling inside you — know its the pain-body and don’t let the feeling turn into thinking (40)
Ego Identification With The Pain-Body
if you lively closely with your emotional pain-body then you start to become this unhappy self you created (42)
then you would rather be in pain than take a leap into the unknown and risk losing the familiar unhappy self (42)
The Origin Of Fear
you don’t need fear to avoid unnecessary danger — psychological condition of fear is more worry, unease, anxiety, nervousness, tension, phobia (43)
that fear might happen, not of something that is happening now — you are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future (43)
an emotion is the body’s reaction to your mind (44)
fear is the ego’s fear of death — once you disidentified from your mind — whether right or wrong it makes no difference to your sense of self (44)
power over others is weakness disguised as strength — true power is within and is available to you now (45)
The Ego’s Search For Wholeness
your ego has this incompleteness of not being whole — conscious or unconscious (45)
conscious is when the person has a constant feeling of not being worthy or good enough (45)
unconscious is felt indirectly as a craving, wanting and needing (45)
either case people can go into this ego-gratification and try to fill this hole — money, power, possessions, success, recognition (45)
then realize the hold is bottomless — if the egoic mind is running your life, you cannot truly be at ease, cannot be at peace or fulfilled, only brief intervals when you get what you want (craving filled) (46)
death is a stripping away of all that is not you (48)
the secret of life is to ‘die before you die’ and find that there is no death (46)
Chapter 3: Moving Deeply Into The Now
Don’t Seek Your Self In The Mind
the problems or the mind cannot be solved on the level of the mind (47)
the ego is seeking for something to attach itself to in order to uphold and strengthen its illusory sense of self — so many people a large part of their sense of self is intimately connected with their problems (48)
End The Delusion of Time
remove time from the mind and it stops — unless you choose to use it (48(
to be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time — the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation, endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be (48)
time isn’t precious because it’s an illusion, the now and present is precious (49)
the now is the only point that can take you beyond the limited confines of the mind — it is your only point of access into the timeless and formless realm of being (49)
Nothing Exists Outside The Now
have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now? Do you think you ever will? — nothing ever happened in the past, it happened in the Now — nothing will ever happen in the future, it will happen in the Now (50)
the future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind — when the future comes it comes as the Now (50)
The Key To The Spiritual Dimension
some life-threatening situations shift our consciousness from time to presence (51)
reason why some people love to engage in dangerous activities such as car racing, mountain climbing etc it forces them into the Now — that intense alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, free of burden of personality (51)
what, at this moment, is lacking? (52)
if not now, when? (52)
Accessing The Power of Now
when you view the future as better or worse both are illusory, through self-observation more presence comes into your life automatically (55)
be present as the watcher of your mind (55)
notice how often your attention is in the past or future (55)
intense presence is needed when situations trigger a reaction with a strong emotional charge such as when your self image is threatened, a challenge comes into your life that triggers fear (55)
the reaction or emotion takes over — you become it (56)
Letting Go Of Psychological Time
clock time is planning and booking appointments, yes but also learning from the past, setting goals and working towards them — the present moment remains a essential factor, any lesson from the past becomes relevant and is applied now, any planning as well as working toward achieving a particular goal is done now (56)
if you set yourself a goal and work towards it, you are using clock time — you are aware of where you want to go, but l you honor and give your fullest attention to the step that you are taking at the moment (57)
the present moment is all you ever have — there is never a time when your life is not this moment (58)
The Intensity of Psychological Time
are you always trying to get somewhere other than where you are? Is most of your doing just a means to an end? Are you always focused on becoming, achieving, and attaining, or alternatively chasing some new thrill or pleasure (59)
psychological time blocks the freshness, vibrancy and sense of wonder — want to escape the present and look into the future (59)
Negativity and Suffering Have Their Roots in Time
usually the future is a replica of the past, depends on whether you can become present enough to dissolve the past by accessing the power of now (60)
all negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present — all forms of fear are caused by too much future, and not enough presence— all forms of non-forgiveness is caused by too much past, and not enough presence (61)
Finding The Life Underneath Your Life Situation
