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Old June 8th, 2009, 14:32   #1 (permalink)
angelaIBSH (Offline)
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Default Taking a step into the world of our Being

We have all experienced meditation and allowed for our bodies to quiet down and to relax from our busy lives. Meditation is defined as continued or extended thought; reflection; or contemplation. The feeling that one gets from meditating and how refreshing and awake one feels after meditating are only a few of the many reasons why people meditate.

Scientific studies have discovered that meditation increased the brain size. It allows people to deal better with the physical and to “rise above” physical limitations. A scientist found that certain areas of the brain were altered during deep meditation – predictably the front of the brain that are involved in concentration. But, scientist also found decreased activity in the parietal lobe, one of the parts of the brain that helps orient a person in three-dimensional space. Therefore, when people have spiritual experiences – just like during meditation – they feel they become one with the universe and lose their sense of self.

When we meditate, we are able to enter the world of our Beings and transcend physical boundaries. Is our ego mind shut off during meditation due to the strong bond and interconnection between our Being and Universal Being? Or are we simply able to develop awareness for the existence of an inner Being to step our ego minds?
 
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Old June 8th, 2009, 16:54   #2 (permalink)
Edwin (Offline)
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Brilliant post !

This is how I see it:

Do you really exist ?
Are you here, now ?

You know you are, so the answer is yes !

So, your Being is allready here ! You can't "enter" the world of your Being, because it is the source of you. You can take away your ego, nothing dramatic happens, but if you take away your Being, you cease to exist !
There is no where to go, nothing to reach ! You are your Being, but your thought and ego keep you from experiencing it !
 
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Old June 9th, 2009, 13:33   #3 (permalink)
angelaIBSH (Offline)
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Thanks for giving me a clearer understanding!

I am my Being. Therefore, the physical domain is a manifestation of our higher levels of existence. We have the ability to transcend physical boundaries our Beings possess unlimited potential. When we meditate, we are able to ignore our ego minds and allow our Beings to develop an interconnection with the Universal Being to form oneness.

Meditation focuses on the present moment, on the NOW. Is this the reason why we are able to feel a decrease in stress – or simply to escape the chaos that one might by experiencing in life? In other words, is it because we are allowing our feelings to become less obstructive and more motivational?

Perhaps the “hyper-awareness” of the Being that one gets from meditation is what allows the feeling and experiencing of deep bliss – kind of like everything exists and intermingles to form a harmonious whole.
 
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Old June 9th, 2009, 18:31   #4 (permalink)
Edwin (Offline)
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Most feelings that we experience in our everyday life, are caused by thought.
Our mind causes cramp-like sensations in the stomach area when we feel fear.
Our muscles in our arms, belly and legs tighten during stress.

So, when living in the Now, thoughts stop, and the ego disappears. In this space that is left behind when it is not taken in by thoughts and fears, only love can exist. And with it come sensations of bliss, interconnectedness with God or the Universe, and a strong sensation of unity.

Meditation is like a practice to achieve that.
Even tho you could experience it right away, right here in the Now, and there is nothing to achieve, the ego will try to prevent you from realising this.
When you realise it, the ego dies. It doesn't want that, it wants to feed on your feelings, and feeds you with thought that bring you more unease, fear, tension.

In meditation you learn to, even momentarily, let go of thought and ego, by focusing on a mantra or breath, or whatever.

So, everything you describe you feel in meditation is like a prelude to enlightenment.

When we meditate, we are able to ignore our ego minds and allow our Beings to develop an interconnection with the Universal Being to form oneness.
This interconnection is allready there. We are allready One. The mind is just giving it it's best to make sure that we don't see it.

Meditation focuses on the present moment, on the NOW. Is this the reason why we are able to feel a decrease in stress – or simply to escape the chaos that one might by experiencing in life? In other words, is it because we are allowing our feelings to become less obstructive and more motivational?
Stress is tension, a thought-based illusion in our mind, that wants us believe that we are feeling stress. This is usually time-based:
Something that happened in the past, or something that will happen in the (near) future, like a deadline that is impossible to make. Immediately the mind starts to play scenario's in our mind what will happen when we don't make the deadline. We might get an angry customer, we might get a contract-based penalty, we might lose our job.
All speculation, and usually the problem is never quite as serious as the scenario's played by the ego.

Also, these scenario's keep you from performing your tasks in the best possible way, so they are actually slowing you down !

If the mind stops, the ego disappears, and all there is is this moment that you live in. Your creativity is at it's peak, and even if you don't make the deadline, and you do get a penalty, or lose your job, you accept it as something that happens, and could not be avoided. You did your very best, and you will find a better job, or earn back the money you lost in a different way. It is all just a play of form, your connection to the source fills you with bliss and all you need is this. Happiness comes from within, not from circomstances.
 
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Old June 9th, 2009, 21:10   #5 (permalink)
seatrend8899 (Offline)
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Smile Awesome Edwin!

 
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Old June 10th, 2009, 00:56   #6 (permalink)
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Thanks Seatrend !

