The Secret of Life

Acceptance & Friendship

There's a wonderful story in last week's edition of the Eckhart Tolle & Oprah Winfrey webcasts which echoes what I've been talking about in my recent 'Ultimate Truth' series of posts. It lasts about five minutes. You can listen to it here.

The whole of these weekly webcasts are available on free download (in either audio or video format) from Oprah's web site. If you haven't been following them, I urge you to give them a try. I thought that last week's (number six) was particularly powerful.

You may have noticed a picture which has recently appeared at the top of my sidebar. This is a recent award which was passed on to me by the generous Angelbaby. I think it's a lovely image and one which appears to symbolize a lot of what this blog is about, so I stuck it up there on the mantelpiece as soon as I got it. But it's a chain of friendship award and the idea is that I pass it on, not hoard it for myself.

So, if you are reading this, please consider yourself my friend! Please feel free to accept this award and know that you deserve it. You can use it on your blog (if you have one) and pass it on to others. Let's spread the love around and let it encompass the Earth...

Eckhart, An Update... And This Time It's A Dolphin

There's a whole big bundle of stuff today. First of all, a bit more about the Eckhart-Oprah webcasts. If like me you've been listening to these on your portable player, you may be interested to learn that Pete at Touchstones has some selected video clips from the webcasts up for discussion on his blog. The pictures seem to give an extra dimension to the discussions - and enhance the sense of presence you can get from experiencing Eckhart Tolle's teaching.

I suspect that different parts of the webcasts will stand out for different people - you hear whatever you need to hear at the time. For me, the part of the second discussion which really grabbed me was when someone emailed in to ask how best to break free of the ego. 'Ego' isn't an expression I've used a lot on this blog but of course this is referring to the part of ourselves which is constantly trying to prove itself and compare itself to others, the part which is constantly seeking validation. Eckhart describes the ego as trying to 'complete itself'. It is aware that something is missing but it's not sure what, so it is constantly searching and looking for 'the next thing'.

Eckhart's advice in response to this question was to try to become as comfortable as we can with the present moment. This is because the ego hates the present moment. In its urge to 'complete itself', it is constantly on the lookout for what is going to happen next, as it searches for whatever it needs to make it whole. It is therefore constantly wishing for the present moment to end. So if you can lose that impatience and become comfortable with whatever is happening right now, you are starting break free from the ego and get in touch with your true self, which can always be found in the peace and power of the present.

If these webcasts have piqued your interest in Eckhart Tolle, you may like to go along to a Stillness group, where you can watch a video of Eckhart's teaching and then experience stillness in the company of others. My friend (and The Secret Of Life reader) Sally runs the group here in Leeds, UK, and hosts a directory of such groups throughout the UK. This site also includes links to groups in Eire and Spain. For US and other international groups, there is a similar site here.

Moving on to other things, the Gateways Of Light video about planetary transformation, which I featured back in January, got some good feedback, and I was recently contacted by Chris Bourne of Openhand Foundation, who developed the video. Chris wanted to let me know that it has now been 'improved and upgraded', so the original post now links to this new version.

I've mentioned before that I attend Ed Harpin's Kundalini Yoga and Deeksha sessions in Huddersfield here in the UK and I've recently written about my experience of the sessions on Ed's web site. You can find my write-up, along with the experiences of some other attendees here.

And don't forget to take a look at the comments on the posts here at The Secret Of Life if you get the time. We've been having some particularly interesting discussions recently, especially in response to the post How Much Do We Really Know? And of course, any comments you would like to leave yourself are very welcome...

Finally, here's a heartwarming story about a dolphin who came to the aid of some beached whales. I don't intend to deluge you with cute animal stories (much as I like them myself!) but I particularly like this one because of what it reminds us about dolphin intelligence and empathy for creatures outside its own species. (And also because it's just like Skippy the bush kangaroo...)

Eckhart, Oprah.... And A Giraffe

There's been a lot of publicity, but just in case you hadn't heard, Oprah Winfrey is talking to Eckhart Tolle about his book A New Earth in a series of ten live interactive webcasts on Monday evenings. Each of the webcasts will focus on a different chapter of the book. You can sign up to participate here.

