Re: First 3 steps- questions-experience-clarification

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

Not wanting to be at risk of banging the Eckhart Tolle drum too 
much, but I thought that this extract might have give another 
perspective on VoM (as a teacher I've come to realize that the more 
ways you can explain a concept, the more chance you have of reaching 
every student... although I am not sure about making the comparison 
between teaching High School Spanish and what Rawn and others do ;-
) )

The following quote is taken from an interview with Eckhart Tolle 
which appears in a book published by Sagewood Press 
titled, "Dialogues With Emerging Spiritual Teachers" by John W. 
Parker.

Q. It's interesting. When I first read about your "awakening," I was 
reminded of St. John of the Cross and the "Dark Night of the Soul," 
where it seemed as if you had gone through something very similar. 
But what I heard you say yesterday at the Gathering (2000) is that 
it really isn't necessary?

A. No.

Q. The "Dark Night of the Soul" seems to be one way that some 
individuals have managed to have a "shift" in their consciousness. I 
hear you saying that there is another way. What I have experienced 
with other spiritual teachers is that almost to the person, they 
have gone through a similar shift. There has been a "dark night of 
the soul" and then the "shift" takes place. I have yet to find 
someone who has done it the other way, who has actually been able to 
have that realization and not go through "the abyss," and has been 
able to help other individuals realize that it is not absolutely 
necessary.

A. Yes. One could say that everybody in this world has a spiritual 
teacher. For most people, their losses and disasters represent the 
teacher; their suffering is the teacher. And if they stay with that 
teacher long enough, eventually it will take them to freedom. Maybe 
not in this lifetime. So everybody has a spiritual teacher. But 
a "spiritual teaching" in the narrow sense of the word is there to 
save time and suffering. Without it you would get there anyway, but 
it saves time.

And every spiritual teaching points to the possibility of the end of 
suffering - Now. It is true that most teachers have had to go 
through the "Dark Night of the Soul," although for one or two it was 
very, very quick. Ramana Maharshi had one brief death experience. 
For J. Krishnamurti, it happened when his brother died. He 
(Krishnamurti) wasn't "free" yet when they discovered him. There was 
great potential in him. But he really became "free" after the death 
of his brother.

Humankind as a whole has been through such vast suffering that one 
could almost say that every human has suffered enough now. No 
further suffering is necessary. And it is now possible as spiritual 
teachings are coming through with greater intensity, perhaps greater 
than ever before, that many humans will be able to break through 
without any further need for suffering. Otherwise I would not be 
teaching. The very essence of the teaching is the message, "You have 
suffered enough." The Buddha said it. "I teach suffering, and the 
end of suffering," which means, "I show you how suffering arises," 
which is an important realization - I talked about that yesterday - 
and how you can be free of that. So that is the very purpose of 
spiritual teaching. Jesus says the same, "the Kingdom of Heaven is 
here, Now" accessible to you here and Now.

Q. In your book The Power of Now: a Guide to Spiritual 
Enlightenment," you mentioned that "enlightenment is simply our 
natural state of 'felt' oneness with Being, and a state of 'feeling-
realization." Is enlightenment based on feeling rather than 
thinking? Help us understand who feels it and where is it felt.

A. Yes, well it is certainly closer to feeling than thinking. There 
is no word to describe the state of connectedness with Being. I am 
putting together two words in the book: feeling and realization 
hyphenated. Because there is not a correct word that I can use. 
Language doesn't have a word for that. So I can only use something 
that gets relatively close but that's not it either. Realization 
sounds a little bit as if it were a "mental" thing. "Oh, I know." 
Feeling sounds as if it were an "emotion." But it is not an emotion. 
And it is not a mental recognition of anything. Perhaps the word 
that is closest to it is the realization of stillness, which is when 
the mental noise that we call thinking, subsides - which is 
thinking. There is a gap in the stream of thought, but there is 
absolutely no loss of consciousness. In that "gap" there is full and 
intense consciousness, but it has not taken on form.

Every thought in consciousness has been born into form, a temporary 
form and then it dies and goes onto another form. You could say the 
whole world is consciousness having taken birth as form, manifesting 
as form temporarily, and then dying which means dissolving as form. 
What always remains is the "essence" of all that exists - 
consciousness itself.

Now when a form dies, I pointed out earlier it is an external loss; 
it's a great opportunity for the formless, pure consciousness to be 
recognized. The same happens when a thought-stream comes to an end. 
Thought dies. And suddenly that which is beyond thought - you may 
call it pure consciousness - is realized as deep stillness.

Now the question you may ask and perhaps have asked is, "Who 
realizes the stillness?" If there is no longer the personal entity 
there, who is it that becomes enlightened? (Laughter) One could say 
of course, "nobody becomes "enlightened," because it is the 
dissolving of the illusion of a separate "me," which is not 
anybody's achievement, or anybody's success. It looks as if there 
were a human being becoming enlightened, but that is an external 
appearance. What is really happening is that consciousness has 
withdrawn from its identification with form, and realizes its own 
nature. It is a "Self-realization" of consciousness. Therefore it is 
a cosmic event. What looks like a human being, a person, becoming 
free of suffering and entering a state of deep peace - from an 
external viewpoint - in reality is a cosmic event. Please remember 
that all language is limited so these are just little "pointers."

Consciousness is withdrawing from the game of form. For millions of 
years as long as the world has been in existence, consciousness has 
been engaged in the play of form, of becoming the "dance" of 
phenomenal universe, "Lila." And then consciousness becomes tired of 
the game (Chuckle).

Q. It needs a rest.

A. Yes. But having lost itself, that was part of the game. Having 
lost itself in form, after having lost itself in form, it knows 
itself fully for the first time. Don't take anything I say too 
literally. They are just little pointers because no one can explain 
the universe through making "sounds" or thoughts. So it is far too 
vast to be explained. I'm not explaining the universe. These are 
just tiny hints. It is beyond words, beyond thought. What I am 
saying could almost be treated as a poem, an approximation, just an 
approximation to the Truth.


Martin