Yeah, right.  I figure Source had to think quite a bit when it figured out how to create us and this universe. False concepts and attachments are a different thing than useful mind activity.

DocM wrote on Feb 24^th, 2014 at 3:18pm:

You resurrected your copy? That's sort of a funny thing to say.

Yeah Kathy, read ACIM and about a year from now when you finally have the time to finish it, let us know what you think.

rondele wrote on Feb 24^th, 2014 at 4:23pm:

DocM wrote on Feb 24^th, 2014 at 3:18pm:

I'm not a big Tolle fan, but after glancing through the book I have, which I wouldn't think would be a lot different than the one you have, it seems to me that he is attempting to describe the difference between a mind that is always thinking centered on the past/future and the "Being state" of mind, which can only be focused in the present moment. 

As you know our thoughts can run rampant, especially when we react from fear.  If something happens in our life that we oppose, judge as bad, causes us pain, gets us tied up in knots so to speak, it is our mind continuously thinking about it that can be our enemy, a "monstrosity" to humans.

On the other hand, if we are in a state of being and focused in the present moment, then we are not doing a lot of thinking.  Our mind is more or less still or silent where thoughts can enter into our mind if need be, but we are not running them through our mind like a broken phonograph record.  When we are focused in the present we are focused on the task at hand.  We are in a state of being that is mostly without thought.  Instead we are immersed with peace, calmness, a sense of joy as well as being unaware of time passing.

When we are in a state of being and focused on the present, we are more of an observer, we have clarity of mind, and let ourselves go fully into whatever is at hand, where our life energy flows out of us from an internal source.  Then it seems colors are brighter, tastes are sweeter, the air is more fragrant, and the sounds around us create a symphony.  These are moments when solutions to problems come to us without us having to think about the problem.  Instead the solution has emerged from deep within.  Or they can also be moments where we notice an old woman's wrinkled hands or look into the eyes of a newborn baby and we are filled with wonder for the mystery of life.  Again, the feelings emerged from deep within, from our deep inner source or essence.  We cannot "think" these experiences.  They can only come from within us while we are in a state of being such as acceptance.

It's where we learn to turn down the internal noise, constant thinking in our head so we can pay attention to the softer rhythms, the subtle nuances of life that are the foundations of our moment to moment experience of life itself, which is our inner essence.

Kathy

recoverer wrote on Feb 24^th, 2014 at 4:29pm:


Very funny, Albert!

Sometimes I think that your way of thinking and mine are so far apart that I wonder how we can even communicate.  Oh wait...  What was I thinking?

Kathy,

The Achilles heal of Tolle is that in his zeal to get his reader to the stillness of Now, or pure being - which is to say the connectedness to all-that-is, he goes into an anti-mind diatrebe. 

It is true that many people have excess chatter in their minds, and as Tolle says, they live in either the past or the future which are not real (the past is a memory trace and the future is a projection), but not in the present.  Too much effort is put into the mental constructs for past and future without a connection to the present/the Now.  I get that.  But Tolle takes it further, and wants thinking to be "turned off," as we do during meditation. 

I get being fully present in the moment; in whatever task you are doing whether at work, or just walking up a flight of stairs.  But we use our mind and thought as a tool, and he makes it out to be an enemy.  It leads the reader into a somewhat stupefied state of trying to "just be" and not think. 

Tolle should, in my opinion qualify his statements by showing more examples of how one can be present in the moment, feeling the connectedness and use the mind correctly to perform a task, or to make a decision.  Decisions can come from our "being" or presence, but ultimately we use our minds as a tool to deliver that decision. 

I guess, I feel that Tolle overstates his point about the thinking mind being a monstrosity, when, correctly applied use of the mind as a tool to solve issues when one is totally present in a situation can be done. 

M

His book The Power of Now, is a good read, and very clearly stated.  It is dense in terms of being tightly packed for a 200 plus page book.  I agree with much of what he has to say, but feel there is something wrong with the presentation and communication.  I am unsettled by the book, but belief system crashes are sometimes accompanied by this feeling, and can be a good thing. 

M

Matthew-

I read Power of Now, which is simply another take on ACIM.  Amazing how many authors drew from that book to write books supposedly of their own (i.e. Walsch, Gary Renard).

So there's an entire chapter in ACIM titled The Holy Instant. Here's just one quote: "Fear is not of the present, but only of the past and future, which do not exist.  There is no fear in the present when each instant stands clear and separated from the past, without its shadow reaching out into the future.  Each instant is a clean, untarnished birth.....and the present extends forever......take this very instant, now, and think of it as all there is to time.  There is no change in Heaven because there is no change in God.  Change is an illusion."

(Kathy, see what you made me do??  Dig up this book that I had long since consigned to the basement.  Now I gotta order Danison's book.  I wonder if she ever read ACIM.......

R

Hi Roger,

Both Tolle and Danison are fluent with New Age thought and ACIM, CWG, and other texts.  I actually prefer to hear the author's unfiltered perception of their experience, without support from these other texts.