The first of these webcasts took place last week and is now available to download here. The project seems to have been very well planned. There's even a handy reckoner here to work out when the webcast will take place in your particular time zone. It works out at 6pm US Pacific time, 9pm US Eastern time, and 2am here in the UK (where the downloading option is proving rather popular).

Apparently half a million people watched the first webcast live, so it looks like the project will bring this kind of teaching to unprecedented numbers. I know it's shamefully frivolous of me, but I can't help wondering if Eckhart's trademark beige sweaters will become the must-have fashion accessory of 2008.

I have to say that I found the first webcast compulsive listening. Oprah Winfrey's contributions brought an interesting new perspective to Eckhart's teaching and the webcast may be of particular interest to those who are unsure about how to integrate spiritual teachings with existing Christian beliefs. Do let me know what you think...

And finally... What was that about a giraffe, you may be asking? Well, we've recently touched on IQ tests here on the blog and some of you expressed a bit of skepticism, so I though you might appreciate an antidote to such tests. Here's a link to a test of... well, something or other. I think you'll enjoy it. Take the giraffe test here! And if you'd like to let me know how you get on, I'll be happy to hear from you...

A Sun-Filled Room

Eckhart Tolle tells a wonderful story about a candle in a dark room. Because the room is dark, whether or not the candle is lit is all-important. By the candle flame, we can find our way round and are reassured, but without that feeble flame we are totally lost.

If, however, the room is flooded with sunlight, the candle becomes irrelevant. We are no longer dependent upon its light.

Tolle suggests that in our current state of consciousness, most of us live - metaphorically - in a darkened room. We are dependent upon the ups and downs of the material world to illuminate our darkness. As long as things are going well, we are happy enough. But when bad things come along - as is bound to happen from time to time - we lose sight of the light.

If, instead, we can learn to live in sunlight, we can be free of our dependence upon the material world. In the brilliance of the sun-filled room, even when things go wrong, we can still be happy.

So how exactly can we learn to live in sunlight?

It is said that once this came naturally to us. When we were babies, we were in touch with a natural sense of joy. OK, so things would come along from time to time to cloud that joy: a touch of indigestion, for instance, or if we flung our rattle away. But these upsets were swiftly forgotten. There were tears - and then our smiles returned. Our connection to joy was never far away.

As we grew older, however, we lost that connection to joy.

It seems to me that there were two main reasons for this.

First of all, we were taught the importance of thinking, to such an extent that we eventually became so preoccupied with this new pastime of ours that we no longer took much notice of what was going on around us. So we ceased to notice if the connection to joy was there or not.

Fortunately, this can be easily corrected. Just stop thinking and there it is: the connection to joy is still there. Or else, the connection is there if you give it half a chance. You will probably have experienced it from time to time: as a sudden sense of peace while out for a walk in the country perhaps. Or else suddenly realizing that you are inexplicably happy for no apparent reason, absence of thought having caught you unawares for a moment or two. Stopping thinking isn't really so hard. It's just keeping it up for more than a second or two at a time that's the difficult bit...

Rather more troublesome is the other habit you were taught that got in the way of that connection to joy: learning not to cry if you threw your rattle away. Or if your best friend moved out of town. Or your dog got run over. Or you lost your job. Or your marriage broke down. Until eventually you were going through life carrying around a load of suppressed emotions, because somehow or other you got the idea that it wasn't OK to express your feelings any more.

And all this stuff that you are carrying about is a double whammy. First of all because it makes you unhappy and gets in the way of your present day relationships - as you may have already noticed - but also because it blocks that connection to joy, which is something which may have been less apparent.

This was something which was made very clear to me last summer. I wrote a post then about a process called the Quantum Light Breath which allowed me to release some of my suppressed emotions and seemed to open me up to what I can only describe as 'light energy', reconnecting me with that sense of joy. The impression I got was that the connection had been there all along but had been 'clogged up' with the debris of my emotions. It was literally like a dirty flue being cleared!

I have had similar - though less spectacular -  experiences since then, and I have to tell you that being connected to that joy, even for brief periods, is every bit as wonderful as it sounds. That 'sun-filled room' is real, and I am sure that it is attainable by us all.

