Suddenly in my life there is an unbidden focus on enlightenment. Everywhere I turn, some new clue is waiting for me to discover it. Stars are shining brightly. People who might guide me are falling into my path. Something is sending me a message.
It started a couple of weeks ago, when I found a copy of Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now next to the bed. I have no idea how it got there, but I picked it up and read it. Normally I avoid self-help books - my judgmental and logical brain thinks they are mostly bunkum that doesn't apply to me. But bloody hell, this one turned my brain inside out. It was still a lot of bunkum, but there's something to it.
[If you haven't read it, I can quickly summarise: There is nothing you can do in the past and nothing to be gained by worrying about the future. All you have is what is right here, right now. You are not your life circumstances: job, relationships, finances, home, health, intellect. Nor are you the labels your brain and ego give you: cynic, clever, childlike, conservative, crafty, curmudgeon. The real you is underneath the labels and the circumstances; you are a deep and primal source of energy and power. There is an analogy in the book that I liked a lot: the real you is a deep ocean beneath the waves and ripples of your life circumstance.]
I found these ideas powerful. Maybe my lightweight belief system resonates somehow. I don't know. Regardless, my head spins with the truth I see in this book.
Within a fortnight of reading the book, a passel of new women stepped into my circle. They seem different than other people I know. Blissful. Doing things they love. Radiating joy. Not really getting stressed out by anything. It's quite remarkable. I am used to chats full of grumble and gossip, not talk of love and peace and practice. They are all very present, these goddesses. Good things come to them. They bring happiness to others.
It makes me highly uncomfortable.
Today I don't know who I am. Who can I be? I like the goddesses a lot. Could I be one, too? My ego screams "What will happen to me?!" in a hundred different ways, throwing up hurdles and demanding answers. Will I still want to do things or will I end up like Eckart Tolle, just sitting blissfully present on a park bench for a couple of years? Can you be enlightened and continue to enjoy cooking, walking, making clothes, cuddling, and hooping? Will I lose my judgment and discrimination so that everything becomes equally good? Will my opinions fade away? Do enlightened people make travel plans? Will being present mean I am always late for meetings?
Tod seems to get it. His eyes shine when I ramble about this confusion I feel. He encourages me to let go and just be. It is the scariest thing I will ever do, if I can do it.
Thank you for this. Very well put.
I used to get hit with Enlightenment every so often. The best thing to do is drink a glass of warm salty water and it should clear right up.
I always loved this one - Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
I like the ocean analogy, but as an Aries girl, I have sometimes thought of myself more like fire - entirely composed of the fuel consumed, but always essentially the same; sometimes present, sometimes latent; sometimes destructive, sometimes constructive. I dont know whether that metaphor works for you, but it works very well for me.
Have fun with the goddesses! Life is conspiring to shower you with pleasures.
I feel about your blog the way you write about that book. Normally I avoid thinking redheads, my judgmental and logical brain thinks they are mostly combustible trouble. But this one has something to it.
Now, the book sounds like a lobotomy, all here-and-now and suns exploding silently in the solar plexus. When mine gets here from half.com I'll probably just burn it.