ECKHART TOLLE - OCTOBER 2021 COMPILATION

[Music] [Applause] [Music] most of the time there is a voice in your head that comments and has opinions and viewpoints and interpretations about what's going on in your life i call that the voice in the head for most humans that is completely involuntary they don't even know that they have a voice in the head that never stops talking most of the time silently in your head at other times it may even shout something out so it wants to be heard and so if you walk in the street you will find most people look fairly sane they're not talking to themselves it seems because they're not talking out aloud but if you listened into everybody's head you would be amazed of how noisy the inside of every human is it's like a raid you know these radio stations where the the people talk in an excited voice they go on and on if you go to a foreign country and you don't know what they're talking about you might think this must be extremely important but if you can understand what they are saying you realize it's it's completely meaningless it's just noise so a significant part of what happens in your mind the the larger part is actually just superfluous noise there's thinking is a wonderful ability a wonderful tool if used rightly it is an instrument that causes dysfunction and misery for millions on the planet unhappiness for millions on the planet if thinking is not used but if you are used by thought so when humans say i think in most cases that's actually not true because they have no control over their thinking it's a compulsive and involuntary and they are so identified with these thought processes they don't even know that they are in the grip of their thought processes because they are so identified they become their thought processes so whatever comes into your head you completely believe in it and then you yeah that's how it is okay um leon just uh mentioned i don't know we were talking this morning about yesterday about when i was struggling to survive on a physical plane i often ate baked beans on toast i was living in england this is [Music] there's a little bit of relevance here too and that could have been a very unhappy period in my life not being able what to live on the next day or day after and again now i'm able to have good meals occasionally and i haven't had baked beans on toast in a long time now but leon gave me a can yesterday [Laughter] now when i was reduced to eating baked beans on toast and again that's a wrong way of putting it it could have been very unhappy i was already in my 30s and so my mind my mental commentary the involuntary thought processes would normally have said this is your complete failure this you you can't afford the rent you don't know you have no income you've made a mess out of your life and this is what you've i'm reduced to baked beans on toast look at your contemporaries that are driving around in their bmws they've got all that and so this is what life has done to me or what i have done to mess up my life i could have had many kinds of narratives accompanying what was happening in the present moment that would have created unhappiness and i wouldn't even have known it that then this happens just a small example of how a narrative that you have that accompanies something that you are doing causes unhappiness and you can do the same thing without the narrative and you're free of unhappiness you're eating baked beans on toast and actually doesn't taste that bad at all and it's you smaller and it is nourishing and you don't even have to say that you can simply enjoy the sensory perceptions associated with that without make building a sense of self around it the sense of self that you build around it arises through involuntary and compulsive thinking me and the buddha was already talking about that so and this i'm saying this now in case you need to leave early or want to go across the street if you only take this away from this evening but hopefully there will be much more if you want to take this away if you look at whenever you feel unhappiness this is a generic term unhappiness in whatever form unhappiness can arise as irritation can arise as anger can arise as even boredom is a form of unhappiness sadness uh all kinds of states it doesn't they don't feel pleasant they unhappiness and usually they are attributed to a life situation something that's going on in your life look so for example waiting at the airline counter and of course how often things don't go well there uh let's hope they don't drag you out of the plane but that could that could happen too whenever you feel irritation arising anger rising upset in whatever form ask yourself [Music] is this caused by the situation or is it caused by what my mind is telling me about the situation and in 95 of cases you will find that the mental commentary that argues and complains about something that's going on but should not be going on but it is but shouldn't be and the gap between what is and what the mind says should be or should not be that gap is the rising of unhappiness and misery or is the buddha called suffering it arises in the gap between the is-ness of things in this moment and the arguing with the isness of things in this moment imposing a narrative on it that says no this should not be i'm not talking about situation where you can take action to change it there are certain situations where action is possible and necessary fine but even if action is possible and necessary at this very moment it still is as it is then you can take action but this moment is as it is so when you leave or when you allow this moment to be as it is because you recognize the inevitability of is this seems so obvious but it's not obvious to most humans the inevitability of what or is already the case now and if you can internally align yourself with this inevitable now the next moment is different thing but when the next woman comes it's now of course there's no next moment except there's a thought in the head [Music] where is the future [Music] you've never experienced it you can't impossible and yet humans think about it more than the present moment they want to get to the future