Like hundreds of thousands of people, I've been tuning in and listening to Oprah's
worldwide, groundbreaking web event on Monday evenings (9p eastern). Over the course of 10 weeks, spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and Oprah are co-teaching a 10-week
free course on Eckhart's newest book A New Earth, on Oprah.com. For Oprah, it’s a step forward in her mission
"to lead people to their highest selves." For Eckhart, it's a humanizing way to broadcast his message to the world.
Each week corresponds to a chapter in Eckhart's book. This is week eight and the topic is discovering your inner space.
The way that Eckhart and Oprah started out this week's discussion was talking about something that Eckhart said last week -- that life has no opposite. The opposite of life isn't death. Instead, life has no opposite. Here's what Eckhart and Oprah had to say about this:
A person is here only for a few years. You are life experiencing itself temporarily as this person, this personality, this ego. Underlying it, you are life that is eternal. So when you go into stillness, it is easy to sense that underneath the personality there is an aliveness, there is a presence, there is a consciousness that is timeless. That is the life beyond the form of life that you are. That is why it has no opposite. Because it's forever.
Opposite only exists in the world of form.
You are life. Eternal. Timeless.
For so many reasons, when I heard Eckhart and Oprah talk about this concept I liked what I heard. Knowing that I am eternal and timeless feels so freeing and joyful, to me. It naturally releases a lot of stress that I impose upon myself when I think of myself as anything other than eternal.
It frees me up to take myself much less seriously, to be less ego driven, and flow more in the moment.
Imagine what would change for you if you thought of yourself as eternal. If you realized that you are only temporarily experiencing yourself as form. What would you do differently if you thought of yourself in this way?
Susan L. Reid
The original Accidental Pren-her™
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