Do you have anything to declare?

Have you noticed?

When we try get away for a while, or even when we just take a day off from work, or the gardening, or whatever it is we do, the world where we send most of our time, the world from which we are trying to escape - gulag Australia in my case - travels with us.

For me it's as if my unique version of our imposing world were attached to me; it's as if, when I leave the country, it is sitting in the seat next to me as we lift off, and as the world skinks my worries stay the same size; it's as if it needs to complete an immigration form for itself when I arrive at my destination; and it's as if I should declare it at customs, "Do you have anything to declare"? "Yes, I have the weight of my everyday world on my shoulders".

How can I afford to live? Am I really forgetting things more often? How much is the green-friendly electricity bill going to be? What is that pain in my back that comes and goes? Why did we do that? If only I hadn't done that. I wish I could go back and change that.

Worries are cruel and relentless pains; talk about water torture! Worry should be banned by Amnesty International.

Author and philosopher Eckhart Tolle writes about worries in his astonishing book, Practising the Power of Now; he refers to my example of worries, and many others, as pain bodies which are typically attached to events in the past - or the future.

And it's for this reason he makes the case in his book for not living in the past, and not living in the future because neither exist - the past is gone and the future hasn't arrived. Eckhart Tolle suggests that we live in this moment - and only this moment; his argument is, and it's unchallengable, this moment - the now - is the only time there is; and he goes goes further and says that by living in this moment we are able to eliminate all our pain bodies - all our worries.

Does it work? For me yes, most of the time; but if you want to know if it works for you, try it and see.

In my life there have been few pieces of advice that have been life changing but one sentence I read in Practising the Power of Now has made it much easier to give up worrying; and that's great because I no longer have to purchase two seats when I travel.

All problems are illusions of the mind.

Toolkit:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_10?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=practising%20the%20power%20of%20now&sprefix=practising%2Cdigital-text%2C380