Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature - The rustling of leaves in the wind, Raindrops falling, The humming of an insect, The first birdsong at dawn.
Eckhart TolleRead
Throughout history humans have inflicted countless violent, cruel, and hurtful acts on each other, and continue to do so. Are they all to be condemned; are they all guilty? Or are those acts simply expressions of unconsciousness, an evolutionary stage that we are now growing out of? Jesus’ words, “Forgive them for they do not know what they do,” also apply to yourself.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that humanity's past violence may stem from a lack of awareness, urging forgiveness for both others and oneself.
Eckhart Tolle reflects on the violent history of humanity, questioning whether these actions should lead to universal condemnation or if they are a result of unconsciousness. He emphasizes the importance of forgiveness, not just towards others who have committed harmful acts, but also towards ourselves for our own shortcomings, suggesting that these behaviors may be part of an evolving awareness in human consciousness.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of forgiving others during community mediation.
Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature - The rustling of leaves in the wind, Raindrops falling, The humming of an insect, The first birdsong at dawn.
Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego. It also strengthens the immune system and the body’s ability to heal itself.
Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.
Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.
Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.
Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.
She also considered very seriously what she would look like in a little cottage in the middle of the forest, dressed in a melancholy gray and holding communion only with the birds and trees; a life of retirement away from the vain world; a life into which no man came. It had its attractions, but she decided that gray did not suit her.
If smallness was fortune, then I had come across a treasure, infinitesimal and beyond value. I felt lucky. You had to decide what was estimable and precious in your life and set out to find it. The objects you valued defined you.
Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.
When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.
How often it consoles me to think of barbarism once more flooding the world, and real feelings and passions, however rudimentary, taking the place of our wretched hypocrisies.
To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, god, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no god, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But heresy it certainly is.
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