Eckhart Tolle & The Power of Now

The Power of Now - Awareness and Acceptance Go Hand in Hand
By Jim Patterson

I was talking with a long term client the other day, and was discussing his desire to lose twenty pounds. When I asked what his weight currently was his response floored me!

"Oh, I won't get on a scale so I really don't know!"

This raised a whole new arena of questions due to the conflicts inherent to the specific situation. Having a specific goal to lose twenty pounds while refusing to acknowledge ones current weight is self defeating from the word go, but that is not even the part that was most important to address.

A large part of what I try to help people to achieve is centered around Awareness. Awareness of and presence in The Now. Living a life of presence in this moment, not looking forward or backward. Eschewing all of the folderol that accrues when we live our lives to be happy/content/relaxed "As Soon As..."

To do this in any full sense means also being aware of what the current moment is. And being aware of it means also accepting what is. To it's fullest extent this includes being at peace with what is. That may seem a bit much to expect to many people with serious challenges in their life, but it is achievable for all...

My client wanted to change his situation without really knowing what his situation was. Anybody see a problem here? If you cannot accept your situation (what is) then you have no real hope of changing it. In actuality, willful ignorance of a situation he didn't like was keeping him from not just changing the situation but also from real peace and joy right now!

How so? Well let's consider what happened next!

I trotted out my faithful bathroom scale and literally forced him onto it. The result? He weighed more than he hoped but less than he feared. He was also only 18 pounds from his goal wieght. Having become aware of his actual current weight, he was able to stop the inner stammering dialog that happened every time someone inquired about his weight, whether that was his wife, a friend or even just himself...

So one less thing had the ability to take him out of the present moment and toss him back out of Awareness of The Now!

The importance of this can not be overstated. Every time we overcome one of these issues and take away that ability we gain greater understanding and skills that will allow us to maintain a life of Awareness and Connection with the Dynamic Energy of the Universe and it's Creator.

Awareness then leads to Acceptance as we acknowledge the reality of a situation. This is key to our accomplishing any desired change in that situation we may want. But how do we come to be at peace with a situation that we are at core unhappy about.

All situations fall under one of three categories.

1. Situations that we have no control over.



2. Situations that we have control over.



3. Situations that are a mixture of things we cannot control, and those we can.

When faced with something that falls in category one, we can legitimately give ourselves a pass. Accepting that the situation was not of our making doesn't always mean there is nothing we can do to change things. So if we allow for things that we had no control over, but take what action is available now we have the perfect basis to be at peace with what is...

Categories 2 and 3 are closely related, because if we had any culpability at all in the actuality of What Is, many people just can't seem to let themselves off the hook! This is a forgiveness issue, and will also usually be affecting people's ability to offer forgiveness to others. This will further hinder the achievement of joy and peaceful living in Awareness of The Now.

Let's face it, most things fall into these two categories as we can almost always affect a situation by our actions. With whatever we are faced with that we are not pleased with, we either did not take action, or our actions were not effective.

The first step to overcoming negative feelings about this aspect of What Is consists of meditating on that old NLP affirmation: Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources available to them.

This includes each and every one of us. I challenge anyone to really meditate on this and not come away being more at peace with What Is; In The Now.

Whatever we have or have not done that added to our current predicament occurred while we were faced with other complex situations. By no act of will can we separate out the influences of those past moments in time. To even go back and try is to take ourselves our of the present moment. Acknowledge this, and you are most of the way to a peaceful acceptance of your own culpability and present situation.

Am I saying that retrospection is always a bad thing? That we should never try to learn from our past mistakes and errors of omission? Absolutely not, but I am saying that to do so in even a slightly obsessive way is not only counterproductive but dangerous, and toxic to our Awareness and Presence in The Now.

Be Aware of all aspects of your situation without denial or obfuscation. Accept whatever your own role is in any aspect that is not to your liking, and forgive yourself. Acknowledge that you were "Doing the best you could with the resources available to you."

This will allow you to accept what is openly and take appropriate action while still enjoying a peaceful existence in the present moment at all times.

Jim Patterson

Read more on The Law of Attraction and The Power of Now at my LOANow Blog

Living Life in the Now - What is Good and What is Evil?
By Jim Patterson

If you read books, watch movies or television you know that many people think that we are in the middle of a universal struggle between Good and Evil.

