The Time Is Now

I have been very excited this month about the unique opportunity to experience 10 weeks of classes taught by Eckhart Tolle and Oprah focusing on his book entitled A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. The first class on March 3rd “was one of the largest online events in the history of the internet” with over 500,000 people world wide logging in to listen. Since Monday night, over 1.5 million people have streamed or downloaded the webcast. Obviously this event has struck a cord for many folks.

To my way of thinking, “spiritual” exploration and personal development has come out of the closet…and, from my perspective, about time too. In recent years the exploration of consciousness in the pursuit of awakening has expanded exponentially and gone mainstream. First, here in the US there was a lot of buzz about the little cult film “What the Bleep Do We Know?” (subtitled “Discovering the Endless Possibilities for Altering Your Everyday Reality”), then came last year’s world wide phenomenal success of The Secret and now the incredible global interest in the Oprah/ Tolle online course.

There were many pearls during Oprah and Tolle’s first class, but I was struck most by some of the powerful questions asked during that webcast:

~ Tolle’s whole gig is that “present moment awareness” is what is most important. As a way to become aware in the moment, Tolle suggests taking a deep breath and asking of yourself: “How present am I in this moment !”

~ To uncover your purpose in life, Tolle encourage listeners to ask “what does life want of me?” rather than “what do I want of life?” Or, you might try the version of this question Oprah has asked for years: “God, please use me.”

Rumi, the great 13th century Sufi poet, invites us to “look for the answer inside your question” and Buddhist wisdom encourages devotees to live inside the powerful questions invoking awakening? What does this mean? Tolle is saying that this means going beyond the conditioned thoughts of the egoic mind (those thoughts we run ad infinitum, over & over in our head) and let the answers birth from your deepest knowing….in the stillness of the now. The questions become an entry point to rest in that stillness where your unique answers await.

Eckhart Tolle’s life partner, Kim Eng, shared in her blog (as part of the Oprah / Tolle event - http://www.oprah.com/community/blogs/kim_eng ) that
“you are not what happens, but the space in which it happens”. So I was inspired last week to create a space for allowing these questions to come alive for participants in a tele-gathering format.

I invited people to join myself and certified Prosperity Guides (trained through the Prosperity Partnership Program – check out www.choosingprosperity.com ) for weekly “Fireside Chats” to consider the questions posed in week one of studying A New Earth. We had a rich discussion regarding the questions posed in the first webcast along with other insights and wisdom.

To listen to our first Fireside Chat recorded last Friday, March 7th, go to http://www.thewellspringsolution.com/firesidechat.html

Please join us for this Friday’s relaxed forum for discussing in community your questions and insights about this historic Oprah / Eckhart Tolle event.

When: Friday, March 14th
Time: 1 pm ET (12 noon Central, 11 am Mountain, 10 am Pacific)
Where: Call into this bridge line: 712-580-0100 access code: 870034# (press * 6 to mute and to unmute)
Who: Facilitated by Max Wellspring (Advanced PPP facilitator) and certified Prosperity Guides

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Oprah / Tolle 2008 Event. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.