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THE POWER OF NOW by Eckhart Tolle
The time-bound mode of consciousness is deeply embedded in the human psyche. But what we are doing here is part of a profound transformation that is taking place in the collective consciousness of the planet and beyond: the awakening of consciousness from the dream of matter, form and separation – the ending of time.
We are breaking mind patterns that have dominated human life for eons – mind patterns that have created unimaginable suffering on a vast scale. I am not using the word evil. It is more helpful to call it unconsciousness or insanity.
“This breaking up of the old mode of consciousness, or rather, unconsciousness – is it something we have to do or will it happen anyway? I mean, is this change inevitable?”
That’s a question of perspective. The doing and the happening are in fact a single process. Because you are one with the totality of consciousness, you cannot separate the two, but there is no absolute guarantee that humans will make it.
The process isn’t inevitable or automatic. Your cooperation is an essential part of it. However you look at it, it is a quantum leap in the evolution of consciousness, as well as our only chance of survival as a species.
To find out if you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can use a simple criterion. 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.
If there is no joy, ease or lightness in what you are doing, it does not necessarily mean that you need to change what you are doing. It may be sufficient to 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 you want to achieve.
Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents. This implies that you also completely accept what is, because you cannot give your full attention to something and at the same time resist it.
As soon as you honour the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care and love, even the simplest action.
So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action; just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice. In the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful, spiritual teachings in existence, nonattachment to the fruit of your action is called karma yoga. It is described as the path of “consecrated action.”
When the compulsive striving ceases, the joy of Being flows into everything you do. The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment and satisfaction; you don’t look to it for salvation. Neither failure, nor success, has the power to change your inner state of Being. You have found the life underneath your life situation.
As far as your life situation is concerned, there may be things to be attained or acquired. That’s the world of form, and of gain and loss. Yet on a deeper level, you are already complete, and when you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.
When your deeper sense of self is derived from Being, neither your happiness, nor your sense of self, depends on the outcome and there is freedom from fear. You don’t seek permanency where it cannot be found.
Everything is honoured, but nothing matters. Forms are born and they die, and yet you are aware of the eternal underneath the forms. You know that nothing real can be threatened. When this is your state of Being, how canyou not succeed? You have succeeded already.
Adapted from The Power of Now, copyright 1999 by Eckhart Tolle. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA, 800-972-6657 (ext. 52). |
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