I've posted previously (here and here) about other ways to clear these suppressed emotions and I intend to post about more of them in the coming months. I have come to realize that it is vital to deal with these emotions if we're to break through to that 'sun-filled room' and start to live our lives there. The good news is that we don't have to analyze all our stuff, but we do have to face those feelings to allow them to be released.

As for stopping thinking, well joking aside, this can also be quite a task, though perhaps a rather less painful one.  Meditation is useful here, as are the teachings of Eckhart Tolle - though I also suspect that as the emotions are cleared, unnecessary thought is also quietened. When there is less hurt, there is less need to go round and round in endless circles of thought.

Please note that by 'stopping thinking', it's this constant pointless mind chatter to which I'm referring, the 'what ifs' and 'if onlys' and just plain gibberish which chunders on and on in our brains for most of the time. So the brain surgeons and air traffic controllers amongst you can relax - it's still OK to think when we really need to! - but you might be surprised at what a small proportion of the thinking which most of us do that actually is.

With the New Year upon us, what I've tried to do in this post is to clarify what the shift in perspective which underpins this blog is all about and the steps we may have to take if we wish to allow it into our lives. Spiritual awakening, self realization, enlightenment, call it what you will, doesn't interest everyone, but if you feel drawn to it, or are tired of the pain which our habitual state of consciousness tends to produce - or a combination of both! - then perhaps you will start to prioritize making that change.  If you choose to do so, then the road before you may be a bumpy one, but the glimpses I've had of the way ahead suggest that it will be worth it in the end. I'll place as many signposts as I am able to find on this blog, and of course there are many more to be found in other places...

The good thing is that you don't have to believe anything in particular to make this change. If you already subscribe to a belief system, that's fine. If you don't, that's fine as well.  All you have to do is to clear the emotions and thoughts which get in the way of that natural connection to joy.

And, as I've mentioned before, this is not just a personal thing to help ourselves as individuals. A glance around at the state of the world is enough to show that the human race is sorely in need of a shift to a higher state of consciousness. As we make that connection to joy and start to live our lives in the 'sun-filled room' to which Eckhart Tolle refers, we will come to realize that we are not after all separate beings but an integral part of the human race, a part of the universe: that we are all in this together. As we move into 2008, that is a realization which is long overdue for us all.

Happy New Year! It looks like it might be a challenging one. May it be a time of positive transformation!

Cartoon Time (and more...)

A few things this time. First of all, here are a couple of interesting animations on a similar theme:

This first one, based on a vintage recording by Alan Watts, makes an interesting comparison between life and music. It's an old recording and the quality is poor at first, but it swiftly improves as it goes along:

I found the above on richgrad's blog. Many thanks to him for finding it!

Thanks too to Linda (aka Cosmic Sunshine) for sending me the link to an animation called The Book Of Now, which you can find here. They request your email address unfortunately but I don't seem to have been spammed as a result - and it's a great animation, kind of a cartoon version of Eckhart Tolle's teaching.

Did anyone else try the recent Jyothi transmission? I've written about my own impressions here. Please feel free to add yours too...

Special thanks to those of you who left supportive comments on May's blog, in response to my recent post! May left some response here.

Finally, here are a couple of local notices. If, like me, you live in Yorkshire in the north of England (or thereabouts) my friend Ed Harpin (who contributed two fascinating comments on enlightenment a few months back) is starting up Deeksha sessions in Huddersfield again. He is now combining Deeksha (also known as the Oneness Blessing) with Kundalini Yoga. The details of his classes are here.

And if you live a bit further north, Heidi Fawkes is continuing her regular Deeksha sessions in Otley and Hunton. You can contact Heidi here.

There are links to information on Deeksha sessions worldwide in my original post on Deeksha.

The Heart Of The Secret 3 - Contemplating Perfection

Earlier this year, The Secret DVD did much to publicize the law of attraction - the idea that we can create our own reality through the power of positive thought. In this series of posts, I'm highlighting what I see as the most useful techniques in The Secret, and the one I'd like to talk about today is one which you may not have encountered before even if you've seen the DVD, because it doesn't appear in the movie, only in the accompanying book.

The reason it didn't make it onto the DVD may be because it will only make immediate sense to those who are already familiar with the idea of being in the moment and connecting with the energy which can be found there. If you read this blog regularly, you'll already know what I'm talking about. Otherwise, I urge you to look at one of Eckhart Tolle's excellent books The Power Of Now or the briefer Practicing The Power Of Now, which will explain all about it.

