“The secret of life is to die before you die and find that there is no death.” Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now

That’s one hell of a powerful quote don’t you think? but what on earth does it mean? How can you die before you die? and how can dying paradoxically be the secret of life?

Well it’s only in the second ‘die’ that Tolle refers to physical death. The first ‘die’ actually refers to the death of our identification with mind.

Throughout our lives since we are very young we form a self-identity. This is who we think we are which is partly based on our experiences and partly formed by our social environment – that is how people see us and interact with us.

We have a nexus of ‘evidence’ – images, memories, impressions, beliefs – that make up the mental profile we have of ourselves. A cumulative life-history that gives us a sense of self. It’s a long list full of “I am this, I know that, I have this, I love this, and I wish that”.  I think you get the idea.

We attach these things to our own self. That is to say we identify ourselves with them. In other words, we identify ourselves with external things or partial and fleeting perceptions we have about our world and how we feel about it.

We don’t do this intentionally or with purpose. It is a default ‘program’ of the mind to make associations between things, identify fixed points of reference and make sense of reality by categorizing things and experiences.

There is no fault as such in this. The problem comes when that program completely runs your life unconsciously. This means that you are not conscious of the fact that you can be different or more than that image or identity you have of yourself.

You run the risk of attaching yourself to a false identity. This is what some spiritual traditions call the illusion of mind and of the self. You become completely entrapped in that reality like there is nothing more outside of it.

The essence of the problem is that because you identify yourself with certain beliefs, ideas or external things you strongly believe that if you lose them you will lose who you are (this is why we react badly when we feel that one of those things – like our beliefs – are being challenged or threatened). Or else that in order to be more complete you need to get more of those things like possession, social status, recognition, knowledge, special abilities, relationships and what have you.

The truth is that none of these will actually bring completion. When you get them you realize that you’re still not there and you search for more down a bottomless pit. It brings eternal dissatisfaction which no self-gratification can relinquish.

Death, according to Tolle, is the stripping away of all that is not you. It is the stripping away of those beliefs encoded by society, those fears, those assumptions, those half-baked truths that become your internal reality after many years. Death is when that bubble bursts and you see yourself as you truly are. You understand that you are much more than you thought.

This brings us back to the quote. To die before you die is a way of saying that you strip off those illusions before you physically die and realize that there is no death for you are more than your physical embodiment and those limited perceptions you identify yourself with.

To die before you die is realizing that you are not what you possess or achieved or your inclinations and dispositions. It’s understanding that your being is much more than your having or your doing. It’s peeping in your naked true and authentic self and being more alive than you can ever be.

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I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle’s writing.But having read his books more than once, I know that ‘fan’ is not the ideal word to use and it is a concept he wouldn’t definitely include in his vision of spiritual evolution.

The thing is that ‘fan’ or fanatic implies a person motivated by an irrational desire to pursue something or be engaged in something. It very often reflects black or white thinking in the form of  an obsession with an idea or  an object of desire. Fanaticism in fact is associated with religious extremist views or for instance ‘ultra supporters’ of a sports team where in both cases, negation or contradiction of their zeal may result in aggression, violence and all sorts of irrational behaviour. In short, it is the over-reaction of the blind and self-centered ego whether in individual or collective form. I have wrote about this before in the article ‘Why Passion is such a bad thing‘.

So I’ll unsubscribe to that term with reference to Eckhart’s work.

The first book of his I read was ‘A new Earth‘ and it was the one following his tremendously successful best-seller ‘The Power of Now‘.  It was one of those books which I can definitely mark as a life-changer. I remember being sunk in it for a whole week and re-read it once or twice thereafter. It swept across and struck a deep chord with many of my views on life and spirituality.  The only other book which I can remember to have touched me with such depth was ‘Man and his symbols’, conceived and edited by Carl Jung.

For those few of you who haven’t read Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The power of Now’ or ‘A New Earth’, I strongly recommend that you do as soon as you have time. In the meantime I will give you a taste of it in the form of some selected quotes in the above slideshow. I am sure that this will also be an excellent refresher of those who have read his work and are touched by it like myself.

