For one reason only – because You Want to be Awakened.
Wow, the first class with a reported 500,000 participants -I suppose many of us wish to find that something we feel we’ve been missing. Why am I writing about it? Because I am excited and the couple of people I invited to do this with me declined. Which is fine – they weren’t ready. (I learned that as well (: So I wanted to share with someone – if your up for it – hope you enjoy!
So back to the class. First I must say… that Oprah never ceases to amaze me with her ability to evolve and bring that to the entire world. She truly epitomizes the beauty of what can happen when you are dedicated and come from a place of love. She said during the class that she has for a long time gotten down on her knees and asked God to use her for good. Well, Oprah – he has and you have and how amazing it is to watch and learn from.
Eckhart was like no one I’d ever seen or heard before. He was quiet, with a confident timidness that I didn’t know existed. He never hesitated with his answers and they were so descriptive. Not knowing what to expect, I was thrilled to hear him use so many great tangible examples of how to begin to bring consciousness and being present. You could tell he is exactly what he speaks of – just being one with what is. You may think that a spiritual teacher that is so unassuming may be boring or dry. Quite the contrary, Eckhart is engaging, descriptive, and even humorous. He glows.
If you thought about reading the book or listening to the class but didn’t for some reason, and you want a recap here are some key points from my perspective.
*Not living in the present moment and living from an egoic state you feel constant frustration because the future will never be here. Life always happens in the present moment.
*Becoming present or aware that there is a separation inside yourself, the ego (your mind or thinking part that is not in the present moment because it is thinking about the past and the future and judging people, and situations and is never satisfied) & the essence (the true you; the part that is present and only present, that is complete, fulfilled, non judging, is ok with what is, that is the part of you that is the formless )
*It is not necessary to judge others or try to change their behavior or think that they should want to be awakened to this. They will when they are ready, when they have suffered enough and want to live from their true essence. Each persons responsibility is to be present in themselves. This presence brought about by stillness and awareness will allow you to experience life from your true essence and not react through your ego.
*How can you learn to start doing this? By asking yourself as many times as possible each day – What is my relationship with the present moment? (If there is negativity then realize -I’m fighting what is) Make peace with the moment to get out of it if it is a negative situation because what you resist makes it worse.
*Find a place of acceptance and become friendly with the present moment regardless whether your ego would judge it as good, bad, or indifferent. If you are friendly with life it will be friendly with you, support you, and work with you.
*So How do you shed years of conditioning of seeing life through the egoic state of judgment, frustration, impatience, and wishing for the future? Just be present and find as many times per day to ask yourself until it becomes second nature. The example Tolle used was ask yourself – Am I Breathing? Feel the breath in the body. This takes you out of your mind into the present when all that you are doing is concentrating on that breath. Using your sensory perceptions while doing the smallest tasks can do this. Like washing your hands. Smell the soap, feel the warm water. At these moments you are present. Almost as if he knew what Oprah had said to herself when she described doing this walking up her steps, Tolle said that the mind says – What is the point of this? I have more important things to do? Oprah laughed as her mind had done that. This he explained was the ego trying to hang on because it doesn’t want to go. When you are present continually, the ego dies. Tolle also said that the more you bring in the present the more the old way goes. You can start retraining the mind by using the simple things to start.
*Begin shifting to this state of consciousness by looking at nature without naming anything – just be and this essence that you will feel is how you can feel the essence in yourself.
*By telling yourself, Thoughts are only a small conditioned part of me, not me. I can separate them. I’ve made a decision to ask (God, life, or however you wish to label the greater power) to guide me to what I am suppose to do.
*You don’t become good by trying to be or do good, but by finding the goodness that is already in you.
*The ego wants to be recognized as spiritual or good or more enlightened. This means that dysfunction is still operating.
*Beneath the good and bad is the formless. Being conscious without thinking is the essence of every human being.
This is just a short overview of what was talked about in the 90 min. class. All of the concepts, words used, examples, and phrases are all repeated from what I heard while listening to the seminar and are not my original thoughts. I took notes and shared what I heard from my perspective and interpretation. If any of it resonated with you and you wish to listen for yourself here’s the link – www.oprah.com and click on Chapter 1.
I have had so many “Aha moments” as Oprah defines them.
One was when they were talking about ego being the part of us that wants more stuff and is never satisfied for long. I’d never really had a lot of expensive stuff througout my life so I haven’t had much of an attachment to material things. However, I do have just a few sentimental things that I cherish. When Eckhart was discussing that it is ok to want stuff and have it, just that you can tell if it is ego that wants it if you aren’t satisfied for long or you are devastated when losing it. Because anything tangible will come and go – but what is truly important (our essence) can not go away or die. So our bodies die, but our spirits do not.
This brought me back to a time in my late teens when I lost a necklace. To me it was of great magnitude because the tiny cross on it was bought by me with the last $40.00 given to me by my mother. She died 6 days before my sixteenth birthday from scerosis of the liver. I hadn’t lived with her or known much about her since I was 5 years old. After she died I was given a bank envelope with $40.00 in it that she had been saving to buy me something for my sixteenth birthday. She was on disability and did not work so I knew this had been a lot of money to her. I wanted to buy something with it that was special and would remind me of her so it sat in a drawer for a few months until i came upon a tiny gold cross in a store one day. I knew that was it because she loved rosaries and crosses and I could wear it by my heart everyday. While out dancing one night in a club, I felt the necklace slide down. I flipped, crying in front of everyone as I crawled on the floor looking for that tiny cross that represented all that I had left of my mom. I never found it.
I’ve done a lot of work over the last 20 years and I was aware that my mom’s spirit still lived on and she was around me. But it wasn’t until Eckhart was speaking that I realized that I had never needed that tiny cross. That the pain I associated with losing it was not real because something material could not represent my mom’s essence or spirit and it did not keep her near me. She already was.
This is just one example of how this book and class have touched me so far. And this is just the beginning? I look forward to more.
WHY? 