Monday, August 25, 2008

Chapter 5 - The Pain Body

Many people believe Eckhart's concept of the Pain Body is his main contribution to spiritual thought. Other's disagree.

Some psychologists think the Pain Body concept is misleading & downright dangerous for the mildly to severely mentally ill. Yet, Eckhart openly talks about feeling suicidal at age 9 & then again in his 20s, in part because of his parents' constant arguing.

He once again reassured this week's audience that a dense or heavy Pain Body can be a passport to dropping the ego, compared to a life that is not so burdened.

He points out the obvious about the chronic discord in family, love, political, national, cultural, & religious relationships, and describes all of this as the Pain Body. The body of pain that humans endure because they are lost -- lost in thought and not enjoying the Power of Now.

The ability of the Tolle Teachings team to answer questions from a world audience that may or may not be familiar with Eckhart's esoteric terms was quite striking, as the personal stories of their suffering was intermixed with the stories of strangers calling from Australia to Denmark.

We find out in this webcast that Oprah's beloved dog died on the morning of the second webcast & that Eckhart lost his ego and Pain Body on the same night. Is all of this true?

Monday, August 18, 2008

Complete acceptance is vital

Chapter 4 prepares us for next week's pain body discussion by telling us how to relate to those who are not on a spiritual path.

Eckhart says this begins with an attitude of acceptance. We allow others to be where they are and we refrain from trying to change them or telling them what they should believe. He reminds us that when you react, you actually reinforce the patterns of others and put yourself into conflict with them. It is the ego that judges and relates from superiority (or inferiority). All conflict arises from the ego.

Eckhart reminds us that complete acceptance is vital.

Monday, August 11, 2008

I can see my ego working!

Chapter 3 of this webcast is all about the ego. There is a very funny video about a participant named "Bill" who goes on and on about “I can see my ego working!”

Bill, who describes himself as a "53 year old "mid-lifer", raved about the class on the afternoon Oprah TV show. Later in the day this segment was rebroadcast in the half-hour preview of the webcast, and then "Skyper" Bill was the first questioner/commenter when the evening's webcast #3 went live.

Skype is a major player in bringing live interaction to this series of webcasts. They are receiving major praise from Oprah. Oprah loves Skype!

I think she has done a lot to promote Skype as a viable interactive format, even though technically the quality is seriously compromised even compared to the low-bandwidth version of the webcast itself.