EMOTION: THE BODY’S REACTION TO YOUR MIND - раздел Образование, Acclaim for THE POWER OF NOW
What About Emotions? I Get Caught Up In My Emotions More Than...
What about emotions? I get caught up in my emotions more than I do
in my mind.
Mind, in the way I use the word, is not just thought. It includes your
emotions as well as all unconscious mental-emotional reactive
patterns. Emotion arises at the place where mind and body meet. It is
the body’s reaction to your mind — or you might say, a reflection of
your mind in the body. For example, an attack thought or a hostile
thought will create a buildup of energy in the body that we call anger.
The body is getting ready to fight. The thought that you are being
threatened, physically or psychologically, causes the body to contract,
and this is the physical side of what we call fear. Research has shown
that strong emotions even cause changes in the biochemistry of the
body. These biochemical changes represent the physical or material
aspect of the emotion. Of course, you are not usually conscious of all
your thought patterns, and it is often only through watching your
emotions that you can bring them into awareness.
The more you are identified with your thinking, your likes and dislikes,
judgments and interpretations, which is to say the less present you
are as the watching consciousness, the stronger the emotional energy
charge will be, whether you are aware of it or not. If you cannot feel
your emotions, if you are cut off from them, you will eventually
experience them on a purely physical level, as a physical problem or
symptom. A great deal has been written about this in recent years, so
we don’t need to go into it here. A strong unconscious emotional
pattern may even manifest as an external event that appears to just
happen to you. For example, I have observed that people who carry a
lot of anger inside without being aware of it and without expressing it
are more likely to be attacked, verbally or even physically, by other
angry people, and often for no apparent reason. They have a strong
emanation of anger that certain people pick up subliminally and that
triggers their own latent anger.
If you have difficulty feeling your emotions, start by focusing attention
on the inner energy field of your body. Feel the body from within. This
will also put you in touch with your emotions. We will explore this in
more detail later.
You say that an emotion is the mind’s reflection in the body. But
sometimes there is a conflict between the two: the mind says “no”
while the emotion says “yes,” or the other way around.
If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a
truthful reflection, so look at the emotion, or rather feel it in your
body. If there is an apparent conflict between them, the thought will
be the lie, the emotion will be the truth. Not the ultimate truth of who
you are, but the relative truth of your state of mind at that time.
Conflict between surface thoughts and unconscious mental processes
is certainly common. You may not yet be able to bring your
unconscious mind activity into awareness as thoughts, but it will
always be reflected in the body as an emotion, and of this you can
become aware. To watch an emotion in this way is basically the same
as listening to or watching a thought, which I described earlier. The
only difference is that, while a thought is in your head, an emotion
has a strong physical component and so is primarily felt in the body.
You can then allow the emotion to be there without being controlled
by it. You no longer are the emotion; you are the watcher, the
observing presence. If you practice this, all that is unconscious in you
will be brought into the light of consciousness.
So observing our emotions is as important as observing our thoughts?
Yes. Make it a habit to ask yourself: What’s going on inside me at this
moment? That question will point you in the right direction. But don’t
analyze, just watch. Focus your attention within. Feel the energy of
the emotion. If there is no emotion present, take your attention more
deeply into the inner energy field of your body. It is the doorway into
Being.
An emotion usually represents an amplified and energized thought
pattern, and because of its often overpowering energetic charge, it is
not easy initially to stay present enough to be able to watch it. It
wants to take you over, and it usually succeeds — unless there is
enough presence in you. If you are pulled into unconscious
identification with the emotion through lack of presence, which is
normal, the emotion temporarily becomes “you.” Often a vicious circle
builds up between your thinking and the emotion: they feed each
other. The thought pattern creates a magnified reflection of itself in
the form of an emotion, and the vibrational frequency of the emotion
keeps feeding the original thought pattern. By dwelling mentally on
the situation, event, or person that is the perceived cause of the
emotion, the thought feeds energy to the emotion, which in turn
energizes the thought pattern, and so on.
