Re:EOM and "forgetting oneself"

["Martin Cosgrove" <martin@...>]

Dear Joa,

I am currently reading a book entitled "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.
I believe that it may address directly many of your concerns, specifically
those concerning the difference between what Rawn terms 'awareness' and 
thinking' and what Tolle terms 'being' and 'mind'.

Here is a passage which you may find useful:

"What is the greatest obstacle to experiencing this reality?

Identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive.
Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't
realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is
considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding
that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. It also
creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering. We
will look at all that in more detail later.
The philosopher Descartes believed that he had found the most
fundamental truth when he made his famous statement: "I think, therefore I
am." He had, in fact, given expression to the most basic error: to equate
thinking with Being and identity with thinking. The compulsive thinker,
which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in
an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that
reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind. Enlightenment is a
state of wholeness, of being "at one" and therefore at peace. At one with
life in its manifested aspect, the world, as well as with your deepest self
and life unmanifested - at one with Being. Enlightenment is not only the end
of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end
of the dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking. What an incredible
liberation it is!
Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts,
labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true
relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow
man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this
screen of thought that creates the illusion that there is you and a totally
separate "other". You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the
level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that
is. By "forget" I mean that you can no longer feel this oneness as
self-evident reality. You may believe it to be true, but you no longer know
it to be true. A belief may be comforting. Only through your own experience,
however, does it become liberating.
Thinking has become a disease. Disease happens when things get out of
balance. For example, there is nothing wrong with cells dividing and
multiplying in the body, but when this process continues in disregard of the
total organism, cells proliferate and we have disease.
Note: The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly,
however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not
so much that you use your mind wrongly - you usually don't use it at all. It
uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is
the delusion. The instrument has taken you over."

Hope this helps a little.

Martin

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