The Being

Dearest Readers,

With millions of copies sold, I am probably one of the few people of late who hasn't jumped on The Power of Now bus and ridden its journey to enlightenment. Heck, I haven't even seen The Secret. But the other night, in a state of sleeplessness, I downloaded the audiobook version of TPON on my iPhone and joined the masses.

Whether it was curiosity that led me to do so or the need for a soft-spoken German man to lull me to sleep I cannot say. All I know is, I fell asleep in the Now. Then.

What I like best about Eckhart Tolle's message is his use of the word "Being". This statement is from Wikipedia: "Occasionally [Tolle] uses the term God, but he prefers Being as "an open concept," something "it is impossible to form a mental image of" and which "does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity."

Those of you who read this blog regularly know I use a number of different words for this same entity: Higher Power, Higher Guidance, Love, Spirit of Unity Back of All Things etc.

I'm actually okay with the word God and I often use it myself. But it's so loaded, and so open to misinterpretation that I tend to be pretty careful about it.

I wish I didn't have to be. I wish I could just use the word God all the time (just three little letters! So easy! So little typing!) but then I'd have to reassure y'all that I'm not talking about a white man in the sky or a Father of the Church and that would take just as long as writing Life Force Energy of the Benevolent Universe.

Eckhart kinda nailed it with Being though, didn't he? "Being" not only conjures the image of a Power Greater than Ourselves but simultaneously describes exactly how we can dwell in the presence of that Power. By be-ing. Just by Being. Here. Now.

One of the criticisms of the book (again from Wikipedia) charges that "there is nothing new in the book, that it simply repackages concepts familiar from various spiritual traditions."

Well, duh. Until we get it, folks, we gotta keep on hearing it.

So no matter how many times we hear it, no matter how many times it's been re-packaged, no matter how many times it's been blogged about, we can still open ourselves to receiving the message anew.

And the message is so simple, so beautiful. And so flippin' challenging! Be. Be here. Be in the experience of Now.

Inspiring Message of the Day: I will land in my body, right now. I will land back in my life, right now. Every time I fly out and away I will practice coming back into the experience of Being. I'm alive!