Hi this is Supreet, I upload new videos every Sunday.
In this video, I am going to share some beautiful quotes and excerpts from
the book The Power of Now by Eckart Tolle.
Whenever I am going through a tough time in my life, as we all are right now, because of the coronavirus
pandemic, I find that reading this book helps me and it makes me feel better, and helps me to live in the
present and not worry too much about the future.
So I very carefully chose those lines and paragraphs from this book, which would be
the most helpful for you - if you are feeling anxious about the future, if you are panicking,
worrying, and need some spiritual wisdom to help you calm down.
Keep in mind, some of these sentences may feel false or may not make complete sense.
That happened to me as well, when I was reading the book.
If that happens, please pause the video and let yourself digest the sentence before
moving on.
OR consider re-playing the video.
Some sentences might make more sense the second time you hear them.
This book is one of those books, that a lot of people read more than once, and they find
that each time they read it, they get some new insight or wisdom from it.
So with that, I am now going to share some brilliant Eckart Tolle wisdom with you.
Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is true prosperity.
Pain is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what
is.
The more you are able to honour and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain and
suffering.
You cannot both be unhappy and fully present in the Now.
This is one of those sentences which I thought was not true.
But when I think about it some more, I find it is true.
The more you are focused on time – past and future – the more you miss the Now,
the most precious thing there is.
Make the Now the primary focus of your life.
Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling
place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required.
Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.
Always work with it, not against it.
Talking about the concept of “waiting”, Eckart says, “Waiting is a state of mind.
Basically, it means that you want the future; you don’t want the present."
Probably true for a lot of us stuck in our homes right now.
You don’t want what you’ve got, and you want what you haven’t got.
With every kind of waiting, you unconsciously create inner conflict between your here and
now, where you don’t want to be, and the projected future, where you want to be.
This greatly reduces the quality of your life by making you lose the present.
You are carrying in your mind the insane burden of a hundred things that you will or
may have to do in the future, instead of focusing your attention on the one thing that you can
do now.
Find the “narrow gate that leads to life”.
It is called the Now.
Narrow your life down to this moment.
Your life situation may be full of problems - most life situations are – but find out
if you have any problem at this moment.
Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now.
Do you have a problem now?
If you find you’re here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have 3 options:
remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally.
If there is truly nothing that you can do to change your here and now, and you can’t
remove yourself from the situation, then accept your here and now by dropping all inner
resistance.
The false, unhappy self that loves feeling miserable, resentful, or sorry for itself
can then no longer survive.
This is called surrender.
Surrender is not weakness.
There is great strength in it.
Only a surrendered person has spiritual power.
Through surrender, you will be free internally of the situation.
Are you worried?
Do you have many “what if” thoughts?
You are identified with your mind, which is projecting itself into an imaginary future
situation and creating fear.
There is no way you can cope with such a situation, because it doesn’t exist.
It’s a mental phantom.
You can stop this health and life-corroding insanity simply by acknowledging the present
moment.
Become aware of your breathing.
Feel the air flowing in and out of your body.
Feel your inner energy field.
All that you ever have to deal with, cope with, in real life – as opposed to imaginary
mind projections – is this moment.
Ask yourself what “problem” you have right now, not next year, not tomorrow, not 5 minutes
from now.
What is wrong with this moment?
You can always cope with the Now, but you can never cope with the future – nor do
you have to.
The answer, the strength, the right action or the resource will be there when you need
it, not before, not after.
If you cannot accept what is outside, then accept what is inside.
If you cannot accept the external condition, accept the internal condition.
This means: do not resist the pain.
Allow it to be there.
Surrender to the grief, despair, fear, loneliness, or whatever form the suffering takes.
Witness it without labeling it mentally.
Embrace it.
Then see how the miracle of surrender transmutes deep suffering into deep peace.
When there is no way out, there is still always a way through.
So don’t turn away from the pain.
Face it.
Feel it fully.
Feel it – don’t think about it!
As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert.
At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from
it comes, observe it but don’t act on it.
Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the
loneliness, whatever it is.
Stay alert, stay present – present with your whole Being, with every cell of your
body.
As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness.
This is the flame of your consciousness.
Here are some techniques that Eckart offers to be in the Now:
The first one is this:
Make it your practice to withdraw attention from past and future whenever they are not
needed.
If you find it hard to enter the Now directly, start by observing the habitual tendency of
your mind to escape from the Now.
This can be done when you’re meditating.
You will observe that the future is usually imagined as either better or worse than the
present.
If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation.
If it is worse, it creates anxiety.
Both are illusory.
Through self observation, more presence comes into your life automatically.
The moment you realize you are not present, you are present.
Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it.
Be present as the watcher of your mind – of your thoughts and emotions as well as your
reactions in various situations.
Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes
you to react.
Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future.
Don’t judge or analyze what you observe.
Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction.
Don’t make a personal problem out of them.
You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe:
the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.
And the second technique that Eckart offers to be in the Now, is
Use your senses fully.
Be where you are.
Look around.
Just look, don’t interpret.
See the light, shapes, colors, textures.
Listen to the sounds; don’t judge them.
Listen to the silence underneath the sounds.
Observe the rhythm of your breathing; feel the air flowing in and out, feel the life
energy inside your body.
Allow everything to be, within and without.
Allow the “isness” of all things.
Move deeply into the Now.
If you have made it this far into the video, well done!
This can be heavy stuff.
But like I said in the beginning, listen to these wise words from Eckart again.
Replay the video as many times as you want.
Pause it as many times as you want.
If this video made you feel better, share it with someone else who needs it.
Stay healthy and stay safe.
I’ll see you in the next video.