“Okay, students,” the Zen Master said. “Today I have another quiz for you. What is the closest thing to you at this time?”

“This desk,” said Tonga.

“This pen,” said Baton.

“The ring I am wearing,” said Leela.

“No, none of you are correct,” responded the Master.

“Hmmm,” said Leela. “Could it be our hands and feet?”

“Very good, Leela,” said the Master. “You are getting close.”

“Master, there is nothing closer to us than our hands and feet,” said Bizah.

“Oh?” questioned the Master. “Close your eyes and sit in stillness now.”

Five, ten, then fifteen minutes passed.

The reason many of us are unaware of our boundlessness, our infinite potential and limitless essence is because we are confined by the cages of our thoughts. One thought after another.

Racing. Running. Jumping.

Hoops, curves, and narrow alleyways.

Daily Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

If you use connected breathing each day, in the way Michael Brown describes in The Presence Process, or you meditate in a simple manner that brings you into a calm state, what happens is that your awareness increases.

Daily Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

If we are "awareness, disguised as a person," as Eckhart Tolle states in Stillness Speaks, not a person trying to become aware—and if this resonates with our being, yet we don’t know how to experience it in everyday life—what can we do so we experience ourselves as the awareness we really are?

How happy are you in your everyday life?

In the television miniseries The Impressionists, which is fascinating viewing, someone comments about one of the artists that he sounds happy.

The other responds that he doesn’t think happy is on his palette.

How about you—is happy on your palette?

We’re not talking about the pursuit of happiness, which hordes of us are engaged in. When we pursue happiness what we achieve never lasts long.