you cannot be both unhappy and fully present in the now — it’s life situations, if you are still resisting what happened in the past, you can’t be present, hope keeps you in the future (62)
when you are full of problems, there’s no room for anything new to enter, no room for solutions (63)
use your senses fully, be where you are (63)
All Problems Are Illusions of The Mind
focus attention on the now — any problems? It might be a situation that needs to be dealt with but major problems? (64)
the mind loves problems because it gives it an identity (65)
that’s why life or death situations you become totally present as it’s not a problem and the mind doesn’t have time to fool around (65)
most people are doing things motivated by fear (66)
A Quantum Leap In The Evolution of Consciousness
doing and happening is a single process, you are with the totality of consciousness (67)
The Joy of Being
ask yourself: is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? — if there isn’t, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle (67)
doesn’t mean you need to change what you are doing — maybe change the how — how is always more important than what, see if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it (68)
the moment your attention turns into the now, you feel presence, a stillness, a peace — no longer depend on the future for fulfillment, not attached to the results (68)
in life we see things to be attained or acquired, that’s the world of form, of gain and loss — yet a deeper level you are already complete, when you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do (69)
Chapter 4: Mind Strategies For Avoiding The Now
Loss of Now: The Core Delusion
when every cell of your body is so present that it feels vibrant with life, when you can feel that life every moment as the joy of Being, then it can be said that you are free of time — loss of Now is loss of Being (71)
become aware of just how rarely your attention is truly in the now, but to know that you are not present is a great success — that knowing is presence (72)
Ordinary Unconsciousness and Deep Unconsciousness
ordinary: identified with your thought processes, emotion, reactions, desires, and aversions — it’s most people normal state. It’s not a state of unhappiness or acute pain but an almost continuous low level of unease, discontent, boredom or nervousness (73)
deep: ordinary unconsciousness turns into deep, a state of more obvious suffering or unhappiness — when things go wrong or a major challenge (74)
best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life’s challenges when they come (74)
bring more consciousness into your life in ordinary situations — grow in presence power (75)
Dissolving Ordinary Unconsciousness
make it a habit to monitor your mental-emotional state through self observation — am I at ease at this moment? or what’s going on inside me at this moment? (77)
Freedom From Unhappiness
negativity is never the optimum way of dealing with any situation — if anything it keeps you stuck in it (78)
negative inner state is contagious — unhappiness spreads (78)
once you realize you have a choice, you can drop the negativity (82)
Whatever You Are, Be There Totally
to complain is always non acceptance of what is (82)
are you resisting your here and now? — some people would always rather be somewhere else, their ‘here’ is never good enough (82)
if you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy: 3 options; remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally (82)
stress is caused by being ‘here' but wanting to be ‘there’ (84)
do you have many ‘what if' thoughts? — you can stop this by acknowledging the present moment (85)
if you develop a mind pattern of ‘one day I’ll make it' no matter best you achieve or get, the present will never be good enough, the future will always seem better — the gone goal is taking up so much of your attention that you reduce the present moment to a means to an end (85)
waiting is a state of mind, it means that you want the future; you don’t want the present — there’s nothing wrong with striving to improve your life situation. You can improve your life situation but you cannot improve your life. Life is primary; its your deepest inner being — it is already whole, complete. It’s your life situation that consists of your circumstances and experiences — can’t substitute feeling of life for Being (86)
prosperity can’t come in the future — when you fully accept what you got, you are grateful for what you have got, grateful for what is, grateful for being — gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is true prosperity (86)
if you are present, there is never any need for you to wait for anything (87)
The Inner Purpose of Your Life’s Journey
the only thing that is real in this journey is the step you are taking right now (88)
your life’s journey has a inner and outer purpose — the outer purpose is to arrive at your goal, to accomplish what you set out to do; implies future (88)
but if this takes all your attention and miss the journey’s inner purpose (nothing to do with where and what but everything to do with how) — has everything to do with the quality of consciousness at this moment (88)
when you have seen the limitations of your outer purpose, you give up your unrealistic expectation that it should make you happy, and you make it subservient to your inner purpose (89)
The Past Cannot Survive In Your Presence
the power of now; power of your presence, your consciousness liberated from thought forms (91)
