Are we at TIME's End? [View All]

[Dover]

From Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now:

Chapt: A Quantum Leap in the Evolution of Consciousness

The time-bound mode of consciousness is deeply embedded in the human psyche. But what we are doing here is part of a profound transformation that is taking place in the collective consciousness of the planet and beyond: the awakening of consciousness from the dream of matter, form and separation. The ending of time. We are breaking mind patterns that have dominated human life for eons. Mind patterns that have created unimaginable suffering on a vast scale. I am not using the word evil. It is more helpful to call it unconsciousness or insanity.

Question: Is the breaking up of the old mode of consciousness or rather unconsciousness: is it something we have to do or will it happen anyway? I mean, is this change inevitable?

That's a question of perspective. The doing and the happening is in fact a single process; because you are one with the totality of consciousness, you cannot separate the two. But there is no absolute guarantee that humans will make it. The process isn't inevitable or automatic. Your cooperation is an essential part of it. However you look at it, it is a quantum leap in the evolution of consciousness, as well as our only chance of survival as a race.

The Joy of Being

To alert you that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can use a simple criterion. Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn't, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or struggle.

If there is no joy, ease or lightness in what you are doing, it does not necessarily mean that you need to change WHAT you are doing. It may be sufficient to change HOW. "How" is always more important than "what". See if you can give much more attention to the 'doing' than to the result that you want to achieve through it. Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents. This implies that you also completely accept what IS, because you cannot give your full attention to something and at the same time resist it.

As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care and love - even the most simple action.

..snip..

Question: In that state of wholeness, would we still be able or willing to pursue goals?

Of course, but you will not have illusory expectations that anything or anybody in the future will save you or make you happy. As far as your life situation is concerned, there may be things to be attained or acquired. That's the world of form, or gain and loss. Yet on a deeper level you are already complete, and when you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do. Being free of psychological time, you no longer pursue your goals with grim determination, driven by fear, anger, discontent, or the need to become someone. Nor will you remain inactive through fear of failure, which to the ego is loss of self. When your deeper sense of self is derived from Being, when you are free of "becoming" as a psychological need, niether your happiness nor your sense of self depends on the outcome, and so there is freedom from fear. You don't seek permanency where it cannot be found: in the world of form, of gain and loss, birth and death. You don't demand that situations, conditions, places or people should make you happy, and suffer when they don't live up to your expectations.

Everything is honored, but nothing matters. Forms are born and die, yet you are aware of the eternal underneath the forms. You know that "nothing real can be threatened".

When this is your state of Being, how can you not succeed? You have succeeded already.

To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for identity and future for your fulfillment.