YES! This message really kickstarted my spiritual journey. I read The Power of Now at age 24 and it has been a life changing moment.
I remember the first day I started reading it. It was like waking up from a dream. As most people, I was almost always in my head. The things we think may differ, but we are all continouisly thinking, having inner dialogues, opinions, thinking about the future and past, critizing ourselves and others.
I was very good at critizing myself. I felt I was never good enough. That I didn’t achieve enough. That I wasn’t pretty enough. Actually, I found most things ugly about myself.
Everyday I would feel disappointed about myself.
Not only did I critize mysef. I thought all of this critisism to be the truth.
Then I read Eckhart Tolle’s story. About him in his 20s, being a very intellectual man. And also a very depressed man. He too had many negative thoughts.
Then one night he woke up and thought, ‘I cannot live with myself anymore’. Then it struck him. I…cannot live with myself… Who is this I? Who is this myself? Are there two “me’s” ?! Suddenly he realised, I am not my thoughts. If I were to BE my thoughts, how could I possibly observe them? You cannot observe something that you ARE. An apple cannot observe itself.
In this very moment he became aware, awake. He woke up from the dream of life.
The same happened for me when I read the first pages of his book. I fully realised that I am not my thoughts. That the voice in my head is not me. It is just that…a voice in my head.
I spend most of the day laughing. Because thoughts would still come. The voice was still there, of course. And I would hear the voice say things like, Your ass is too fat. And I laughed. Because I wasn’t one with that voice anymore. I knew it wasn’t me. Because I could observe it!
I could take distance from the voice. Listen to it – but not accept my thoughts as the ultimate truth.
I became aware that I am the observer of my thougts. That I am the energy, the consciousness, the Being that is aware of my thoughts, my sensations and my body.
From that came a big YES to life. A big YES to the present moment.
Shivani
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