the more attention you give to the past, the more you energize it, and the more likely you are to make a ‘self’ out of it (91)
no need to seek understanding of the past, be as present as you can (91)
Chapter 5: The State Of Presence
It’s Not What You Think It Is
can’t think about presence — you just be present, the mind can’t understand it (93)
Beauty Arises In The Stillness of Your Presence
satori = a flash of insight, a moment or no mind and total presence — not a lasting transformation but a taste of enlightenment (96)
many are imprisoned in their minds that the beauty of nature does not really exist for them — they may say “what a pretty flower” but that’s just a mechanical mental labeling. Because they are not still, not present, they don’t truly see the flower, don’t feel the essence, its holiness — just as they don’t know themselves, don’t feel their own essence, their own holiness (97)
Realizing Pure Consciousness
when you become conscious of being, what is really happening is that being becomes conscious of itself — when being becomes conscious of itself that’s presence (98)
when consciousness frees itself from its identification with physical and mental forms, it becomes what we may call pure or enlighten consciousness, or presence (101)
words are not important, they are not the truth, they only point to it (103)
Christ: The Reality of Your Divine Presence
darkness cannot recognize light; only light can recognize light — so don’t believe that the light is outside you or that it can only come through one particular form (105)
there is no ‘mine’ or ‘yours’ in presence, presence is one (106)
Chapter 6: The Inner Body
Look Beyond Words
a word is no more than a means to an end (108)
ex. The word honey isn’t honey until you taste it (108)
if for whatever reason you had a negative form of attachment with honey then you might deny it (109)
Finding Your Invisible And Indestructible Reality
you are cut off from being as long as your mind takes up all your attention — you are not in your body (111)
compulsive thinking then takes over, your identity is no longer rooted in being (111)
what matters is awareness or your deeper self (111)
Connecting With The Inner Body
the feeling of your inner body is formless , limitless, and unfathomable (112)
Transformation Through The Body
no one has ever become enlightened through denying or fighting the body or through pan out of body experience since you have to return to the body (114)
transformation is through the body, not away from it (114)
Sermon On The Body
what is perceived as a dense physical structure called the body which is subject to disease, death, old age — is not ultimately real, it’s due to a limitation of your mind which having lost touch with being (116)
Have Deep Roots Within
key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body — to feel it at all times (116)
the more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher it’s vibrational frequency (117)
if your keep attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored in the now — you won’t lose yourself on the external world and you won’t lose yourself in your mind (117)
whenever you are waiting, wherever it may be — go deeply into the now by going more deeply into the body (118)
unless you stay present you will be run by your mind and it will dictate your thinking and behaviour usually fueled by fear (118)
Before You Enter The Body, Forgive
attention is key to transformation, a full attention implies acceptance (120)
so place your attention on feeling the emotion and check whether your mind is holding on to grievance patterns — if that’s the case you haven’t forgiven (120)
nonforgiveness is often towards another person or yourself; but it may just as well be toward a condition or situation — past, present or future. This is the minds refusal to accept uncertainty, to accept that the future is ultimately beyond its control (120)
the moment you truly forgive, you have reclaimed your power from the mind (121)
the mind cannot forgive, only you can — you become present, you enter your body, you feel the vibrant peace and stillness that emanate from Being (121)
Slowing Down The Aging Process
inner body does not change with time, except that you may feel it more deeply and become it more fully (122)
more consciousness means a lessening of the illusion of materiality (123)
Strengthening The Immune System
meditation practice; close your eyes, lie flat on back, choose to focus on different parts of your body, your hands, feet, arms, legs, abdomen, head, chest — feel the energy inside those parts as intensely as you can, stay with each part for 15s or so, then let your attention run through the body like a wave a few times from feet to head and back again — be intensely present at the time and if the mind starts to draw outside then accept it and draw back to inner body (124)
The Art Of Listening
When listening to another person, don’t just listen with your mind. listen with your whole body. Feel the energy field of your inner body as you listen. That takes attention away from thinking and creates a still space that enables you to truly listen without the mind interfering — space to be (126)
Chapter 7: Portals Into The Unmanifested
The Source of Chi
the unmanifested is the source of chi, chi is the inner energy field of your body, it’s the bridge between the outer you and the source (131)
chi is movement and unmanifested is stillness (131)