Basically, all emotions are modifications of one primordial,
undifferentiated emotion that has its origin in the loss of awareness of
who you are beyond name and form. Because of its undifferentiated
nature, it is hard to find a name that precisely describes this emotion.
“Fear” comes close, but apart from a continuous sense of threat, it
also includes a deep sense of abandonment and incompleteness. It
may be best to use a term that is as undifferentiated as that basic
emotion and simply call it “pain.” One of the main tasks of the mind is
to fight or remove that emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for
its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up
temporarily. In fact, the harder the mind struggles to get rid of the
pain, the greater the pain. The mind can never find the solution, nor
can it afford to allow you to find the solution, because it is itself an
intrinsic part of the “problem.” Imagine a chief of police trying to find
an arsonist when the arsonist is the chief of police. You will not be
free of that pain until you cease to derive your sense of self from
identification with the mind, which is to say from ego. The mind is
then toppled from its place of power and Being reveals itself as your
true nature.
Yes, I know what you are going to ask.
I was going to ask: What about positive emotions such as love and
joy?
They are inseparable from your natural state of inner connectedness
with Being. Glimpses of love and joy or brief moments of deep peace
are possible whenever a gap occurs in the stream of thought. For
most people, such gaps happen rarely and only accidentally, in
moments when the mind is rendered “speechless,” sometimes
triggered by great beauty, extreme physical exertion, or even great
danger. Suddenly, there is inner stillness. And within that stillness
there is a subtle but intense joy, there is love, there is peace.
Usually, such moments are short-lived, as the mind quickly resumes
its noise-making activity that we call thinking. Love, joy, and peace
cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.
But they are not what I would call emotions. They lie beyond the
emotions, on a much deeper level. So you need to become fully
conscious of your emotions and be able to feel them before you can
feel that which lies beyond them. Emotion literally means
“disturbance.” The word comes from the Latin emovere, meaning “to
disturb.”
Love, joy, and peace are deep states of Being, or rather three aspects
of the state of inner connectedness with Being. As such, they have no
opposite. This is because they arise from beyond the mind. Emotions,
on the other hand, being part of the dualistic mind, are subject to the
law of opposites. This simply means that you cannot have good
without bad. So in the unenlightened, mind-identified condition, what
is sometimes wrongly called joy is the usually short-lived pleasure
side of the continuously alternating pain/pleasure cycle. Pleasure is
always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from
within. The very thing that gives you pleasure today will give you pain
tomorrow, or it will leave you, so its absence will give you pain. And
what is often referred to as love may be pleasurable and exciting for a
while, but it is an addictive clinging, an extremely needy condition
that can turn into its opposite at the flick of a switch. Many “love”
relationships, after the initial euphoria has passed, actually oscillate
between “love” and hate, attraction and attack.
Real love doesn’t make you suffer. How could it? It doesn’t suddenly
turn into hate, nor does real joy turn into pain. As I said, even before
you are enlightened — before you have freed yourself from your mind
— you may get glimpses of true joy, true love, or of a deep inner
peace, still but vibrantly alive. These are aspects of your true nature,
which is usually obscured by the mind. Even within a “normal”
addictive relationship, there can be moments when the presence of
something more genuine, something incorruptible, can be felt. But
they will only be glimpses, soon to be covered up again through mind
interference. It may then seem that you had something very precious
and lost it, or your mind may convince you that it was all an illusion
anyway. The truth is that it wasn’t an illusion, and you cannot lose it.
It is part of your natural state, which can be obscured but can never
be destroyed by the mind. Even when the sky is heavily overcast, the
sun hasn’t disappeared. It’s still there on the other side of the clouds.
The Buddha says that pain or suffering arises through desire or
craving and that to be free of pain we need to cut the bonds of desire.
All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external
things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as
I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments,
and aversions, and apart from them there is no “I” except as a mere
possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted.
