You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important YOU are. You are not your mind. Look inside yourself

A beggar had been sitting by the side of the road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by, “spare some change”? mumbled the beggar mechanically holding out his old baseball cap. “I have nothing to give you replied the stranger”, and then he asked “what’s that you’re sitting on”? “Nothing”! Replied the beggar, “just an old box; I’ve been sitting on it for as long as I can remember”! “Ever looked inside” asked the stranger”? “No” said the beggar, “what’s the point? There’s nothing in there”! “Have a look inside insisted the stranger”. The beggar managed to pry open the lid, with astonishment, disbelief and elation he saw that the box was filled of gold.

I am that stranger that has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside. Not inside any box as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside your-self.

But I am not a beggar I can hear you say. 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 fulfilment for validation, security or love. While they have a treasure within that not only includes all of those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.

The word enlightenment conjures up some idea of some super human accomplishment and the ego likes to keep it that way. But it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with being, it is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that almost paradoxically is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form.

The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself consciously or unconsciously as an isolated fragment. Fear arises and conflict within and without becomes the norm.

I love the Buddha’s simple definition of enlightenment as – The End of Suffering! There is nothing super human in that. What’s left when there is no more suffering someone asked and the Buddha. He remains silent to imply – You will have to find out for your-self. He uses a negative definition so that the mind cannot make it into something to believe in or into a super human accomplishment, a goal that is impossible for you to obtain. Despite this Buddhists still think that enlightenment is for the Buddha not for them or at least not in this lifetime.

Being is the eternal ever present one life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its inner most invisible and indestructible essence.

This means it 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. When you are present, when your attention is full and intensely in the now, being can be felt but never understood mentally.

To regain awareness of being and to abide in that state of feeling realisation is enlightenment.

The reason for highlighting some of Eckhart Tolles text is to show a way to break down the words so you can implement them into your own understanding. The paradox is that you cannot fully understand or put into the words the shift that occurs when you feel the deep love of yourself and life, your true essence.

But like he says do not try to understand it mentally. I found that breaking the words down allowed me to detach from them, Almost using the words as guides to the feelings. This text for me is very powerful because it encapsulates the path in a nutshell. Detachment from our inherent engraved mind patterns is the only way to inner peace. That takes concentration and a deep desire to overcome the engraved belief systems to embark on a journey into the known. From that inner peace you can detach from the things that cause you fear. It works both ways, if you detach from the things that cause you fear you will feel inner peace.

What I found with myself is that I had to go back to the beginning of my own life and look at the many points in my life that there seemed to be lack, need and want. It’s at these points that you can see where the fears stem from. These fears become part of your sub conscious mind dictating to you what you think you need in order to gain recognition, be a better person to succeed or to BE somebody. Notice the word BE. Being is and has always been with you it’s not some destination you get to. You already are everything you will ever be but the ego dysfunction mind does not accept that so it creates the need for things in order to give yourself identity and to push you into a world of illusion, competing, fear, anxiety, self doubt, anger and pain. It makes us believe we are worthless beings, nobodies. (Even that word is crazy, no-body, how could anyone who has a body think that) It’s as if we almost at an early age get cut off from our life essence which is Love. When we are born we come out of the womb as an unconditional love being, the whole process of birth is love or supposed to be.

What I feel has happened is that the dysfunctional mind has created a world of emotions and energy that has built a planet of fear control mentality that has taken our true selves away from us. We have become detached from the life we are because of the madness and insanity of the life systems humans have created in the quest for domination, greed, power and control. It’s time we accessed a new way of living a life of love and peace. Reclaim back the positive feeling we all have at our core. Ok so we know how to feel shit, feel negative, feel struggle, we get that. We understand it’s all around. But now I feel it’s time for everybody no matter who you are to have a longer taste of the feelings of positivity, of wonder, of joy, love, trust and the many beautiful feelings of love we all possess.

Have a great day
Simon x