Tag Archives: Eckhart Tolle

Surgery

What happens in a year following brain surgery?

FlyingI’m grateful to be here and okay.  I never really considered that it could have gone otherwise.  But anything could go otherwise.  And I’m grateful.  So what have I learned in this one year since surgery?

What I think will be the hardest things for me to live through, won’t be.  Other things will be harder.  They will not be what I expected, so there is no need to worry.

Physical pain is not forever and often has an antidote.  Psychological suffering requires conscious effort.

While physically painful, I look back on the months of recovery after surgery as a beautiful time of peace and loving-kindness.

Life is always worth it.  No harm no foul.  We are life and there is no alternative to being who we are.

Suffering unites each of us with all of humanity.

My feelings of happiness and sadness are almost always prompted from the outside.  They don’t have to be.

When it isn’t happening right now, it is as if it never happened.  Experiences can live on inside of us if we let them.  They can make us suffer or make us happy, but either way they are no longer absolutely real.

When the thoughts of others seem important that is a sign I see my thoughts as important.  I don’t want my thoughts to be important.

Desire depletes experience of authenticity.

Sleep, meditation, and silence are life giving.  They enable us to wake up.

Life experiences are seasonal.  Winters contain Christmases.  Darkness is the platform upon which light is born.

Thank you for being with me in spirit this past year.  It is my wish that the love, seen and unseen, which you have been pouring out, will return to you having grown and multiplied.

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Inspiration

Was it worth it?

Light of Truth Universal ShrineI don’t know how it happened, but all of the sudden I’m back in the city full of its noises, lights, tumult, and excitement.  In my mind I’m still walking beneath a blanket of stars to a dark meditation hall, watching Swamis dressed in orange quietly manipulate their patterns of breath.

At the Satchidananda Ashram inner peace is laid out before you as a banquet for an honored guest.  There is no end to the forms in which it is presented.  Hatha Yoga, pranayama, meditation, selfless service in places like a kitchen or farm, immersion in nature, chanting, study of holy texts, and the loving-kindness of friends are all abundantly offered as pathways to the peace within.

And while it had never been so easy to have a joyful open heart, the sweet Swami guiding me through my month made it very clear; nothing outside will change, only your perspective will change.

Gurudev's KitchenBeing back in Chicago I understand these words more clearly than I did immersed in the sacred space of the ashram.  Everything is the same.  People are the same. Work is the same. The loud noises that wake me when I’m trying to sleep are the same. Even the thoughts in my mind are the same.  But the fog clouding the lens of my heart has been wiped clear so that I can surrender to the infinite love that pervades all things.

Of course while that may sound quite romantic, in practice it isn’t.  It means waking up hours before work to sit cross-legged, feet completely asleep, in the silence before dawn.  It means doing a half hour of poses and breathing even when my mind is asking me to skip it and take a nap.  It means convincing the voice in my head it can have some more chocolate tomorrow, but not today.  It means looking at what is happening with my own mind when someone is upsetting me, and letting go of judgement.  It means relinquishing the misguided hope that something “out there” will make me happy.  (And I still haven’t kicked that coffee habit.)

Loving Friends!Each moment is another chance for this practice.  What I learned living this way for a month is that it is worth it.  There is nothing in this world worth more than inner peace.  And, in the words of Eckhart Tolle, “If peace is really what you want, then you will choose peace.”

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Peace

How To Step Out Of Stress

DucksOn Friday night I was so stressed from my vision of the coming week that all I could do was cry about it.  Then just the next day, I got sick.  The negative emotions generated by the spinning of my anxious thoughts so quickly translated into physical illness that my choice became clear.  I could do my work with stress, or I could do it without stress.  The former was so obviously uncomfortable that I opted for the “without stress” option.

It did not seem easy at first.  My mind wouldn’t let go of thinking about the end products and panicking about how I would get there successfully.  I wasn’t going to find peace of mind from my mind.  That was the stress trigger itself.  I knew that to make the decision to go about my tasks stress free I had to surpass the mind’s attempts to help altogether.

It then became all the more clear that the uncomfortable state I had been experiencing wasn’t due to any task I had to perform, but rather, by my thoughts about their outcomes.

Focusing on the fruits of your actions instead of the actions themselves creates stress.  If you’re feeling like I was last Friday, look at your situation and notice if you are thinking about the end product instead of just dealing with the task at hand.  That slight shift in perspective may be the step that takes you out of stress altogether.

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Peace

When It’s Time To Stop Talking

HowardCan you recall a moment in your life when you were at a loss for words?

For many of us, that is a rare occurrence. Yet, the power of silence in the thick of a busy and loud life experience has the possibility to achieve more towards your goals than even the most well chosen turns of phrase.

I often try to cope with the instability of life through logical thinking or comforting sentiments.  But the unpleasantness I am trying to withdraw from dissolves more quickly, and of its own accord, when I allow the experience to run its course.

There isn’t always a need to explain things away.  All things inevitably fall away on their own.

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Inspiration

How To Stop Time

TimelessWhat would you choose to do right now if you could stop time?  If the succession of time had a DVR and you could simply press the pause button, do you know how you would fill in the gap?

Now that the holidays are over, my family has returned to their various corners of the world, and I’m navigating life on my own again post-surgery, time has begun to feel like a thief robbing me of moments I wish I could get back.

Since racing against the clock is an invitation for disappointment and constant discontent, how can you find a way out?  Is there a way to stop time?

The ticking of the clock, of course, cannot stop.  But when time feels too fast, it isn’t clock time you’re fighting with, it is psychological time.  Thoughts of missing the past, and anxious thoughts about the future make time an undefeatable enemy.  The actual present moment that you are experiencing will never run away from you; it is the one constant in a life full of variables.

