Emmalevine
03-07-2011, 03:47 PM
Just tune into your body. Feel it. Notice the sensations in your feet, legs, stomach, chest, etc. Make a point of noticing how you're standing, lying, sitting and how it feels. After some practice it's natural and indeed was before we learned through conditioning how to stay in our heads.
moke64916
03-07-2011, 03:49 PM
By keeping part of your attention always in your body through your everyday activities takes away energy from the mind. If you ignore your thoughts and just focus on one thing at a time. Observing your thoughts is another way to become present. Don't become a part of them. If you make a habit out of observing your thoughts, you will realize your thought patterns, and what starts them. You will see the disfunction the mind can produce, such as thoughts that could bring about unnecessary emotions. I would start by observing your thoughts. Your consciousness will expand. And also the more you put your attention in your body, the less energy you are bringing to your mind. inner body awareness will bring you present in the moment as well. But to begin, I would start with observing your thoughts. Maybe you should read the book, "The Power of Now." It will help.
Power of Now portals are exits out of mind identification. Like watching thoughts, looking at stillness, listening to silence, accepting the Now.
Being in the body, connected to the inner energy field in the body is another one.
This is no mind, going beyond the mind.
Have Deep Roots Within- Eckhart Tolle
The key is to be in a state of permanent connectiveness with your inner body- to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life.
The more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher the vibrational frequency becomes, much like a light that grows brighter as you turn up the dimmer switch and so increase the flow of electricity. At this higher level, negativity cannot affect you anymore, and you tend to attract new circumstances that reflect this higher frequency.
If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will become anchored in the Now. You won’t lose yourself in the external world, and you won’t lose yourself in your mind. Thoughts and emotions, fears and desires, may still be there to some extent, but they won’t take you over.
Please examine where your attention is this moment. You are listening to me or you are reading these words in a book. That is your focus of attention. You are also peripherally aware of your surroundings. Furthermore there may be some mind activity around what you are hearing or reading, some mental commentary. Yet there is no need for any of this to absorb All your attention. See if you can be in touch with your inner body at the same time. Keep some of your attention within. Don’t let it all flow out. Feel your whole body from within as a single field of energy. It is almost as if you were listening or reading with your whole body. Let this be your practice in the days and weeks to come.
Do not give all your attention away to the mind and the external world. By all means focus on what you are doing, but feel the inner body at the same time whenever all possible. Stay rooted within. Then observe how this changes your state of consciousness and the quality of what you are doing.
Whenever you are waiting, wherever it may be, use that time to feel the inner body. In this way traffic jams and line ups become very enjoyable. Instead of mentally projecting yourself away from the Now, go more deeply into the Now by going more deeply into the body.
The art of inner-body awareness will develop into a completely new way of living, a state of permanent connectiveness with being, and will add a depth to your life that you have never known before.
It is easy to stay present as the observer of your mind when you are deeply rooted within your body. No matter what happens on the outside, nothing can shake you anymore.
Unless you stay present- and inhabiting your body is always an essential aspect of it- you will continue to be run by your mind. The script in your head that you learned a long time ago, the conditioning of your mind, will dictate your thinking and your behavior. You may be free from of it for brief intervals, but rarely for long. This is especially true when something “goes wrong” or there is some loss or upset. Your conditioned reaction will then be involuntary, automatic and predictable, fueled by the one basic emotion that underlies the mind-identified state of consciousness; fear.
So when challenges come, as they always do, make it a habit to go within at once and focus as much as you can on the inner energy field of your body. This need not take long, just a few seconds. But you need to do it the moment a challenge presents itself. Any delay will allow a conditioned mental/emotional reaction to arise and take you over. When you focus within and feel the inner body you immediately become still and present as you are withdrawing consciousness from the mind. If a response is required in that situation it will come up from this deeper level. Just as the sun is infinitely brighter than a candle flame, there is infinitely more intelligence to Being than in your mind.
