Stillness Speaks ...

For the first time in a long time, I feel the desire to share some snippets that are speaking to me ... currently from Eckhart Tolle's book, "Stillness Speaks". I tried to read this little book a few months back, and it just wasn't capturing me ... but now, it's resonating clearly. Funny how that works, no?

Without further ado, here's what I'm seeing here and now ~ may it speak to your hearts as well:

~ I am awareness ... cleverly disguised as a person.

I can get so caught up in the concept of "who am I?" Like so many others (ok, all of us!), I've had labels assigned to me, from within and without - daughter, child, student, woman, wife, mother, artist, Christian, rebel, heretic, addict, citizen, Caucasian, American, Earthling ... but they don't begin to tap into who I Really Am. Ultimately, underneath it all, I am awareness ... consciousness. That Which Is. And ... so are you. The rest is fluff. Useful, when we can see who we really are, but not meant to mesmerize us, and limit us, and blind us ...

~ Whenever you deeply accept this moment as it is - no matter what form it takes - you are still, you are at peace.

This moment, this very moment, is all I have. It's all any of us have -- but most of us have been conditioned to live in both the past and the future, thus squandering the only moment there IS. Regrets/accomplishments of the past, and fears/anticipations about the future, seem to preoccupy most of our thoughts ... and we don't notice the current moment (the only reality), because we aren't paying attention to it. So, too, do we judge the current moment as either "good" or "bad" ... so we live in our concept of the moment, rather than the moment itself. And when we resist the current moment, rather than accepting it, we create our own hell on earth. I notice that whenever I attach a "should/shouldn't" to the current situation, I am resisting ... and thus I am creating my own suffering ...

~ Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found... Stillness is intelligence itself - the underlying consciousness out of which every form is born. And how could that be separate from who you are? The form you think you are came out of that and is being sustained by it.

As I see it, there is only One Intelligence, manifesting in various forms ... including you and me. I see that we identify with our form, believe that we are separate, and create problems in that sense of separation. When I look outside of myself for solutions, I am confused ... for the solutions come from that which believes in the separation. But when I tap into mySelf (the One True Self -- some call it God, or Source, or Presence, etc.), I tap into the Creative Intelligence of the Universe -- whose very Voice is within me ... and you, and every one of us.

~ The human condition: Lost in thought.

Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past.

But there is, in you, a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are.


Ohhhhhhh, if we could only *get* how our thoughts control and confine us! We are so very conditioned, and domesticated, rather than free to be who we are! My deepest desire is to connect with my Truest Essence ... to experience who I am ... to know this Self, and to live there. I get glimpses ... which are astonishingly beautiful and powerful, and I trust that this will continue to become ever-more real to me.

~ Finding this dimension frees you and the world from the suffering you inflict on yourself and others when the mind-made "little me" is all you know and runs your life. Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting inner peace cannot come into your life except through that unconditioned dimension of consciousness.

As Byron Katie puts it: "it's not what happens to us that hurts us, but our thoughts about what happens to us that hurt us." I don't know about you, but my mind wants to reject that notion. My mind would rather think in terms of "us/them" and "victim/villain" and "look what you did to me!" But I notice, when I'm very honest with myself, that I torture myself with my own thinking ... when I believe my own thoughts, I am in hell. When I question my thoughts, to discover if they are true or not, I am free.

~ The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much. It wants to draw your attention in completely.

Here is a new spiritual practice: Don't take your thoughts so seriously.

For today, I am noticing and observing my own thoughts ... I'm asking myself, "is that true?" For today, I am not attaching to my thoughts, mistaking them for mySelf, and letting them drag me into the ego-abyss ... just for today.

Shalom, Dena