Eckhart Tolle – Pam Grout

To behold perfection

November 12, 2025 17 Comments

“This day will be of my making, either perfect or imperfect, good or bad. I have the power to build the day or rend the day.”—Walter Russell

Don’t you just love it when the universe sends gifts and signs, gives guidance that is so clear you can’t miss it?

Or rather I should say, I love it when my antenna is up, my channels are clear and I’m able to notice gifts and signs and miracles, because I believe they are always there, always available.

The question is “Am I paying attention?”

I’ve been closely observing my energy field, my frequency. I’m noticing how certain thoughts can contaminate my consciousness.

Resistance of any kind, even believing that certain tasks are distasteful, clogs up the universal electrical current.

As Walter Russell says, anything you don’t do with love promotes destructive toxins within your body and your energy field.

I mention Walter Russell because a friend, who I recently met at a weekend satsang in the Ozarks, sent me a book about Russell’s life. Let’s just say he was a spiritual genius.

For starters, he was an accomplished painter, sculptor, architect, composer and author. He knew Mark Twain, both Roosevelts, European heads of state and, unbeknownst to me, I’ve seen buildings he designed and sculptures he created, especially impressive since he didn’t take up sculpting until he was in his 50’s. And he never made it past the 6th grade.

But the real reason I’m singing his praises is because he knew that his talent was available to every single person. He accomplished great feats, not because he was so special, but because he was plugged into what he called the universal supply. He also often called it God.

As I’ve said, it doesn’t matter what we call it. It only matters that we call it forth.

All it takes, he claimed, was desire and the willingness to listen to “Nature’s mighty whisperings.”

It completely takes the onus off of us trying to be perfect. Instead, our only responsibility is to trust in the always-available energy of the universal Creative Force. And to make sure we’re paying attention.

I will close this post with another gift from my friend at the Satsang Garage—this song that obliterates all resistance.

#222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World)

The incomparable lightness of being

September 10, 2025 32 Comments

“If you’re filled with joy and filled with love, you’re a blessing on this planet.”—Michael Singer

Writing this post was also an excuse to post a picture of my amazing daughter when she was still in manifested particle form. She was and still is my best teacher!

Hello, you gorgeous beams of light. I’ve missed you.

When I’m writing (read: doing one of the things I love most in the world), time gets away from me.

WHAT!! It has been a WHOLE month since I last said hello!

So, howdy, friends, and here are some thoughts I wrote today that may or may not go into the new book. Enjoy!

It sounds like a platitude. Happiness is within. But it’s actually true.

As a brand-new human, before your family and culture got ahold of you, you were curious about and overjoyed with everything. You had zero preferences.

Oh look, a spiderweb! You could watch bugs flying into spiderwebs for hours.

Oh, and there’s another little human about my age! Let’s be friends

Oh, and now, mom’s buckling me into a car seat! It’s so exciting. I can watch new scenery outside the car window and wow! imagine the number of treasures I’ll find at whatever venue she’s taking me to.

Oh, it’s the post office. And there’s a long line. How marvelous! I’ll be able to observe and smile at countless other versions of me. Wonder why they all look so impatient?

Within a few years, brand-new humans are fully-programmed, fully-trained (Good boy, Johnny!) to know which things make them happy. Having a good job, for example! Or owning a BMW.

And which things make them impatient, frustrated. Avoid those at all costs.

It doesn’t take long to match the energetic frequency of our culture, to collect an extensive list of what is necessary to be happy.

Sorry to break it to you, but it’s all bullsh*t. You can be happy doing anything. Vacuuming the rug, for example, or standing in lines. Even sitting for hours at a computer writing a book.

Trying to force life to match your specific criteria for happiness never works. Programmed preferences are not where happiness lives.

Surrender all preferences, all attachments and look for happiness where it really is: everywhere!

#222 Forever!

No should, Sherlock!

June 2, 2025 42 Comments

“I’ve learned that when they call you crazy, it usually means you’re onto something.”—Jacqueline Novogratz

Happy Monday, my peeps! I know I typically send out Friday missives — mainly so I can wish you the most astounding weekend of your life, but thought I’d mix it up a bit.