In that state, even my desire to become free or enlightened is just
another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future. So don’t
seek to become free of desire or “achieve” enlightenment. Become
present. Be there as the observer of the mind. Instead of quoting the
Buddha, be the Buddha, be “the awakened one,” which is what the
word buddha means.
Humans have been in the grip of pain for eons, ever since they fell
from the state of grace, entered the realm of time and mind, and lost
awareness of Being. At that point, they started to perceive
themselves as meaningless fragments in an alien universe,
unconnected to the Source and to each other.
Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind, which
is to say as long as you are unconscious, spiritually speaking. I am
talking here primarily of emotional pain, which is also the main cause
of physical pain and physical disease. Resentment, hatred, self-pity,
guilt, anger, depression, jealousy, and so on, even the slightest
irritation, are all forms of pain. And every pleasure or emotional high
contains within itself the seed of pain: its inseparable opposite, which
will manifest in time.
Anybody who has ever taken drugs to get “high” will know that the
high eventually turns into a low, that the pleasure turns into some
form of pain. Many people also know from their own experience how
easily and quickly an intimate relationship can turn from a source of
pleasure to a source of pain. Seen from a higher perspective, both the
negative and the positive polarities are faces of the same coin, are
both part of the underlying pain that is inseparable from the mind-
identified egoic state of consciousness.
There are two levels to your pain: the pain that you create now, and
the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body.
Ceasing to create pain in the present and dissolving past pain — this
is what I want to talk about now.
CHAPTER TWO
CONSCIOUSNESS:
THE WAY OUT OF PAIN
Все темы данного раздела:
A GUIDE TO SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT
Eckhart Tolle
NAMASTE PUBLISHING
and
NEW WORLD LIBRARY
NOVATO, CALIFORNIA
CHAPTER THREE: Moving Deeply into the Now
Don’t Seek Your Self in the Mind
End the Delusion of Time
Nothing Exists Outside the Now
The Key to the Spiritual Dimension
Accessing the Power of the Now
CHAPTER SIX: The Inner Body
Being Is Your Deepest Self
Look beyond the Words
Finding Your Invisible and Indestructible Reality
Connecting with the Inner Body
Transformation through the Body
About the Author
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO
THE PAPERBACK EDITION
Six years after it was first published, The Power of Now continues to
play its part in the urgent task of the tr
THE ORIGIN OF THIS BOOK
I have little use for the past and rarely think about it; however, I
would briefly like to tell you how I came to be a spiritual teacher and
how this book came int
THE TRUTH THAT IS WITHIN YOU
This book represents the essence of my work, as far as it can be
conveyed in words, with individuals and small groups of spiritual
seekers during the past ten year
THE GREATEST OBSTACLE TO ENLIGHTENMENT
Enlightenment — what is that?
A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years.
One day a stranger walked by. “Spare some change?” mumbled the
FREEING YOURSELF FROM YOUR MIND
What exactly do you mean by “watching the thinker”?
When someone goes to the doctor and says, “I hear a voice in my
head,” he or she will most likely be sent to a
ENLIGHTENMENT: RISING ABOVE THOUGHT
Isn’t thinking essential in order to survive in this world?
Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific
task, and when the task is co
CREATE NO MORE PAIN IN THE PRESENT
Nobody’s life is entirely free of pain and sorrow. Isn’t it a question of
learning to live with them rather than trying to avoid them?
The greater part of human pa
PAST PAIN: DISSOLVING THE PAIN-BODY
As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every
emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain
that lives on in you. It merges
EGO IDENTIFICATION WITH THE PAIN-BODY
The process that I have just described is profoundly powerful yet
simple. It could be taught to a child, and hopefully one day it will be
one of the first things c
THE ORIGIN OF FEAR
You mentioned fear as being part of our basic underlying emotional
pain. How does fear arise, and why is there so much of it in people’s
lives? And isn’t a certain
THE EGO’S SEARCH FOR WHOLENESS
Another aspect of the emotional pain that is an intrinsic part of the
egoic mind is a deep-seated sense of lack or incompleteness, of not
being whole. In some peop
DON’T SEEK YOUR SELF IN THE MIND
I feel that there is still a great deal I need to learn about the workings
of my mind before I can get anywhere near full consciousness or
spiritual enlightenment.