As long as you are in conscious contact with your inner body, you are like a tree that is deeply rooted in the earth, or a building with a deep and solid foundation.
Before You Enter The Body- Forgive.
“I feel very uncomfortable when I tried to put my attention on the inner body. There was a feeling of agitation and some nausea. So I haven’t been able to experience what you are talking about.”
What you felt was a lingering emotion that you were probably unaware of until you started putting some attention into the body. Unless you first give it some attention, the emotion will prevent you from gaining access to the inner body, which lies at a deeper level underneath it.
Attention does not mean that you start thinking about it. It means to just observe the emotion, to feel it fully, and so to acknowledge and accept it is as it is. Some emotions are easily identified; anger, fear, grief and so on. Others may be harder to label. They may just be vague feelings of unease, heaviness or constriction, half-way between an emotion and a physical sensation.
In any case what matters is not whether you can attach a mental label to it, but whether you can bring the feeling of it into awareness as much as possible.
Attention is the key to transformation- and full attention also implies acceptance. Attention is like a beam of light- the focused power of your consciousness that transmutes everything into itself.
In a fully functional organism, an emotion has a very short life span. It is like a momentary ripple or wave on the surface of your Being. When you are not in your body however, an emotion can survive inside you for days, or weeks or join with other emotions of a similar frequency that have merged and become the pain body- a parasite that can live inside you for years- feed on your energy- lead to physical illness, and make your life miserable.
So place your attention on feeling the emotion and check whether your mind is holding on to a grievance pattern such as blame, self-pity or resentment that is feeding the emotion. If that is the case it means that you haven’t forgiven. Non forgiveness is often toward another person or yourself, but it may just as well be toward any situation or condition- past, present or future- that your mind refuses to accept.
Yes there can be nonforgiveness even in regards to the future. This is the mind’s refusal to accept uncertainty, to accept that the future is ultimately beyond its control. Forgiveness is to relinquish your grievance and so to let go of grief. It happens naturally once you realize that your grievance serves no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self. Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life- to allow life to live through you. The alternative are pain and suffering, a greatly restricted flow of life energy, and in many cases physical disease.
The moment you truly forgive you have reclaimed your power from the mind. Non forgiveness is the very nature of the mind, just as the mind made false self, the ego, cannot survive without strife and conflict. The mind cannot forgive. Only you can. You become present, you enter your body, you feel the vibrant peace and stillness that emanate from Being. That is why Jesus said, “Before you enter the temple, forgive.”
Your Link With The Unmanifested
“What is the relationship between presence and the inner body?”
Presence is pure consciousness- consciousness that has been unclaimed by the mind, from the world of form. Your inner body is your link with the Unmanifested, and in its deepest aspect Is the unmanifested: the Source from which consciousness emanates as light emanates from the sun. Awareness of the inner body is consciousness remembering its origin and returning to its Source.
“Is the unmanifested the same as Being?”
Yes, The word “unmanifested” attempts by way of negation to express that which cannot be spoken, thought or imagined. It points to what it is by saying what it is not. Being on the other hand is a positive term. These are no more than sign posts- don’t get attached to them.
“Who reclaims consciousness from the mind?”
You do. But since in your essence you are consciousness, we might as well say that it is an awakening of consciousness from the dream of form. This does not mean that your own form will vanish in an explosion of light. You can continue in your present form yet be aware of the formless and deathless deep within you.
Feeling will get you closer to the truth of who you are than thinking. I cannot tell you anything that deep within you don’t already know. When you have reached a certain stage of inner connectiveness, you recognize the truth when you hear it. If you haven’t reached that stage yet. The practice of body awareness will bring about the deepening that is necessary.
There is a simple but powerful self-healing meditation, if you use it at frequent intervals and with intense focus. It will also counteract any disruption of your energy field by some form of negativity.
However it is not a substitute for the moment to moment practice of being in the body, other wise its effects will only be temporary.
Here it is.
