Challenging Eckhart: Practice is necessary, as is clock time

[yougarksooo]

what a joke we play on ourselves. So, enjoy your practice and then laugh at yourself when the joke is revealed.

Well said.

[prospero]

"Although Union with the Beloved
Is never given as a reward for one's efforts,
Strive, O heart, as much as you are able"

Sufi poet, Hafiz

[Ives]

Prospero’s post above reminds me of a famous interchange between two enlightened Sufi masters.

Salih of Qazwin taught his disciples:
Whoever knocks at the door continually, it will be opened to him.

Rubiya, hearing him one day, said:
How long will you say, It will be opened?
The door has never been shut.


(In other words, it depends on the individual. It is we who are shut at the beginning of discovering a spiritual approach to life. Then comes the moment in which there is just pure openness).

[kiki]

Thanks for that, Ives.

[Vpopov81]

Honestly I have realized that whether you look at it as practice or not is noothing but semantics. Being present in your daily life all the time, do you want to look at that as practice? If you choose to sit down and be present 20 minutes a day twice a day (meditation) thats a practice, but if you are making this your predominant state of consciousness whether you choose to look at it as a practice or not is just words honestly.

Its easy to see why Krishnamurti referred to the state of Prsence as "Meditation". And we would always clarify that he wasnt referring to the kind of meditation as practice and since we was such a poor communicator (my opinion) he was very hard to understand. We was basically saying be present all the time not just 20 minutes a day twice a day. Once that becomes your predominant state and it is your resting state can it be called a practice?

[eseward]

Good point IMO, Victor. I'm with you on that.

[JD]

The door has never been shut.

No, but as Holman Hunt's allegorical painting depicts, in most of us the door is obscured and overgrown with weeds:

[Webwanderer]

Honestly I have realized that whether you look at it as practice or not is noothing but semantics. Being present in your daily life all the time, do you want to look at that as practice? If you choose to sit down and be present 20 minutes a day twice a day (meditation) thats a practice,

Good post Vpop.

I agree we can get caught up in semantics. Both practice and living in the Natural State have merrit. 20 minutes, twice a day, spent focusing on clear, thought free, awareness helps to create the familiarity of presence that, when daily distractions take their toll, make return to clearity more accessible.

I routinely find myselt slipping into thought stories throughout my day, but they are no longer any concern, as recognition of what is happening and return to presence is now quite simple. There is no emotion, no judgment for loosing presence, just an "oh, mind story in action". I release the story and make an easy shift back to presence, no big deal.

[Ives]

... in most of us the door is obscured and overgrown with weeds

Exactly my point, JD.

The spiritual advice that tells you ‘The door has never been shut’ is for highly advanced practitioners.

And I think this is where the initial frustration expressed by Innerhike comes in. It is practically useless saying to a beginner (and that includes most of us): ‘You have already arrived, you don't need to change anything’.
A truly great teacher comes down from his or her enlightened state and gives practical advice suitable for an individual at a particular level.

For those who have “gotten good” at the techniques, another kind of push may be needed, sort of like a Zen koan. To trip the mind and dissolve it.

Nice painting, by the way.

[kiki]

A truly great teacher comes down from his or her enlightened state and gives practical advice suitable for an individual at a particular level.

This is what Ramana Maharshi did. He advised people depending upon where they were. He knew that most wouldn't "get" the "not having to do anything" approach even though it is true, so he would tell some people to do this or that particular thing. For those who were "ripe" those sort of practices were no longer necessary, and so would give his most direct teaching.

Good post, Ives -

[Finbarr]

I think practical practice in daily life (character/moral effort, more positive (right) thinking, meditation, practicing the presence, humility/impersonality etc) ripens us for the Eckhart Tolle teachings. We can then be harvested by the present! Basically our true nature IS the state that Eckhart Tolle describes. Its just a question of clearing away the clouds of our delusion/negative ego. But either way, clear blue skies and perfect sunshine remain ever above our gloomy thunderheads...

[JD]

... in most of us the door is obscured and overgrown with weeds

Exactly my point, JD.

Yes, I was agreeing with you.

A truly great teacher comes down from his or her enlightened state and gives practical advice suitable for an individual at a particular level.

Jesus said to his disciples, "I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand".

Matthew 13:11-17

Nice painting, by the way.

It's a doorway in every sense of the word - a great icon of spiritual power and presence.

The original's in the chapel of a college near my house and I've experienced many extraordinary states of consciousness sitting before it in contemplation.

And Holman Hunt's studies of the lamp held by Christ are in the print room of the Ashmolean Museum.

It's an eerie feeling to slip on the white gloves they make you wear and hold the fragile paper knowing that H.H. held it over 150 years ago when he was working out the design of this great masterpiece.

[yougarksooo]

This is what Ramana Maharshi did. He advised people depending upon where they were. He knew that most wouldn't "get" the "not having to do anything" approach even though it is true, so he would tell some people to do this or that particular thing. For those who were "ripe" those sort of practices were no longer necessary, and so would give his most direct teaching.

Thanks Kiki.

Might that explain the following?

Jesus said to his disciples, "I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand".

Matthew 13:11-17

[tikey]

The Buddha did not come to enlightenment suddenly without practice.

Once I was training swimming. And just before the training before the moment I could go enter to the water I was waiting. I stopped. And I was
thinking "oh my god, the water is cold, I'll never get there". And my hesitation took a lot of time. But then a jump came. And it only took a second.
And I was in the water

It somehow reminded me that just "entering the water"(the jump) takes only a second, but hesitation which was before the jump took long...

[OnlyNow]

We may say that we are life/consciousness manifested in form.

Many are continually lost in that form, in the world and the essence is obscured.

We identify solely with that form and the many others that arise.

These forms and the identities they engender though seemingly real are just illusions as is all form and all identity with it.

Release the identity with form and then its just a game.