Plus, while walking around my yard this morning, counting new lilies, adoring the clematis, reveling in the morning’s avian Opus #143, a voice clearly spoke to me—“This is your mission, Pam.”

“Say what?”

“You heard me. Your life’s work is to notice, give thanks, be joyful. And don’t let anybody tell you that’s not enough.”

“Even with all the potential causes, protests, issues I keep hearing about?”

Yes, I’ve been regularly hitting up the Dude with the question, “What is mine to do?”

This morning’s answer couldn’t have been clearer.

“Love your life, create a field of joy, expand your presence.”

Not the presence, it emphasized, that the world maintains you “should” expand — get more likes, attract new followers, sell more books– but the presence of peace and possibility, of imagination, new ideas.

But what about all the “shoulds” I inherited from my culture: that I “should” build my 401K, keep my fingernails painted, rid my lawn of all those beautiful yellow flowers that eventually turn into white wispy delights?

The rules are extensive, many buried beneath awareness, taken for granted, believed to be absolute duty as a responsible human being.

These invisible “shoulds” are buried in the left hemisphere of our brains, the rational, pragmatic side that constructs a map of the world that currently dominates reality. It alleges I “should” put up defenses, stay safe, stay separate, stay loyal to the dominant narrative. And sadly, that map has formed a world with little room for awe and wonder.

But it’s the awe and wonder, the beauty of it all, as Dostoevsky said, that can save the world.

So, no, I have not identified any new assignment, any new cause. But I have been given full-throated permission to abandon all “shoulds,” to simply walk through life as a loving, energetic field of presence. To forever enjoy “this very now” and be open to the unbounded truth that surpasses all maps, all limitations, all “shoulds.”

Here’s to enjoying a ridiculously rowdy, sensuously satisfying week, the best of your big, beautiful life.

#222 Forever!

Anyone but my mind

December 17, 2024 27 Comments

“On and on the mind spins its tales.”—Eckhart Tolle

In interviews, I’m often asked about mentors. Who do I look to for advice? What books do I read?

And while I admire SO many teachers and have read thousands of books, my current guru of choice are the birds right outside my window.

They come in different colors, different sizes, different species and, yes, they occasionally jockey for the best territory on our bird feeders.

But never, as far as I can tell, do they hold grudges or ruminate or make up stories about their differences.

If they had a human mind, they’d be squawking a story like this: “Can you believe what that woodpecker just did to me? He thinks he owns this bird bath. He has no consideration whatsoever for my feelings. How could I ever be expected to trust him again?”

And this is why my practice is to bypass my human mind and rely instead on the deeper awareness that’s underneath it all. I’ve found this inner aliveness (hidden beneath my mind’s squawking) is much kinder, more compassionate and has no interest in keeping the crazy going.

The mind, on the other hand, constantly spins its wheels, furiously attempts to solve things.

“Just give me a problem, any problem,” the mind urges.

But my mind, I’m discovering, isn’t capable of solving problems. It’s extremely gifted at creating problems, projecting falsehoods, exacerbating suffering. But it doesn’t solve a lot of problems. In fact, its insistence that there’s a problem is where it all begins.

We live in a culture driven by the mind, driven by the will. Our penchant to think we have to figure everything out confines us to a conceptual straitjacket. “Create your best self,” the mind likes to shout. But the mind only sees a teeny slice of reality, most of which is spiritually drained and echoes nothing but old perceptions.

So my mentors will always be the birds, the trees and the alive dance of presence that lives south of my neck, forever waiting patiently for me to catch on.

#222 Forever!

This just in: you don’t have to believe everything you think

July 19, 2022 20 Comments

“All the things that truly matter—beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace—arise from beyond the mind.”–Eckhart Tolle

Hello loves! I just yesterday flew to Ajijic, Mexico for another glorious month in the Sierra Madres. I’m here to write, to hike and to enjoy this stunning climate.