Enjoy!

No related posts.

Photo by mslori411

“Awareness implies that you are not only conscious of things (objects), but you are also conscious of being conscious. If you can sense an alert inner stillness in the background while things happen in the foreground – that’s it! This dimension is there in everyone, but most people are completely unaware of it”. Eckhart Tolle – A New Earth

I wasn’t planning doing a second part to ‘Developing Awareness’ today, exactly following the first part. I was planning to let some other few articles in between.

However, I was flipping through pencil-written bookmarks and side notes I left on Tolle’s  book*, when I came across the verse quoted above.   It struck me a second time as being an important practical tip worth noting and sharing.

I would also love to hear your thoughts on this.

The alert stillness in the background:

This phrase says it all. For me it completely defines what I feel during mindfulness meditation.

It can be called stillness because your awareness feels still, centered, grounded and solidly whole but at the same time it is alert. Sounds like a contradiction but it isn’t.

The alertness comes from the freshness of being grounded in the present and the aliveness of giving soft attention to your surroundings and experience. You are there present with your being not floating in some hazy daydreaming or in anxious thoughts about things you have yet to sort out.

This alert stillness can be described to be in the background because it doesn’t come out in the forefront of your consciousness and awareness in any obvious way like thoughts or perception. It is subtle and sedimentary. It is felt when the constant stream of thought subsides and there is less intensity in the forefront (that is why some point at the ‘gap between thoughts’ as the access point to your inner awareness). The foreground noise is cleared and so the background signal emerges clearly.

When I first succeeded in having a proper mindfulness meditation experience it was nothing like I had previously expected. Before that day I had imagined that in a purely meditative state, the mind will be purely absorbed in nothingness as if no thought existed. When I then experienced a state of mindfulness meditation, I could exactly describe it as “an alert stillness in the background while things happen in the foreground.”

Thoughts were still happening in the foreground (although less in number and intensity) but they did not distract me or annoy me because my awareness was grounded in the alert stillness in the background.

Does this ring any bell to you whether in meditation or otherwise? Did you have any experiences of the alert stillness in the background?

Space Consciousness:

Tolle uses the concept of ‘space consciousness’ to describe this undercurrent of awareness.  Space consciousness can be distinguished in contrast to ‘object consciousness’.

Object consciousness is when your reality is fully anchored to the world of objects and believe that there is nothing more to it. It is unfortunately the reality of most people who take life at face value. For them the only concrete reality is that that of things, objects, thoughts and petty human conventions. There is nothing more than that.

“Space consciousness means that in addition to being conscious of things – which always comes down to sense perceptions, thoughts and emotions – there is an undercurrent of awareness.” A New Earth

This Dimension is there in everyone:

This awareness Tolle is pointing at is easily missed because of its subtlety yet it is there in every human being. It is there in you right now. It is always present there in the background but we are never taught to single it out. We take it for granted that outer reality and thoughts about that outer reality is everything there is.

If you do not have a concept of something, you can’t see it even if it stands right in front of you and slaps you in the face. We can only recognize patterns that we have a previous concept of. It’s the same thing with the awareness of our inner stillness – our space consciousness.

Since we are not guided into being aware of it, we never identify it even if I’m sure that everyone experiences it at some point in time.

The bottom line is this: If you have at least a foundation of it as a concept and recognize that it exists, the mind can more easily identify it when it arises.

The second step is watching out for it. I suggest using the observation on awareness I laid out in part 1.

Once you recognize it as part of your experience you know where to look for it next time because you would have opened up the space for that possibility. You would start having a ‘feel’ of your inner space – your space consciousness.

