Enlightenment, Eckart Tolle and The Power of Now - Part I

"It can transform your thinking... the result? More joy, right now?" - O: The Oprah Magazine

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You asked for this - so dear reader, I will give it to you although I can't promise that you'll grasp this right away. It took me time to understand the deeper meaning and concepts behind Eckart Tolle's, The Power of Now. 


In order for you to begin to understand the meaning of his work, and to move on your path toward "enlightenment," (what the buddha calls the end of suffering) what you need to work on understanding first is that you are not your mind. 

"What? Huh? That makes no sense, what do you mean?" 


The brain, your mind is an organ in your body - just like the heart or your lungs. It is an instrument or a tool and there is a higher part of you that can control your mind. Still unclear? Try this. What are you doing right now with your body ? Your legs? Your fingers? Are you wiggling your toes? Or playing with your hair? Did you consciously using your mind make your body do that? See... there is another part of you, not just your mind. 


Tolle says, "Thinking has become a disease." You know those nights where you can't get to bed because the noise in your head won't stop?  You have the power to switch on the "off" button - no one has ever told you that though, until now. 


Tolle says, if you can't be free of your mind whenever you want to be, "then the mind is using you, you are unconsciously identified with it, so you don't even know it's your slave. It's almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself."


Here is a simple exercise you can start with, compliments of Joseph Russo, my spiritual mentor and Author of Thoughts to Live By : 



PRACTICING ‘NO MIND’ During meditation we learn to still the mind. But to carry this meditative state into daily life we may need to practice NO MIND. As we do this we become more sensitive and receptive and experience more fully and objectively.

Here’s how:  

• When conversing, experience the other person’s words and actions without reacting. Just be still and fully attentive, keeping your mind clear and your heart open

• As you practice NO MIND even the most familiar person can be experienced as if for the first time; you can have a better connection with them and have new ‘first’ impressions of them.

• During NO MIND, living becomes a self-expanding discovery process; true knowing and understanding, as well as love, beauty, uniqueness and joy become more readily available. 

• Ordinarily, the mind acts as a biased filter screening out much of reality. It defines, compares, judges and reduces reality to mental constructs born of past experience.

• It can keep us from experiencing the wonder of living and from gaining new insights and understandings. To experience life more deeply, it helps to practice NO MIND.

This is living meditation -- the dropping of thought and receiving existence by directly sensing with the intuitive intelligence of one’s whole being. Then the mind serves as a clear channel connecting the outer world with our inner world, and a new level of awareness and consciousness can take hold.

Have you experienced "no mind" - how do you quiet your mind? 

Stay tuned, this is part I of an on-going series!