Instead of worrying about a future deadline, work when you work, and rest when you rest.  The end game will be the same either way.  This doesn’t seem as simple as it sounds to a mind running in circles trying to solve the “problem” of time. The mind will continue to spin its tales, but without your belief in them, the stories lose their power.

Stop time by bringing yourself back to the faithful now.  In the words of Eckhart Tolle, “Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.”

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Life

Uncertainty or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Now

HutRecently life has felt like one big question mark.  Instead of providing answers, life is providing me with more and more uncertainty.  While Eckhart Tolle would describe such a circumstance as space being created for something new, it feels more like I’m venturing into the woods at night without a flashlight.

The space being created is easily filled with thoughts of worry, doubt, and “what if” scenarios.  I keep asking myself what I can do to make each situation turn out favorably for me.  But whatever I do will only be half of the equation, the other half is made up of howI do whatever it is I choose to do.  Am I acting out of conscious awareness or out of fear?  Am I making choices based on my worries or from a place of trust?

Of course if I waited to act in life until I wasn’t afraid I probably wouldn’t make it past my front door in the morning, but there is another way for action to be in alignment with positive energy.  We can do this by first recognizing fear for what it is, a pattern of thought in the mind that translates to emotion in the body, and back to thoughts again.  There is nothing wrong with this being in your sphere of attention as long as it is noticed and not completely bought into.  The more you buy into it, the more suffering you experience.

Once the fear based thought and emotion pattern is seen from the light of your awareness you can choose not to buy into it, and instead choose to know that in reality each step you take is exactly what you need to experience at this moment. You can decide to live in each moment as if you had chosen it.

Know deep within, beyond thought, that each decision is leading you towards the highest aspirations of your being.  In this way the energy behind your actions is that of consciousness itself, and all that fear stuff is just hanging out to enjoy the scenery.  The time for fruitful action is always now, could there be any other?

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Life

An Ending, An Insight, And A Vacation

PeaceWhen space is created in your life it can seem as if something has been lost and you are left less than you were before. But contrary to the mind’s idea of space, that opening is the foundation of abundance.

When it comes down to it, an abundance of space is really just the platform on which abundance manifests. I say this as I move into what looks like a wide-open field of possibilities in my own life. My incredible teaching experience that was grant-funded these past four years has reached its end date, and I am humbled with gratitude. Whenever I feel an inner longing towards what was, I know I experienced something to be thankful for, and any bitter-sweetness changes to pure sweetness.

Over a year ago I began planning a vacation to Florida. While I didn’t know at the time what my life was going to look like a year later, the trip is arriving right on schedule. One week ago I had my last day of work, and in one day I leave for a ten-day excursion. The universal schedule is too vast to contain in a mind, but it is prompt and efficient nonetheless! Trusting in time is the same as trusting in the present moment, it is allowing life to exist as it is and consequently aligning your own experience with its perfect unfolding.

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Waiting

When Something Feels Wrong

TenebraeDo you ever feel restless, like you are just waiting for some type of change to happen? Do you ever feel like you want to do something more meaningful with your life or just want to feel differently than you do now?

If so, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is, you’re not alone!  The feeling of being disconnected, or just the slight sensation that not everything is as it should be, is a universal human experience.  The bad news is, there is nothing you can do to fix it.  Even if some exciting event were to take place in your life, afterwards you would just be back in the old familiar waiting stage.

The amount of time spent experiencing those pivotal life moments that are tangible and obvious pales in comparison to the waiting period.  There is more good news of course!  You can stop waiting.  To the mind that would seem an impossible task.  After all, it has so many thoughts about the future that it is waiting for, a future that will never come, because when it does it will no longer be the future, it will be the purgatory of the present.  That is the mind’s view of life.

To stop waiting means to stop asking your mind for permission to experience the reality of your present moment.  To stop waiting means to allow yourself to feel what happens when you become present and take away the momentum of your attention from the never ending thought ticker playing across the screen of your consciousness.

It may feel uncomfortable sometimes, but that is only the initial experience of the new layers you’re reaching as you delve just below the surface of your present moment experience.  Much like Harry, Ron, and Hermione had to let go and relax as they were being strangled by Devil’s Snare in order to make their way through to the sorcerer’s stone, there is more than the prickly uncomfortable surface experience.

Next time you feel out of alignment with your highest potential take a deep breath, lean into the initial uncomfortable feeling as you come into the present moment, and settle into what is real.  In this simple and transformative video Eckhart Tolle puts it much more eloquently:

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Life

Decisions: How do you know if you’re right or wrong?

Goodbye Playhouse!

Do you trust in your own decision-making abilities?  How do you know if you’ve made the choice that will lead to the highest potential outcome?  How can you maintain trust when people and situations reveal themselves to be different than you initially believed?

This coming week my grant-based job of four years is coming to an end and life is thrusting me into change and uncertainty.  In work, as well as in relationships, my mind’s favorite candy is questioning my ability to make decisions that are in my best interest.  The voice in my head could live an entire life surviving purely on self-doubt.

When I have difficulty trusting in people or situations I remind myself that I don’t have to trust in any thing, I only have trust in the universe, God, life itself.  Yet, sometimes the voice in my head has enough momentum that even this perspective fails to interrupt its destructive thought pattern. This is why I am so grateful for the insight in the following video.  It reminds me of what it feels like when my decisions are being guided by the clear perspective of present moment awareness, rather than the clever arguments of the mind.  Being able to discern between the two is the difference between peace and suffering.

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