You could also try taking a look at one or two of my earlier posts. Feeling What Is briefly describes the process of coming to rest and connecting with the moment, while An End To All Abuse contains a visualization in which you imagine being one with the universe, an integral part of everything that is.

Both of these are gateways to the same state of consciousness, in which you realize that you are an integral part of everything: a part of the force of nature, a part of the universe. In such a state, you are able to focus on your own perfection, on your own boundless abundance, for if you are a part of this great energy, then you too must share its attributes, you too must possess its limitless power.

With a focus like this, there is no longer any room for the anxious thoughts which might creep in if you were trying to imagine a new house or a car. Those nagging questions "will it work?" or "do I deserve it?" become irrelevant. Once you are aware that you are part of this energy, that you are one with the universe, there can be no doubt that you share in its perfection. So focus on that perfection - and bring it into your life.

This technique can be particularly useful for working on your health. The Secret DVD suggests that to improve your health, you should imagine yourself being well, but this can be hard to achieve if you are severely disabled or in great pain - or even if you've got a bad cough for that matter! In such a situation, doubts can be hard to dispel. If you feel really ill, it isn't always easy to imagine feeling better again.

If, however, you realize that you are one with all that is, that you are not separate from the life force which puts the buds on the trees and brings the green shoots from the earth, then you cannot fail to understand that on a spiritual level at least, you are perfection. Contemplate this perfection - and feel it seep into the cells of your physical body.

This is a wonderful exercise, but if you have difficulty with the whole 'oneness with the universe' thing, I came across a useful variation at Sue Ann Edwards' excellent blog, Always Embraces All Ways.  This has the rather dull title of Standard Technology (not Sue Ann's name!) but it's a very powerful exercise.

Briefly, what you have to do is to imagine that there's a perfect cell in your body. I think all of us are willing to accept that we have at least one of them! Imagine that cell all vibrant and happy, then set it as the standard for all the other cells in your body. And watch the perfection spread throughout your being...

If you like the sound of that exercise, please go and read all about it at Sue Ann's blog here.

Next time, in the last of this series, I'll be talking about the most powerful law of attraction technique of all. And this one is very, very simple...

(To see the previous posts in this series, please click here: part 1 - part 2)

A Virtual Tour

Did I tell you we'd moved house? With so much else to blog about, I don't think I've got round to mentioning that we moved into our new place a few months ago. Which is kind of rude, considering that I shared so much of the stress of our move with you. The least I can do is show you round...

One thing I like about the house is that there's a kind of warp in space-time between the front and the back. There weren't many houses with one of those in our price range. The front is all light and airy and kind of public. Our front garden is on quite a steep incline so that our house is elevated above the road, yet on the other side of the road the ground rises again, so that we're looking out on a great sweeping panorama of suburbia, with houses and gardens rising each upon the last, like something out of a painting by Mr Zip.

There's excellent scope for snooping here. If I wanted to, I could sit at our large bay window with a cup of tea and a writing pad and make copious notes on the doings of all our neighbors. If any illicit affairs go on, we'd be the first to know about it. Maybe that's an idea for another blog...

All in all, though, I think I'd rather sit at the back of the house instead. It's altogether different here on the other side of the space-time warp. It's cozy and private and it's like looking out on a meadow. There are cottage garden type flower beds near the house, while at the bottom of the garden on the far side of the lawn there's an apple tree and an overgrown patch of shade-loving plants and weeds. If you go out there at dusk, you can hear a very noisy rustling of leaves as our heavy-footed hedgehog comes traipsing through on its nightly rounds, rooting out supper. It's a good thing those slugs and snails and whatnot aren't too bright - or else are hard of hearing - or they'd be oozing off out of the way before the poor thing could get within sniffing distance.

The kitchen is kind of tiny and the porch is falling down, so we'll pass those swiftly by and take you up to the next floor instead, where there's a massive new bathroom with a walk-in shower. Our predecessor led us to believe he was into communal bathing - or at any rate, he clearly had this earmarked as a principal selling point for the house, being careful to emphasize that the shower and the bath would both take two people, though whether both appliances were supposed to be in use at the same time wasn't clear. I'll draw a veil over whether or not we've tested this out, but suffice it to say that we don't have to worry about getting claustrophobic when we're taking a shower.

