AWAKENING
“You are never more essentially, more deeply, yourself than when you are still.”
- Eckhart Tolle
“Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”
- Marianne Williamson
“Ah, but one's reach should exceed their grasp, Or what's a heaven for?”
- Robert Browning
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart."
- Helen Keller
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."
- Stephen Hawking
"Happiness is not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself".
- Benedictus de Spinoza
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good person should be. Be one.”
- Marcus Aurelius
"To be, or not to be, that is the question."
- William Shakespeare
Meditate with nature:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?
@johnnielawson | Johnie Lawson
Listen to "Insects at Night-time" ↓
by Jay-Dea Lopez
at 'Sounds Like Noise'
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
- Marianne Williamson
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
It is not death that a one should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself in your way of thinking.
Luke 1:37
Robert Browning Quotes
Verses on Peace
Verses on a Full Heart
Matthew 7
Eckhart reminds us not to read with the mind only. Watch for any “feeling-response” as you read and a sense of recognition from deep within.
Alienation
Alienation means you don’t feel at ease in any situation, any place, or with any person, not even with yourself. You are always trying to get “home” but never feel at home. Some of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, such as Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, T. S. Eliot, and James Joyce, recognized alienation as the universal dilemma of human existence, probably felt it deeply within themselves and so were able to express it brilliantly in their works. They don’t offer a solution. Their contribution is to show us a reflection of the human predicament so that we can see it more clearly.
To see one’s predicament clearly is a first step toward going beyond it. So while you are perhaps still waiting for something significant to happen in your life, you may not realize that the most significant thing that can happen to a human being has already happened within you: the beginning of the separation process of thinking and awareness.
Awaken
Non-judgmental awareness is key. Become more aware of what is going on inside you, inside others and in the world around you.
That is the real spiritual awakening, when something emerges from within you that is deeper than who you thought you were.
Awareness
Awareness is beyond thinking. It's a space of consciousness where you can be the observer of your own mind—the awareness behind thought processes.
There is a sense of quality in what you do, even the most simple action. Quality implies care and attention, which comes with awareness. Quality requires your Presence.
People often wonder if they are “getting worse” because they can still detect dysfunctional or reactive patterns within themselves, but they’re simply becoming more conscious of what has already been there for many years. It’s not as if those patterns will simply disappear as awareness grows; you’ll just be more aware of them.
Ultimately as you become more aware of reactive patterns, you can see them whereas before you were them. There’s a huge difference between seeing a pattern inside yourself and being the pattern, or being used by it, merging with it, or acting it out totally.
Usually the sequence is that after a person experiences anger or any unconscious reaction related to the emotional body or to certain mind patterns, awareness comes in later, after the energy of the pain-body attack has subsided. This can be a while for some people; it could be an hour, two hours, three hours before you wake up and say, “What was all that?”
Fortunately, the time gap between the actual event and the return of awareness tends to get shorter as you become more present. Eventually it will arise immediately after it’s happened, or even while the energy is still there but no longer at its highest. At that point you’re already aware of what’s happening. And then the great step forward is when in the middle of it you become aware.
In the middle of it, there’s already an awareness while it’s still happening. The awareness is there just at the moment the anger, for example, comes in; and just before it externalizes itself and expresses itself. When the impulse comes to be angry, the awareness is there; and at that moment then, you will have a choice in how to express it—not to keep it down—but to take one conscious breath, or walk somewhere, or simply be there as the presence and let it pass through you.
Then after that, you may find the impulse is not as strong as before and you notice it just as it comes in, and immediately you’re there as the presence. The impulse meets the light of presence and it melts. So be patient with yourself.
It may also happen that as presence begins to flow into other areas of your life, your relationships and so on, the ego joins with the pain-body, so to speak. It withdraws into one corner of your life where it takes up very firm residence and says, “I’m not going from here.” It’s as if the rest of your life may be undergoing great improvement, but there’s one area in one little corner where the ego and the pain-body are taking refuge.
