I could never understand why there was not something inside us that works to heal emotional hurt. I mean, when you cut your skin or break a bone it heals. It seems funny now that I thought the subconscious mind should do that. I remember in junior high school a stage hypnotist performed in our gym and I was far less interested in the show than the little booklet he sold about hypnotism. I thought "this is going to solve my problems for me". My mind would work automatically for me. In the next 35 years I tried many things never with any lasting success. I kept coming back to the same conclusion. It always seemed there was something inside me working against me. Why should there be something in me that wants pain?

A few months ago I was exposed to the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. I recognized the truth of his teaching quickly I believe because I had been asking the right questions all along. Now I know there really is something in us that wants pain and yes there is something that naturally tends toward peace. To realize that latter all that is required is awareness.

I will try to not write a lot here. I will just give a few hints so that one can see whether they recognize a profound truth that they may have been looking for.

1. The fear and anger is a product of the thinking mind. It is built into the structure of it. It cannot be reconditioned or trained to be happy for more than a short time. It has become like an entity which needs pain to survive. It has taken us over. We think we can't be free of it because we think we are it. We think it is us. We've forgotten what we truly are.

2. If we were not caught up in this thinking entity which can be called ego there would only be peace and an indescribable happiness. It's our natural state. You get a hint of it when you imagine what it would be like if you won the lottery or whatever would solve the problems of your life situation, whatever you imagine would make you free of all your problems. It is not the situation that would free you. It is that for that moment in your imagination you are free of the thinking, pain producing mind. Of course if you actually win the lottery you would probably find you weren't free.

3. There is a state of simple awareness without thought that exists completely outside the thinking mind. You can be aware of all that happens around you and inside you (including thoughts and emotions) both pleasant and unpleasant but the awareness itself, your true self, is such an experience that all that presents itself in the world of form is like a dream and no longer matters so much.

4. When the thinking mind ceases to be your center of your experience it is no longer able to trick you. You can see everything that it does with a detached interest. You can then use the thinking mind as a tool and only when it's needed which is only a small percentage of the time. A greater intelligence can then be experienced. Things work out better and you watch yourself doing things with delight. The world with it's changing forms is only there to allow you to experience the wonder of the awareness of it.

We are talking about a shift in consciousness. It is a simple thing. If you can turn off your thinking and awaken to awareness of just only this present moment that's all that's required. Apparently this can happen very quickly but for most people it takes some time to do the wrong things and learn how the mind tries to trick you into making it more complicated than it is. There is also the remnant energy of emotions that can linger and something that Ekhart Tolle calls the pain body which you should know about that could try to pull you back into the mind. However, the answer is always the same: acceptance and awareness of what is at this moment without judgment or resistance but it is still recommended to spend a lot of time with these sorts of teachings while remembering it is an allowing not a trying that happens. I recommend listening to the audio versions of Eckhart Tolle's three books, The Power of Now, A New Earth, and Stillness Speaks many times over. I think the best workshop audio is the 6 CD The Art of Presence. The several 1 and 2 CD versions of his shorter talks I have heard are all good too. They all talk about the same thing using different words. The concepts are not difficult and most of the teachings are how to recognize what a consciousness shift is NOT because what it IS cannot really be stated in words. None of these ideas are new but Eckhart Tolle has a way of repeating these pointers in different forms until they lead you to that which is beyond words and concepts. The point is simple and unlike other sources I know of he does not stray far from it.

I found that initially just understanding the concepts reduced my worry by about 70% simply because I recognized the truth of it. More recently, when I have been able to shift temporarily to "The Now" it is a very powerful experience. I am now working on allowing the old emotions instead of trying to get away from them. Eckhart Tolle claims the energy from them can become transformed into a more powerful "Now" experience.

Ekhart Tolle's works can be found in most any public library in both book and audio form. They can be purchased both new and used at Amazon.com and probably most inexpensively used on Ebay. There are two good DVDs that I have seen but I don't think they are the best introduction to his work. I recommend starting with audio materials. I will write more here later but send me an email if you have any comments.