Lately, and I think this is due to Tolle's work, the word "ego" seems to become a bit too heavy in it's daily use.

"that is just the the ego talking"
, or how about this one " I am struggling with the ego ".
I'm sorry, but the word "ego" should be used only in the sense that Tolle wants it described, not as a concept, but as a short version of this description: " The collection of thoughts and memories gathered and remembered during the entire cause of your life up to now, that lead to a false believe of who you are ".

That is all the ego is, the ego as a concept doesn't exist. There is no ego-bone, or the ego is not part of a certain part of the brain...
" Ah, and when doing a brainscan, that there, smashed between the temporal lobe and the anterior commisure is the ego-lobe"
It is simply a collection of thoughts that feeds itself.
This collection is highly deciptive. It takes time to realise that thoughts, or collections of thoughts like the word "ego" points to, can only appear in consiousness. The Self is endless and boundryless, it has no beginning and no end. In this field of no-thingness, thoughts can appear. The ego can appear. Since thoughts appear in the Self, thoughts can mislead themselves into the belief that thoughts ARE the Self.
Just to show how deceptive the "ego" is....

Lately, and I think this is due to Tolle's work, the word "ego" seems to become a bit too heavy.

"that is just the the ego talking", or how about this one " I am struggling with the ego ".
I wrote this a few sentences ago.
Think about that second sentence...
" I am struggling with the ego ".
Who is struggling with the ego ?
Being, the Self or whatever name we can think of ( or concept we try to make of something that can't be conceptualised ) doesn't struggle. It simply Is. It is only consiousness in the Now.
So, the "I" that is "struggling with the ego"... If it is not the Self, than it is the "ego" struggling with the ego...
And we just proved that the ego doesn't really exist, it's just a collection of thoughts.

So, a non-existing ego is struggling with the non-existant ego...

Doesn't make sense now does it ?

This is why it is so important to let go of thoughts, why we need to practice meditation at first, and later on, to try to hold on to that state of no-thought outside of meditation. Without thoughts, when we just Are, when we See without judgement, living in everyday life without distractions from the mind... Think of the peace, the wonderfull bliss of performing seemingly boring tasks when " I am bored " is suddenly replaced by " I Am ".
Without thoughts about boredom or a false sense of I, Love and Bliss come out of the simplest tasks. Imagine feeling that feeling of bliss you allready know from meditation while doing the dishes, sweeping the porch, cleaning the toilet, making love, posting on this forum... But I get carried away.

Bottom line is to realise that the ego is thoughts, and thoughts keep you away from fully experiencing the moment, the only moment that is real, the eternal "Now".
 
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Old July 15th, 2009, 18:45   #7 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Edwin View Post
Brilliant post !

This is how I see it:

Do you really exist ?
Are you here, now ?

You know you are, so the answer is yes !

So, your Being is allready here ! You can't "enter" the world of your Being, because it is the source of you. You can take away your ego, nothing dramatic happens, but if you take away your Being, you cease to exist !
There is no where to go, nothing to reach ! You are your Being, but your thought and ego keep you from experiencing it !
Thats exactly what i felt a few weeks ago! Like everything that is me is right now right here and it was like when i would move, things around me move but im still in the same place...hard to describe hehe
 
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Old July 16th, 2009, 15:17   #8 (permalink)
Edwin (Offline)
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Originally Posted by Panthau View Post
Thats exactly what i felt a few weeks ago! Like everything that is me is right now right here and it was like when i would move, things around me move but im still in the same place...hard to describe hehe
It will always be hard to describe, because the experience is beyond mind.
That feeling, that you experienced, is allready part of enlightenment.
With you, it went away, probably because you were either focused on the wrong part of the experience, or because you allowed your mind to take over again.

I had the same thing when I wrote the post A brief moment...
. I was so taken by the experience and the feelings, that I forgot to keep the focus on who was having the experience.
Now, mind was constantly trying to categorise and store what I was experiencing, it was trying to write the story of enlightenment so to speak.
And as it was trying to describe it all, the focus came back to mind and I stepped out of the Now. As soon as that happened, I felt I had lost my connection to that wonderfull place I had been in.
I immediately felt homesick, I wanted to return to it, and that was impossible. I tried to return to the mental image I had made of what I thought enlightenment was.
I was so taken over by mind ( it can be vicious ) that it tried to move me around the fact that I had found the Now by a rather simple exercise.

As soon as I was trying to return to the memory, mind was enjoying every minute of it. I was focusing all my attention on it's memories, it's thoughts, it's ideas, however silly they may be.

Even now, after having experienced another realisation, after which by standards of Advaita Vedanta I am considered enlightened, I am taken over by mind every now and then. Life can be quite challenging, and when you start believing the stories that mind makes up about life again, you stop noticing that Now is the life that is real.

