Living With Presence

I was going for a walk near Los Angeles and there was a collapsed building that had burned down 40 years ago. The roof was gone and trees were growing inside the building and it struck me as beautiful, wonderful to see how form returns to the formless. The city council had put up a sign which to me was a sacred sutra. The sign said: ‘Danger, all structures are unstable.’ To me, that was a holy sign. I said, ‘thank you.’

You are the light of the world. You are the consciousness that illuminates the world. Know yourself as that, and that’s freedom, liberation, awakening, the end of suffering and madness. And it’s happening right here.

To anyone who stumbles upon this site.  I have realized that my original hope and reason for this blog was purely ego based. I wanted people to come to me for “the answers” I wanted to be the guru that was sought out. I wanted to become a spiritual teacher instead of working in corporate America,  all for selfish egoic reasons. I have been aware of this truth at some level since I began the site. And because of that awareness had an internal struggle when posting. That struggle led to me ignoring this blog and not really giving it the time and effort it required.

Over the past few years I have gone through multiple cycles of egoic unconsciousness and presence. Where each cycle the length of time I am Present grows and my perspective shifts slightly. In the most recent cycle I went to the far depth of egoic unconsciousness. When I saw that unconsciousness in myself I began listening to the teachings of Eckhart Tolle again and immediately my ability to be present and conscious in the Now allowed all other things to drop away. According to clock time I am present and conscious more than I am unconscious and egoic.

I do work in corporate America and I am not a spiritual teacher. And that is not something to rebel against or wish for something different. I accept what is and have the joy of being radiate in all that I do. I sometimes have to remind myself that I am consciousness, I am presence, and I can be present and conscious anywhere, anytime, in any situation. The consciousness that I bring to what I do is all that matters. My job may go, a new one may come. Life will eb and flow around me, but I Am. That is all I need to be.

With this thought/ feeling I was unsure what to do about my blog. I no longer want to create a shrine to my ego in the form of this blog. My want is to get the teachings out to people, and help them to awaken. The best way I can see to do that is to re-post the present moment reminders that Eckhart sends out on a regular basis.  I don’t know where this site will go.  I just know that it is no longer about me and right now I am content to keep it up and running.

I would encourage anyone who has an interest int he Teachings of Eckhart Tolle to join the Eckhart Tolle TV site and ask him questions, watch the videos that are posted and interact with the other members.

You are the light of the world. You are the consciousness that illuminates the world. Know yourself as that, and that’s freedom, liberation, awakening, the end of suffering and madness. And it’s happening right here.

In the context of Eckhart Tolle’s teachings, stress is a wonderful thing. It gives us the opportunity to make a conscious decision to be in the present moment. About 6 weeks ago I was so stressed I made myself physically ill. I push myself to exceed all expectations, and sometimes my body cannot handle it. This level of activity has been a reoccurring theme in my life. After it happened recently, I stepped back from the stress, the feelings of being overwhelmed, the anger and resentment of others and saw the green grass and the blue sky. I realized, every single stress, negative feeling and perceived slight were in my head. People will always expect more. Work always needs to be done. I can only do what I am capable of right now. Worry is not helpful. I have finally been able to embody these insights, instead of just intellectually knowing them.

It was through the recognition that I can be in this exact situation, with the same level of work and not feel any of the negative emotions. I can flow through my work, be one with it.  It is only through my reaction to the stress that I recognized I still had substantial “stuff” that was keeping me from being present. That is why stress is a wonderful thing, it allows me to recognize when I get in my own way.

A week ago I snapped at people, didn’t get enough sleep, felt anxious all the time. Now I feel a deep peace and overriding joy. The work has not decreased, but my perception of it has changed.

I have been living with the teachings of Eckhart Tolle for a long time now. As you can see, sometimes I fall right back into old patterns, but now I have the tools to recognize the patterns and let them go. To give myself space to observe, and perceive the way things are instead of the way my mind wants them to be.