because they don't want what is they they believe some kind of liberation or fulfillment will come next always missing the isness of things so if unhappiness arises examine does it come is it caused by the situation i'm in or is it caused by how my mind is interpreting the situation there was a question somebody submitted i don't have it here but i remember it probably asked by a young man or woman i'm not sure and he said this is somebody who is watching us hi so he said when i listen to you i have this strong compulsion to become a spiritual teacher also but when i listen to a big a great business leader suddenly i have the compulsion to become a great business leader what to do and my recommendation to you is to try the business leader first i also recommend tony robbins seminars and there's nothing wrong with that it's one aspect of life it's i can do it yeah do it build up your energy and it's quite enlightening so it's not a bad place to go to and try things out there is a if you say let's say that he represents doing and i represent being but there is as you know the symbol of yin yang the intertwining the two and in the in the middle of the one of the of the one polarity the yan there's a little dot and that represents the other and in the middle of the other there's a little dot that represents the the young and so i have a little bit of the other in me too as you can see and i i found to my amazement that uh tony robbins i don't know when he started doing that he has introduced short periods of meditation into his seminars usually towards the end and then he goes now let's just be very quiet and whoa so that's the other the the be the the other what the yin is coming into the yang well that's good of course ideally in a a human life a human being human being you remember how what that word mean those two words mean when you put them together human is the form that you are and human is the doing whatever you the form does the being is who you are in your essence so you are both you are the being the consciousness and you are the form that that consciousness takes and the form that that consciousness takes will do things and think and do and act upon the world and be acted upon so there's hardly any human there may be some human beings who are completely balanced between the human and the being who are in the being and the doing the human and the being they're called inc right in the middle most people are a little go a little bit that way or a little bit more that way our civilization as a whole of course has gone into the doing mode very very far to one extreme so this the the civilization itself is actually mentally ill because of that and the the connectedness with being has been almost entirely lost so it's a very fragile civilization despite its many achievements it's a little bit like when you go into a supermarket where they sell fruit you look at the oranges and they are they're all they look so shiny and polished and the tomatoes they look so shiny and polished but often when you cut them open they're completely dry inside and tasteless so that's a little bit our civilization this the surface appearance is nice nice and shiny but if you look deeper you can see there is a there's something that is something fundamental that's not that's that is missing there and therefore the civilization unless it returns to back to some kind of balance between being and doing it cannot survive for that much longer and that's why we are here and so predominantly what we focus on here is the being side because that's we need to redress the balance within the collective and in your personal life too because every individual conditioned by this society tends to live even starts with little young children they're already taught to be in the just do and think and to quite right and go let's get going okay all the tension goes out and then they start their video games and stuff and they can't focus on anything for very long that's a huge disability the many many young people have that these days because of the influence of many many factors and especially the video stuff and devices that they have cannot focus on anything for very long anymore cannot give attention to anything for very long because the mind goes because that's what when you when they watch video games or even many movies the scene changes every few seconds and so if you cannot give attention to something for a certain period of time there's never a flow of creativity you cannot because creativity you have to your the fault your attention needs to rest upon something and you need to give it time and look and be with it and become still and then creativity flows if a whole generation grows up that is unable to do that then the civilization cannot produce anything new and it cannot even cope with its problems anymore because even to cope with problems in a good way you need to be able to look at the problem and be with it and then allow the greater intelligence to inspire you and then come up with a solution so humans as i call it the the yeah they are lost in in doing lost in the mind they're lost in thinking and because thinking is a kind of doing too you're doing your thinking well you are not the thinking is doing stuff to you you are you're not even thinking thinking happens to you humans say i think they don't think thinking is an autonomous activity in their minds with a reflection of the collective mind they are not thinking they are being used by thought which is and their personal thoughts are just an aspect of the collective thoughts and they don't know that so you are being thought you don't think so and all that is doing that's the the doing the doing mode those who are naturally more drawn towards being they don't really fit into our society at all in in older cultures there was some rule room for them they could go there were many monasteries they could go to and there were many jobs that that actually did not require you to do a lot of doing you can just be they were simple jobs that you could do and nowadays it's harder for the the humans who have this natural inclination towards being to to fit into this world some