The back bedroom used to be the kids' room and is decorated in glaring blue and yellow. There used to be a picture of Bart Simpson on the wall but our predecessor took it with him, which is kind of upsetting but I can't quite bring myself to bother to buy a replacement. Without Bart, the blue and yellow color scheme doesn't really make sense any more. It's like a piece of modern art which has lost that manifesto thing which explains what it's all about, and the room is now under threat of being magnolia-ed.

The front bedroom is even more light and airy and public than the room below - kind of like Turner meets suburbia - so it's rather intriguing that there aren't any curtains. Nor any means of hanging curtains. Nor any sign that there has ever been any means of hanging curtains. Curious, eh?

The last room on this floor is the tiny study - The Secret Of Life's control center.  You can commiserate with me for a moment about the impossibly cramped and squalid conditions under which I toil, then follow me up to the top floor, where you have to mind your head because of the roof beams. This once used to be the loft, but it is now an en suite bedroom, and due to the low ceiling it's the coziest room in the house. We can lie here and watch the sky though the Velux window.

From time to time, a white feather appears on this window. Some of our friends tell us that this is because we've been visited by an angel. We like this idea, but I have to admit that the skeptic in me keeps looking out for a balding seagull instead.

So that's the house. It's a nice place, but the main reason we moved was actually nothing to do with the house at all. It was because the part of Leeds in which we lived before was rather soulless. Here in Roundhay, there's much more sense of life. Just a short walk away is the Friends Meeting House, where Sally (who often leaves a comment here) runs an Eckhart Tolle group on a Monday night, and which hosts many other interesting meetings and classes: meditation, healing, yoga and so on. Further along the main street are bustling bars and cafes, while a bit further still are Roundhay Park and the Canal Gardens, which I may well write about in a future post. Here too is the Roundhay Fox pub, where you can sit outside on one of the rare summer days we have and watch the world go by - on its way to the park and back again - while the staff pour you endless refills of excellent coffee.

This being the internet, I'm conscious of the fact that the manager of the Roundhay Fox is likely to google this at any moment and set me straight, so I'd better point out that customers are really only entitled to one refill of coffee. But it's worth taking a chance or two in life, don't you think?

Which brings us back neatly to the subject of moving house. If you want to step outside your comfort zone, I recommend it. As I mentioned in that earlier post, Chris and I built up a lot of drama around the whole business. OK, so there was a guy along the chain of purchasers who was playing around and complicating things, so there was plenty of scope for drama. But then, in life there usually is. We didn't have to feed it if we didn't want to. Instead of getting all anxious, we could have just trusted, which on reflection would have been an awful lot easier on our nervous systems.

And after all, it turned out fine in the end. Which is probably down to Sally, who was using the law of attraction on our behalf all along. As indeed was Chris, who had written our names and our new address on a sheet of paper which she kept on prominent display at all times.

As for myself, I found that acceptance did the trick. As you may have gathered, I'm not exactly accomplished at putting out positive intentions, but when the sale got very difficult, I trusted nevertheless. I trusted that what would be would be and that whatever happened, it would be All Right. And as soon as I started thinking that way, it so happened that everything fell into place and the sale went through.

Which kind of begs the question, where should we put our focus: intention or acceptance? And is there a conflict here? Can we seek to attract specific outcomes in our lives yet also accept the way things are? I raised this point in my earlier post (Positive Thinking For Beginners) and The Secret Of Life reader Bet has also raised it here.

Meanwhile, Sally (who is getting rather a lot of name-checks this post) recently attended a retreat with Eckhart Tolle, at which he was asked about that incredibly popular guide to the law of attraction, The Secret - she has shared Eckhart's response here.

All of which makes me think: I've written quite a lot about 'acceptance' recently (in the posts How Does It Feel To Win A Million? and Ripples On a Sea Of Peace), so perhaps it's about time I turned my attention to the law of attraction again...

(I hope you liked the house, by the way. Do call again!)

How Does It Feel To Win A Million?