*(Even though I read the book some time ago I still keep it as a reference for some notes and concepts. The book was given as a gift by my special friend Valerie who I thank from my heart. )

Related posts:

1. Developing Awareness – Part 1
2. A Note on Happiness
3. Increasing Your Positive Self-Awareness

Photo by Down Town Pictures

What if you know that 8 minutes a day or even less can change your life drastically for the better?  What if you know that in less time that you buy and drink a latte you can practice yourself into a life of better mental performance, more serenity & happiness and more control over your life?

I know it sounds like a cheesy sales page of some ‘get empowered and conquer the universe in 7 days’ self-help program. I myself am totally unimpressed and disapproving of certain ‘quick simple techniques’ to master this or achieve that.  However it’s not ‘techniques’ I am talking about here but practices or ‘good habits’ as simple and short as brushing your teeth or clipping your toe nails. The difference is that they are not that brain-numbingly mundane and of course they are ‘life-changing practices’ as against mere ‘grooming practices’.

Can 2 minute long practices change a person’s life drastically? Well the short answer to that is definitely “Yes”.  The longer answer is that these practices are accessible and user-friendly tools that routinely program the mind to develop new positive habits which then become engrained over a time period and before you know it a big inner change has happened!

The real fantastic thing about these practices is that you effectively invest little resources but yield high returns on that investment. Moreover:

1. They can be practiced everywhere at anytime
2. They don’t need to be done at the same time
3. They can be integrated in any busy schedule
4. They don’t need a learning curve
5. They are free and abundant

Energy Breathing:

Breathing is one of the most fundamental, yet taken for granted, functions in the Human body.  We have heard the advice a thousand times “When you feel stressed breathe deeply and relax” yet we still overlook the importance of breathing.

In yogic traditions, breathing exercises (Pranayama) are central. The following is a simple breathing exercise which kick-starts me every time. It instantly feels me with energy like fire running through my body.

1^st minute: Sit down straight on a chair or whichever position you prefer (must have erect spine). Inhale deeply and slowly expanding  & contracting the belly and not the chest. Exhale. Just that!

2^nd minute: This is an alternate nostril breathing exercise. Still sitting down, close your right nostril with your thumb (or second and middle finger) and inhale from your left nostril. Now close your left nostril and exhale out of your right nostril then continue to inhale from the right nostril again and close to exhale from the left. The alternate pattern should then follow an exhale/inhale from each nostril.

Selectively Positive:

Positive thinking is another widely mentioned phrase that we see appearing so many times in books and articles (quite rightly so…it’s a very good thing!). The problem with positive thinking is that it’s a bit intimidating just imagining making such a big shift in perspective from normal to positive thinking. We can’t really imagine ourselves being truly positive all the time can we? This makes it a little inaccessible.

By practicing to be positive on selected items only little by little instead of expecting your mind to be positive about everything can be a less overwhelming task while at the same time you can start seeing results immediately.

To do this in your 2 minute practice think about one thing which has some meaning to you. It may be a person, an object or an event. It may also be your job. Start focusing on its positive attributes. They could be hard to find or they could seem insignificant at first but it’s good just the same. Start filtering out the negative thoughts that arise and stop only on the positive ones no matter how silly they seem. Keep on putting focus on them. If you can’t find any positive attributes in that object, create and visualize those positive elements that you wish it had. Keep on doing this for the whole 2 minutes.

Hint: Emotions are a key. Use them as a guide and tracking system. Keep on focusing on the positive until you start feeling good about it. That’s how you know you are on the right track

Awareness of the present:

Awareness is fundamental. We live most of our daily lives unaware of our surroundings, our own inner states and the needs and feelings of those around us. We almost live on autopilot. Thoughts and feelings rush through our heads on their own. In a way this is so inefficient because most of the thoughts we think during a day or a lifetime are, I’m sorry to say, useless (apart from wasting time and energy). Our intentions are too much diluted and the times we have conscious awareness and control over our thoughts and reasoning is much less than we like to think.

Imagine if you could have a quieter, more focused mind where less useless thoughts come up and where you have more conscious awareness of those thoughts that are more effective, fruitful, life-changing and conducive to happiness.  In short this is called Mindfulness.

