Forget about your life situation for a while and pay attention to your life. ~Eckhart Tolle
I am rereading The Power of Now. I realized this time that while I agree with almost everything Tolle says, I am reluctant to experience it. His story of losing everything on the physical plane (relationships, home, job, socially defined identity) terrifies me, even though he reports being in a state of indescribable bliss at the time. How many of us can afford to go there, and would eventually come out on the other side as a famous spiritual teacher?
This resistance is identification with my mind, Tolle might say, which comes between me and myself, between me and others, between me and nature, between me and God. I can’t use thinking to experience Being. Tolle suggests focusing attention on the inner energy field of the body, that is, feeling the body from within. That, he says, puts us in touch with our emotions, which is a good place to start.
May I put aside past and future when they are not useful in the present moment. May I feel the body from within, be in touch with my emotions, and let go of my mind-identification. May I focus more on my life and not my life situation, which is illusory and exists in time, whereas my life is now and real. May I trust that the universe will hold me up as I find my true path.
Only Moment 
Well, it’s actually more the realization that whatever you are doing is already the true path, which is whatever you decide to do. ;^)
As the Buddhists would say, “there is nothing to attain”…
Namste…
So the last sentence should read “as I travel my true path.” Thanks, again, Donna!
Great post – words to live by!!
on the road
filling up at a pump
marked self
[…] jibe with Byron Katie’s concept of loving what is or Eckhart Tolle’s encouragement to live in the Now? If we are attempting to make our worlds, our lives, our meaning, are we pushing the […]
[…] Life is Now Tolle exhorts us to pay less attention to our life situations, and more attention to life itself. […]