END THE DELUSION OF TIME
It seems almost impossible to disidentify from the mind. We are all
immersed in it. How do you teach a fish to fly?
Here is the key: End the delusion of time. Time
NOTHING EXISTS OUTSIDE THE NOW
Aren’t past and future just as real, sometimes even more real, than
the present? After all, the past determines who we are, as well as
how we perceive and behave i
THE KEY TO THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION
In life-threatening emergency situations, the shift in consciousness
from time to presence sometimes happens naturally. The personality
that has a past and a futur
ACCESSING THE POWER OF THE NOW
A moment ago, when you talked about the eternal present and the
unreality of past and future, I found myself looking at that tree
outside the window. I had looked
LETTING GO OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME
Learn to use time in the practical aspects of your life — we may call
this “clock time” — but immediately return to present-moment
awareness when those practical m
THE INSANITY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME
You will not have any doubt that psychological time is a mental
disease if you look at its collective manifestations. They occur, for
example, in the form of ideol
NEGATIVITY AND SUFFERING HAVE THEIR ROOTS IN TIME
But the belief that the future will be better than the present is not
always an illusion. The present can be dreadful, and things can get
better in the future, and
FINDING THE LIFE UNDERNEATH YOUR LIFE SITUATION
I don’t see how I can be free now. As it happens, I am extremely
unhappy with my life at the moment. This is a fact, and I would be
deluding myself if I tried to c
ALL PROBLEMS ARE ILLUSIONS OF THE MIND
It feels as if a heavy burden has been lifted. A sense of lightness. I
feel clear. . . but my problems are still there waiting for me, aren’t
they? They haven’t be
A QUANTUM LEAP IN THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS
I have had glimpses of this state of freedom from mind and time that
you describe, but past and future are so overwhelmingly strong that I
cannot keep them out for
THE JOY OF BEING
To alert you that 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
LOSS OF NOW: THE CORE DELUSION
Even if I completely accept that ultimately time is an illusion, what
difference is that going to make in my life? I still have to live in a
world that is complete
AND DEEP UNCONSCIOUSNESS
What do you mean by different levels of unconsciousness?
As you probably know, in sleep you constantly move between the
phases of dreamless sleep and the dream sta
WHAT ARE THEY SEEKING?
Carl Jung tells in one of his books of a conversation he had with a
Native American chief who pointed out to him that in his perception
most white people have tens
DISSOLVING ORDINARY UNCONSCIOUSNESS
So how can we be free of this affliction?
Make it conscious. Observe the many ways in which unease,
discontent, and tension arise within you through unnecessary
FREEDOM FROM UNHAPPINESS
Do you resent doing what you are doing? It may be your job, or you
may have agreed to do something and are doing it, but part of you
resents and resists it. Are yo
WHEREVER YOU ARE, BE THERE TOTALLY
Can you give some more examples of ordinary unconsciousness?
See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought,
about a situation you find you
THE INNER PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE’S JOURNEY
I can see the truth of what you are saying, but I still think that we
THE PAST CANNOT SURVIVE IN YOUR PRESENCE
You mentioned that thinking or talking about the past unnecessarily is
one of the ways in which we avoid the present. But apart from the
past that we remember and
IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS
You keep talking about the state of presence as the key. I think I
understand it intellectually, but I don’t know if I have ever truly
experienced it. I wonder — i
BEAUTY ARISES IN THE STILLNESS OF YOUR PRESENCE
What you have just described is something that I occasionally
experience for brief moments when I am alone and surrounded by
nature.
Yes. Zen masters use
REALIZING PURE CONSCIOUSNESS
Is presence the same as Being?