Looking through the biography notes on Arjuna Ardagh (author of Awakening Into Oneness, the book I mentioned in the previous post) I came across this interesting quote about the culmination of Ardagh's search for enlightenment:

(Ardagh) had the profound realization that he had been seeking for what he already was, and always had been. He realized that it was in the abandonment of seeking and wanting that his heart found its fulfillment.

What might he mean by this?

It seems to me that if people think about enlightenment at all - and it helps to remind myself from time to time that not everyone does - then it's usually in terms of lots of foreign travel. People are expected to journey along perilous mountain passes to isolated monasteries, where they rise in the middle of the night to pray, drink yak's milk, and smite themselves with sticks at frequent intervals. If they are lucky and survive twenty years or so of this, they become enlightened, which means that they sit around with their knees crossed and make cryptic remarks to their students.

Whatever this enlightenment thing is, the idea goes, it is out there. You have to go out and find it. It is all about long haul flights and frequent flyer points. You have to search under every stone, and having searched, search again. There is no such thing as a long weekend to enlightenment.

And yet increasingly, people like Ardagh seem to be suggesting that this popular concept of a lonely soul scouring the world for some hidden truth is mistaken: that enlightenment is really closer to home than we think. That if we only understood, we could have it here, right now, in this moment.

But if so, then what is it? What is this truth which is supposed to be staring us all in the face?

Eckhart Tolle tells a story about winning a million dollars. This is something which makes people happy. But why should that be, he asks?

We know from reading the newspapers that many people who win such a large amount of money don't stay happy for very long. They may be bouncing off the ceiling a while, but when the elation has worn off, they find that they just have a new set of problems. They may be besieged by people begging for money; they may have trouble with jealous relatives; they may have arguments with their partner about how to spend all the money; or they may simply become morbidly obsessed with the fear of losing this vast fortune, in spite of the fact that they have managed perfectly well without it until now.

So with all this in store, why are people still so happy to win the lottery?

It clearly isn't the money itself, not really, for even if they manage to hang on to it, the chances are that some of these problems will come along to make them miserable anyway. Even at best, it seems inevitable that the elation will start to dwindle away over the weeks and months, even if all the money remains.

So if it's not the money itself, what causes that initial burst of elation?

Eckhart Tolle points out that we tend to spend a lot of our time 'disagreeing with reality'. We refuse to accept that things are the way they are. He describes this as a kind of madness, and if we think about it a while, we can see that he's right. Things are the way they are. Period. There's no getting away from it and no amount of raging against it is going to change it. We might wish we'd done this or wish we'd done that, and want to have this or want to have that. We might want politicians to tell the truth, or our relationship not to have ended, or to have got that job we wanted, or to have eaten a bit less chocolate for breakfast. We might want it to be warmer in winter and cooler in summer. We might want the trains to run on time. But things are the way they are are the way they are - and banging our heads against the wall and wailing isn't going to make them any better.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying we shouldn't take action to change things. If we notice some injustice that's being done to us or to someone else, or if we see how something might be done more efficiently, it's perfectly reasonable to set out to change that. But it's important to distinguish between that will to change and our absolute point blank refusal to accept the less than perfect nature of how things presently are.

The truth is that when we see something we think is wrong, we don't put all our energy into changing it. We don't do that at all. We channel a lot of that energy, perhaps most of it, or - let's face it - in most cases all of it into moaning about how things are right now, in refusing to accept reality, in resisting what we can see in front of our eyes. "The buses should run on time," we will say. "You shouldn't have walked out on me." "Chocolate ought to have less calories and then I wouldn't get fat!"

This resistance does nothing to change things and neither does it make us happy. It makes us tense. It makes us angry. It makes us frustrated. In the end, it is not the situation to which we object which causes us so much pain, but our blind, obstinate, utterly mad refusal to accept that it is so.

And this, Eckhart Tolle suggests, points to the reason why winning all that money can make us happy: because for once in our lives we are willing to accept that things are the way they are. We have won a million dollars - yes, we can accept that. So just for once in our lives, we can drop our resistance to how things actually are. We can drop our disagreement with reality. We can drop our obsession with how things were or how they might become, put our plans and dreams to one side, finally stop resisting and let in life. It is not the money itself, it is the great relief of doing this, of letting go of that struggle, which feels so wonderful.

