I think this Tolle guy has understood something with his idea of living in the Now, rightly understood. So, it is kind of amazing that this just suddenly was revealed to him after just sitting around. It is also kind of amazing that he didn't know it already, since it's been part of any number of religious traditions - even in the wider sense of religion - for thousands of years. But such are the times. I guess you really can reinvent the wheel of Dharma.
We can see how unfamiliar this is when we are in any social gathering (of non-Raccoons, obviously). There will usually be one or more or a whole lot of people who are not quite there. Or rather, you are not right there in their mind. Instead, the room is populated by that person and any number of cardboard signs depicting types of humans. They are the only person that is really real. And because of this, you just cannot connect to them. You are not really there to them, even if you are right there. That is why there is no connection, no matter how much you'd want there to be. You are there, listening to them talk to those cardboard signs. It is an unsettling feeling.
(I am pretty sure I was one of those guys when I was younger, by the way. I guess people just took it for granted, because I don't think anyone ever told me. Or perhaps I just did not notice.)
This is what happens when people are not really present in the Now. The pinprick size of their Now has dwindled to near extinction.
The opposite happens through spiritual growth, or the influx of eternity into mundane time, creating sacred time, which is both personal and at the same time freely shared, wide open. As the "bubble" of personal Now-time increases, a person becomes ever more present. So someone who is spiritually advanced, even if it is in a different tradition than yours, will be almost disturbingly present. Even ordinary people will notice it.
I believe that the greater someone's presence, the less presence does it take to recognize it. So if a person was filled with unimaginable amounts of eternity, even the complete amateur in all things spiritual would be able to connect to them even thousands of years later. Well, that is easy for me to speculate since it already happened. ^_^
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I am pretty sure I was one of those guys when I was younger, by the way. I guess people just took it for granted, because I don't think anyone ever told me. Or perhaps I just did not notice.
Maybe; or maybe it's that nobody else noticed, because they were all the same way. I think this perception of people as cardboard cutouts - or even as mere projections of the self - might be the default position for most people.
Good points. I have a person I have to deal with on a regular basis who is clearly -- most of the time -- somewhere else, drawing in all sorts of paranoid and delusional thinking. I keep trying to say, "Let's stick with what we can deal with at the moment." I hadn't thought of in these terms, but it makes more sense in this light.
Julie, I agree, this is the default these days. It probably always has been, but today's high-speed society probably doesn't help. It is a good thing we are not all doomed to stay that way.
Mushroom, that is excellent advice, if only they could take it. It seems you already have seen this clearly, not that I am entirely surprised. ^_^
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