THE SECRET OF LIFE

Some decades ago, the psychoanalyst and philosopher Carl
Jung opined that the spiritual ways of the East were so eso-
teric that Westerners would never be able to understand
them. These secret scriptures were to be hidden away so
they wouldn't be defiled by the profane. Funny thing
about that : these days the secrets are out and in plain view;
in fact they've even been on the best-seller lists. I'm refer-
ing to a book called PRACTICING THE POWER OF NOW,
by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library, Novata CA, 1999),
preceded by his book THE POWER OF NOW, which i hav-
en't read. (But the dust jacket on PRACTICING says that
it consists of excerpts from THE POWER.)

I don't know what Tolle's background is, but what he says
i say also. It's pretty straightforward: 'Be Here Now' is a
neoVedantist (Hindu) way to put it, AKA 'Mindfulness' in
Buddhism and (perhaps) 'The Still Point' in meditative
Christianity. But this practice does not belong to any par-
ticular religion, faith, or ethnicity and is neither theology,
nor ideology, nor creed. It is nothing more than simple
consciousness---although sometimes understanding what
consciousness really means is not so simple.

I usually use the word 'consciousness' in two different
senses. In the first sense i mean 'understanding' or 'aware-
ness', as in "She is conscious of the need to conserve re-
sources". (In this case the term 'conscious' will generally
be followed by the words 'of' or 'that'.) What i mean in the
second sense of the word will take a little more explana-
tion.

'Conscious' in its simplest and most basic form means 'a-
wake'. One is either conscious or unconscious. But there
is a second meaning to the word 'awake' which is a bit more
subtle--or radical, if one finds the concept too demanding
or uncongenial. The concept here is that of 'waking sleep',
a state of mind that differs significantly from ordinary sleep.

WAKING SLEEP IS IN FACT A DESCRIPTION OF HOW
WE SPEND MOST OF OUR PRESUMABLY AWAKE TIME.

Did you ever wonder what the secret of life is? Well, this
can be it, at least for our day. What has become Homo sap-
iens has sometimes evolved in quantum leaps: about 2 1/2
million years ago our ancestors invented stone tools'; hun-
dreds of thousands of years ago they learned to control fire;
less than 30,000 years ago, they started to create beautiful
works of art; 9,000 years ago they learned to control crops;
5,000 years ago they began building towns and cities.

Today our fundamental task can be to learn to become
permanently awake. Why? Because the awake will be
much better able to see and understand what needs to be
done.

Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, the historical Buddha, had
such an aura about him that he was asked, "Are you a god?"
"No", he replied. "Are you a holy man?" "No." "Well, what
are you then?" "I am awake."