The Key To The End of Suffering: A Book Review of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book came to me at the right time. If I had attempted to read this book a few years earlier I would not have been able to appreciate it. This book accompanies a full flowering of one's openness to experiencing enlightenment.

It's taken me a while to get here. I've attended many seminars, I've read many books, and I've practiced yoga (hatha, bikram and raja). I'm grateful for the journey. These were the perfect precedents and accompaniments to reading The Power of Now. If the window was partially open before, now the light is shining because the structure was an illusion.

After reading this book, I now see how consciousness is coming alive through me. There is absolutely nothing to resist, nothing to deny. "It's about realizing that there are no problems. Only situations - to be dealt with now, or to be left alone and accepted as part of the 'isness' of the present moment until they change or can be dealt with." When I read that, I was totally blown away. I realized the truth of it. Not an intellectual truth but a truth emanating from within. This is it. This is the indestructible core of who I am. I am no-thing and everything. How beautiful is that?

This moment of seeing could not have come at a better time. It was a gift waiting to be invited in.

I do see how this book cannot be shoved into anyone's face for "therapy." This book will arrive when one seeks it. It is a gateway to the end of suffering. But only if it is accepted...not mentally but with one's whole being.

Through this book, I saw that there is no need to wait for any Heaven. Heaven is Now. Right now. And death is nothing to be feared at all. It is one more form of awakening. My context has totally shifted and the quality of what I do is suffused with care, love, and awareness.

I recommend this book to all those who are seeking to end any kind of suffering. The other side of the coin too: all those who are seeking peace.

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Treading the Path of Wise Women, A Review of Lorna Kalaw-Tirol's Coming to Terms: Writings on Midlife by 15 Women

Coming to Terms: Writings on Midlife by 15 Women by Lorna Kalaw-Tirol
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book. On a whim, I picked it up during the Filipino Reader Con last December and I made it my nightly read because I think it was designed that way. The book is made up of essays and I liked lingering on each one. I realized something too. I wanted to read a book on midlife because I am fast approaching midlife myself. I thought, why not read a book by wise women? Each contributor is an amazing woman and I look up to the editor as well. As I was reading through the very intimate stories I realized a gap between generations. The women in the book were talking about their empty nests and grown children. What are they talking about? I'm going to be in my forties soon but I have a toddler and a son who is just in Grade One. Then I realized: they married younger. I married later than my own parents. They married at twenty-five which was the convention at the time. I married at thirty and had my first child at thirty-one. My second child at thirty-five. Most of the women who contributed must have married at around the same time my parents did. At forty-five, they had children who were already in their twenties, off to college.

But I learned something from each one. Some of the more memorable essays had to do with: 1) a swan (the model of a woman of grace and independent means), 2) freeing oneself up to the universe, 3) learning to let go of my husband and children (this was the story of a widow which tore me up. I cried and cried and it took me a few days before I could go back to reading her essay again), 4) learning to let go of my career (this was the essay by Tessie Tomas which really touched me...since I'm a workaholic myself). Each woman gave me a gift to guide me through the coming years.

Reading Coming To Terms made me think of life beyond my forties. It made me think of legacy and the love I am leaving behind. Because that is the most important thing...not accomplishments, not monetary means, not even bringing up my children well. The most important thing is to love and let go. I have no trouble with the love part. It's the letting go part that I'm still muddling through. And I'm so blessed to have read each essay that imparts so generously what it is to live a full life.

Thank you so much to Ms. Kalaw-Tirol and all those who contributed to the book. I am treading the path that you once walked on....different stones, different streams --- but all leading to the same place of enlightenment.

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The Runner

by Justine C. Tajonera

When she talks about running
there is no her and the running,
there is only the running.
The sound of the leaves
beneath her feet,
the sound of running water,
the sound of the wind
are all one
with the running.

She does not talk of running
as pleasant or kind
or pretty.
She talks about it with
grit and balance and
a sense of being
grounded.

Her running is not in her
soul,
it is her soul,
bare and free,
a total loss and
an absolute enlightenment
that finds no
words,
only bone and muscle
and the beat
of her
heart.

(Feb. 24, 2010)
Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/16961193@N06/1846504959/