I AM - Pure being... divine life inside

I'd like to get your reaction to this piece below. I have this on my ipod, and transcribed it so I could share it. It's from Eckhart Tolle's book called A New Earth. My personal response, just to lay this out there, is that it resonates very deeply and doesn't conflict with my understanding of God or of spirituality. In fact, it actually helps me understand things better - things like being, life, surrender, and peace. In some ways it is very profound, but once you get it, it's also very basic. Let me know your thoughts. Help me out brothers and sisters and make sure I don't stray too far new age. lol

From Descartes' error to Sartre's insight

The 17th century philosopher Descartes, regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, gave expression to this primary error with this famous diction which he saw as primary truth -

I THINK, THEREFORE I AM.

This was the answer he found to the question, "Is there anything I can know with absolute certainty?" He realized that the fact that he was always thinking was beyond doubt, and so he equated thinking with being... that is to say, identity (I AM) with thinking... Instead of the ultimate truth, he had found the root of the ego, but he didn't know that.

It took almost 300 years before another famous philosopher saw something in that statement that Descartes, as well as everybody else, had overlooked. His name was Jean Paul Sartre. He looked at Descarte's statement - I think, therefore I am - very deeply and suddenly realized, in his own words, "The consciousness that says 'I am' is not the consciousness that thinks." What did he mean by that?

When you're aware that you're thinking, that awareness is not part of thinking. It is a different dimension of consciousness. And it is that awareness that says, "I am." If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn't even know you're thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn't know he's dreaming. You would be as identified as every thought as the dreamer is with every image in the dream. Many people still live like that - like sleepwalkers, trapped in old, dysfunctional mindsets that continuously recreate the same nightmarish reality. When you know you're dreaming, you awake within the dream - another dimension of consciousness has come in. The implication of Sartre's insight is profound, but he himself was still too identified with thinking to realize the full significance of what he had discovered - an emerging new dimension of consciousness.

The Peace that Passes All Understanding

There are many accounts of people who experience that emerging new dimension of consciousness as a result of tragic loss in their lives. Some lost all of their possessions, others their childresns or spouse, their social position, reputation, or physical abilities. In some cases, through disaster or war, they lost all of these simultaneously and found themselves with nothing. We may call this a limit situation. Whatever they had identified with, whatever gave them their sense of self, had been taken away. Then suddenly and inexplicably, the anguish or intense fear they initially felt, gave way to a sacred sense of presence - the deep peace, serenity, and complete freedom from fear. This phenomenon must have been familiar to Saint Paul, who used the expression, "the peace of God which passes all understanding." It is indeed a peace that doesn't seem to make sense, and the people who experienced it ask themselves, "In the face of this, how can it be that I feel such peace?" The answer is simple once you realize what the ego is and how it works. When forms that you had identified with, that gave you your sense of self, collapse or are taken away, it can lead to a collapse of the ego, since ego is identification with a form. When there is nothing to identify with you anymore, who are you? When forms around you die or death approaches, your sense of beingness, of "I am," is freed from its entanglement with form. Spirit is released from its imprisonment in matter. You realize your essential identity as formless, as an old, pervasive presence, of being prior to all forms, all identifications. You realize your true identity as consciousness itself, rather than what consciousness had identified with. That's the peace of God. The ultimate truth of who you are is not "I am... this" or "I am... that." but "I am."

Not everybody who experiences great loss also experiences this awakening, this disidentification from form. Some immediately create a strong mental image or thought form, in which they see themselves as a victim, whether it be of circumstances, other people, an unjust fate, or God. This thought form and the emotions it creates such as anger, resentment, self-pity, and so on, they strongly identify with, and it immediately takes the place of all the other identifications that have collapsed through the loss. In other words, the ego quickly finds a new form. The fact that this new form is a deeply unhappy one doesn't concern the ego too much as long as it has an identity, good or bad. In fact, this new ego will be more contracted, more rigid and impenetrable than the old one. Whenever tragic loss occurs, you either resist or you yield. Some people become bitter or deeply resentful. Others become compassionate, wise, and loving. Yielding means inner acceptance of what is - you're open to life. Resistance is an inner contraction, a hardening of the shell of the ego - you're closed. Whatever action you take in a state of inner resistance, which we may also call negativity, will create more outer resistance, and the universe will not be on your side. Life will not be helpful. If the shutters are closed, sunlight cannot come in. When you yield internally - when you surrender - the new dimension of consciousness opens up. If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence - the unconditioned consciousness which, in a state of inner openness, you become one with. Circumstances and people then become helpful, cooperative. Coincidences happen. If no action is possible, you rest in the peace and inner stillness that come with surrender. You rest in God.