CONNECTING WITH THE INNER BODY

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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

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?

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