Eckhart Tolle

Tape 5 

(Continuation...)

And you step out of both those form identities.  Realizing that, again there's nothing really personal - there's no 'me' about...it is the human body. Any body is basically the same body.  The human is here and there is no identification in that, either.  

Should you engage in spiritual practices?  In seeing that all spiritual practicing emanates from a central illusion of time and control, the possibility for liberation from that dream arises.  Engaging in spiritual practices in the blind pursuit to bring about some later event called enlightenment just strengthens the dream of time and control.  It strengthens the dream of self.   

Michael Brown

From PART V: 2. 

(Continuation...)

Now, as we move deeper and deeper into the flow of BEING OUR COMPANION, as we approach the procedures for activating emotional body awareness, we are invited to widen our horizons about what we think the nature of self-facilitation is about. As we do, let us not become vulnerable to being led astray again by putting our energy into seeking out an outer facilitator to help us, or boost our ego by assuming we contain what is required to facilitate others. Let us first learn everything we can about facilitating ourselves. This is the authentic place to take up our journey. 

Chapter 85

'I am': The Foundation of all Experience

(Continuation...)

Q: The 'I am' is the foundation of all experience. What you are trying to describe must also be an experience, limited and transitory. You speak of yourself as immutable. I hear the sound of the word, I remember its dictionary meaning, but the experience of being immutable I do not have. How can I break through the barrier and know personally, intimately, what it means to be immutable?

M: The word itself is the bridge. Remember it, think of it, explore it, go round it, look at it from all directions, dive into it with earnest perseverance: endure all delays and disappointments till suddenly the mind turns round, away from the word, towards the reality beyond the word.  

It is like trying to find a person knowing his name only.  

A day comes when your enquiries bring you to him and the name becomes reality.  

Words are valuable, for between the word and its meaning there is a link and if one investigates the word assiduously, one crosses beyond the concept into the experience at the root of it.  

As a matter of fact, such repeated attempts to go beyond the words is called meditation.  

Sadhana is but a persistent attempt to cross over from the verbal to the non-verbal.  

The task seems hopeless until suddenly all becomes clear and simple and so wonderfully easy.  

But, as long as you are interested in your present way of living, you will shirk from the final leap into the unknown.