FREEDOM FROM UNHAPPINESS - раздел Образование, Acclaim for THE POWER OF NOW
Do You Resent Doing What You Are Doing? It May Be Your Job, O...
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 you carrying unspoken resentment toward a
person close to you? Do you realize that the energy you thus emanate
is so harmful in its effects that you are in fact contaminating yourself
as well as those around you? Have a good look inside. Is there even
the slightest trace of resentment, unwillingness? If there is, observe it
on both the mental and the emotional levels. What thoughts is your
mind creating around this situation? Then look at the emotion, which
is the body’s reaction to those thoughts. Feel the emotion. Does it feel
pleasant or unpleasant? Is it an energy that you would actually
choose to have inside you? Do you have a choice?
Maybe you are being taken advantage of, maybe the activity you are
engaged in is tedious, maybe someone close to you is dishonest,
irritating, or unconscious, but all this is irrelevant. Whether your
thoughts and emotions about this situation are justified or not makes
no difference. The fact is that you are resisting what is. You are
making the present moment into an enemy. You are creating
unhappiness, conflict between the inner and the outer. Your
unhappiness is polluting not only your own inner being and those
around you but also the collective human psyche of which you are an
inseparable part. The pollution of the planet is only an outward
reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious
individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space.
Either stop doing what you are doing, speak to the person concerned
and express fully what you feel, or drop the negativity that your mind
has created around the situation and that serves no purpose
whatsoever except to strengthen a false sense of self. Recognizing its
futility is important. Negativity is never the optimum way of dealing
with any situation. In fact, in most cases it keeps you stuck in it,
blocking real change. Anything that is done with negative energy will
become contaminated by it and in time give rise to more pain, more
unhappiness. Furthermore, any negative inner state is contagious:
Unhappiness spreads more easily than a physical disease. Through
the law of resonance, it triggers and feeds latent negativity in others,
unless they are immune — that is, highly conscious.
Are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess? You are
responsible for your inner space; nobody else is, just as you are
responsible for the planet. As within, so without: If humans clear inner
pollution, then they will also cease to create outer pollution.
How can we drop negativity, as you suggest?
By dropping it. How do you drop a piece of hot coal that you are
holding in your hand? How do you drop some heavy and useless
baggage that you are carrying? By recognizing that you don’t want to
suffer the pain or carry the burden anymore and then letting go of it.
Deep unconsciousness, such as the pain-body, or other deep pain,
such as the loss of a loved one, usually needs to be transmuted
through acceptance combined with the light of your presence — your
sustained attention. Many patterns in ordinary unconsciousness, on
the other hand, can simply be dropped once you know that you don’t
want them and don’t need them anymore, once you realize that you
have a choice, that you are not just a bundle of conditioned reflexes.
All this implies that you are able to access the power of Now. Without
it, you have no choice.
If you call some emotions negative, aren’t you creating a mental
polarity of good and bad, as you explained earlier?
No. The polarity was created at an earlier stage when your mind
judged the present moment as bad; this judgment then created the
negative emotion.
But if you call some emotions negative, aren’t you really saying that
they shouldn’t be there, that it’s not okay to have those emotions? My
understanding is that we should give ourselves permission to have
whatever feelings come up, rather than judge them as bad or say that
we shouldn’t have them. It’s okay to feel resentful; it’s okay to be
angry, irritated, moody, or whatever — otherwise, we get into
repression, inner conflict, or denial. Everything is okay as it is.
Of course. Once a mind pattern, an emotion, or a reaction is there,
accept it. You were not conscious enough to have a choice in the
matter. That’s not a judgment, just a fact. If you had a choice, or
realized that you do have a choice, would you choose suffering or joy,
ease or unease, peace or conflict? Would you choose a thought or
feeling that cuts you off from your natural state of well-being, the joy
of life within? Any such feeling I call negative, which simply means
bad. Not in the sense that “You shouldn’t have done that,” but just
plain factual bad, like feeling sick in the stomach.
How is it possible that humans killed in excess of one hundred million
fellow humans in the twentieth century alone?4 Humans inflicting pain
of such magnitude on one another is beyond anything you can
imagine. And that’s not taking into account the mental, emotional and
physical violence, the torture, pain, and cruelty they continue to inflict
on each other as well as on other sentient beings on a daily basis.
Do they act in this way because they are in touch with their natural
state, the joy of life within? Of course not. Only people who are in a
deeply negative state, who feel very bad indeed, would create such a
reality as a reflection of how they feel. Now they are engaged in
destroying nature and the planet that sustains them. Unbelievable but
true. Humans are a dangerously insane and very sick species. That’s
not a judgment. It’s a fact. It is also a fact that the sanity is there
underneath the madness. Healing and redemption are available right
now.
Coming back specifically to what you said — it is certainly true that
when you accept your resentment, moodiness, anger, and so on, you
are no longer forced to act them out blindly, and you are less likely to
project them onto others. But I wonder if you are not deceiving
yourself. When you have been practicing acceptance for a while, as
you have, there comes a point when you need to go on to the next
stage, where those negative emotions are not created anymore. If
you don’t, your “acceptance” just becomes a mental label that allows
your ego to continue to indulge in unhappiness and so strengthen its
sense of separation from other people, your surroundings, your here
and now. As you know, separation is the basis for the ego’s sense of
identity. True acceptance would transmute those feelings at once.
And if you really knew deeply that everything is “okay,” as you put it,
and which of course is true, then would you have those negative
feelings in the first place? Without judgment, without resistance to
what is, they would not arise. You have an idea in your mind that
“everything is okay,” but deep down you don’t really believe it, and so
the old mental-emotional patterns of resistance are still in place.
That’s what makes you feel bad.
That’s okay, too.
Are you defending your right to be unconscious, your right to suffer?
Don’t worry: Nobody is going to take that away from you. Once you
realize that a certain kind of food makes you sick, would you carry on
eating that food and keep asserting that it is okay to be sick?
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
EMOTION: THE BODY’S REACTION TO YOUR MIND
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
emot
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
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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