I struggle every day. But the struggle has lessened and the peace has increased. I need to keep my life balanced so my peace is always greater than my mental noise. That is the goal. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. All I can do is be here now and try and recognize when I am not.

When I started this blog I wanted to create a gathering place for people who are interested in the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. Since then the Eckhart Tolle TV site has been launched and filled that purpose. I also wanted to create a local Eckhart Tolle study group. I held one study group meeting where three people attended and then held a second meeting a no one showed up. I am still interested in creating a space where people can learn about the teachings of Eckhart Tolle and connect with like minded individuals, but I am waiting for people to show interest.

Since the beginning of my blog I have had a nagging feeling in the back of my head that if I was able to fully follow the teachings and let go of time and my ego I wouldn’t have a blog. Writing things in a blog is very ego-centric. I don’t want to blather on about me and my day or somehow place myself as some enlightened guru, I just want to use my knowledge of web design to give people a place to come for information and connect with others through social media.

My fear is that this site becomes a shrine to my ego instead of a true place for connection and enlightenment. Until I can reconsile this in my own head, it will be difficult for me to post on a regular basis.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

The past few months have been overwhelming and full of negative energy. Sometimes I am able to wade through it with grace and presence and other times I embody it and let venomous words into my thoughts and speech. Today was filled with both good and bad and in the end there was no real positive resolution. I laid down to sleep and after a few minutes had an epiphany.

I am not diminished by or bolstered by others.

Meaning, no matter what any other person on the planet says or does it will not change the essence of my being. I “knew” this fact before but I had never truly experienced it. As I was laying on my stomach I felt like the entire length of my back was bathed in white light from the inside. I then felt the need for gratitude. To look at the world around me and be thankful, not critical, proud or judgmental, just thankful. Of being all that can be (not all that I can be, just all that can be). That sense of presence coupled with thankfulness intensified my peace and made my entire body into this beacon of white light. My full attention was on my breathing and my heartbeat. I experienced that which I had been striving for in sitting meditation for years.

I don’t know what it was about today or how intellectual knowledge was converted to a visceral experience, but I know I can go back to that place of peace and harmony again. A place where the thoughts words and deeds of others cannot affect me.

The trick is living there instead of just visiting… Read the rest of this entry »

Teachers come from unexpected places. As Eckhart says, a tree or flower can teach you stillness and a cat watching a mouse hole can teach you presence. In my egoic way of thinking, I believed that others who had not had an awakening experience had nothing to teach me. I was very wrong. When explaining both the teachings of Eckhart Tolle and  “my path” to someone they were confused because the two did not mesh. Always looking to the past and future is part of the problem. Believing that awakening will happen at some time in the future, that I need to “get there,” is part of the problem. Whatever I can do in the future, I can do now.

I had substantial inner resistance to learning this from someone who I wanted to categorize as “unconscious” and therefore dismiss. The lesson was humbling and a tremendous blow to my ego.  I need more and more of those.

We live in a scientific world. The scientific method holds skepticism, observation and repeatability in high esteem. If you experience it, and another person cannot repeat the experience under the same conditions then that experience is labeled “supernatural” and is not able to be studied using the scientific method.

There is no formula for awakening, it is not repeatable.

For me, listening to the audio version of A New Earth allowed me to awaken and recognize the aware presence that I am instead of my story. Another person could listen to the same book and become bored or angry, not the same experience at all. Eckhart Tolle says that awakening can only be given by grace, there is no formula. A person has to be ready to awaken, and being ready cannot be forced. Therefore, awakening, or the experience of being present cannot be studied by the scientific method. Until you have had an awakening experience you cannot fully appreciate the teachings. I have had many conversations that end with this concept. That there is something that must happen to you before you can completely understand, and you cannot make it happen.

So how can someone who has not yet awakened, who is looking into the teachings not completely dismiss them since they are still in a mind dominated state and identified with the thinking mind? I would like to hear from others, their experience and thoughts.