When you are unoccupied for a few minutes, and especially last thing at night before falling asleep and first thing in the morning before getting up, “flood” your body with consciousness. Close your eyes. Lie flat on your back. Choose different parts of your body to focus your attention on briefly at first. Feel the life energy in those parts as intensely as you can. Stay with each part for 15 seconds or so. Then let your attention run through your body like a wave a few times. This need only take a minute or so. After that, feel the inner body in its totality, as a single field of energy. Be intensely present during that time, present in every cell of your body. Don’t be concerned if the mind occasionally succeeds in drawing your attention out of the body, and you lose yourself in some thought. As soon as you notice this has happen. Just return your attention to the inner body.
Let The Breath Take You Into The Body
If at any time you find it hard to get in touch with the inner body, it is usually easier to focus on your breathing first. Conscious breathing, which is a powerful meditation in its own right, will gradually put you in touch with the body. Follow your breath as if moves in and out of your body. Breathe into the body and feel your abdomen expanding and contracting slightly with each inhalation and exhalation. If you find it easier to visualize, close your eyes and see yourself surrounded by light or immersed in a luminous substance, the sea of consciousness. Then breathe in that light. Feel that luminous substance filling up you body and making it luminous also. Then gradually focus more on the feeling. You are now in your body. Don’t get attached to any visual image.
Going Deeply Into The Body
Make it into a meditation. It needn’t take long. Ten-fifteen minutes of clock time should be sufficient. Make sure that there are no external distractions such as telephones or people who are likely to interrupt you. Sit on a chair but don’t lean back. Keep the spine erect. Doing so will help you stay alert. Alert natively, choose your own favorite position for meditation.
Make sure the body is relaxed. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths.
Feel yourself breathing into the lower abdomen, as it were. Observe how it expands and contracts slightly with each in and out breath. Then become aware of the entire energy field of the body. Don’t think about it- feel it. By doing this you reclaim consciousness from the mind. If you find it helpful, use the “light” visualization I described earlier.
When you can feel the inner body clearly as a single field of energy , let go, if possible, of any visual image and focus exclusively on the feeling. If you can, also drop any mental image you may still have of the physical body. All that is left then is an all-encompassing sense of presence or “beingness” and the inner body is felt to be without a boundary. Then take your attention more deeply into that feeling. Become one with it. Merge with the energy field so that there is no longer a perceived duality of the observer and the observed, of you and your body. The distinction between inner and outer also dissolves now, so there is no inner body anymore. By going deeply into the body you have transcended the body.
Stay in this realm of pure Being for as long as feels comfortable, then become aware of the physical body, your breathing and physical senses and open your eyes. Look at your surroundings for a few minutes in a meditative way- that is without labeling them mentally- and continue to feel the inner body as you do so.
Having access to that formless realm is truly liberating. It frees you from bondage to form and identification with form. It is life in its undifferentiated state prior to its fragmentation into multiplicity. We may call it the Unmanifested, the invisible Source of all things, the Being within all beings. It is a realm of deep stillness and peace, but also of joy and intense aliveness. Whenever you are Present you become “transparent” to some extent to the light, the pure consciousness that emanates from this Source. You also realize that the light is not separate from who you are but constitutes your very essence.
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Spiritual Quotes
Eckhart Tolle
As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you.
You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are!
Meet everyone and everything through stillness rather than mental noise.
When you live in surrender, something comes through you into the world of duality that is not of this world.
Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.
Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everyone 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.
The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body - to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life. The more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher its vibrational frequency becomes.
To be conscious of Being, you need to reclaim consciousness from the mind. This is one of the most essential tasks on your spiritual journey.
To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly.
See if you can catch yourself complaining in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.
Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is Life itself, it is an insane way to live.
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
The present moment has always been available to spiritual seekers, but as long as you are seeking you are not available to the present moment. "Seeking" implies that you are looking to the future for some answer, or for some achievement, spiritual or otherwise. Everybody is in the seeking mode, seeking to add something to who they are, whether it be money, relationships, possessions, knowledge, status.. or spiritual attainment.