when you reach a point of absolute stillness, which nevertheless vibrant with life, you have to go beyond the inner body and beyond chi to the source itself: the unmanifested (131)
feel the inner body even when engaged in everyday activities— keep the portal open (132)
you can feel it as a deep sense of peace somewhere in the background, a stillness that never leaves you (132)
Other Portals
the now can be seen as the main portal (133)
mind activity keeps you imprisoned in the world of forms — when you are present you don’t need to think (134)
letting go of what is — inner resistance cuts you off from other people, yourself and the world (134)
get in touch with the energy field of the inner body, be intensely present, disidentify from the mind, surrender to what is are all portals you can use (135)
your task is not to search for love but to find a portal through which love can enter (135)
Silence
paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still (136)
every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its lifespan is surrounded by silence: silence enables sound to be (136)
Space
every physical object or body has come out of nothing, is surrounded by nothing, and will eventually return to nothing (136)
space has no existence — to exist literally means to stand out. You cannot understand space because it doesn’t stand out (138)
space and silence are two aspects of the same thing, the same no-thing. They are an externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness (139)
The True Nature of Space and Time
that stillness and vastness that enables the universe to be is not just out there in space, it is also within you (141)
if there were no illusion, there would be no enlightenment — it is through the world and ultimately through you that the unmanifested knows itself (142)
Conscious Death
approaching death and death itself, the dissolution of the physical form, is always a great opportunity for spiritual realization — it’s usually missed since we live in a culture that almost totally ignorant of death (143)
death is an illusion, just as your identification with form was an illusion — the end of illusion that’s all death is — it is painful only as long as you cling to illusion (143)
Chapter 8: Enlightened Relationships
Enter The Now From Wherever You Are
cannot wait for an event in time to save you (145)
most people pursue physical pleasures or various forms or psychological gratification because they believe that those things will make them happy or free them from a feeling of fear or lack (145)
any satisfaction that they obtain is short-lived, so the condition of satisfaction or fulfillment is usually projected once again onto an imaginary point away from the here and the now (146)
true salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all it’s fullness — it is to be who you are, feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of being that depends on nothing outside itself (146)
there is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment — this may be hard to grasp as the mind is accustomed to thinking that everything worthwhile is in the future. (147)
Nor can anything that you ever did or that was done to you in the past prevent you from saying yes to what is and taking your attention deeply into the now (147)
Love/Hate Relationships
must access the consciousness frequency of presence — most love relationships become love/hate relationships as it can switch back and forth quickly, this is considered normal — common for couples to be addicted to those cycles (148)
you feel though that your existence becomes meaningful because someone wants you, makes you feel special and you do the same for them (148)
you start to become addicted to the other person as if the other person leaves you this can give rise to the most intense hostility in an instant — can love change into its opposite in an instant — was it live in the first place, or addictive grasping? (149)
Addiction And The Search For Wholeness
reason why romantic love relationships is such an intense and universally sought-after experience is that it seems to offer liberation from a deep-seated state of fear, need, lack, age incompleteness (150)
you identified with mine, you have an externally derived sense of self — you get your sense of who you are from things that ultimately have nothing to do with who you are; social role, possessions, external appearance, successes, failures, belief systems — the ego (151)
if your relationships experience both love and opposites of love — attack, emotional violence etc then it is likely that you are confusing ego attachment and addictive clinging with love — love does not have an opposite (151)
From Addictive To Enlightened Relationships
being present and intensifying your presence by taking your attention ever more deeply into the now is where you can change an addictive relationship into a true one (153)
the moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what is, you are free of the mind — you made room for love, peace, joy (154)
first you stop judging yourself, then stop judging others and your partner. The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance of your partner — without the need to judge or change them in any way (154)
love is a state of being; your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you — it is not dependent on some other body, some external form (154)
in the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You look beyond the veil of form and separation (154)
