A drop of water

The title of a recent thread on the Eckhart Tolle forum site invoked the concept of implosion as it related to the activity of members of the forum. That concept of implosion inspired a recognition and examination of subtle energetic shifts that have been a aspect of my own growth cycles over time. I began contemplating the emergence of consciousness as it has been stimulated by Eckhart’s teachings and also importantly as new teachers have followed the messages of preceding teachers.

Given that I can only truly touch on an understanding of the full experience of my own ongoing growth, I began to contemplate the larger cycles of this growth and their impact on the emerging integration of that growth with prior cycles.

I came to recognize that each cycle began to take on distinct patterns, which may also be in evidence in the larger community of evolving consciousness that is presenting itself in the Eckhart Tolle community.

To begin, first comes a new teaching that grasps hold of preceding awarenesses that have already been recognized and integrated into our evolving consciousness. As is the case with Eckhart, and many people that heard him, or read his first book, the truth of his pointers were clear. They merged with teachers that preceded his emergence, eg. Krishnamurti, Demello, Buddhism, Christian mysticism, Muslim mysticism and on and on the list goes.

A second level of community of awakening consciousness in people who had never been exposed to the esoteric teachings of old, but who were ready for a shift also heard Eckhart’s teaching. They became a part of the collective energy being roused by Eckhart. It was not because they had the exposure to teachers of ancient wisdom, but because life inexorably drives humanity to seek freedom from bonds, whether those incentives be of the mind, or of emotional or physical discomfort. Eckhart spoke to them because he used language that was relevant to their lives, easily understandable (at least at one level). His teachings also touched a deeper recognition that this was truth and that stimulated a desire to go within, first within the teachings, then within the self to allow for the integration of those teachings, and then to emerge as changed, perhaps even free of the bonds that were the restrictions that Eckhart termed as the ‘pain-body’.

How does this cycle or flow of energy manifest itself, and allow us to accept the full force of this change, its slow presentation and its eventual disruption of the psyche, through these periods of exploration? Within the forum community it involved an examination of our past, of all of the teachers, of all of the truths that had become a part of the belief systems that formed the fabric of our being as a collective, as well as a clearing of the bookshelves of our individual history. It also involved the examination of the relevance of Eckhart’s message versus what we already knew was useful in coping with pain, our everyday lives, our relationships. It involved exposing our prejudices, our resistance, our attachments. His simple message to be in the Now, as that is all there is, struck the perfect note for our times.

This is where I recognize that the metaphor of an implosion was a good description of the slowly manifesting changes around the globe, and within the Tolle community. Individually, as well as collectively, there was an implosion. There was the gathering together of experiences, the examination of all of the truths that were held as sacred, the recognition that Eckhart’s teaching added to our whole, and yet it dropped a bomb into the middle of those collective teachings and beliefs, that have been the fabric of what has held us together for centuries.

Imagine if you will, a drop of water falling into a collection of water, a pool. The instant that the drop hits the pool, it creates a hole, an implosion, then a millisecond of stillness, followed by an eruption with a disturbance coursing out across the surface, then a settling into the whole, but with one important change, the addition of that drop of water. Everything has changed, though it appears unchanged on its surface. The form of the pool was altered. The structure of the pool was altered, destroyed even. There was the addition of that drop, that new perspective on the already well established truths with which we had become somewhat comfortable.

What is important in this streaming equation is, that the acceptance of this new information, had to be of the same stuff to which it was being added. Added and recognized. Not oil to water, or a stone into the pool, but water to water. A seamless integration at a molecular level, if you will, even though a disturbance was created initially. How many teachers have you studied, read, listened to their impassioned rendering of truth, only to feel the voice of: Not that….not that, raise up within you? The implosion that Eckhart set in motion added to the whole and was recognized by the whole as: Yes! That’s it! ! Now where does this message fit?

This implosion is ongoing, as are the other layers of the whole process of raising consciousness. The teaching has dropped into the collective mind of Eckhart readers and listeners and the implosion has pulled into itself the examination of whether this new perspective is valid and acceptable. Some are in the implosion stage of the process, some in the stillness and some are exploding. At whatever level, the force of its impact is being felt in the individual awareness as well as the larger community of awareness (setting in motion the force of the 100th monkey). If we can allow that this multitiered process is happening, then we can have more compassion for the individual differences that are apparent on the surface as being a small step in a rather large process of which we are all an aspect in this collective raising of consciousness.

The settling has yet to be made manifest across the globe, but we are witnessing the birth of the New Earth. What we need to keep in mind is that each individual manifests their implosion uniquely and individually as their experiences and understandings are gathered and merge with the recognized truths of Eckhart’s simple pointers. The stages of the ultimate explosion of awareness will take on different forms and involve different time lines, but it’s force will merge with similar energies of recognition and unlike the addition of a single drop in the bucket, will become discernible over the long term as one drop multiplies into 100 and then 1000, and on and on. This Happening is Now, whether you are in the stage of the implosion, the stillness, the explosion, or the settling into the new consciousness. Each Now may even cause a new implosion, each still moment could manifest into a minor explosive change or as though an atomic bomb had exploded in your life. Each implosion, each still moment, each explosion will add to your changed awareness as well as to the whole, destroying the old structures or adding to them. Either way, the impermanence of fixed notions will be forever altered.