Thursday, September 22, 2011

Daily Tolle #4


"The deeper interconnectedness of all things and events implies that the mental labels of 'good' and 'bad' are ultimately illusory. They always imply a limited perspective and so are true only relatively and temporarily. This is illustrated in the story of a wise man who won an expensive car in a lottery. His family and friends were very happy for him and came to celebrate. 'Isn't it great!' they said. 'You are so lucky.' The man smiled and said, 'Maybe.' For a few weeks he enjoyed driving the car. Then one day a drunken driver smashed into his new car at an intersection and he ended up in the hospital, with multiple injuries. His family and friends came to see him and said, 'That was really unfortunate.' Again the man smiled and said, 'Maybe.' While he was still in the hospital, one night there was a landslide and his house fell into the sea. Again his friends came the next day and said, 'Weren't you lucky to have been here in hospital.' Again he said, 'Maybe.'"
A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle, pp. 196-7.


You might also like: The Power of Now - The Entire Book

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 6

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes is the object. A chemist may tell his most precious secrets to a carpenter, and he shall be never the wiser, - the secrets he would not utter to a chemist for an estate. God screens us evermore from premature ideas. Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream.

Not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. The world is very empty, and is indebted to this gilding, exalting soul for all its pride. "Earth fills her lap with splendors" not her own. The vale of Tempe, Tivoli, and Rome are earth and water, rocks and sky. There are as good earth and water in a thousand places, yet how unaffecting!

People are not the better for the sun and moon, the horizon and the trees; as it is not observed that the keepers of Roman galleries, or the valets of painters, have any elevation of thought, or that librarians are wiser men than others. There are graces in the demeanour of a polished and noble person, which are lost upon the eye of a churl. These are like the stars whose light has not yet reached us.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 5

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes. If you pour water into a vessel twisted into coils and angles, it is vain to say, I will pour it only into this or that; - it will find its level in all. Men feel and act the consequences of your doctrine, without being able to show how they follow. Show us an arc of the curve, and a good mathematician will find out the whole figure. We are always reasoning from the seen to the unseen. Hence the perfect intelligence that subsists between wise men of remote ages. A man cannot bury his meanings so deep in his book, but time and like-minded men will find them. Plato had a secret doctrine, had he? What secret can he conceal from the eyes of Bacon? of Montaigne? of Kant? Therefore, Aristotle said of his works, "They are published and not published."

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 4

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

We like only such actions as have already long had the praise of men, and do not perceive that any thing man can do may be divinely done. We think greatness entailed or organized in some places or duties, in certain offices or occasions, and do not see that Paganini can extract rapture from a catgut, and Eulenstein from a jews-harp, and a nimble-fingered lad out of shreds of paper with his scissors, and Landseer out of swine, and the hero out of the pitiful habitation and company in which he was hidden. What we call obscure condition or vulgar society is that condition and society whose poetry is not yet written, but which you shall presently make as enviable and renowned as any. In our estimates, let us take a lesson from kings. The parts of hospitality, the connection of families, the impressiveness of death, and a thousand other things, royalty makes its own estimate of, and a royal mind will. To make habitually a new estimate, - that is elevation.

What a man does, that he has. What has he to do with hope or fear? In himself is his might. Let him regard no good as solid, but that which is in his nature, and which must grow out of him as long as he exists. The goods of fortune may come and go like summer leaves; let him scatter them on every wind as the momentary signs of his infinite productiveness.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Daily Tolle #3



"A person with a strong, active pain-body has a particular energy emanation that other people perceive as extremely unpleasant. When they meet such a person, some people will immediately want to remove themselves or reduce interaction with him or her to a minimum. They feel repulsed by the person's energy field. Others will feel a wave of aggression toward the person, and they will be rude or attack him or her verbally and in some cases, even physically. This means there is something within them that resonates with the other person's pain-body. What they react to so strongly is also in them. It is their own pain-body." 
-Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth , p. 174

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 3

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. He who sees moral nature out and out, and thoroughly knows how knowledge is acquired and character formed, is a pedant. The simplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read, but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made. We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth. The wild fertility of nature is felt in comparing our rigid names and reputations with our fluid consciousness. We pass in the world for sects and schools, for erudition and piety, and we are all the time jejune babes. One sees very well how Pyrrhonism grew up. Every man sees that he is that middle point, whereof every thing may be affirmed and denied with equal reason. He is old, he is young, he is very wise, he is altogether ignorant. He hears and feels what you say of the seraphim, and of the tin-pedler. There is no permanent wise man, except in the figment of the Stoics. We side with the hero, as we read or paint, against the coward and the robber; but we have been ourselves that coward and robber, and shall be again, not in the low circumstance, but in comparison with the grandeurs possible to the soul.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Another Review The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder on Amazon

Another Review The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder on Amazon, this one from Tom Thompson, of Southern Pines, North Carolina. Tom gave it 5 stars and wrote:
"Great book! I enjoyed it very much. Not at all what I expected. Nice review of the self-improvement literature intermixed with a murder mystery complete with detectives, suspects, and Catholic priest. The author really goes into some depth with the whole Aristotelian model vs. wisdom/in- tuition. Highly recommended for those wishing to explore this area more deeply and from a new angle."
Thanks, Tom!

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