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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3423, Sunday, January 25, 2009, Editor: Mark
The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to
face. When we feel resentment because the room is too hot, we
could meet the heat and feel its fieriness and its heaviness.
When we feel resentment because the room is too cold, we could
meet the cold and feel its iciness and its bite. When we want to
complain about the rain, we could feel its wetness instead. When
we worry because the wind is shaking our windows, we could meet
the wind and hear its sound. Cutting our expectations for a cure
is a gift we can give ourselves. There is no cure for hot and
cold. They will go on forever. After we have died, the ebb and
flow will still continue. Like the tides of the sea, like day and
night - this is the nature of things.
- Pema Chodron, from: When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for
Difficult Times
Interviewer:
Surrendering to "what is" or "the Now" seems
to be an important aspect of your teaching. Is there a
distinction between "surrendering to what is," and the
use of the popular cliché, "go with the flow of life, where
ever it takes us"?
Eckhart Tolle:
Surrendering only refers to this moment, whatever "is"
at this moment-to accept unconditionally and fully whatever
arises at this moment. "Going with the flow" is a more
general term. For some people it is an excuse for not taking
action and it refers usually to one's life situation. Let's say
you are in a particular job and that is the flow, you stay in it.
Surrender is only in reference to Now. So "going with the
flow" is not necessarily true surrender and may lead to
passivity, lethargy and inaction. Surrender to the Now is
something very different because it only concerns accepting the
reality of this moment. Whatever action is needed will then rise
out of that state of complete acceptance. The most powerful state
for a human to be in is the state of embracing completely the
reality of what is-Now. It is to say "Yes" to life,
which is now and always now. There is a vast power in that
"Yes," that state of inner non-resistance to what is.
Action arises out of that if it's needed, as a spontaneous
response to the situation.
So surrender to Now never leads to inaction because it only
concerns the reality of this moment and perhaps action is needed.
In the book I give the example of being stuck in the mud. So you
wouldn't say, "O.K., I surrender to this and I'm going to
stay here." It simply means, "it is;" there is a
recognition of "it is" and to saying yes to "it
is." And there's much greater power now that arises that
will move through you and manifest as action if it is needed than
there could ever be in the state of saying, "no" to
"what is"-and then perhaps taking action that is always
contaminated with negativity. Whenever you say "no" and
then action arises because you are fighting "what is"
that is karmic action in Eastern terms, and it leads to further
suffering because it arises out of suffering, which is the
non-acceptance of "what is"-suffering. Action arising
out of suffering is contaminated with suffering and causes
further suffering, and that is karma. Action that arises out of a
state of "acceptance" is totally free of karma. And
there is a vast difference.
- Eckhart Tolle, excerpted from an interview, from Dialogues
With Emerging Spiritual Teachers, by John W. Parker, posted
to The_Now2
How can a troubled mind
Understand the way?
If a man is disturbed
He will never be filled with knowledge.
An untroubled mind,
No longer seeking to consider
What is right and what is wrong,
A mind beyond judgments,
Watches and understands.
Buddha, posted to The_Now2.
In this moment - for you, right now, - there is a clear light of
awareness in which everything is appearing. It is what you are.
You are that! It is free, totally unobscured, full and complete.
Christ said, "I am the light of the world." You, as
that awareness, can say the same thing. Separation from that is a
total illusion. It never happened, except in imagination. It is
based on a `me' that never existed. It is just a wrong idea.
- John Wheeler, posted to AlongTheWay
Each new moment arrives empty, fresh, totally free of content.
- Annette Nibley