Guest guest Posted August 7, 2005 Report Share Posted August 7, 2005 Many SEERS said for centuries that Enlightened beings are childlike – innocent, pure, untainted, free ... Many have also said, all humans are 'born' enlightened - with pure Consciousness ... The burden of constant thinking, the suffering, the separate me-ness, rises, grows and 'solidifies' as the child grows, 'learns', lives and starts dealing IN the WORLD ! As if, the world starts leaking INTO the boat through a hole in the bottom of the boat ( the boat of untainted, SPACIOUS, empty PURE Consciousness ) and, keeps filling it until it is completely full of the 'world' only. All the SPACIOUSNESS, emptiness, pure Consciousness is thus replaced by - the worldliness ! The boat ultimately sinks the bottom of the world, where, all you can see and know is – the world. The light of pure consciousness is virtually lost. Free spirit, playfulness, peace, lightness, enlightenment is lost ! ...... Many become adult and many discover that Pure Consciousness Again either on their own, by an fluke/miracle/grace/ or through spiritual teaching, sadhna and practice – and, they think, Great, I am NOW 'enlightened' !!! Which they are, BTW ! Only difference is that the 'HOLE' in the bottom through which the world entered and sank them before, still REMAINS! ...... As they 'have to' continue 'living' in the world, the 'world' starts leaking IN and filling it Again ! The same thing happens all over again and they gets eventually SUNK !!! Only this time it is 'worse', because, now they think, they are 'all done', ready, complete and thus miss seeing the need for any subsequent 'recovery' ! ....And, this way, many 'enlightened' ( in their own thinking ) get LOST for good ! ...... " LOST in the World ! " , for good ... ( while " thinking " all the time that they are .... 'enlightened' !!!! A 'thinking', which only helps in 'keeping' them SUNK !) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted August 7, 2005 Report Share Posted August 7, 2005 ..... > > > Many become adult and many discover that > Pure Consciousness Again either on their > own, by an accident/fluke/chance/miracle/grace/ > luck or through spiritual teaching, sadhna and > practice – and, they think, Great, I am NOW > 'enlightened' !!! > > > Which they are, BTW ! > > Only difference is that the 'HOLE' in the bottom > through which the world entered and sank them before, > still REMAINS! > ..... And, this danger has been known for centuries. Many masters, seers informed and warned about it. Many traditions even came out with rules, recommendations on staying vigilant, alert - AFTER the event. Zen talked about needing twenty years of continuous, vigilant sadhna to learn how to deal with the world without letting you sink down. Some traditions even talked about completely abandoning it. Others talked about completely detaching ( mentally abandoning ) from it. Many seers, saints are in fact seen to have REALLY walked out of it and stayed out. Ramana continued doing sadhana, meditations, as well as abiding in physical and mental solitude, silence. Following is what Tolle ( the most popular living Master ) said about himself: Here is one small segment and further below are more of them and the link to the complete text: ========== ANDREW COHEN: What would it mean to get lost in doing? ECKHART TOLLE: Theoretically, it would mean that I would continuously travel, teach, and interact with people. PERHAPS IF THAT HAPPENED, AT SOME POINT THE FLOW, THE STILLNESS, MIGHT NOT BE THERE. I don't know; it may always be there. Or physical exhaustion may set in. ======== More segments below ... --------------- ANDREW COHEN: Eckhart, what is your life like? I've heard that you're a bit of a recluse and that you spend a lot of time in solitude. Is that true? ECKHART TOLLE: That was true in the past, before my book The Power of Now came out. For many years I was a recluse. But since the publication of the book, my life has changed dramatically. I'm now very much involved in teaching and traveling. And people who knew me before say, " This is amazing. You used to be a hermit and now you are out in the world. " Yet I still feel that inside nothing has changed. I still feel exactly the same as before. There is still a continuous sense of peace, and I am surrendered to the fact that on an external level there's been a total change. So it's actually not true anymore that I am a hermit. Now I'm the opposite of a hermit. This may well be a cycle. It may well be that at some point this will come to an end and I will become a hermit again. But at the moment, I am surrendered to the fact that I'm almost continuously interacting. I DO OCCASIONALLY TAKE TIME TO BE ALONE. THAT IS NECESSARY IN BETWEEN TEACHING ENGAGEMENTS. AC: Why is it that you need to take time to be alone, and what is it that happens when you take the time to be alone? ET: When I'm with people, I'm a spiritual teacher. That's the function, but it's not my identity. The moment I'm alone, my deepest joy is to be nobody, to relinquish the function of a teacher. It's a temporary function. Let's say I'm seeing a group of people. The moment they leave me, I'm no longer a spiritual teacher. There's no longer any sense of external identity. I simply go into the stillness more deeply. The place that I love most is the stillness. It's not that the stillness is lost when I talk or when I teach because the words arise out of the stillness. But when people leave me, there is only the stillness left. And I love that so much. AC: Would you say that you prefer it? ET: Not prefer. There is a balance now in my life, which perhaps wasn't there before. When the inner transformation happened many years ago, one could almost say a balance was lost. It was so fulfilling and so blissful simply to be that I lost all interest in doing or interacting. For quite a few years, I got lost in Being. I had almost relinquished doing completely—just enough to keep myself alive and even that was miraculous. I had totally lost interest in the future. And then gradually a balance re-established itself. It didn't re-establish itself fully until I started writing the book. The way I feel now is that there is a balance in my life between being alone and interacting with people, between Being and doing, whereas before, the doing was relinquished and there was only Being. Blissful, profound, beautiful—but from an external viewpoint, many people thought that I had become unbalanced or had gone mad. Some people thought I was crazy to have let go of all the worldly things I had " achieved. " They didn't understand that I didn't want or need any of that anymore. So the balance now is between aloneness and meeting with people. And that's good. I'M QUITE ATTENTIVE TO THAT SO THAT THE BALANCE DOESN'T GET LOST. There is now a pull toward increasing doing. People want me to talk here and talk there—THERE ARE CONSTANT DEMANDS. I KNOW THAT I NEED TO BE ATTENTIVE NOW, SO THAT THE BALANCE IS NOT LOST, AND I DON'T GET LOST IN DOING. I don't think it would ever happen, but it requires a certain amount of vigilance. AC: What would it mean to get lost in doing? ET: Theoretically, it would mean that I would continuously travel, teach, and interact with people. PERHAPS IF THAT HAPPENED, AT SOME POINT THE FLOW, THE STILLNESS, MIGHT NOT BE THERE. I don't know; it may always be there. Or physical exhaustion may set in. BUT I FEEL NOW THAT I NEED TO RETURN TO THE PURE STILLNESS PERIODICALLY. And then, when the teaching happens, just allow it to arise out of the stillness. So the teaching and stillness are very closely connected. The teaching arises out of the stillness. But when I'm alone, there's only the stillness, and that is my favorite place. AC: When you're alone, do you spend a lot of time physically being still? ET: Yes, I can sometimes sit for two hours in a room with almost no thought. Just complete stillness. Sometimes when I go for walks, there's also complete stillness; there's no mental labeling of sense perceptions. There's simply a sense of awe or wonder or openness, and that's beautiful. --------------- http://www.wie.org/j18/tolle.asp Ripples on the Surface of Being An interview with Eckhart Tolle by Andrew Cohen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.