As Eckhart Tolle put it: Past and future are an illusion. Everything happens in the now. This alludes at the fact that we spend a lot of time clinging to the past or anxious about the future. This makes us oblivious to the present. Conscious awareness is awaking to the present which is where all things take shape

The exercise involves doing something that puts your attention in the present moment. I like to use breathing, which is great because it can be combined with the breathing exercises. Two minutes saved!

While you are doing your breathing exercises put your awareness into it. That means that instead of wandering somewhere else with your thoughts, immerse yourself in the present experience. Pay attention to how the air feels in your lungs, how your belly expands and contracts and how the air flows through your nostrils.

When you get the gist of it, try expanding your awareness to your entire body like for example by taking note of how your hand feels, how your back feels on the chair or how you feel yourself to be extending in space.

Another good mindfulness exercise is eating. While snacking on some food don’t rush into just for filling your stomach and killing off your hunger pangs. Slow down and notice how the tastes and textures feel on your tongue and mouth. Discern between the different tastes and textures, smells and colours as much as possible. This will train the mind to be more aware of your senses and immediate present.

Gratitude: Open up yourself to the power:

Gratitude is such a powerful thought and emotion. It is a generator of good vibes and positive feelings which in return brings back more positive thoughts, feelings and life situations by a tenfold. When we are grateful for something in our lives, we set so many good things in motion.

On one level we are sending a positive and affirmative message to our brain that our lives are turning just the way we want them.

The brain always acts in the present. This means that even though our current life setting may be a little bit less than perfect, when we are grateful for something or someone we are saying to our brains “right now I feel happy, blessed and thankful for this or that”. The brain will act on it as though it is a confirmation of the present which in many ways it is.

This will turn into positive feedback because as we subconsciously become more positively responsive to our surroundings we start to unknowingly interpret life situations more positively which in turn starts making things easier, brighter and lighter and so on in a feedback loop.

On another more spiritual level, we are opening our hearts to ourselves, Life and the Universe.

When we are feeling bitter, depressed, angry or resentful we are like a blocked node in the network of life. When our heart is closed our vision is shortened and life can’t flow through us.

On the other hand when we feel grateful, life starts flowing through us again in gushes. We become a healthy node in the network of life. This is an immense power, do not overlook it.

Try to think of it in terms of connections and flow. Everything is interconnected in the Universe. Our Consciousness is specially connected to the Universe (actually it is an extension of it – it is a way the Universe can be conscious of itself!).

Now the more connections we create in the network, such as meaningful relationships with others through love and compassion, being grateful to life and feeling good, making others feel good and passing on the good vibes to others, the more we are strengthening the network and we become powerful nodes through which the Universe can flow its energies. Life will flow through us and we start seeing our own destiny manifesting before our own eyes. So-called ‘miracles’ start to happen.

This may be a bit hard to understand but it’s a powerful truth to realize. It’s a game of connections. The more open and connected you are to the ‘network’ the more you are contributing to the expansion of life and the Universe and the more power and energy will flow through you.

If you are blocked and not linked then very little energy can flow through you.

The Exercise:

Everyday spend 2 minutes to be grateful about the things happening around you. Everyone has things to be grateful about. We are just blind to them sometimes. If you look around you or just look a bit deeper, you will start finding hundreds of things to be grateful about.  It doesn’t need to be something big.

It might be the beautiful morning,  or that you didn’t go late for work despite the awful weather, or that some problem was solved during the day or that some friend phoned to tell you that his health has turned for the better.

These are all very pertinent things to be grateful for. Sometimes we overlook them because of our hectic lifestyle. Instead of letting them pass by, stop and be grateful for them in your heart.

Open up your possibilities

When these 4 simple 2 minute exercises are practiced everyday and they start turning into a habit, a lot of things start taking new shape in your life. Positivity, conscious awareness, happiness and appreciation will start flowering more and more as you practice everyday.

Your life will open up to new possibilities. It’s hard to conceive it from now that all this is possible through such simple and short practises.  Just give it a try and you’ll see!