For example, one person in your life towards whom you harbor a strong grievance. Everything else is fine; you forgive everybody else. But there’s that one person, and the moment you think of that person or the name is mentioned, an enormous influx of unconsciousness takes hold of you. It doesn’t have to be a person; it could be a group of people. Or it could be about money. “I’m okay with anything, as long as nobody mentions money.”
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!
So, whenever you discover a dysfunctional, unconscious pattern in yourself, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed; it means you’re there. It’s always a great thing to see it in yourself.
Eckhart Tolle (https://eckharttolle.com/can-the-ego-become-stronger-as-one-grows-more-conscious/)
Collective Conditioning
When you become aware of silence, immediately there is that state of inner still alertness. You are present. You have stepped out of thousands of years of collective human conditioning.
People can transcend collective conditioning and find liberation by embracing their true essence beyond societal expectations.
The voice in the head has a life of its own. Most people are at the mercy of that voice; they are possessed by thought, by the mind. And since the mind is conditioned by the past, you are then forced to reenact the past again and again.
The collective disease of humanity is that people are so engrossed in what happens, so hypnotized by the world of fluctuating forms, so absorbed in the content of their lives, they have forgotten the essence, that which is beyond content, beyond form, beyond thought. They are so consumed by time that they have forgotten eternity, which is their origin, their home, their destiny. Eternity is the living reality of who you are.
Consciousness
The foundation for all conscious doing is conscious being. We are the consciousness of the universe. The density of the ego depends on the degree to which you 'the consciousness' are identified with your mind; with thinking. Thinking is no more than a tiny aspect of the totality of consciousness, the totality of who you are. The degree of identification with the mind differs from person to person.
At the heart of the new consciousness is the transcendence of thought, the newfound ability of rising above thought, of realizing a dimension within yourself that is infinitely more vast than thought.
Consciousness is the emanation (light) of God.
Eckhart Tolle believes that, "The most important thing is not what's happening out there, it's your own state of consciousness. What happens is much less important than how you respond to what happens. With this, you are not at the mercy of what happens to you." Our minds create all kinds of negative thoughts about experiences and this creates most of our suffering.
From a spiritual perspective, consciousness is all of those things mentioned, but also regarded as an evolving process. One from what might be considered a lower level state of consciousness, or awareness to a higher level or more evolved state of consciousness, awareness, or awakeness. This is also referred to as spiritual ascension or spiritual awakening.
Higher consciousness is an increasing awareness of your spiritual essence, the meaning of life and of the underlying spiritual nature in and of all things. It's elevating your awareness beyond your normal thought processes to your true nature.
Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness. It refers to your awareness of your thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations, and the environment. Consciousness is an individual’s awareness of their own internal states, as well as the events going on around them. Your conscious experiences are constantly shifting and changing. Being conscious is also part of what allows us to exist and understand ourselves in the world.
On the physical level, consciousness is the ability to be awake and process information. Doctors determine if people are conscious or not depending on their wakefulness and how they respond to external stimuli.
Inner Consciousness
Whenever there is beauty, kindness, the recognition of the goodness of simple things in your life, look for the background to that experience within yourself. But don’t look for it as if you were looking for something. You cannot pin it down and say, “Now I have it,” or grasp it mentally and define it in some way. It is like the cloudless sky. It has no form. It is space; it is stillness, the sweetness of Being and infinitely more than these words, which are only pointers. When you are able to sense it directly within yourself, it deepens. So when you appreciate something simple — a sound, a sight, a touch — when you see beauty, when you feel loving kindness toward another, sense the inner spaciousness that is the source and background to that experience.