Which brings us back to Arjuna Ardagh "seeking for what he already was, and always had been". Ardagh reports that he found fulfillment when he stopped this seeking, when he abandoned his wanting. In other words: when he no longer disagreed with reality, when he simply accepted the way things were - and accepted the way he was.

So perhaps it is this acceptance, this surrender, not just from time to time but continuously, from one moment to the next, which forms the cornerstone of enlightenment. Which means that we don't, after all, have to search the world for the ultimate truth. It really is waiting for us right here. We just have to give up the struggle and accept the way things are.

So if you want to know what it feels like to win a million, just try accepting the way things are in this moment, really accepting. Then feel the tension ease...

Feel the lightening.

Making Plans

In a couple of recent posts, How to Slow Down Time and In the Zone, I was talking about a recurring theme in this blog: living in the moment, as promoted by Eckhart Tolle in his book The Power Of Now. This is all about being in touch with our senses: focusing on whatever we're actually doing at the time, instead of being lost in a tangle of thoughts as we so often are. I've described this myself in more detail in another earlier post, Feeling What Is.

One criticism which is often leveled at the idea of being in the moment, especially by those who wish to dismiss it as a 'new age fad', is that of course this is impossible, or at any rate unwise, because we have to plan ahead to organize our lives. We have to think about the future because we have to be prepared for whatever life has in store for us. At the very least, we need to make sure we have some food in for dinner tonight.

Now strictly speaking, it is said that we humans are able to reach a state in which we don't have to plan ahead. If we become enlightened, we will be so in touch with the flow of life that we respond spontaneously and effectively to whatever life may throw at us. We are permanently 'in the zone', like a pro sportsman in touch with his game, as I described in a recent post.

But most of us, regrettably, are not enlightened - at any rate, not yet. Even after dabbling in this spiritual stuff for some time, I am only catching glimpses of this wonderful state of being for myself. But that doesn't mean to say that living in the moment is impossible for us. Yes, we have to plan for the future, but we don't have to do it all the time.

If we have a meeting tomorrow, for instance, we may have to think about what we want to say - perhaps jot some notes down on a piece of paper - and work out when we will have to set off to arrive in time. If it is an important meeting, we may even think about what we should wear to create the right effect. But we don't have to spend all day thinking about it. We don't have to think endlessly on about what we should wear, or whether we will be held up in traffic, or whether we should set three alarm clocks instead of just two to make sure we wake up in time. We don't have to turn these things over and over in our minds as we go about our day. And yet this is what we often tend to do. Which means that real life - the actual business of living - goes on almost unnoticed around us.

When I was a kid, I used to love the vacation and hated going back to school (at least until I got there, at which point I realized it wasn't so bad after all). So because of this fear, I used to spend my final day of freedom in a state of dread about what was to come: all those lessons, all that homework, aaagh! Then one day, I realized that I was wasting a perfectly good day of the vacation by worrying about all this. I could have been enjoying that day instead of being miserable all the time. So I decided that in future, I would save worrying about going back to school until the final evening of the vacation. That way, I could enjoy myself for the rest of the day.

And that is what I did from then on.

If I'd been really smart of course, I'd have decided not to worry about school at all, not even in the evening, but even so, I don't think I did too badly for a twelve year old.

There's no reason why we can't adopt a similar approach to life in general. If there is something you have to plan for, ask yourself if there's anything you need to do about it now. If so, take that action. If not, then put the matter out of your mind for the time being until some specified time which you designate for doing the necessary planning. When that time arrives, give the matter the thought it requires. Then put it out of your mind again until one of two things happens: either some further prearranged planning time arrives or the thing you are planning for - gosh, wow - actually happens.

Occasionally, of course, something unexpected will come along which will require you to give the event additional attention - you have to be flexible. But generally speaking, organizing your planning time in this way will free up a lot of space in your brain for other things - like paying attention to actually living your life.

Which is all very well, but if you're like me, you may find yourself hearing a little voice in your mind from time to time which tells you that you are being irresponsible in not worrying about this event in your life that's about to happen. It is your duty to be worried, it may tell you. It's very important - you have to think about it! "But I've decided to think about it on Tuesday morning at half past ten," you reply. "That will give me plenty of time for all the planning I need." Ah yes, the voice says, unconvinced, but you should be worrying about it now. You should be worrying yourself sick. You should be...