of them are here now but even those who are very effective at doing eventually become frustrated and unhappy because they realize the emptiness of their doing so even those who have become very successful doers encounter frustration and emptiness not the buddhist emptiness a different kind of emptiness and so society is a civilization is longing without knowing it is longing to return to the roots to the being dimension and that's why things like these strange videos on youtube also becoming so popular because this is one way of getting a little bit of of being and getting out of doing and so you watch half an hour of somebody handling an object so lovely well in business you have you set certain goals that you want to achieve and then you take action towards achieving those goals and in the meantime there's a lot of interaction with other people who are also working as a team with you and there's probably also perhaps interaction with other business organizations so first of all the the goal setting and the the journey towards achieving particular goals that the organization said itself the once you have a goal um you will find as you pursue your goal as a team together continuously obstacles arise as you go towards it this whenever you create something new you will find it's not it is rarely a very smooth progression you have to overcome obstacles on the way in the form of people or situations that go wrong this doesn't work try something else the important thing is not to place an excessive emphasis on the achievement which is the desired outcome but to be as present in the doing as you can so that the doing does not become stressful almost every business is people who are working in it are under stress i believe there may be some that are not but stressful is not the way in which you want to conduct your business because the environment is toxic a stressful environment is toxic so um when you can always tell is is the goal something that is for the greater good or is it an ego inspired goal are you looking this is this applies to both in a business environment and it applies equally when you have personal goals it's the same processes involved when an obstacle arises to immediately face the obstacle which comes in the form of a situation something not working something going wrong somebody trying to sabotage you perhaps from some other organization who knows what happened what happens to me to never react against the obstacle as if this should not be happening to immediately to face it and see what is the way beyond it how can i either dissolve it bypass it or use it what is so that you don't enter a state of reactivity when obstacles appear on your path that's important for anybody who pursues a goal how what is your relationship to difficulties and obstacles that arise as you travel towards your goal and the only conscious way of dealing with obstacles is not to react as if these obstacles should not be happening so you have to look into what your relationship is with with arising obstacles on your path and this is not just in business but anyway the unconscious person in business or elsewhere gets upset angry aggressive despondent very stressed every time something isn't going the way they wanted to go it's and immediately dysfunctional inner states arise and therefore they experience there are competencies where the entire environment is toxic because everybody lives in that way and in ego is also a thing that that arises as much as possible be aware so that you don't seek ego satisfaction in the doing there's a personal ego then one person can sabotage another person in the same company because you are not free of ego identification so it's very important to be aware so that you you do not seek ego satisfaction through what you are doing be present in what you do so that the doing becomes joyful rather than placing so much focus on what you want to achieve that the journey becomes very stressful then nothing is worth achieving if the journey is stressful you might let's say you spent a year or two years with some scheme that you want in the new business model or whatever it is how what is the state of consciousness the collective state of consciousness while you are traveling towards your goal is it stressed is it stressful is there a lot of conflict or is it a common enterprise and is the doing joyful and it can only be joyful if you place more importance in what you're doing in this present moment then attempting to arrive at some future point you know where you want to go to but as the bhagavad-gita says do not be too attached to the outcome then it's much more likely that the outcome will be good but if you have an excessive attachment you need to achieve that if you have an excessive attachment to outcome then the journey becomes very stressful that's something that is important and and i'm talking not from personal experience because i'm not in business but i have spoken to people quite a few who are in the business environment and so i've met i've met i've been to some relatively conscious companies they invited me of course unconscious companies wouldn't invite me and uh i have spoken to them and i'm surprised that these these conscious companies actually uh it's a joy to be there for all the do the employees wherever they are or their partners are do they enjoy being there that is vital sounds very simple or are they so focused on some kind of extra achievement that the doing is not enjoyable at all do they love being there what is the relationship between with you and your colleagues partners um and those things are vitally important and what i don't know how many employees you have again it's important to make the environment as pleasant for them as possible uh what is conventionally called love can be many different things and there are many different levels to it some people call it love when they fall into fall in love with someone which is uh a the clinging and needing that is partly usually physical emotional needing of the other um and they that's called love but that is a lower manifestation of what is love and can easily turn into its opposite from from what one moment