Many poets and sages throughout the ages have observed that true happiness — I call it the joy of Being — is found in simple, seemingly unremarkable things. Most people, in their restless search for something significant to happen to them, continuously miss the insignificant, which may not be insignificant at all. The philosopher Nietzsche, in a rare moment of deep stillness, wrote, “For happiness, how little suffices for happiness! . . . the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance — little maketh up the best happiness. Be still.” Why is it the “least thing” that makes up “the best happiness”? Because true happiness is not caused by the thing or event, although this is how it first appears. The thing or event is so subtle, so unobtrusive, that it takes up only a small part of your consciousness—and the rest is inner space, consciousness itself unobstructed by form.
Inner space consciousness and who you are in your essence are one and the same. In other words, the form of little things leaves room for inner space. And it is from inner space, the unconditioned consciousness itself, that true happiness, the joy of Being, emanates. To be aware of little, quiet things, however, you need to be quiet inside. A high degree of alertness is required. Be still. Look. Listen. Be present.
Another way of finding inner space: Become conscious of being conscious. Say or think “I Am” and add nothing to it. Be aware of the stillness that follows the I Am. Sense your presence, the naked, unveiled, unclothed beingness. It is untouched by young or old, rich or poor, good or bad, or any other attributes. It is the spacious womb of all creation, all form.
Dimensions
On the one hand, your life purpose unfolds through the activities that you engage in on what I call “the horizontal dimension”—or the dimension of doing. Many teachings on manifestation focus almost exclusively on this dimension, suggesting that if you get what you want, you will be happy.
But that’s a fallacy everybody eventually finds if they only operate on the horizontal dimension. They may get what they want, but it doesn’t ultimately satisfy them.
There is another dimension that I call “the vertical dimension,” or the dimension of being, which is equally important to be aware of when we talk about manifestation. The mastery of life is to have a balance of both. I sometimes call it the dance between being and doing—not as separate things, but acting together—being and doing as one.
The purpose is to help you realize the connection between outer doing and spiritual realization, and to help you bring the two together.
Ego
Many are trapped in the egoic state. They are alienated from themselves, as well as from others and the world around them. When you look at them, you may see the tension in their face, perhaps the furrowed brow, or the absent or staring expression in their eyes. Most of their attention is absorbed by thinking, and so they don’t really see you, and they are not really listening to you. They are not present in any situation, their attention being either in the past or future which, of course, exist only in the mind as thought forms. Or they relate to you through some kind of role they play and so are not themselves. Most people are alienated from who they are, and some are alienated to such a degree that the way they behave and interact is recognized as “phony” by almost everyone, except those who are equally phony, equally alienated from who they are.
Manifestation
People visualize, affirm through speaking and/or writing about the things they’d like to have in their lives; a new partner, new job, new Porsche, whatever.
When creating something, it is important to tap into the depths of your being and allow something to be created through you, rather than it being an egoic endeavor.
The key to manifesting and experiencing the fullness of life is to tap into the depths of your being and find contentment and fulfillment in the present moment, rather than relying on external circumstances or desires.
The power to manifest is in experiencing the fullness of the present moment, not in material possessions or desires.
The fullness of life is realizing that no future moment can possibly be better once you know yourself as consciousness.
"Feel that you already have it...by feeding that which is beyond the world of phenomena, out of which everything arises, which is consciousness."
The key to happiness is not external circumstances, but rather the ability to feel content and fulfilled in the present moment.
If you can't feel the fullness of life now, you won't feel it in the future either, as external circumstances won't bring lasting satisfaction.
If you can't fully enjoy the present moment on your bicycle, you won't be able to fully enjoy life's luxuries like a Rolls-Royce or Ferrari Testarossa.
Being in touch with the fullness of life within yourself can influence your external surroundings and reflect your state of consciousness.
“Manifestation can only be satisfying and truly effective when it arises out of the Being state of consciousness.”
Meditation
All meditation is is practicing observing, without judgment, what's happening in the present moment.
Pain Body
Is an accumulation of painful life experiences that were not fully faced and accepted in the moment they arose. It leaves behind an energy form of emotional pain. It comes together with other energy forms from other instances, and so after some years you have a 'painbody,' an energy entity consisting of old emotion.”
