Search found 77 matches
- Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:45 pm
- Forum: Questions
- Topic: How to watch the emotions and thoughts.
- Replies: 8
- Views: 2736
Re: How to watch the emotions and thoughts.
I would offer a simpler notion: conscious awareness is attention. It's not important whether or not this is a function of mind. Thoughts, feelings, sensations are the "forms" as Tolle likes to say that attention or focus can be directed to, but it is the attention itself that is consciousness. Thoug...
- Tue Dec 22, 2015 4:40 pm
- Forum: Questions
- Topic: Too young to be conscious?
- Replies: 6
- Views: 1900
Re: Too young to be conscious?
Elkhart often says that suffering is a great teacher, and I have to say that the experience of suffering (physical pain, emotional pain, loss of loved ones, failure, disappointment etc.) seems to go along with living longer. That being said, it is also my experience that the learning, discipline, an...
- Mon Dec 21, 2015 10:06 pm
- Forum: Questions
- Topic: Is happiness a choice or something to aim for?
- Replies: 7
- Views: 2102
Re: Is happiness a choice or something to aim for?
I really appreciate the references to Victor Frankl - there is so much wisdom there. Like him, I've always felt that happiness was a byproduct of living a life that is true to my nature, not a goal. Perhaps it would be easier to grasp if we called happiness a form of joy - joy being the undiluted fo...
- Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:13 pm
- Forum: General Eckhart Tolle Discussion
- Topic: Is it really an illusion
- Replies: 31
- Views: 9556
Re: Is it really an illusion
As Einstein once said, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." Our sense perceptions are so very limited - even our ability to see light is limited to a very narrow range of frequencies. Even Plato's allegory of the cave teaches the same lesson. I sometimes hear people talking...
- Mon Apr 06, 2015 4:27 am
- Forum: General Eckhart Tolle Discussion
- Topic: Eckhart Tolle question? opinions needded
- Replies: 18
- Views: 9551
Re: Eckhart Tolle question? opinions needded
I've read Frankl's work a number of times during the past 50 years, but what I took from it was a bit different I believe. It was really quite simple: we cannot always choose our circumstances, but we can ALWAYS choose our attitude toward those circumstances. In Eckhart's teaching, he says this in a...
- Sat Mar 21, 2015 11:52 pm
- Forum: General Eckhart Tolle Discussion
- Topic: studying Eckhart and being an Atheist
- Replies: 7
- Views: 6129
Re: studying Eckhart and being an Atheist
A-theism is not the lack of belief, just the lack of belief in theistic memes. Strong atheism is, in fact, an affirmative belief that there are NO gods, period. We don't choose our beliefs, they simply are what they are - based on experience, custom, habit or whatever. Beliefs can change, of course,...
- Mon Dec 22, 2014 11:35 pm
- Forum: Questions
- Topic: Possessed by the Ego / Pain Body, yet Being Present
- Replies: 8
- Views: 2609
Re: Possessed by the Ego / Pain Body, yet Being Present
Eckhart Tolle's description of our pain bodies is very helpful with exactly what you experience. The activation of the pain body can indeed seem like being possessed by an "entity." The pain body is made up of all mental-emotion complexes (to use a word from psychoanalysis.) These are like sense mem...
- Thu Dec 11, 2014 12:10 am
- Forum: General Eckhart Tolle Discussion
- Topic: Personality
- Replies: 12
- Views: 3678
Re: Personality
I would like to add that in my view the ego/emotional complex is what most of us think of as our "selves." It is how we chiefly distinguish ourselves from others in our species, the "false" sense of of duality that is necessary to survive as a social species. What is more interesting to me is that t...
- Wed Dec 10, 2014 11:59 pm
- Forum: General Eckhart Tolle Discussion
- Topic: What is Perception?
- Replies: 8
- Views: 2809
Re: What is Perception?
I think in the limited domain of human sensory perception, this computer analogy is a reasonable analogy. You might add the output of the programming languages: like a graphical user interface. It's obviously a neuro-chemical process, that is ultimately interpreted in our sphere of consciousness. It...
- Sat Nov 29, 2014 5:57 pm
- Forum: Questions
- Topic: Problems with "Not Having Problems"
- Replies: 72
- Views: 12415
Re: Problems with "Not Having Problems"
If you live long enough, life will challenge you in ways you can scarcely imagine. The earlier poster asked the right questions - are these "problems" or challenges? Death of loved ones, serious health issues, loss of status, conflict at home or at work - all part of life. I've been through deep emo...
- Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:04 pm
- Forum: Questions
- Topic: HOW DO I REACT? TO THIS
- Replies: 11
- Views: 2171
Re: HOW DO I REACT? TO THIS
Both action and inaction have consequences and both involve a choice. There is a moral guide that might help - the Golden Rule: do to others what you would have others do to you. Another way to look at is to simplify the question: if a child is being abused and another is present and fails to act to...
- Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:01 pm
- Forum: Questions
- Topic: Abundance and poverty
- Replies: 10
- Views: 3045
Re: Abundance and poverty
I am reminded of the words of Victor Frankl, the psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor. He was the author of "Man's Search for Meaning" published in the year of my birth: 1948. In a nutshell, Frankl pointed out, based on his own dreadful experience in a death camp, that though we cannot always control...
- Sun Nov 09, 2014 5:34 pm
- Forum: General Eckhart Tolle Discussion
- Topic: Alcohol and its reaction to histamine production
- Replies: 6
- Views: 2693
Re: Alcohol and its reaction to histamine production
Lest I sound too judgmental, I should point out that tinkering with our own brain chemistry - particularly the limbic system - has been part of human culture and experience for tens of thousands of years. Whether it is alcohol, drugs, video games, computers, food, sex, gambling, even compulsive read...
- Thu Nov 06, 2014 11:24 pm
- Forum: General Eckhart Tolle Discussion
- Topic: Alcohol and its reaction to histamine production
- Replies: 6
- Views: 2693
Re: Alcohol and its reaction to histamine production
Alcohol consumption always causes a certain level of "anxiety" but it usually not noticed because of the intoxication. It is however, suspected as the reason after a couple of drinks the desire for more arises. Alcohol is toxic and the extent of damage it causes is dose-dependent. Unlike opioid-like...
- Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:36 am
- Forum: Questions
- Topic: An intelligent universe/God.... is it true?
- Replies: 37
- Views: 7976
Re: An intelligent universe/God.... is it true?
I would just like to add that believing something does not make it true - no matter how much one believes it to be. Do you also apply this 'belief' to the following quote as well? The notion that consciousness somehow exists apart from the material universe is demonstrably false and a dualistic con...