I had a bad conscience as I hadn‘t meditated for a couple of days. But bad conscience is unhealthy thoughts and so I was really happy when I listened to a teaching of Eckhart Tolle one day, in which he said that sitting in meditation would be okay but far more important would be our presence in everyday life. This means bringing presence or consciousness in our daily routines, in whatever we are doing. Or in other words: being quiet and concentrated and let us guided in all our doings by the universal intelligence. An intelligence that is immeasurably cleverer than our small and limited mind.
In this context I remember two stories from Eckhart. The first is about a person being in a car which gets stuck in the sand and one wheel spins through. Eckhart’s advice: Accept the situation as it is. And then be quiet, stop all nervous or anxious thinking and breathe deeply, which means being completely in the Now, so that your inner wisdom which is identical with the universal intelligence, can flow and speak through you. This way you will find far better solutions than out of a confused or negative mind.
In the second, he reports that he is travelling a lot in order to hold lectures all over the world. Having finished all his preparations for the journey, he reassures himself with the thought: “I have done my best (to be well prepared)“. In other words: I can’t do more now and whatever will come, comes. That‘s a very calming thought and helps avoiding travel fever. And then Eckhart doesn’t worry about the success of his stage performance as a mentally untrained person would do. He doesn’t concentrate on the result occurring in the future, but on every small step on the way. Moment after moment is important and keeps him in the now. The stage performance is finally also only one moment in the flow. He doesn’t overestimate it and keeps therefore relaxed.
I could apply this wisdom some weeks ago, when I flew to Madeira. Before leaving home I told myself: I have done my best to be well organised. On the way to the airport the car computer reported that the right front wheel was losing air. I kept completely calm and tried to figure out my possibilities. Would it be possible to go on or would it be better to leave the highway and find a tyre workshop even if that cost precious time? I decided for the latter. That was definitely the right decision because when I arrived at the workshop, the tyre was fully flat. But the guys there understood immediately my SOS-situation and changed the wheel so quickly that I felt like a racing driver at the pit stop. So I continued my journey with only 40 minutes delay. When arriving at Frankfurt airport my reserved parking place was occupied by another car which was parked so badly that it completely occupied two parking places – its own and mine. And no other free space in sight. So I had another challenge on which I concentrated. I didn’t spend time on thoughts as “Oh my God, I will miss my plane“. My mantra was: “It is as it is“. I’ll cope with it. Randomly an employee of the parking garage came around on his bicycle. He was on an inspection tour and helped me to find another place. To the good end I sat in the plane and enjoyed the flight. And when I arrived at my guesthouse in Madeira I felt relaxed and was happy about my welcome tea. Formerly when I was not so deeply involved in spiritual training, I would have arrived completely exhausted and stressed (if I had arrived at all ) and first of all I would have drank beer or wine to calm down.
In such life situations I can feel my spiritual transformation particularly well. The promises of inner peace and happiness become reality. I have been following Eckhart Tolle for many years now. For me he is one of the best contemporary spiritual teachers. I appreciate his calm manner and the way he always repeats the essential without ever being boring. Debashish (host of our reading circles) got to the point when he said in one of his whatsapp posts: “Eckhart Tolle is really the Buddha of our time“.
By the way, my daily prayer in the morning goes like this: “May I be present, may I be conscious and may the universal divine wisdom flow through all my feeling, thinking, acting, seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting. OM“
by Beate with love (From Germany)