All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no "I" except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted.
Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy.
Fear arises through identification with form, whether it be a material possession, a physical body, a social role, a self-image, a thought, or an emotion. It arises through unawareness of the formless inner dimension of consciousness or spirit, which is the essence of who you are. You are trapped in object consciousness, unaware of the dimension of inner space which alone is true freedom.
Thinking, or more precisely identification with thinking, gives rise to and maintains the ego, which, in our Western society in particular, is out of control. It believes it is real and tries hard to maintain its supremacy. Negative states of mind, such as anger, resentment, fear, envy, and jealousy, are products of the ego.
The insanity of the collective egoic mind, amplified by science and technology, is rapidly taking our species to the brink of disaster. Evolve or die: that is our only choice now.
Internal and external are ultimately one. When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently. Love and compassion arise, and they affect the world.
Direct your attention inward. Have a look inside yourself. What kind of thoughts is your mind producing? What do you feel? Direct your attention into the body. Is there any tension? Once you detect that there is a low level of unease, the background static, see in what way you are avoiding, resisting, or denying life —by denying the Now.
What a liberation to realize that the "voice in my head" is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.
If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die. Wars have been fought over this, and countless relationships have broken down.
The secret of life is to "die before you die" -- and find that there is no death.
"How" is always more important that "what." See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it.
Whatever the present moment contains, accept is as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.
The reason why some people love to engage in dangerous activities, such as mountain climbing, car racing, and so on, although they may not be aware of it, is that it forces them into the Now -- that intensely alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, free of the burden of the personality.
If a fish is born in your aquarium and you call him John, write out a birth certificate, tell him about his family history, and in two minutes he gets eaten by another fish -- that's tragic. But it's only tragic because you projected a separate self where there was none. You got hold of a fraction of dynamic process, a molecular dance, and a separate entity out of it.
The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. I use it sometimes, but I do so sparingly. By misuse, I mean that people who have never even glimpsed at the realm of the sacred, the infinite vastness behind that word, use it with great conviction, as if they knew what they are talking about. Or, they argue against it, as if they knew what it is that they are denying. This misuse gives rise to absurd beliefs, assertions, and egoic delusions, such as "My or our God is the only true God, and your God is false," or Neitzche's famous statement "God is dead."
So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify with your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind the light of your consciousness grows stronger.
Thinking and consciousness are not synonymous. Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought.
If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored in the Now. You won't lose yourself in the external world, and you won't lose yourself in your mind. Thoughts and emotions, fears and desires may still be there to some extent, but they won't take you over.
Are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess? You are responsible for your inner space; nobody else is, just as you are responsible for the planet. As within, so without: If humans clear inner pollution, then they will also cease to create outer pollution.
If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution. Keep your inner space clear.
Most people's lives are run by desire and fear. Desire is the need to add something to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All fear is the fear of losing something and thereby becoming diminished and being less. These two movements obscure the fact that Being cannot be given or taken away. Being in its fullness is already within you, Now.
Consciousness is evolving throughout the universe in billions of forms. So even if we didn't make it, this wouldn't matter on cosmic scale. No gain in consciousness is ever lost, so it would simply express itself through some other form. But the very fact that I am speaking here and you are listening or reading this is a clear sign that the new consciousness is gaining a foothold on the planet.
Choice implies consciousness - a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present....Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life.
Always say "yes" to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say "yes" to life -- and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.
The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.
There is never a time when your life is not "this moment." Is this not a fact?
When you look upon another human being and feel great love toward them, or when you contemplate beauty in nature and something within you responds deeply to it, close your eyes for a moment and feel the essence of that love or that beauty within you, inseparable from who you are, your true nature. The outer form is a temporary reflection of what you are within, in your essence. That is why love and beauty can never leave you, although all outer forms will.
True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen whatever you feel or experience at this moment. This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering. Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be reading this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.
Focus your attention on the Now and tell me what problem you have at this moment.
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.
Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. However, Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that is is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still.
The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being.
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