An energy field of old but still very-much-alive emotion that lives in almost every human being.” This pain-body is also what challenges us in our ability to live more conscious and awakened lives.
Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don’t think about it - don’t let the feeling turn into thinking. Don’t judge or analyze. Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of “the one who observes,” the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.
Presence
Presence is inseparable from who you are in your essence. Presence is the arising of a dimension of consciousness from where you can become aware that there is a voice in the head.
A state of being that is always accessible to us. We reach a state of presence (become fully present) by tapping into our inner awareness
(beyond ego) to become fully conscious of the present moment.
Conditioned patterns—or egoic behaviors, one could say—don’t go away immediately as you become present. They have their momentum—especially patterns associated with emotional residues we call “pain-body.” They may act out for quite a while, even as presence is arising.
”When you are present, when your attention is fully in the Now, Presence will flow into and transform what you do. There will be a quality and power in it.
You are present when what you are doing is not primarily a means to an end (money, prestige, winning) but fulfilling in itself, when there is joy and aliveness in what you do.”
“When your attention moves into the Now, there is an alertness. It is as if you are waking from the dream of thought, the dream of past and future. Such clarity, such simplicity.”
“As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscious presence – your deeper self – behind or underneath the thought, as it were. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking.”
Divine presence, presence of God, Inner God, or simply presence is a concept in religion, spirituality, and theology that deals with the ability of a deity to be ""present"" with human beings, sometimes associated with omnipresence.
Thought Disidentification
Acknowledge the two selves. First, become aware of and acknowledge that you and your thoughts are two distinct entities that are entangled inside.
Thought Forms
Viewpoints, opinions, and mental positions are all thoughts – the thought says “this is how it is”, it is some kind of judgment or perspective on things. To be identified with a mental position is to derive your sense of self from that mental position.
Victim Identity
A victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth. It is the belief that other people and what they did to you are responsible for who you are now, for your emotional pain or your inability to be your true self. The truth is that the only power there is, is contained within this moment: It is the power of your presence. Once you know that, you also realize that you are responsible for your inner space now - nobody else is - and that the past cannot prevail against the power of the Now.
See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it.
With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges – the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.
The Present Moment
The past has no power over the present moment.
Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.
“The state of consciousness I call Presence is where wisdom arises,” teaches Eckhart. “The world will change when people no longer create suffering out of unconsciousness."
Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.
If your life situation is all you know about yourself, then you miss life. It's not that you have a life; you are life itself.
As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action.
Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don’t think about it - don’t let the feeling turn into thinking. Don’t judge or analyze. Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of “the one who observes,” the silent watcher. This is the power of the 'Now', the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.
Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.
Anxiety and Peace
The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.
Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.
Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.
All the things that truly matter, beauty, love, creativity, joy and inner peace arise from beyond the mind.
Whenever you become anxious or stressed, the outer purpose has taken over, you lose sight
of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.
It is important to experience your emotions deeply, but avoid letting them take root in you.
In today’s rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.
Don’t look for peace. Don’t look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.
The degree of identification with the mind differs from person to person. Some people enjoy periods of freedom from it, however brief, and the peace, joy, and aliveness they experience in those moments make life worth living. These are also the moments when creativity, love, and compassion arise.
You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.
With stillness comes the benediction of Peace.
Change
Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.
Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.
Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living.
Awareness is the greatest agent for change.
Gratitude
Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.
Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.
The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.
Awakening
What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.
Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence.
The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.
You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.
Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to “die before you die” — and find that there is no death.
All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.
When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought.
Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.
A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever.
To recognize one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.
To love is to recognize yourself in another.
You are here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. That is how important you are.
Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.
With God nothing is impossible.
Ignorance is not innocence, but sin.
Philippians 4:7
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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"The soul is the lure of our becoming.” — Jean Houston