 Dear Friends,
Truly, we live in exciting times. Only a short time ago, it seems, one could talk about the ‘new consciousness’ with people and it would just be a concept – understood, perhaps, in intellectual terms, looked forward to, longed for, but still, generally speaking, not a reality. Now, increasingly, it is an experience we can share. And now, when we use words to describe it to each other, they no longer result merely in the formation of more concepts, more bewilderment; they result in awakening. People feel it. They recognize it. They know it.
Our big news this month is that Eckhart Tolle has just published a wonderful new book (Practising the Power of Now) in which he uses words to help us towards just such an awakening. We thought you'd like to read a small part of it:
Being and Enlightenment
There is an eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. Many people use the word God to describe it; I often call it Being. The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God. Being, however, has the advantage that it is an open concept. It does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity. It is impossible to form a mental image of it. Nobody can claim exclusive possession of Being. It is your very presence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence. So it is only a small step from the word Being to the experience of Being.
Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it.
You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally.
To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of ‘feeling-realization’ is enlightenment. The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form.
The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself, consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflicts within and without become the norm.
The greatest obstacle to experiencing the reality of your connectedness is identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering.
Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate ‘other'. You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is.
The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly - you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.
It's almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself.
The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the possessing entity - the thinker. Knowing this enables you to observe the entity. The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated.
You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.
(Eckhart Tolle, Practising the Power of Now, Hodder Mobius 2002)
Finally, another date for your diary. On 17th-19th May 2002, our neighbours at the retreat centre ‘Plas Taliaris’(where the Cygnus Library is housed) will be holding a special Cygnus Readers' Weekend, where you can relax in beautiful, peaceful surroundings, read books from the library and enjoy each other's company. A visit to Cygnus will also be arranged. Please email office@taliaris.co.uk for further information.
With much love from all of us,
Geoff, Ann, Jackie, Derek, Martyn, Jackie M, Regina, Jon, Sam, Sandra, Pat, Karena, Louisa, Mary, Emma, Belinda, Penny and Tobi.
Text & photographs © Cygnus Books 17-Apr-2002
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