You see it in the news, in politics, in discussions about religion, in the wars being waged across the globe, and on the streets of our cities, in the business world...

Just about everywhere. It is so pervasive that it makes people more than a little obsessive about their belief systems. It causes people to get so entrenched in dogma and their own rigid and frequently narrow viewpoints, that the actuality of life in this universe gets missed in the hysteria.

Having said that, you may be surprised that I do believe that this struggle is being waged, and is at a crucial point as we speak...

The only way to understand the nature of this struggle however, is to understand what actually is Good and what actually is Evil. And the shocking thing is that to understand the nature of this struggle and really take part in the most important issue facing mankind today is to put most of your own personal belief structure aside!

Huh?!

The fact of the matter is that the real nature of this battle is tied directly tho the greatest Good in the Universe: Awareness or Consciousness, Presence in the Moment, and Connection to the Universe and it's Creator.

Which means that the greatest Evil is being Unaware or Unconscious, Living Oblivious to the Present, and being Isolated from the Universe.

As you can see, this means that most of what people are centered on, and spend their lives and energies fighting about and either for or against, is immaterial to the real battle being waged. And this is the misdirection that goes on each and every day, not only robbing people of the happiness they could be experiencing in their lives individually, but also halts the progress of humankind as they seek to progress as a race.

No, I am not oblivious to the issues facing the world, creation as a whole, and humankind today. I just see these issues as all related to this far greater issue, and subservient to it...

The only hope we really have of overcoming war, hunger, poverty, disease and the host of other ills running rampant across the globe has no political, activist or military solution. So how can these be addressed? For that matter can they be addressed?

The only way they can or will be addressed is when the rising tide of Conscious, Aware and Connected individuals sweep away the inert masses of the inert population that have bought into the old and established ideas about what is necessarily Good or Evil by nature.

Let's be clear! I am not advocating or predicting a military action or violence against those choosing not to align themselves with my own view of what constitutes Good and Evil. When I say that the inert masses will be swept away, what I mean is that their inertia, their lack of Awareness, Consciousness and Connection will be swept away and mankind will flourish as a result.

The battle will be won by Good without a doubt. It is only a matter of time. Why?

Because the most powerful force in the Universe can only be accessed through connection with the Universe and it's Creator. Becoming Aware. Becoming Conscious. Becoming Connected with the very source of dynamic energy is the quickest avenue to a better life for each of us as individuals, and for humankind as a whole.

Jim Patterson

Read more about issues like these as well as The Law of Attraction and The Power on Now on my LOANow Blog

The Power of Now Helps Provide the Peace That Passes All Understanding
By Jim Patterson

Throughout my life I would have described myself as a spiritual person. A voracious reader, and particularly about anything to do with the human condition, I was also given to a great deal of introspection. And yet...

The kind of serenity described by Paul at Philippians 4:7 as "the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds" eluded me.

Like many people I took seriously the scriptural admonitions to constantly examine myself, and the secular ones as well: "the unexamined life is not worth living."

And still the "peace of God" was nowhere to be found.

Time passed, and while my own studies continued and I learned much it wasn't until I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle that I came to understand that the manner that I carried out that self examination had a good deal to do with my lack of peace and serenity. The constant replaying of events to see if I was overlooking some flaw in myself or if I was unfair to someone else was in and of itself a dysfunction that was actively stealing the very state I was seeking.

I read this book far before Mr. Tolle's webclass with Oprah Winfrey, and am so glad I did. This allowed me to absorb the words, tenets and principals for myself without the filter of the bruehaha that erupted when these were broadcast to such a huge audience. And frankly I didn't find the naysayers very convincing.

Frankly it was a bit entertaining to hear the followers of the man who asked that they disown themselves and follow him loudly decrying Eckhart Tolle's admonition to abandon the ego. And of course, that wasn't what he was doing at all. He was saying that the ego was out of balance, and that this preoccupation with and identification with the ego's stances, positions and ensuing drama was unhealthy and harmful.

