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flowers were most likely the first thing they came to value that had no utilitarian purpose for them,
The first recognition of beauty was one of the most significant events in the evolution of human consciousness.
Their special significance and the reason why humans feel such fascination for and affinity with them can be attributed to their ethereal quality.
Once there is a certain degree of Presence, of still and alert attention in human beings’ perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form, recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves. Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of the inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify only with their own physical and psychological form.
Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of the inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify only wi...
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An innocence, a sweetness and beauty that are not of this world still shine through them.
So when you are alert and contemplate a flower, crystal, or bird without naming it mentally, it becomes a window for you into the formless. There is an inner opening, however slight, into the realm of spirit. This is why these three “en-lightened” life-forms have played such an important part in the evolution of human consciousness since ancient times;
They have been preparing the ground for a more profound shift in planetary consciousness that is destined to take place in the human species.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK
The possibility of such a transformation has been the central message of the great wisdom teachings of humankind. The messengers—Buddha, Jesus, and others, not all of them known—were humanity’s early flowers.
their message became largely misunderstood and often greatly distorted.
They are no more than signposts pointing toward awakening.
This book’s main purpose is not to add new information or beliefs to your mind or to try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in consciousness, that is to say, to awaken.
It can only awaken those who are ready.
Only by awakening can you know the true meaning of that word.
For some, it may have begun through loss or suffering; for others, through coming into contact with a spiritual teacher or teaching, through reading The Power of Now or some other spiritually alive and therefore transformational book—or any combination of the above.
The first is that unless you know the basic mechanics behind the workings of the ego, you won’t recognize it, and it will trick you into identifying with it again and again. This means it takes you over, an imposter pretending to be you. The second reason is that the act of recognition itself is one of the ways in which awakening happens.
You are that light.
twofold fundamental truth.
The first part of this truth is the realization that the “normal” state of mind of most human beings contains a strong element of what we might call dysfunction or even madness.
Hin...
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They call it maya, the veil of delusion.
According to the Buddha, the human mind in its normal state generates dukkha, which can be translated as suffering, unsatisfactoriness, or just plain misery.
According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of humanity is one of “original sin.”
Sin is a word that has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted.
so to sin means to miss the point of human existence.
No doubt: The human mind is highly intelligent. Yet its very intelligence is tainted by madness.
A further factor is that this dysfunction is actually intensifying and accelerating.
Another aspect of the collective dysfunction of the human mind is the unprecedented violence that humans are inflicting on other life-forms and the planet itself—the destruction of oxygen-producing forests and other plant and animal life; ill-treatment of animals in factory farms; and poisoning of rivers, oceans, and air.
Driven by greed, ignorant of their connectedness to the whole, humans persist in behavior that, if continued unchecked, can only result in their own destruction.
It is important to realize, however, that fear, greed, and the desire for power are not the dysfunction that we are speaking of, but are themselves created by the dysfunction, which is a deep-seated collective delusion that lies within the mind of each human being.
Fear, greed, and desire for power are not the ultimate causal factors.
You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.
clearly illustrates what happens when people attempt to change external reality—create a new earth—without any prior change in their inner reality, their state of consciousness.
a radical transformation of human consciousness. In Hindu teachings (and sometimes in Buddhism also), this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering.
one of the most profound spiritual books ever written, the Tao Te Ching
To recognize one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity,
They spoke of sin, of suffering, of delusion. They said, “Look how you live. See what you are doing, the suffering you create.” They then pointed to the possibility of awakening from the collective nightmare of “normal” human existence. They showed the way.
And so religions, to a large extent, became divisive rather than unifying forces.
they brought more violence and hatred, more divisions between people as well as between different religions and even within the same religion.
yet…in spite of all the insane deeds perpetrated in the name of religion, the Truth to which they point still shines at their core.
Unlike mainstream religion, their teachings emphasized realization and inner transformation.
A large-scale opening of spirituality outside of the religious structures is an entirely new development.
in the West, the most mind-dominated of all cultures, where the Christian church had a virtual franchise on spirituality.
They realize that how “spiritual” you are has nothing to do with what you believe but everything to do with your state of consciousness.
Some churches, sects, cults, or religious movements are basically collective egoic entities, as rigidly identified with their mental positions as the followers of any political ideology that is closed to any alternative interpretation of reality.
A widespread flowering of human consciousness did not happen because it was not yet imperative.
What is arising now is not a new belief system, a new religion, spiritual ideology, or mythology.
What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that. The awareness that is prior to thought, the space in which the thought—or the emotion or sense perception—happens.
