No, i told you to type out the whole thing from the book itself because i don have the book with me. And of course i can turn on my comp, my laptop always with me. But it lags badly and i don wish to start it up.Originally posted by Cenarious:AEN sms'd me and told me to remind u of the story "sai weng shi ma" (sai weng loses his horse). probably his mother not letting him use the comp.
In terms of material life one has an advantage if one has certain level of income and savings. But none of these guarantees one's happiness and neither do you have to have money to be peaceful and happy.Originally posted by TWE:That horse story you trying to tell is actually " sai weng shi ma , yan chi fei fu " . Losing something may not mean that it is bad , you may actually gain something from it . Poor is good ? Wait till you always kana sabo by pple , can't keep a job for long , even though it is none of your fault but pple just don't belive what you say , pple just don't like the sight of you . You are damm poor in talking resulting in nobody wants to hire you . In short you are not me , you will never know what i actually have to go through . Rich but got cancer ? isn't it better then poor but also have cancer ? If a rich person discover that he have first stages of cancer , at least he still have the money to seek treatment to cure it rather then a poor person discover he have first stage of cancer but yet no money to go for treatment so which is better actually ?
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Maybe you should get this book too. Another good one is 'A New Earth'. The Power of Now is found in all major bookstores and also library. For library you can check its availability (search 'Eckhart Tolle') in http://vistaweb.nlb.gov.sg/.
I have already personally sent many people emails to get this...
Introduction of the Book:
[b]The Power of Now
Eckhart Tolle
I have little use for the past and rarely think about it; however, I would briefly like to tell you how I came to be a spiritual teacher and how ‘The Power of Now’ came into existence.
Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else's life.
Awakening
One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.
‘I cannot live with myself any longer.’ This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was.. ‘Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.’ ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘only one of them is real.’
I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words ‘resist nothing,’ as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that.
I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marvelling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.
Bliss
For the next five months, I lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss. After that, it diminished somewhat in intensity, or perhaps it just seemed to because it became my natural state. I could still function in the world, although I realized that nothing I ever did could possibly add anything to what I already had.
Understanding
I knew, of course, that something profoundly significant had happened to me, but I didn't understand it at all. It wasn't until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me. I understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind. This withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self immediately collapsed, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left then was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. Later I also learned to go into that inner timeless and deathless realm that I had originally perceived as a void and remain fully conscious. I dwelt in states of such indescribable bliss and sacredness that even the original experience I just described pales in comparison. A time came when, for a while, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.
But even the most beautiful experiences come and go. More fundamental, perhaps, than any experience is the undercurrent of peace that has never left me since then. Sometimes it is very strong, almost palpable, and others can feel it too. At other times, it is somewhere in the background, like a distant melody.
Sharing
Later, people would occasionally come up to me and say: ‘I want what you have. Can you give it to me, or show me how to get it?’ And I would say: ‘You have it already. You just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.’ That answer later grew into my book, ‘The Power of Now’.
From The Power of Now, copyright 1999 by Eckhart Tolle, published in the UK in 2001 by Hodder and Stoughton.
Photographs © Cygnus Books 21-Feb-2001[/b]
Hmm a new earth has spoken a lot on the different aspect of conscious living and his own experiences etc.Originally posted by Cenarious:i only have The Power of Now with me.
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:One day a stranger walked by. "Spare some change?" mumbled the beggar, "I have nothing to give you," said the stranger. 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 look 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, reluctantly, managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.
I am that stranger who 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 yourself.
Eckhart Tolle, from The Power of NOW