When you become conscious of Being, what is really happening is that
Being becomes conscious of itself. When Being becomes conscious
CHRIST: THE REALITY OF YOUR DIVINE PRESENCE
Don’t get attached to any one word. You can substitute “Christ” for
presence, if that is more meaningful to you. Christ is your God-
essence or the Self, as it is
BEING IS YOUR DEEPEST SELF
You spoke earlier about the importance of having deep roots within or
inhabiting the body. Can you explain what you meant by that?
The body can become a point of a
LOOK BEYOND THE WORDS
I don’t like the word sin. It implies that I am being judged and found
guilty.
I can understand that. Over the centuries, many erroneous views and
interpr
FINDING YOUR INVISIBLE AND INDESTRUCTIBLE REALITY
You said that identification with our physical form is part of the
illusion, so how can the body, the physical form, bring you to a
realization of Being?
CONNECTING WITH THE INNER BODY
Please try it now. You may find it helpful to close your eyes for this
practice. Later on, when “being in the body” has become natural and
easy, this will no longe
TRANSFORMATION THROUGH THE BODY
Why have most religions condemned or denied the body? It seems
that spiritual seekers have always regarded the body as a hindrance
or even as sinful.
Why
SERMON ON THE BODY
What you perceive as a dense physical structure called the body,
which is subject to disease, old age, and death, is not ultimately real
— is not you. It is a misp
HAVE DEEP ROOTS WITHIN
The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your
inner body — to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and
transform your life. The more c
BEFORE YOU ENTER THE BODY, FORGIVE
I felt very uncomfortable when I tried to put my attention on the inner
body. There was a feeling of agitation and some nausea. So I haven’t
been able to experienc
YOUR LINK WITH THE UNMANIFESTED
What is the relationship between presence and the inner body?
Presence is pure consciousness — consciousness that has been
reclaimed from the mind, from the world
SLOWING DOWN THE AGING PROCESS
In the meantime, awareness of the inner body has other benefits in
the physical realm. One of them is a significant slowing down of the
aging of the physical body.
STRENGTHENING THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Another benefit of this practice in the physical realm is a great
strengthening of the immune system, which occurs when you inhabit
the body. The more consciousnes
LET THE BREATH TAKE YOU INTO THE BODY
At times, when my mind has been very active, it has acquired such
momentum that I find it impossible to take my attention away from it
and feel the inner body. Thi
CREATIVE USE OF MIND
If you need to use your mind for a specific purpose, use it in
conjunction with your inner body. Only if you are able to be conscious
without thought can you use y
THE ART OF LISTENING
When listening to another person, don’t just listen with your mind,
listen with your whole body. Feel the energy field of your inner body
as you listen. That takes
GOING DEEPLY INTO THE BODY
I can feel the energy inside my body, especially in my arms and legs,
but I don’t seem to be able to go more deeply, as you suggested
earlier.
Make it int
THE SOURCE OF CHI
Is the Unmanifested what in the East is called chi, a kind of universal
life energy?
No, it isn’t. The Unmanifested is the source of chi. Chi is the inner
DREAMLESS SLEEP
You take a journey into the Unmanifested every night when you enter
the phase of deep dreamless sleep. You merge with the Source. You
draw from it the vital energy
OTHER PORTALS
The Now can be seen as the main portal. It is an essential aspect of
every other portal, including the inner body. You cannot be in your
body without being intense
SILENCE
Are there any other portals apart from those you just mentioned?
Yes, there are. The Unmanifested is not separate from the
manifested. It pervades this world, but
THE TRUE NATURE OF SPACE AND TIME
Now consider this: If there were nothing but silence, it wouldn’t exist
for you; you wouldn’t know what it is. Only when sound appears does
silence come into being
CONSCIOUS DEATH
Apart from dreamless sleep, which I mentioned already, there is one
other involuntary portal. It opens up briefly at the time of physical
death. Even if you have m
ENTER THE NOW FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE
I always thought that true enlightenment is not possible except
through love in a relationship between a man and a woman. Isn’t this
what makes us whole again? How
LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIPS
Unless and until you access the consciousness frequency of presence,
all relationships, and particularly intimate relationships, are deeply
flawed and ultimately d
ADDICTION AND THE SEARCH FOR WHOLENESS
Why should we become addicted to another person?