People that have read my work before are familiar with my statement that "The longer I live the more often the answer to my questions is Balance!" So I was quite ready to accept the idea that an out of balance ego was sure to be a source of trouble. Just as it would be detrimental for someone to abdicate all thought of self as without a balanced amount we would lack food, sleep and shelter. So I came to understand Tolle's words to advocate a release of the out of balance ego that centers so much of it's identity with life's content as opposed to our true identities comprised of our consciousness.

Once I embraced these concepts, I almost immediately began to experience the promised peace and serenity. Not the absence of emotion predicted by Tolle's detractors but a feeling of satisfaction from letting go of all the folderol that had kept me out of the present moment. To put it in a way we have all heard, but few actually experienced: "Grass was greener, the sky bluer and food tasted better." Of course, the actuality was that my consciousness was actually finally free to experience colors, sounds, tastes and textures more fully than I had experienced since I was 8 years old...

The peace that passes all understanding is actually freedom from the tyranny of that unbalanced ego. It is freedom from the constant inner dialog as we rehash how wer were wronged, or even perhaps how we had wronged someone else. It makes it possible to release grudges and forgive what we may have previously thought to be unforgivable.

Most importantly, that peaceful serene tranquility gives all that reach for it a whole new life...

Jim Patterson

Read more about The Power of Now, The Law of Attraction, and Ho'oponopono

Law of Attraction Manifestation Techniques Require Awareness
By Jim Patterson

People ask why I have held off writing directly about the Law of Attraction. I've done so because of the prevalence of information on the subject that makes the LOA sound like a Cosmic ATM!

Visit any forum on this subject and you are bound to find threads by people looking for help manifesting new cars, luxury homes and stacks of cash. And this by people who have no interest in the more basic forms of manifesting that deal with day to day issues of peace and harmony within their lives.

The Law of Attraction is a natural law, like gravity. And you ignore it with the same degree of danger you would have if you ignored gravity. This means that if you want to harness this power, it is necessary to experience it as it occurs in everyday life as an observer before you even attempt to steer it with your own thoughts and energy. Even with the Law of Attraction you need to be able to crawl before you try to run a marathon...

We have each already observed the Law of Attraction at work whether we realized it or not. How often have we seen someone put out negative energy in the form of anger only to get anger back? How often have we seen that some people never seem to have a problem with anyone due to their own calm demeanor? In each of these cases, the party with the greatest strength behind the type of energy they are emanating will prevail. With one seeming exception, which we will get to later.

So each and every one of us are manifesting through the energy we emanate through our thoughts, words and actions. You are already interacting with the Law of Attraction by thinking, speaking and going about your business every day just as you are interacting with gravity by failing to fall off the planet!

What we want to do though, is to learn to interact with the Law of Attraction in a beneficial way. And when we say beneficial, we mean beneficial to all. When we seek to manifest in a way that is harmful to others in order to benefit ourselves, our efforts with fail. They will fail because by definition they are in conflict with the Law of Attraction. To attempt to manifest something that is good for the manifestor at another's expense is a selfish act and will attract selfishness from others, hindering the desired results across all aspects of the manifestors life. See how this works?

So the first thing we need to develop in order to begin even the most basic forms of Law of Attraction manifestation is to develop Awareness. What is meant here by Awareness is first of all to be Aware of one's own identity as opposed to the over-identification with one's own positions, and identification with the content of life that is so common today. Awareness also includes being cognizant of everyone else as something other than competitors. The best way to accomplish both of these is to meditate on the following affirmation:

Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources available to them.

This helps to build our empathy with the condition of others and eliminate our feelings that we need to overcome others. Awareness is key to success in your efforts to use Law of Attraction manifestation techniques. This is one of the reasons that I have given more attention to writing about The Power of Now issues as they help to overcome the out of balance ego that the majority of the world struggles with.

Awareness is also the energy that tips the scales in the favor of the Aware. Remember the one exception to the rule that the one manifesting with the most energy will prevail? Awareness trumps all. You can come up against the angriest of individuals with their yelling and cursing, and overcome them with far less energy as long as you are acting out of Awareness. This is because the energy that Awareness brings is of such a higher order, that it trumps just about everything it comes up against.

I will be writing further about the Law of Attraction and Manifestation techniques. It will be with an understanding that to even begin working to use LOA techniques as a steering mechanism, you have to start by developing Awareness as a baseline within your life.

Jim Patterson

Read more of my thoughts on The Law of Attraction and The Power of Now