If you are not familiar with Eckhart Tolle (Read Interviews) you are missing an opportunity to learn from a great teacher. Tolle's teachings are about surrendering to "what is", living in the present moment, and staying open to all of life. The Power of Now is a must read for anyone on the path. Going beyond the mind and into the heart, Tolle never misses.
Tolle says, "With the concept of "relationship" come expectations, memories of past relationships, and further personally and culturally conditioned mental concepts of what a "relationship" should be like. Then I would try to make reality conform to these concepts. And it never does. And again I suffer. The fact of the matter is: there are no relationships. There is only the present moment, and in the moment there is only relating.
How we relate, or rather how well we love, depends on how empty we are of ideas, concepts, expectations."
Dear Eckhart,
You often use phrases such as “true alignment with life” and “inner alignment with what is”. How can we ever be out of alignment with what is? Surely what is is WHAT IS and must include confusion, resistance and non surrender to the present moment.
Dear Anonymous,
What you say is the truth. As long as that truth is not recognized, however, there is suffering (which of course is part of what is.) As soon as it is recognized, a new dimension arises: awareness, Presence. This is the awakening, the shift, the transcendence of suffering. So, when I say alignment with life I mean conscious alignment. Non-surrender to the present moment is ultimately only non-recognition that you are already one with what is. This is the illusion of separation (which, of course, also has its rightful place within the totality). So we are all on a journey from unconscious to conscious alignment with life.
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