While here, I’m playing around with my new spiritual hobby — self-inquiry. Calling it a hobby is a huge disservice, because I’m in this for keeps, to wake myself up, to become more aware of well, awareness. As Jed McKenna says, “All of life is either appearances or awareness and one of them isn’t true.”

Like most humanoids, I’ve been conditioned to rely on my mind when seeking information and/or guidance. But honestly, I’m losing interest in what my thoughts are telling me.

I find them to be laughably limited, sometimes dark and well, I’m discovering it’s quite possible to have a productive, meaningful life without taking them seriously. Thoughts, as far as I can tell, are mostly good for building walls of resistance, judgment and fear.

Thoughts, of course, don’t go away (or at least mine never have), but as I quit believing everything they yammer on about, I find myself more open to life as life is.

I’ll keep you posted as I spend this month like Madeline (the plucky heroine in the Paris house, covered with vines) saying “pooh-pooh” to any and all “thoughts” in the zoo.

Or even better, I’ll channel the big Poobah–Winnie himself who once wisely asked, “Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?”

Keep having fun, my friends! #222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World).

Accelerating Now

June 1, 2021 56 Comments

“The moon is high and here I am.”—Bruce Springsteen

So I just listened to the five videos from Eckhart Tolle about “Conscious Manifestation.” I noted several interesting ideas.

Taz’s friend Molly took this lovely photo of moi.

Like me, he wrote down his intention to write the book that became “Power of Now.” Granted, he wrote his on a piece of paper and I wrote mine on a beach with a stick, but no one can argue that it didn’t work out for both of us.

He talked about an inner urging to share the ideas in his now-classic book, like somehow he sensed it was coming. His desire, he said, was to accelerate its manifestation.

As I mentioned last week about the sunflowers in Plum Village that were in existence even before they blossomed, Tolle’s masterpiece was already an actuality, just not in material form.

Tolle also talked about the subtle distinction between two states of manifestation consciousness.

Don’t just BELIEVE you will receive whatever it is you’re attempting to manifest.

You have to KNOW you have already received it.

There’s a gaping difference. The first comes from a place of lack. The other comes from the fullness of who you really are: a powerful creator with all the resources and backing of the universe.

The other piece I related to was the acceleration. I feel a couple new projects picking up speed. As most of you know, I’ve been on a sort of self-imposed hiatus, maneuvering to regain my balance after the big shock of 2018. During my two weeks in the forest, I had a beautiful dream with a clear message that it was time to shift back into gear.

In the dream, Taz and I were both visiting some giant resort. There were many others there, mostly strangers. And Taz and I would each go off and do our thing, visit with a friend, take a swim, etc. But we would always come back together. And it felt so peaceful, so right. We both knew we were there for each other, that there was nothing to fret, nothing to worry about. And I woke up knowing in a whole new way that Taz and I have had many lives together, would likely have many more and that everything was right in the universe.

I’m not sure I could say that with conviction until now. Somehow that dream gave me permission to accelerate the new projects, to fully live this new reality.

So stay tuned, my friends. I’ve got some new projects on the horizon and, like Tolle said, I’m ready for acceleration. #222 Forever

No longer driving (or anything else) under the influence

August 6, 2018 10 Comments

“No one can make you unhappy. Your imagination alone does that.”—Mooji
1 bc

ABC correspondent and Nightline anchor Dan Harris wrote a book about meditation.

After interviewing Eckhart Tolle and other spiritual gurus, he started to notice that the running commentary that dominated his own consciousness was, as he says, “kind of an asshole.”

Which is what ACIM Lesson 218 tells us. Within each human being is a deep well of joy and glory. The reason this is such surprising news to us is because we’re all driving (and walking and living) under the influence of the asshole in our consciousness.

“How could you?” we reprimand ourselves anytime we eat something we shouldn’t, anytime we score less than perfect 10’s on job evaluations, anytime we have a “bad-hair day.”

We’re downright mean to ourselves. We go to war with those parts of ourselves we deem as bad—the jiggly upper arms, the desire to dance in church, the pull we feel to skip work and write—and only end up crippling humanity as a whole.