love is not selective or exclusive — only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs (155)
Relationships As Spiritual Practice
if you accept that the relationship is here to make you conscious instead of happy, then the relationship will offer you salvation, and you will be aligning yourself with the higher consciousness that wants to be born into this world (159)
giving space to others and yourself is vital — learn to listen to your partner in an open, non defensive way — ego needs problems and conflict (160)
if you are consistently or at least predominantly present in your relationship, this will be the greatest challenge for your partner as they will either walk with you in that state or separate (164)
Dissolving The Collective Female Pain-Body
pain-body is there because certain things happened in the past — a victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth (168)
it’s the belief that other people and what they did to your are responsible for who you are now (169)
the truth is that the only power there is, is contained within this moment — it is the power of your presence (169)
you are responsible for your inner space and the past cannot prevail against the power of now (169)
Chapter 9: Beyond Happiness And Unhappiness There Is Peace
The Higher Good Beyond Good And Bad
is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes, happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not (177)
negative things turns out to be the greatest teachers — it gave people depth, humility and compassion; it made them more real (177)
it can show you what is real and unreal; what ultimately matters and what doesn’t (178)
seen from a higher perspective: conditions are neither positive or negative, they are as they are and when you live in complete acceptance of what is; there no good or bad/right and wrong (178)
allowing to be takes you beyond the kind with its resistance patterns that create the positive-negative polarities — essential part of forgiveness; forgiveness of the present is even more important than forgiveness of the past: allow it to be as it is (180)
The End of Your Life Drama
most of the so-called bad things that happen in peoples lives are due to unconsciousness — self-created, or rather ego-created (180)
when you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life (182)
Impermanence And The Cycles Of Life
there are cycles of success, when things come to you and thrive, and cycles of failure, when they wither or disintegrate and you have to let them go in order to make room for new things to arise or for transformation to occur (183)
failure lies concealed in every success and success in every failure (184)
your physical energy is also subject to cycles — times of low and high energy, need low energy cycles to regenerate (184)
the same condition that was good yesterday or last year has suddenly or gradually turned into bad — the same condition that made you happy then makes you unhappy (185)
your happiness and unhappiness are in fact one; only the illusion of time separates them (186)
things can give you pleasure, but can give you pain as well; it cannot give you joy — joy is I caused and arises from within as the joy of Being; essential part of the inner state of peace (187)
offer no resistance to what is; learned to allow the present moment to be and to accept the impermanent nature of all things and conditions (187)
to offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness — this state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad (188)
Using And Relinquishing Negativity
whenever you notice that some form of negativity has arisen within you, look on it not as failure, but as a helpful signal that is telling you: wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present. (191)
you can be transparent of a negative reaction, where for example a car alarm goes off that creates a slight irritation, this creates a resistance and results in more disturbances than the original cause: now feel the body as transparent and allow the noise to pass right through you as it is no longer hitting a solid inside you (192)
no need to look for peace; be in the state that you are in now — the moment you forgive yourself for not being at peace is when your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace (194)
story of a butcher and customer; the customer walks around and asks the butcher “give me the best piece of meat you have” the butcher replied, “every piece of meat I have is the best. There is no piece of meat here that is not the best” — when you accept what is, every piece of meat, every moment is the best. That is enlightenment (194)
The Nature Of Compassion
compassion is the awareness of a deep bond between yourself and all creatures — you share vulnerability and mortality on the physical form, will be nothing at all one day (196)
die before you die: your physical form is dissolving, is no more. Then a moment comes when all mind-forms or thoughts also die — yet you are still there, the divine presence that you are (196)
the realization of this deathless dimension, your true nature, is the other side of compassion (197)
true compassion goes beyond sympathy or empathy: it dies not happen until sadness merges with joy, the joy of Being beyond form, the joy of eternal life (197)
Toward A Different Order Of Reality
your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness (198)
