Bringing Stillness to Everyday Life - Eckhart Tolle

“The only thing that can fulfill you is being yourself and that’s inseparable from now, the field of now. That frees you, it liberates you from the world… then you walk around with much less heaviness… at the moment humans are very heavy on the planet, wherever they step life gets exterminated and that has to do with their state of consciousness, but there is another way to live and this is it.”

In Bringing Stillness to Everyday Life, Eckhart Tolle challenges us to tap into a level of consciousness, which is really the essence of who we are, but is different from the normal consciousness we live out in our every day life. This normal consciousness which has been a part of our collective human conditioning for thousands of years is what he calls-“continuous incessant thought activity, the compulsion to think to interpret everything to label everything to judge everything and to perceive everything from the veil of continuous thought activity.”

We have become so identified with our thoughts and the personal histories we carry around (which are also just a collection of thoughts) that we are weighted down by this burden of thinking. But our thoughts are not who we are. There is so much more to who we are. We are instead the space in-between our thoughts. The stillness. The alert presence and life energy in the background.

In this program, Eckhart Tolle suggests three ways to tap into this level of consciousness while we are going about our normal everyday lives.

1) Pay attention to your body. Notice the aliveness in your body in the background. There is an intelligent energy in your body that is separate from thought. Notice the subtle energy of your body. Directing your attention to your body removes your attention from thinking. You become more rooted in your being.
2) Pay attention to your sense perceptions outside of your body. Sounds, sight, smell… just be aware of what you see smell or taste without attaching thought to the sense perception.
3) Begin noticing the silence between the words or sentences of someone talking to you. You don’t have any time to attach a thought to this. You are just noticing the space. You become familiar with awareness itself without an object.

It doesn’t matter if you can’t hold these suggestions for very long. Length of time is irrelevant. That is who you are and you can’t put a name or concept to it… and it’s like coming home. Awareness is the background to all experiences.

In this clip, Eckhart Tolle gives guidance on feeling the aliveness, the inner energy field of the body and becoming more rooted in the being that you are, rather than being tethered only to the mind.

The Challenge of Jesus, N.T. Wright

In this intriguing clip W.T. Wright discusses how different denominations of Christianity approach the teachings of Jesus. As an historian and theologian, Wright believes that it is very important to view Jesus’ message within its historical context, but not to discount him as a mere historical figure. Listen to this clip and hear how Wright resolves his status as a believer and his opinion about literal interpretations of the New Testament.

How to Tell When Your Partner is Lying: The Hendricks

The Hendricks – How to Know Your Partner is Lying

In this fascinating program Gay Hendricks advises his listeners on what to do in the unfortunate circumstance where you must detect if your partner is being truthful. He prefaces this delicate conversation with a discussion of the steps that you can take to prevent your relationship from ever reaching this difficult point.

If you do find yourself in this uncomfortable situation, here are some of the tips that Gay Hendricks lays out that may help you get the answers that you need.

1. First, you have to decide whether or not you really want to know the truth. Make absolutely certain that you are ready hear the answer to your questions, before you ask them.
2. Make sure you ask as specific question. If you ask things in general terms it will give your partner room to talk abstractly and not communicate effectively. Be direct, i.e., “Have you had sex with Jane?”
3. Body language is one of the best signals of concealment. Take notice if your partner is touching his or her face, crossing the legs or arms, averting the eyes, or shifting the body to left or right.
4. Pay attention to shifts in the pitch and speed of your partner’s voice when he or she is answering your question. This is a common signal stress and thus may reveal that they are hiding something.

Hear more about these signs, and others, in this very interesting discussion of one of the most difficult obstacles that couples can face. Being more honest and open will strengthen your relationship and open the doors towards greater intimacy.

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Scenes From The Life Of Jesus: Tim Keller at The Harvard Club

Employing his signature frankness, author and speaker Tim Keller discusses Jesus’ first miracle. By looking at this well-known moment through a starkly modern prism, he sheds new light on exactly what it should mean to contemporary audiences. Listen to this clip to see why Christianity Today ranked Tim Keller as one of the 20 most influential church leaders in the country.

The Word of Promise

No matter how familiar you are with the Bible, its language, and its teachings, it's always possible to find fresh inspiration in the beauty and wisdom of the New Testament, especially when you experience the words in a new way. This wonderfully dramatic audio theater production of the NKJV New Testament immerses listeners in the dramatic reality of the Scriptures as never before.

In this stirring passage James explores the issue of faith. Pay particular attention to the beauty of his language as he discusses the different types of knowledge.

Pema Chodron - Getting Unstuck

“What I’ve also noticed about the few people I’ve met in my life that I consider to be completely awake … they learn to stay. And that’s what you feel- you feel this sense of eternal present. They don’t go off anywhere like we do … they just stay and that seems to be what enlightenment is. It’s the simplest thing and the most profound thing at the same time.”

Ordained in 1974 as a Tibetan Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron is director of Gampo Abbey in Nova Scotia, Canada and is a Nocharia or master teacher in the lineage of Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche who founded the Shambala International Organization

In “Getting Unstuck: Breaking your Habitual Patterns and Encountering Naked Reality” Pema Chodron talks about breaking our habitual patterns and learning to stay in the present moment. She explores the analogy of our habitual patterns as being akin to having case of chicken pox and we, being like children are old enough to scratch, but not old enough to know that when you scratch, it spreads and gets worse. We feel this discomfort in our lives and so we scratch at it and it gives us temporary relief but it spreads and pretty soon we are scratching our whole body and it’s bleeding and we are really suffering.

She goes on to explain what happens by introducing the Tibetan word, Shenpa. She describes Shenpa as the hook, the urge. It is not a thought… it is more like an emotion or pre-emotion and then comes a chain reaction of thoughts from this feeling and we attempt to move away from the Shenpa with the habitual pattern. It is like a feeling you have when someone criticizes you. It is the initial feeling and then your thoughts come in and then you don’t want to feel the feelings so you run away from the feelings with a habitual distraction.

We do this by:

• Numbing out
• Using aggression towards self and other
• Craving: seeking comfort or pleasure

How can we break these habitual patterns? The key is to feel the Shenpa but to not react to it. Stay with the feeling while having compassion for ourselves. Meditation is key to this practice of staying with the feeling. She explains the 4 steps to breaking these habitual patterns:

1) Recognizing them
2) Refraining from strengthening the urge
3) Relaxing into the underlying feeling of the Shenpa
4) Resolve to do this again and again

The most important thing in this practice is to not judge, to not label things good or bad. By embracing our fears and insecurities instead of constantly running from them, we are able to live in the present moment and embrace our lives in a more full way. There is a freedom in this practice, a great joy.

In the clip below, Chodron explores this feeling of restlessnes and insecurity that is our natural state and shares a story on how she was able to find peace by embracing rather than fleeing it.

Dr. Weil's Eating Well

Dr. Weil wants to simplify the often confusing world of advice about healthy eating -- he contends that there is real consensus among leading researchers that nonetheless hasn't made it to the mainstream medical establishment. In this excerpt from his practical video, Dr. Andrew Weil's Guide to Eating Well, Dr. Weil explains the latest thinking on which carbs are healthy, and which to avoid.