Just tell it to shut up, that's my advice. You've taken any action you need to take at the moment. You've prearranged the necessary planning time. If anything unexpected turns up in the meantime, you will deal with it then. That's all you need to do. It is not your duty to worry about it now, quite the opposite. It is your duty not to worry. The more you worry about it, the more wear and tear you will put on your nervous system and the less effectively you may deal with the event when it actually happens. What is more, you will be missing out on life while you worry away. This is your life we're talking about here. It only happens once - and you have a responsibility to be there when it does.

In any case, it is wrong to assume that just because you are not consciously thinking about something, you are failing to give it any attention. From time to time, you have probably woken up from a night's sleep to find that you suddenly have a solution to some problem which has been troubling you. This is because your subconscious mind has been dealing with it while you were asleep.

Yet your subconscious mind can also work on problems while you are awake, especially if you are not getting in the way of it by turning them over and over again in your conscious mind. So give your subconscious a chance and focus on whatever is happening in the present moment instead. Then you may find that when your prearranged planning time arrives, you have subconsciously done a lot of the planning already.

What is more, when we are in the moment, we seem to tap into a source of what appears to be almost supernatural energy. (I don't think it is really supernatural - it's just that we don't understand it yet...) This source can manifest itself in a great many ways. One of them is in the perfect connection of bat on ball when a sportsman is 'in the zone'. And perhaps that same enormous power can be brought to bear on this problem of yours, on your plans for the future, on all aspects of your life... if you can only learn to put them out of your mind.

In The Zone

In the previous post, I was writing about an article on Steve Taylor's book Making Time, about how time can seem to get shorter as we get older. That article mentioned how top sports players often report that time seems to slow down when they are in a state of consciousness they refer to as 'in the zone'. When they are in this state, time seems to move so slowly that they are able to predict with absolute certainty where the ball will land and have plenty of time to make the right response to it. They know exactly how to strike the ball and where it will go.

Players seem to enter this 'zone' spontaneously when they are having a good day and the phenomenon has become so widely known that the phrase 'in the zone' is now in common use. This is perhaps the most generally recognized example of being 'in the moment', the practice promoted by Eckhart Tolle in his book The Power Of Now. The players are concentrating so hard on their game that they are completely present in the moment, instead of being lost in thought the way we all so often are. They are fully alert to everything their senses are telling them and so can pick up on information they would otherwise miss.

Chris and I had an example of this the other day. We were sitting in a garden, chatting away, and decided to practice being in the moment together for a while. We let the chatter, both verbal and mental, fall away and connected instead with our senses, so that we were really there in that lovely garden instead of somewhere away in our heads as usual.

After a while, we reported back on our experiences. We had both been focusing on a nearby fountain. Chris reported seeing areas of light and shade in the spouts of water which she hadn't noticed before, while I remarked on something similar in the sound of the fountain. There had seemed to be almost a choir of voices within the sound. I hadn't realized that gurgling could be so complex.

In our everyday lives, such complexities tend to be overlooked. If we hear the sound of the fountain at all, we file it away in our heads as 'the sound of the fountain' and dismiss it from further investigation. Then we rush around in our heads, giving simplistic labels to everything else our senses are telling us, leaving us free to get back to the all-important business of worrying about whatever is on our minds today.

It is the same for the sports people too. If they have a problem in their private lives or are concerned about how they are playing or something that might have been written about them in the press, their game is likely to suffer. Preoccupied as they are with these worries, they will be out of touch with their senses. They will not be 'in the zone'. They will not quite connect with the ball and the perfect shot will elude them.

Perhaps it would help if they read The Power Of Now...

I wonder how many of those who regularly find themselves in the zone on the sports field - and we are talking here about a great many people, not just professionals - realize that they could carry this over into their everyday lives, that if they focussed on their senses all the time, just as they do on the playing field, they could live their whole lives in the zone. Then they would always be alert to what is really going on in front of them instead of being lost in a tangle of thoughts; able to respond in spontaneous perfection to whatever life might throw at them; and able to experience life in all its glory, moment and by moment - like a ball well observed and perfectly smitten, heading towards the sky.