Oops me bad, the title should read: "Watch out For..."
* Watch your mind ('Oh - there goes another thought!') with a part of your attention at all times. Allow Space to arise around your thoughts – then you are the observer, not the thinker. Do not take your mind too seriously.
* Watch out for when you are in Suffering – which could be as small as mere irritation or impatience. This means that you have “lost” the Now. Suffering requires the Past and Future, as well as a “little Me”. Being aware that you are in Suffering brings Knowing to it, but do not get caught up in thinking about “having lost the Now” Then step back into the Now using the usual Portals – Surrender, Nature, Sense Perceptions, Inner Body, Spiritual Texts, Sensing the Inner Field of Now, etc.
* Watch out for Labeling and Judgments. Recognize them as such and let go of them
* Watch out for (bring your awareness to) repetitive or conditioned responses in yourself and look intensely at these, without judgment or commentary. Watch them as they actually occur whenever possible. Examples are situations where you feel ill at ease, have the same dispute again, or the same thing irritates you again, or perhaps you become full of pride, or take the high moral ground, have feelings of superiority, or sitting in judgment over others - (all Egoic Self stuff – both sides of the duality)
* Watch out for Identifying with a Mental Position. Look out for defensiveness which shows a mental position has been identified with and you are defending an illusion (your Egoic Self). Look out for Repair mechanisms to the Egoic Self - actions which rebuild the sense of self after it has been “damaged” or “threatened”
* Watch out for things that cause resistance to accepting the Isness of Now. Notice and Accept! Watch out for things that “Weren't meant to be like that”, and accept them. They are as they Are! They could not be any other way.
* Watch out for Judging others – when you judge others you are in essence judging yourself. Notice that.
* Watch out for the story in the head. There is no story that is you, or leads to you. Every story leads away from you. You are what exists before all stories. You are what remains when all the stories are understood. Notice it when it occurs.
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These are some thoughts from Eckhart Tolle's philosophy of life. Has anyone read "A New Earth" and what are your thoughts of the book. Another interesting paperback is "The Power of Now". Any thoughts?
This Eckhart Tolle story speaks volumes:
A Question for the Ego...
The Lost Ring:
When I was seeing people as a counselor and spiritual teacher, I would visit a woman twice a week whose body was riddled with cancer.
One day, however, I arrived to find her in a state of great distress and anger. 'What happened?' I asked.
Her diamond ring, of great monetary as well as sentimental value, had disappeared, and she said she was sure it had been stolen by the woman who came to look after her for a few hours every day. She said she didn't understand how anybody could be so callous and heartless as to do this to her. She asked me whether she should confront the woman or whether it would be better to call the police immediately.
I said I couldn't tell her what to do, but asked her to find out how important a ring or anything else was at this point in her life. 'You don't understand,' she said. 'This was my grandmother's ring. I used to wear it every day until I got ill and my hands became too swollen. It's more than just a ring to me. How can I not be upset?'
The quickness of her response and the anger and defensiveness in her voice were indications that she had not yet become present enough to look within and to disentangle her reaction from the event and observe them both. Her anger and defensiveness were signs that the ego was still speaking through her.
I said, 'I am going to ask you a few questions, but instead of answering them now, see if you can find the answers within you. I will pause briefly after each question. When an answer comes, it may not necessarily come in the form of words.'
She said she was ready to listen. I asked:
'Do you realize that you will have to let go of the ring at some point, perhaps quite soon?
How much more time do you need before you will be ready to let go of it?
Will you become less when you let go of it?
Has who you are become diminished by the loss?'
There were a few minutes of silence after the last question.
When she started speaking again, there was a smile on her face, and she seemed at peace. 'The last question made me realize something important. First I went to my mind for an answer and my mind said, 'Yes, of course you have been diminished.'
Then I asked myself the question again, 'Has who I am become diminished?' This time I tried to feel rather than think the answer. And suddenly I could feel my I Am-ness. I have never felt that before. If I can feel the I Am so strongly, then who I am hasn't been diminished at all. I can still feel it now, something peaceful but very alive.'
'That is the joy of Being,' I said. 'You can only feel it when you get out of your head. Being must be felt. It can't be thought. The ego doesn't know about it because thought is what it consists of. The ring was really in your head as a thought that you confused with the sense of I Am. You thought the I Am or a part of it was in the ring.
'Whatever the ego seeks and gets attached to are substitutes for the Being that it cannot feel. You can value and care for things, but whenever you get attached to them, you will know it's the ego. And you are never really attached to a thing but to a thought that has 'I,' 'me,' or 'mine' in it. Whenever you completely accept a loss, you go beyond ego, and who you are, the I Am which is consciousness itself, emerges.'
She said, 'Now I understand something Jesus said that never made much sense to me before: "If someone takes your shirt, let him have your coat as well." '
'That's right,' I said. 'It doesn't mean you should never lock your door. All it means is that sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.'
In the last few weeks of her life as her body became weaker, she became more and more radiant, as if light were shining through her. She gave many of her possessions away, some to the woman she thought had stolen the ring, and with each thing she gave away, her joy deepened.
When her mother called me to let me know she had passed away, she also mentioned that after her death they found her ring in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Did the woman return the ring, or had it been there all the time? Nobody will ever know.
One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.
