On Means: Eckhart Tolle to Gandhi to Tolle

Coming full circle two years after reading 'The Power of Now.' Recently I've wondered about action in a world of surrender.

I thought Gandhi said it best in his commentaries on the Gita:

We should do no work with attachment. Attachment to good work is that too wrong? Yes, it is. If we are attached to our goal of winning liberty, we shall not hesitate to adopt bad means. If a person is particular that he would give coins to me personally, one day he might even steal them. Hence we should not be attached to even a good cause. Only then will our means remain pure and our actions too.

And then re-reading the first chapter of 'The Power of Now,' I came across this:

Instead of ''watching the thinker'' you can also create a gap in the mind stream by simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation. In your everyday life: you can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention so that it becomes an end in itself.

Full circle. Two years. Means with no attachment. Means as an end in itself. Amen.

There are times in one's spiritual life when serendipitous moments occur. This is not only that, but a new beginning as well. Maybe more on that aspect tomorrow.

~Peace to All and One,
Son Rivers

Eckhart Tolle on Enlightenment

The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some super-human accomplishment and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible something that almost paradoxically is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and term. The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself consciously or unconsciously as an isolated fragment. Fear arises and conflict within and without becomes the norm.

~Eckhart Tolle in 'The Power of Now'

Eckhart Tolle via Ramana and Krishnamurti

And there were other teachers who were just as meaningful whom I never met in person that I feel a very strong connection to. One is [J.] Krishnamurti, and another is Ramana Maharshi. I feel a deep link. And I feel actually that the work I do is a coming together of the teaching "stream," if you want to call it that, of Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi. They seem very, very dissimilar, but I feel that in my teaching the two merge into one. It is the heart of Ramana Maharshi, and Krishnamurti's ability to see the false, as such and point out how it works. So Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi, I love them deeply. I feel completely at One with them. And it is a continuation of the teaching.

~Eckhart Tolle in an Interview from a book called 'Dialogues With Emerging Spiritual Teachers' by John W. Parker

The Crossroads of Uncertainty

There may be a period of insecurity and uncertainty. What should I do?

As the ego is no longer running your life, the psychological need for external security, which is illusory anyway, lessens. You are able to live with uncertainty, even enjoy it.

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change. The Roman philosopher Tacitus rightly observed that “the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.”

If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.

~from ‘A New Earth’ by Eckhart Tolle (new para and bold formatting not in original)

Rendering the Dream in Sweet Surrender

~surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life

~to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation

~surrender is perfectly compatible with taking action, initiating change or achieving goals

~surrender reconnects you with the source-energy of Being, and if your doing is infused with Being, it becomes a joyful celebration of life energy

~call this "surrendered action"

~it is not work as we have known it for thousands of years

For example, if you were stuck in the mud somewhere, you wouldn't say: "Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud." Resignation is not surrender. You don't need to accept an undesirable or unpleasant life situation. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say that there is nothing wrong with being stuck in the mud. No. You recognize fully that you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention down to the present moment without mentally labeling it in any way. This means that there is no judgment of the Now. Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the "isness" of this moment. Then you take action and do all that you can to get out of the mud.

~from ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle

After Awakening, Then What

Miguel Ruiz calls it the Dream of the Second Attention. You write your new story with love.

Eckhart Tolle calls it Awakened Doing. Consciousness flows through you and into this world in three modalities: Acceptance, Enjoyment, Enthusiasm.

Adyashanti speaks of a New Way of Being, resting in awareness, experiencing the ordinary as extraordinary, more like love than anything else, for no reason or purpose, knowing the story isn’t true.

Robert Adams says that the universe is a manifestation of your mind. And in that realization you become Self, which includes everything you need. The trees do not lack for leaves.

Jesus simply said to consider the lilies of the field. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today is enough for today.

Buddha held up a golden lotus flower silently before his listeners.

So I’m blogging.