Related posts:

1. A simple visualization technique to keep calm under pressure

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence” Aristotle

Photo by Hadrien

Every living being in this world seeks happiness whether s/he is aware of it or not.  It is the meaning and purpose of life as Aristotle had noted.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I hear you say. Yet is it really that obvious I dare ask again?

If it were that obvious why aren’t billion of dollars being spent in researching the ‘Science of Happiness’? Why aren’t political systems based on the pursuit, achievement and safeguarding of Happiness? Why aren’t there too many religions that instead of attaching themselves to Dogma and authority reorient their beliefs on the basic Human need of Happiness? Why isn’t Happiness a shared point of reference between political, ideological and International transactions?

Something is not that obviously straight forward to me.

A New Earth & Eckhart Tolle

The answers came from a book that I have read during the last year or so and which has profoundly influenced my perspective on life. The book is Eckhart Tolle’s  A New Earth.  Written by a real contemporary Spiritual Master, the book touches on many insightful and profound truths that seem to unknowingly spark off something inside the reader. There is that “A Ha! So that’s what it is!” kind of feeling in everyone who I know has read the book, including myself.

One of these insights is the fact that the human mind is by default dysfunctional since it is caught by the grips of the ego consciousness. The ego consciousness is that little Mr. Hyde in us that sabotages our every attempt to break free from our old patterns of behavior or self-destructive habits such as negative thinking, limiting and self-defeating thoughts, anger, greed & the incessant desire for having more than others and being better than others.

The Ego & its subconscious machinery

The ego-consciousness makes us self-absorbed and self-centered. It makes us blind and shortsighted. It makes us feel special and cut off from the rest.

There is always that ‘I and others’ or ‘’us and them’ kind of standpoint which breeds other negative repercussions such as prejudice, labeling, intolerance, hatred, etc. The ego consciousness is also a trickster. It comes up with apparently rational arguments in our ‘self-talking’ such as to justify our dysfunctional beliefs and subconscious irrational fears.

The Collective Ego

On a social level, the ego has its collective presence too. The world news is such a testimony to that. Everyday we hear about mass attacks on human lives from religious extremists with fundamentalist beliefs, violence spurred by racial or ethnic hatred and intolerance, political standoffs between countries due to a clash of ideologies and cultures.

This is the collective ego at work that makes us perceive the world through a self-centered orientation, making us narrow minded and blind to the needs and rights of others. We attach ourselves blindly to the shallowness of our own self-created and self-perpetuated system of beliefs & values in such a way that change and acceptance become the worst enemies for the ego because they threaten to uncover its covert trickery and end its reign.

The Transcendental Self

On the other end of Human nature there is what is often referred to as the Transcendental self. This is the nemesis of the ego. It is the part of us which transcends beyond the limited and self-centered vision of the ego and gains insights into the real nature of things without being obscured by the delusions of mind. It is free from attachment to thought.

The Transcendental self is not rooted in the conditioning of past habits or future worries but is rooted in the now, in the only moment which is ever real because everything happens in the now. Tying oneself to the past or future will only bring stress and anxiety while it forces us to live our lives on autopilot (which is the opposite of being awake).

The Transcendental self is not self-absorbed. Its vision is wider and feels and accepts that s/he is part of the universal being. S/he understands that all life is interconnected at some level and that all our actions have consequences which incur other consequences in an interdependent Universe of cause and effect.

A person who has transcended beyond his limiting ego-centric view on life is a person who is self-actualizing, takes his destiny in his own hands and co-creates his life rather than just reacting to it with worry, anger, guilt or attachment.

The Reactive vs. The Creative self

Two people can behave quite differently in a same situation. Imagine a situation whereby a man, Mr.A is driving along his way when some other guy thoughtlessly but abusively drives in the main road from a side street and almost makes Mr.A loose control of his car and send him into a possible life-threatening accident.

