Over the past 10 weeks, several of us from this blog, and hundreds of thousands of people around the world, have been following Eckhart Tolle and Oprah as they reviewed the book, “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” chapter by chapter. What a journey it has been!
Coupled with A New Earth, I also have been experiencing the Presence Process, led by Michael Brown, week by week. I’m now two weeks away from completion of this process.
These two experiences have caused a major shift in the way I see the world and my “being” in the world: a paradigm shift. After these weeks of exploring consciousness with Tolle and Brown, I don’t think I’m ever likely to forget to stay alert to the NOW. Oprah and Tolle did an awesome job, garnering a participation level of approximately 800,000 people in the weekly program. But it was Brown’s Presence Process that truly captured my soul.
If you followed the twice-daily connected breathing exercises, with weekly affirmations, that are intended to awaken your consciousness, there is no way you can operate the same way as you did before.
Uncovering The Presence Process has not been an easy journey, but a fulfilling one.
Before going through my experience of Presence, I was aware of the Spirit within me. This Spirit was the God force within with whom I was able to connect during times of prayer or meditation. I’ve always also known that whether I connected to this Spirit within me or not, it was always there, always supporting me in my efforts. It was there because “it had to be.”
I did not think that the quality of my entire life, though, depended on my connecting or not connecting with this force. Now I do. We all need to be awake to consciousness, moment by moment, not just when we “think of it.”
Making the critical connection to Spirit within, which I now view as Pure Being, determines the quality of our life and the way it unfolds. When we are conscious to Pure Being, we are able to be Present in each moment of our life experience. We then are made aware of everything... in the moment as it happens...and can be fully awake to our choices and our joy, creativity, grief or any other emotion.
Likewise, when we're unconscious to Pure Being within us, we're unaware of the effects of our day-to-day experiences on the overall quality of our life. We then spend most of our time and life backpedaling to correct mistakes of the past or fast forwarding to the future when we hope life will get better.
This is no way to live! By and large, though, this is how most people are living on this earth. Most people are living in the past or the future. Few are living in the NOW and the Present moment, which is the only “moment” that truly matters.
The only aspect of our lives that we truly have a choice about is the Present moment. It is the only “time” that truly exists for us!
The past and the future are all illusions, thousands of “moments” that seem to spell out our lives for us but in essence only cripple our capability of staying Present to the ONE moment that matters: NOW!
Well, I’m done being Unconscious to the NOW! I’m fully awake.
“Your Forgotten Self: Mirrored in Jesus the Christ,” by David Robert Ord also contributed to my new insight. Here, Ord takes you through Jesus’ time on earth and the true meaning of what he said. After reading Ord, you wonder how Jesus’ messages to us about Spirit within could have gotten so distorted.
But then I wonder, if indeed, we were really “listening” closely to the sermons and the messages in the church.
I recall going to church after the eighth week of classes with Tolle and Oprah and hearing the Episcopal minister giving a sermon that seemed to have come directly out of Ord’s book. This Jesus the minister described is the one Ord wrote about. So, I began to wonder: Was I so unconscious to everything before that I could not hear...aright...before?
I don’t know, and truly it does not matter NOW.
What matters NOW is that scripture, literature, theology and my spiritual practice are all coming into alignment for me NOW! I am so grateful.
This does not mean that life will not have its challenges, but Spirit will find a way to quickly remind me when I’m not Present...here...NOW!
For example, one day I was definitely not practicing Present moment awareness and walked into the post office, and did my duty. When I was ready to leave, my car keys were nowhere to be found. Where were they? I’d left them on the counter where I was filling out the forms. This was a not-so-subtle reminder to me by Spirit that I was NOT there...for those moments! It was a very painful reminder, as I had to set about getting my keys replaced.
Now, I intend to pay attention to each moment, no matter how urgent other matters in my life seem to be. Those can wait for the “moment” I get there to attend to them. It does not mean that I do not have goals or visions. But it means that instead of racing ahead through life, projecting forward, I remain conscious of doing ONE thing at a time...only the one thing that is required of me in that moment. Doing life this way, according to Tolle, we become aligned with the universal spiritual energy, (i.e. Spirit...GOD), making life flow more smoothly for us.
This makes sense. God is our very breath. God is the very "consciousness" with which we create our lives!
Even as I go about focused on my NOW moments, I can’t help looking at people as I go places and seeing who seem conscious or unconscious to life. And the majority of people I see are unconscious...seemingly going from one stressful situation to the next. The people I notice who are staying Present are those whose work require them to be right there...right NOW: doctors, nurses, paramedics, policemen, firemen and those types of roles. Those people don’t have time...at least while they are immersed in their roles...to wonder about the next moment; they are busy handling the NOW.
This is a lesson that I invite you all to experience: Living in the NOW i.e. Living Consciously.
I’m sure, like me, you’ll discover that this is the best gift you ever could have given yourself in this lifetime!
Namaste’,
Che’
NOTE: Tolle, Brown and Ord are all published by Namaste’ Publishing. I have a fascination with the books being put out by this company. So, next, I’m moving on to studying other of Namaste’s works: “The Leap: Are you Ready for a New Reality” by Constance Kellough, “Alchemy of the Heart” by Michael Brown, “Stillness” by Tolle, “Finding Self, Finding Love,” by David Ord. I’m anticipating those NOW moments. I’ll let you know then what happens in that NOW!
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