But, life is meditation, and everything that we have been taught by Michael about meditation can be used in daily life as well:

- As soon as you notice that you have been involved in a daydream, gently bring back your attention to the Now. Sounds the same as what Michael sais about going back to the mantra eh ? How to do this ? Quite easy, feel your body. Hear and feel yourself breathing, feel your arms and legs, feel how life itself seems to be buzzing inside your limbs. You feel this Now, constantly. You can't feel it yesterday, or tomorrow, or 5 minutes from now even. You can only feel it Now.

- Thoughts and images, everything you see, hear and feel are essentially just objects. They come up, they pass. They are form, and are there for you to play with while the world of form asks for it. But in the end, the only thing that is constant, always ever present, is You, the subjective core of your Self
Realise that you can't make a subject out of an object. Thoughts are objects too, they appear in your mind, and you observe them. You are not part of the thoughts, you are the observer of them. Allow them to pass like clouds.

- Surrender to the Now.

Whatever comes up, whatever problem might occur, realise that it can never hurt your true Being. Being itself is God, and God is in everybody. If you are going to try the "Who am I" meditation, you will notice that the I or Being is without shape, without texture, without beginning or end. It is both eternal and everywhere. Does Being end where another person begins ?
No ! It can't !
That means that the other person is part of that same Being. Being is everywhere. So you might as well call Being God.
So, all that is happening in the world, is essentially just God playing with Itself. Or playing with Its Self you could say.

Everything that is happening, is happening as a celebration of creation within the world of form. A testemony to the greatness of God's creative power.
All we see and touch and think of as solid is essentially just atoms, a collection of electrically charged particles around a core of other electrically charged particles. Think of the enormous amount of energy it took to make even one atom. Now look around you. The keys you are tapping on your keyboard house enough energy to destroy a country. Yet we are here, playing with atoms, reorganising them, changing the chemical structure of oil and wood and stone without even one atom failing. No wonder the Law of Attraction works for us. Everything happens within our own Being !

Now look back at your life. Whatever happened to you, didn't happen to You.
Sure, your form was there when it happened. Your eternal Self, essentially God, was not just there at that moment, it was everywhere. Just as it is right Now.

Accept the Now, embrace it, realise that you are just playing with Form. When that realisation comes, when you see that you are not just part of your bodily form but part of God, the "bigger picture", everything changes.
When you step back and watch your thoughts, reactions to life, movements within life from Being itself, completely in the Now, you realise that your thoughts have not really attributed to your life.

Thoughts are like pilot fish. They are attached to you like pilot fish are attached to a shark. They are constantly chattering "go left here, go right there, see, I told you right was the best way to go".
But in the end, they are only reacting to the direction the Self is going, unaware of the chattering of the mind.
Life, that enormous power that we seem to think we have control over, goes it's way, no matter what we think of it.

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. John Lennon"

Does that mean that everything is pre-destined ? I don't think so. Everything is happening Now, and we are reacting Now. How oftan have you thought to yourself "Now why the heck did I go and do a thing like that".
Simple.

Recent research has shown that the part of the brain that regulates movement comes into action about half a second BEFORE you think about it, or rather, before the left hemisphere responsible for thought was activated.
So, if you think: "I am picking up that glass of water" and your arm starts moving, that means that your brain knew you were going to do that half a second before you thought about it.
Science is now puzzled beyond reason as to who came first, chicken or egg.
Where did the order to the arm come from to pick up that glass, when you hadn't thought about it yet ?

For me the conclusion is simple:
The order came from Being, the Self. Thought is but a Pilot fish, saying "ok arm, move left, move right, see, I told you that we are going the right way".
It's claiming copyright over an action it had absolutely nothing to do with.

Thought is a re-sponse to actions done intuitively, or by Self if you will.
You make the movement happen, not your thought.

It's mindfull chatter instead of mindless chatter. One way or the other, it is both just a lot of bull.
You won't stop moving or doing the right thing when you stop thinking, crazy as this may sound to you. How many times has it happened to you that you were driving your car, and ended up at the destination only to wake up from a daydream, realising that your drove there on autopilot ? You have passed several traffic lights, and a dangerous crossroad, without even thinking about it, yet you didn't ignore a red light, or the other cars around you.
Thought is able to interfere tho.

When in doubt, you're in thought, you might say

Try doing something simple like the dishes or sweeping the sidewalk without thought first. Try to "step back", and watch your body move, feel your breathing, the sensation of the broom or the dishwater or whatever simple task you are doing at that moment. Try to observe your movement, think of yourself as a reporter, observing the event of doing the dishes, or sweeping the sidewalk.

Try it and be amazed !
 
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Old July 16th, 2009, 15:39   #9 (permalink)
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Most excellently put Edwin.

Originally Posted by Edwin View Post
It will always be hard to describe, because the experience is beyond mind.
That feeling, that you experienced, is allready part of enlightenment.
It is like trying to describe, in detail, a dictionary, without using all the words in it. It can't be done. The only thing that can fully describe the dictionary is the dictionary itself. Likewise, the only way to describe enlightenment is to BE enlightenment. No analogy will suffice.

Hugs

Giles
 
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Old July 16th, 2009, 16:29   #10 (permalink)
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That doesn't stop me from trying tho
 
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