The answers, we’re taught, are:

Control. Discipline. Protection.

But willpower only separates us from our true nature, only creates static that keeps us from recognizing that we are part of something thrilling and unfathomable that may never have happened before in the entire galaxy and may never happen again.

Harris decided to deactivate his asshole through meditation and claims, in the title of his book, that he’s now 10 % Happier.

The Course takes it even further, claiming that unceasing (yes 100 percent) joy is our birthright.

It reminds us that everything we see, everything we believe, is just a story we made up. It tells us that, in Truth, we are spirit. We are light. All those voices, those wars going on in our head, are nothing but chunks of the collective consciousness that we can either believe and defend against or transmute with gratitude.

The real me, the Course tells me, is kind, giving, in deep communion with all of creation. The real me is a true force for love.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.

Wouldn’t it be cool if_________!!!

July 18, 2018 102 Comments

“To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker is freedom.”–Eckhart Tolle
Imagination
Psst! All you Course in Miracles fans. I had a revelation today. I realized that the reason the big, blue doorstop never gets read is because readers get stuck on all the words and throw the proverbial baby out with the dishwater.

Today’s lesson, ACIM 199 is one of those WTF lessons. It immediately triggers a reaction.

What do you mean I’m not a body? I have mirrors. I see the wrinkles, the cellulite. This books is utterly ridiculous!

And down it goes!

This lesson happens to be the one that’s repeated most often so I decided I’d better point out what it really means.

My body is sorta cool and all. It’s very useful when taking selfies. It’s kinda fun to dress it up, match it with shoes and earrings. But it’s more like a cage than a real thing.

So forget that part of this lesson. Focus on the “I am free” part of it.

For example, I am free to pick a different reality today.

I am free to let go of all those made-up rules I learned as I was growing up.

I am free to create my life at will.

I am free, especially from the limitations of my body.

The body, for the most part, represents the egoic mind, the part that believes you can only be one place at a time, the part that believes your thoughts are private, the part that believes everybody (or at least the everybodies that aren’t in you contacts) is out to get you.

When you claim your freedom, there is really only one question to pose: “Wouldn’t it be cool if__________!!!

Whatever follows that declaration is what you’re creating. You can continue to look at the world you see now OR you can create a new one. The one we see now is old news, it’s what we created over the past few decades. It’s one of many superpositions in the quantum field. It’s no more permanent than a peach.

We can create a new reality. But first we have to realize that we are free to do that. We have to quit staring at what appears to be. We have to start imagining.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we all realize how much we really love each other?

Wouldn’t it be cool if we spent our days expressing our creativity?

Wouldn’t it be cool if every person was housed and fed and aware of his freedom?

I love you guys so much. Thanks for joining me on this journey. I’d love to hear your “Wouldn’t it be cool if_____’s!!! in the comments section below.

Life is supposed to be extraordinarily epic! As we begin to recognize that truth, the same ole, same ole will wither and die from lack of use, from lack of attention.

Lay that sucker down!

March 9, 2018 19 Comments

“Evade every influence that keeps you frozen in the past. ” ― Rob Brezsny

med I’m in Seattle this weekend giving a couple playshops at East West Bookshop so I’m going to make this quick.

If you haven’t heard of this inspiring little bookshop, let me just say it’s a nonprofit (I love when money isn’t the prime objective) and it’s run by members of the Seattle Ananda community who follow the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. His book Autobiography of a Yogi is a spiritual classic. In fact, if you click here, you can read a post I wrote about Paramahansa when he was just starting out.

But we’re here to talk about A Course in Miracles.

ACIM Lesson 68 (Love holds no grievances) is an extremely potent lesson. It says I can’t really know my full beautiful loving self if I hold grievances. It tells me in no uncertain terms that any of my ‘he done me wrong’s, any of my ‘life’s not fair’ clog up the pipes of the badass I really am.