Mr.A, after getting out of his shock, hoots the horn at the other guy which promptly and cheekily replies with his middle finger. Mr.A gets wrathful to the point of foam in his mouth and steam coming out from his ears. He chases him, swears at him, hoots at him, swerves on him, calls him names, and after a long ride completely off route where he was going, finally decides to call off the chase.

But that’s not the end of it. On the remainder of his trip Mr.A drives with thoughts of revenge, anger, frustration, disbelief and then spends the rest of the day having a mental picture of the guy with all the things he could have said or done to him. Not to mention, the physiological stress and harm, Mr.A wasted his day by running a very vivid and negative documentary in his head.

Now imagine the same situation happening to Mr.B. Car comes out, Mr.B tries to avoid him, takes in a deep breath, makes sure he has full control of the car and himself, slows down then drives off just to forget about it as soon as he turns on the first corner.

Mr.A and Mr.B were victims of the same circumstances but while Mr.A held himself hostage of his own ego, Mr.B was free and made a choice not to hassle himself with the emotion arousing thoughts for the rest of his day.

The Unhappy Ego

The ego-driven self is locked into a powerless state of dysfunction and is very limited in finding happiness. It always wants the next best thing hence eternally dissatisfied with what it has. There is no appreciation of the present moment.

The ego loves a reaction as shown in the case of Mr.A. It feeds on it like a vampire feeds on blood. It is reactive rather than creative, hence its shallowness and shortsightedness.

It reacts as soon as it sees someone else being better than itself or to someone who said or did something that arouses a negative emotion. It will attempt its very best to react to the other person’s actions by trying to win over an argument with intellectual prowess, bitch back, pass on demeaning and insulting remarks, do or say something to show his/her superiority at something and so on down a very long list of silly and futile things the human mind can come up with. Worst thing is that we are not conscious that all this ever happening to us.

The Science of Happiness

Recent studies and Research in Cognitive Psychology and Positive Psychology are time after time discovering and verifying the age-old insights in mind, consciousness and happiness as outlined in brief above. Most of this ancient knowledge derives from Buddhist teachings but now is finding its way further into mainstream western thought and Science. I agree with his Holiness the Dalai Lama when he once was quoted in saying that Buddhism is after all a Science of Mind.

By slowly embracing a relatively more Holistic approach to Science, modern Cognitive Psychology is starting to recognize, through scientific tests, the validity of this ancient wisdom. (If you’re interested in this I recommend checking out the works of Jon Kabat-Zinn here)

Amongst some of the interesting findings, which throw light on the intersection between the old and modern understanding of the mind and happiness there is:

• Meditation has been shown to have many beneficial effects to mental health in general such as significantly reducing stress & anxiety, heart problem risks and depression. It also promotes general happiness and well being

• Attaching oneself to material objects, ideas or a narrow framework of thought causes a kind of black or white mode of seeing reality. Often this brings a loss of perspective and eventually anxiety or depression. The opposite is equally true. People who tend to see things in perspective without blowing up negative happenings tend to be more relaxed & happy.

• People who isolate themselves, are hostile to others or feel cut off and different from the rest have bigger chances of feeling jaded and unhappy. On the other hand, people who receive or give emotional support have a higher chance of being happy.

• Those people who introspect too much on negative things, are self-absorbed and self-centered have more chances of being depressed. Patients suffering chronic depression tend to use the ‘I’, ‘Me’ & ‘Mine’ a lot. Happy people tend to see life and goodness in others.

• Happy people also tend to be people who are not fatalists or who think in a disempowering way. Very often they recognize that they have the power (and the responsibility ) to make a positive change in their life.

Going back to the questions I put in the beginning, it is starting to become more and more clear to me how happiness is the realization and moving away from a rather ego-driven consciousness to a more transcendental one. The only problem is that this is not at all obvious and no one of us is born with a operating manual to mind and happiness.

Related posts:

1. Expanding consciousness through compassion & loving kindness
2. How to find happiness within yourself: a rough guide
3. Developing Awareness – Part 2