The reason why the romantic love relationship is such an intense and
universally sought-after experience is that i
FROM ADDICTIVE TO ENLIGHTENED RELATIONSHIPS
Can we change an addictive relationship into a true one?
Yes. Being present and intensifying your presence by taking your
attention ever more deeply into the Now:
RELATIONSHIPS AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
As the egoic mode of consciousness and all the social, political, and
economic structures that it created enter the final stage of collapse,
the relationships betw
WHY WOMEN ARE CLOSER TO ENLIGHTENMENT
Are the obstacles to enlightenment the same for a man as for a
woman?
Yes, but the emphasis is different. Generally speaking, it is easier for
a woman to
DISSOLVING THE COLLECTIVE FEMALE PAIN-BODY
Why is the pain-body more of an obstacle for women?
The pain-body usually has a collective as well as a personal aspect.
The personal aspect is the accumulated res
GIVE UP THE RELATIONSHIP WITH YOURSELF
When one is fully conscious, would one still have a need for a
relationship? Would a man still feel drawn to a woman? Would a
woman still feel incomplete without a
THE HIGHER GOOD BEYOND GOOD AND BAD
Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace?
Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive;
inner peace does not.
Is it not
THE END OF YOUR LIFE DRAMA
In that state of acceptance and inner peace, even though you may not
call it “bad,” can anything still come into your life that would be called
“bad” from a perspe
IMPERMANENCE AND THE CYCLES OF LIFE
However, as long as you are in the physical dimension and linked to
the collective human psyche, physical pain — although rare — is still
possible. This is not to
USING AND RELINQUISHING NEGATIVITY
All inner resistance is experienced as negativity in one form or
another. All negativity is resistance. In this context, the two words are
almost synonymous. Negat
THE NATURE OF COMPASSION
Having gone beyond the mind-made opposites, you become like a
deep lake. The outer situation of your life and whatever happens
there is the surface of the lake. So
TOWARD A DIFFERENT ORDER OF REALITY
I don’t agree that the body needs to die. I am convinced that we can
achieve physical immortality. We believe in death and that’s why the
body dies.
The b
ACCEPTANCE OF THE NOW
You mentioned “surrender” a few times. I don’t like that idea. It
sounds somewhat fatalistic. If we always accept the way things are,
we are not going to make any
FROM MIND ENERGY TO SPIRITUAL ENERGY
Letting go of resistance is easier said than done. I still don’t see
clearly how to let go. If you say it is by surrendering, the question
remains: “How?”
SURRENDER IN PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
What about people who want to use me, manipulate or control me?
Am I to surrender to them?
They are cut off from Being, so they unconsciously attempt to get
TRANSFORMING ILLNESS INTO ENLIGHTENMENT
If someone is seriously ill and completely accepts their condition and
surrenders to the illness, would they not have given up their will to
get back to health? Th
WHEN DISASTER STRIKES
As far as the still unconscious majority of the population is concerned,
only a critical limit-situation has the potential to crack the hard shell
of the ego and f
TRANSFORMING SUFFERING INTO PEACE
I read about a stoic philosopher in ancient Greece who, when he was
told that his son had died in an accident, replied, “I knew he was not
immortal.” Is that surre
THE WAY OF THE CROSS
There are many accounts of people who say they have found God
through their deep suffering, and there is the Christian expression
“the way of the cross,” which I s
THE POWER TO CHOOSE
What about all those people who, it seems, actually want to suffer? I
have a friend whose partner is physically abusive toward her, and her
previous relationship w
Document Outline
Author’s Preface to the Paperback Edition Introduction The Origin of This Book The Truth That Is Within You CHAPTER ONE : You Are Not Your Mind The Greatest Obstacle to Enlightenment Freeing Yourse
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