Chapter 1: You are not your mind.
The title sounds like something from The Matrix.
Ekart Tolle(ET;) talks about enlightenment. And shares the story of a beggar who is sitting on a box forever and never looked inside it as he believed what could possibly be there, but when ET asked to look inside it, the box was full of gold. Now ET calls him self as the person and we are the beggar sitting on a box of gold and not aware of the fact. ET suggests we should inside our selves.
We are beggars because we have not found our true wealth which is radiant joy of being and the unshakable peace that comes with it. This wealth is infinitely greater than anything the world could offer.
ET says enlightenment is nothing like a super human ability but our natural state of felt oneness with being.
ET mentioned being yet again here. Further he says it is the state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible which is essentially you but greater than you, it is finding your true nature beyond name and form. ET says if you are not aware of this then conflicts between within and outside comes and hence our current state.
Buddha's definition of enlightenment is end of suffering, there is nothing super human about it, The definition tells us what enlightenment is not which is no suffering, but now question is if there is no suffering then what is left, for this Buddha is silent, simply means to find it out ourselves. Buddha intentionally gave this kind of definition so that our minds cannot make it something to believe in, a goal that is very difficult to achieve something super human.
For ET the word "
being" is the internal ever present one life beyond the myriad(countless) forms of life that are subject to birth and death.
According to Hindu believes ET is definitely talking about God here.
ET continues, However being is not only beyond but also deep with in every form as its inner most invisible and indestructible essence. Simple means this is accessible to us now which is our true nature, but don't try to grasp it through your mind, don't try to understand it, we can know it only
- when our mind is still,
- when we are present,
- when our tension is fully and intensely in the now
Being can be felt but can never be understood mentally. To regain awareness of being and and to abide in the feeling realization is enlightenment.
Don't stress on it for now all the points will be cleared shortly.
ET continues that he certainly do not want to use the word God for the word Being. Due to following reasons
- God word has lost it meaning over centuries of misuse, people don't understand the vastness behind that word and use it with great conviction as if they knew what they are talking about, or they knew what it is.
- God word gives rise to beliefs like my or your God.
- God word has became a close, gives a mental picture of someone or something outside us,
ET says Neither God or Being or any other word can define or explain the ineffable(extreme) reality behind that word, so need to point in the same direction and God word is an obstacle in doing that hence ET uses the word Being. As the word God or being doesn't explain what it is. being is an open concept, most importantly it is impossible to form a mental image of it.
More to Come
Thanx
Anshumaan Bakshi
