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The Chooser and the Chosen are One

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This one of my favorite Tolle quotes. Accept what happens AS IF. you had chosen it. Now the world is not hostile. Now the world is your friend. We only choose the good. Now the world is basically good. There is no place you can go that the GOOD is not. 

But we have to change our understanding of the GOOD. This GOOD that you choose has no second, has no BAD. The basic goodness is not a choice…Wait. I thought you said to choose the present moment. 

Well, yes…you choose the present moment, you choose what’s happening when it has no second. The PM or present moment cannot be divided into good and bad. The PM is not Two. The PM is ONE. BAM! When you see that through and through. You have transcended the duality of choice and dropped into the non-dual choice. You have no choice but to choose the present moment. 

That’s it! You have no choice but to be here, to choose to be HERE. It is quite simple really. The utterly simple cannot be divided. Your choosing Ego just throws its hands up and surrenders to the obvious. 

Right now, can you sense how your thinking mind is struggling with this Zen Koan. You are trying to find a choice. You are tying to find something logical to choose. You have not reached the simple truth yet.

This post is still working in my mind, like a squirrel trying to open a black walnut. There is a great liberation when we realize that we have No Choice. It’s ironic because we base our idea of freedom on choice. More choices, more freedom we say. The movie Hurt Locker was about the question of choice: is it good or bad. More or less, which is best. But that is the wrong question. 

It is not more or less choice but No Choice that Tolle is really talking about. He says accept “as if you had chosen it.” One can play at choosing the present moment, but you really can’t choose it, because there is no choice but to be present. Tolle is pushing us beyond duality, the duality of choice itself. When there is no either this or that, there is no choice. Choice means Two. When all is the same, there is no choice. And we don’t like that. It’s boring. No choices. No differentiation. No choice is like total prison in our minds. In order to be ME, I need at least one choice. 

We hang our very sense of Self on having choices. Our deep seated fear of communism is that there are no choices, we believe. Our culture is the culture of choices. Choices breed like rabbits here. So Tolle wants us to ask. questions about choice itself. Who is the Chooser? 

Does the Chooser actually exist, or does the Chooser rise with the object being chosen. Do they rise together like two ends of a horseshoe coming out of the water. When the two ends first appear, we think they are separate and opposite, yet with some more rising out of the water of consciousness, we see that they are One that is Two. That ONE is no choice. If you are the horseshoe, you can’t choose between one and and the other because you are both ends.

The Chooser and the Chosen are one. 

I THINK I CAN

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“At the heart of the new consciousness lies the transcendence of thought, the newfound ability of rising above thought, of realizing a dimension within yourself that is infinitely more vast than thought. You then no longer derive your identity, your sense of who you are, from the incessant stream of thinking that in the old consciousness you take to be yourself.” Eckhart Tolle (from The Power of Now).
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Thought is like a train that runs on circular tracks through the mind, perhaps a circus train full of odd characters, clown shows, wild demon animals, and freaks.
 
Thought is like a revival tent where the same sermon goes on without end. Once I enter, I can’t get out.
 
Thought is an active volcano spewing smoke into the clear air. Rising out of the mind, the thought volcano constructs an island upon which I am confined.
 
Thought is a gladiator with net and trident that is constantly snaring and stabbing me.
 
Thought is the Tar Baby of Bre’ Rabbit: only the thorns of the briar patch will save me.
 
Thought is a worm squirming on a hook dangling in the ocean of awareness. Taking the bait, I am reeled in.
 
Thought is the Inquisition judge condemning me to torture until I confess my unknown sins.
 
Thought is a white board marker without an eraser.
 
The cars to this thought train never end. The engine I THINK I CAN is always going up a mountain. I am always the last thought added to the end.
 
Each car on the Through Train is full of emotion. When I jump from one car to get off, I add another to land on.
 
The engine I THINK I CAN tries to swallow its own caboose, thinking that will stop the train. Thought is the coal that drives the train.

Release the butterfly

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“When everything thought absorbs you attention completely, when you are so identified with the voice in your head and the emotions that accompany it that you lose yourself in very thought and every emotion, then you are totally identified with form and therefore in the grip of the ego.” Eckhart Tolle (from The Power of Now)

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“OH, no, now I’m in the grip of the Ego!” Now this thought absorbs me completely. Thinking is a sponge and my mind is water. The hand that tries to squeeze the sponge of thought is the hand of thought. When I see this through and through, that seeing is not thinking. Thinking comes in and comments on what I see. But the actually Seeing is not thought. So the question is how can I create a gap between seeing and thinking? The answer is Meditation…..I must meditate.

From the wise seeing comes wise intention, and from wise intention comes wise effort. I go online and get some instruction on how to meditate. I do it. I start listening to Eckhart Tolle talks. The hand of thought begins to open and release me like a butterfly.

The Perfect Trap

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“Look carefully to find out if your spiritual search is a disguised form of ego.” Eckhart Tolle (from The Power of Now)
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Ah the irony of Tolle. Look carefully: if you have a spiritual search that is Ego. Hah! All spiritual search is a disguised from of Ego that masked tension. Searching for completion in the future is the Ego. But it’s a perfect trap because one must search for that which cannot be found until the fruit you are seeking drops unexpectedly in your lap. What you are seeking will always be a surprise, and the surprise is You.

Thought wipes me out

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“Spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am, that I cannot find myself in all those things that continuously pass away. Eckhart Tolle (from The Power of Now)
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All is impermanent, all is transient, all is change. There is no fixed self or thing. We are all verbs, not nouns. This changes everything. There is therefore nothing to gain and nothing to hold. All is sand through my fingers, waters through sieve. The Seeing of this is my home on the crest of change. The realization of this, just this, is my surf board on the wave of life. One thought of clinging, one thought of gaining…I wipe out.

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AIM is a website where I share my Dharma Insights in my everyday mind. My daily experiences are metaphors that point to the Truth that is One. Paths are many, but the Dharma is One. I invite you to walk with me on my journey. I also invite you to enter into creative dialogue with the post, for then we push it forward and get some traction in our life.

The Minotaur Myth