every being is a focal point of consciousness, and such focal point creates its own world — a human world, a ant world, a dolphin world etc; although all worlds are connected (199)
when you are fully present and people around you manifest unconscious behaviour, you won’t feel the need to react to it, so you don’t give it any reality (202)
who you are is always a more vital teaching and a more powerful transformer of the world than what you say and even what you do (202)
you cannot fight darkness, so you cannot fight unconsciousness — create enemies and be drawn to unconsciousness yourself (203)
Chapter 10: The Meaning of Surrender
Acceptance Of The Now
surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life — the only time you can experience the flow of life is the now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment (206)
non-surrender hardens your psychological form, the shell of ego, and so creates a strong sense of separateness — the world around you and people in particular dine to be perceived as threatening; the unconscious compulsion to destroy others through judgment arises along with compete and dominate (207)
if your overall situation is unsatisfactory or unpleasant, separate out this instant abs surrender to what is (209)
difference between surrender and an attitude of ‘I can’t be bothered anymore’ or ‘I just don’t care anymore’ — it is tainted with negativity in the form of hidden resentment (210)
as you surrender, direct tout attention inward to check is there is any trace of resistance left inside you (210)
From Mind Energy To Spiritual Energy
how to let go is the question; start by acknowledging that there is resistance (210)
if you were conscious, that is to away totally present in the now, all negativity would dissolve almost instantly — it cannot survive in your presence (211)
Surrender In Personal Relationships
take responsibility for your life: do not pollute your beautiful, radiant inner Being nor the Earth with negativity — do not give unhappiness in any form whatsoever a dwelling place inside you (213)
if you can never accept what is, by implication you will not be able to accept anybody the way they are — if you make the now into the means to an end in the future, you will also make every person you encounter or relate Ruth into a means to an end (214)
what ego sees as weakness is your Being in its purity, innocence, and power (216)
Transforming Illness Into Enlightenment
surrender does not transform what is, at least not directly. Surrender transforms you (217)
illness is not the problem, you are the problem as long as the egoic mind is in control; if you have a major illness, use it for enlightenment and let it force you into intense present moment awareness (218)
When Disaster Strikes
whenever any kind of disaster strikes, or something goes seriously ‘wrong’ — illness, disability, loss of home or fortune or a socially defined identity, break up, death of a loved one, or your own impending death; know that there is another side to it, that you are just one step away from something incredible — this is not to say you will be happy in such a situation, you will not but fear and pain will become transmuted into inner peace (220)
Transforming Suffering Into Peace
first chance to surrender each moment to the reality of that moment — knowing that what is cannot be undone because it already is (220)
second chance to surrender is when you cannot accept what is outside, then accept what is inside — do not resist the pain; allow it to be there, embrace it and feel how deep suffering transmutes into deep peace (221)
when there is no way out, there is still a way through so don’t turn away from the pain; feel it fully, don’t think about it (222)
it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, keep putting your attention in the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, or whatever — stay present with your whole being; as you do so you are bringing light into this darkness (222)
The Way Of The Cross
enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future abs to make the now the main focus of you life — it means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is. You then don’t need pain anymore — “I will create no more pain, no more suffering” (226)
if you think you need more time, you will get more time and more pain; time and pain are inseparable (226)
The Power To Choose
choice implies consciousness; a high degree of consciousness, without it you have no choice — choice behind the moment you disidentify from the mind and it’s conditioned patterns, the moment you become present. Until you reach that point, you are unconscious, spiritually speaking (226)
you are compelled to think, feel, and act in certain ways according to the conditioning of your mind (226)
the mind, conditioned by the past, always seeks to re-create what it knows and is familiar with even if it’s painful, at least it’s familiar — mind adheres to the known as the unknown is dangerous because it has no control over it (that’s why the mind dislikes and ignores the present moment) (227)
present-moment awareness creates a gap not only in the stream of the mind but also in the past-future continuum — nothing truly new and creative can come into this world except through that gap, that clear space of infinite possibilities (227)
nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain, nobody chooses insanity — they happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness (228)
presence is the key; the now is the key (229)