The following I found so relevant to our explorations, and beautiful in language of saying that which is hard to put in words …so I typed it up for me and am sharing it heare … ( from Stillness Speaks, By Ekhart Tolle)
(Chap 5, Who You Truly Are)
The truth is: You don’t have a life, you are life. The One life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or a blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star, or a galaxy. (P66)
…Time is useless, however, for the most essential thing in life, the one thing that really matters: self-realization, which means knowing who you are beyond the surface self—beyond your name, your physical form, your history, your story.
The only place where you can find yourself is in the Now. (P67)
…Thought and language create an apparent duality and a separate person where there is none. The truth is: you are not somebody who is aware of the tree, the thought, feeling, or experience. You are the awareness or consciousness in and by which those things appear. (P68)
As you go about your life, can you be aware of yourself as the awareness in which the entire content of your life unfolds? (P68)
By knowing yourself as the awareness in which phenomenal existence happens, you become free of dependency on phenomena and free of self-seeking in situations, places, and conditions. In other words: what happens or doesn’t happen is not that important anymore. Things lose their heaviness, their seriousness. A playfulness comes into your life. You recognize this world as a cosmic dance, the dance of form—no more and no less. (P70)
When you know who you truly are, there is an abiding alive sense of peace. You could call it joy because that’s what joy is: vibrantly alive peace. It is the joy of knowing yourself as the very life essence before life takes on form. That is the joy of Being – of being who you truly are.(P71)
Just as water can be solid, liquid, or gaseous, consciousness can be seen to be “frozen†as physical matter, “liquid†as mind and thought, or formless as pure consciousness. (P72)
Pure consciousness is Life before it comes into manifestation, and that Life looks at the world of form through “your†eyes because consciousness is who you are. When you know yourself as That, then you recognize yourself in everything. It is a state of complete clarity of perception. You are no longer an entity with a heavy past that becomes a screen of concepts through which every experience is interpreted. (P72)
When you perceive without interpretation, you can then sense what it is that is perceiving. The most we can say in language is that there is a field of alert stillness in which the perception happens.
Through “youâ€, formless consciousness has become aware of itself. (P 72-73)
Most people’s lives are run by desire and fear.
Desire is the need to add something to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All fear is the fear of losing something and thereby becoming diminished and being less.
These two movements obscure the fact that Being cannot be given or taken away. Being is its fullness is already within you, Now. (P73)
Soudi,
Thanks for sharing exerpts from Ekhart Tolle that resonate so well with TSK.
I’ve been reading A H Almaas’s “SpaceCruiser Inquiry” and have been struck with how parallel (consonant but original) his vision is to the TSK vision: for instance awareness, dynamism (Time), wholeness, spaceousness, and knowing are central themes into which he “inquires”.
A couple of days ago I read essentially the same metaphor–that water is like consciousness, as your quote from “Stillness Speaks”:
“The basic elementary compound of H2O can manifest as ice, snow, rain, steam, or fog. To recognize that the essence of all of these is water is to see beyond the different manifestations or forms in order to recognize their common nature.” SpaceCrusiser Inquiry, 31.
I find it so helpful when many wise voices resonate with one another.
Michael
Wonderful exchange. Thanks to both of you for bringing your thoughts and quotes here to share.
Dear Soudi,
I enjoy your post, specially the phrase:
By knowing yourself as the awareness in which phenomenal existence happens, you become free of dependency on phenomena and free of self-seeking in situations, places, and conditions. In other words: what happens or doesn’t happen is not that important anymore. Things lose their heaviness, their seriousness. A playfulness comes into your life. You recognize this world as a cosmic dance, the dance of form—no more and no less. (P70)
In my understanding an awareness like this is a key to approach the experience in a more profound level.
Instead of chasing after the given or stepping into the established, instead of joining in or breaking away, ignoring or accepting, we can deepen awareness of who and how we are. Awareness emerges as our inner being—the truth of our presence in time and space. DTS xxxi