But to make it really clear, I’m going to tell you a story Eckhart Tolle once told, “If we had little cameras inside our bodies that showed us what happens when we held grievances, we’d never have a grievance again.”

Talk about a mike drop.

Well, as Arnold would say, “I’ll be back.”

Love, only love,
Pam who is sorta sleepless in Seattle

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side

The four major stages of reality-shaping consciousness–where’s your tent pitched?

January 14, 2015 25 Comments

“Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.”
― Eckhart Tolle

Our consciousness shapes and molds the reality that plays out in our lives. And there are many levels of consciousness, each with different rules, principles, characteristics and attributes.

For example, if you reside in the victim consciousness (“Things happen TO me,” “Life sucks and then you die” are a few standard thoughts from this level.), you can affirm and intend all you want, but your consciousness, the driver of your reality, which believes affirmations and intentions are a bunch of hooey always gets the last word. When you spend most of your waking hours in that consciousness (and it’s a very popular consciousness), your channels are plugged up. All the good that wants to come your way can’t get through.

Because we live in a multi-dimensional universe, there are dozens of different levels of consciousness, oftentimes residing in one person. For the purpose of this discussion, I’ve broken it down into four major consciousness categories. Each of these levels has dozens of subsets, all that play out in different ways in our lives. Let’s just say that my goal is to move closer to level four.

1. “The damn, not again” consciousness. The starting gate for most of us is some manifestation of victim consciousness. It varies from person to person, but the over-arching theme is we have no control over anything that happens in our life. The best we can do is work really hard, cross our fingers and hope that all the “shit” we hear about out there will somehow escape us.

2. “The woo-hoo! This is getting cool!” consciousness. One of the next levels (again it plays out differently in each person) is where we realize we have a say. We learn there are energetic laws that are just as reliable as physical laws. We discover that our thoughts are units of mental energy that play out in the world just as powerfully as the principles of gravity or aerodynamics.

Usually we move in and out of this consciousness, mixing it up with other levels. We still feel separate and still retain some of that “poor me” consciousness. In fact, we spend nearly as much time talking about what we don’t want as what we do. We still believe the things we want are out there, in the future, something we have to strive for.

3. The “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” consciousness. I am very happy to report that I spent nearly the entire year of 2013 in this consciousness. I got up every morning, celebrating, feeling good. I got up on the right side of the bed nearly every morning and boy, did things come to fruition for me. My book hit the New York Times bestseller list. I traveled to six different countries on four different continents. I got all kinds of new writing gigs. Editors contacted ME which, if you’re a freelance writer, you’d know never happens. I got emails from people all over the world, telling me how much they liked my book. And while all that was really cool and I’m intending it to happen again in 2014, the best part really was how blessed I felt.

And this is where the distinction should be made. People believe they will be happy when they achieve a certain level of success, when they find the perfect lover, when they heal from cancer. But that’s not how it works. All those things are byproducts of being happy.

This is one chicken vs. the egg that is not in question. Being grateful, being happy, feeling blessed ALWAYS comes first. In fact, most people say that when their “stuff” finally comes, the material things they got into this “thoughts creating reality” business in the first place they realize they’re beside the point. And that the gift, the real gift, is the joy they now see in the little things—the cute little heart the barista made into the foam on the latte, the squirrel running along the fence in glee, the softness of cashmere sweater you pull over your head.

4. “I am one with all” consciousness. In this consciousness, which I must admit is not yet a 24/7 theme for moi, there is no sense of separation from anything. This consciousness knows it is one with Source. It knows it’s an indelible part of the F.P. It knows you are an unlimited being, hooked up with all that is. In this consciousness, everything is eternal and everything else (your thoughts, your reality) is subservient to this bottom-line spiritual Truth. When we’re lucky enough to view life from this consciousness, we are totally surrendered to the “all that is” and know nothing is missing from our life. And, in fact, by yielding to that consciousness, by giving it permission to play out in our lives, we come to realize that all those little intentions and manifestations we so dutifully held in our consciousness are small potatoes compared to this. It’s so much bigger and grander and woo-hoo’er than anything we could have ever imagined.