to the next as many people have experienced how the person that you fall in love with you hate a few days later a few weeks later suddenly love hate are so closely related the opposites in in their that kind of love but the love for your children is a different matter there's a strong emotional bond with your children and it can probably i haven't experienced a mother's love but probably i can understand that you may get a sense of losing yourself in the other and that's the that is that strong emotional bond and then there's another higher manifestation of love that may already be also part of your emotional bonds but probably a mixture of emotion plus something else but that's something else is spiritual love and in some languages is completely different words for different kinds of love for example in greek there was eros eros is one kind of love agape is another kind of love what i'm talking about here now is agape is the love of the other because it comes from knowing who or what you are and recognizing yourself in the other and that is the spooky called the spiritual love and that's the direction in which you are moving so the foundation for that is not i would say as it's conventionally called loving yourself that's a strange thing now many people quite a few hate themselves more than they love themselves now it's better of course to love yourself than to hate yourself it's something that people who practice positive thinking and want to shift negative mind patterns may put notices up throughout their house with little messages to themselves which which might say i completely accept and love myself that's it's well i'm sure that's better than i completely hate myself much better but there's still a duality there and it's a very strange thing who is loving whom i love myself who are you and who is that self that you love people who say i love myself don't think about it what that really means and there's a little bit of a duality there i love myself so there must be two of me is the i that does the loving and there is myself that's being loved hmm strange really weird and then as you begin to awaken spiritually awaken to the presence then what gradually comes to an end is having a relationship with yourself until that happens people have a relationship with themselves which is sometimes even manifests as dialogues they have in the head one part of you talks to another part of you you are talking to yourself now you really should make an effort to do better you can i know you can do better and the other the other part of this is well i'm i've done my best but what what else can i do then do my best then no that wasn't your best you should have done the voice of your mother and then you hear the voice of your mother in the background you should really should be doing better why do you mess up your whole life you're just like your dad was my mom when i gave up my academic career oh that's your dad in there you have a relationship with yourself very strange you it's kind of split that happens and that's a part of a normal state of consciousness everybody unless they are awakened or at least awakening when which case that begins to recede but everybody else they have a relationship with themselves which means maybe sometimes good sometimes bad uneasy they are proud of themselves and then they are ashamed and then they and they call themselves a loser or somebody else caught them and lose and they believe it or all kinds of weird things narratives and so on [Music] and as you awaken spiritually what gradually comes to an end is having a relationship with yourself so what is that replaced with when you no longer have a relationship with yourself you are yourself i am there's not there's no longer two of you here there's just one and that happens when you no longer live through a narrative in your head that creates two of you sometimes even more than two you have a whole crowd in there sometimes and then you have various sub personalities that are just lurking in the background waiting to get triggered so when when do you no longer have a relationship with yourself that is the beginning of the end of living through a conceptual identity in your head you have a certain set of opinions about who you are which you've adopted from what other people society tells you who you are or you're reacting against what society tells you about yourself and you adopt the completely opposite position for example society might tell you that you haven't achieved anything but but you believe that you haven't done anything because the world is not worthy of you because you could write the greatest book ever written but what's the point the world is crazy anyway it can't be bothered if i wrote a book it would be the greatest ever if i you can have all kinds of ideas about yourself whether you adopt society's view of who you are or you adore a reactive position against it it doesn't matter when you transcend that you again you just are yourself you don't no longer live through an opinion in your head about who you are because who you are is the presence and that presence that you recognize in yourself as your essence and this when i talk about it it's always a duality it's not that you recognize the presence it's the presence recognizes itself you are irregularized that's that's what arises and then you look at the other it might be your child and then you have two things happening simultaneously one is the emotional bonds that you feel with people close to you such as your children or other people that are very close to you you feel an emotional bond an emotional connection but in addition and more fundamentally there is a recognition in you of the presence or the essence of the other and that's not emotional to recognize the essence of the other but you can only recognize it through your own essence the essence that you are and then you look at the other and you can sense beyond the personality they are consciousness and you can look into their eyes and no matter what behavior they manifest as personalities you kind of sense something that is beyond that and what you recognize then in the other is yourself because the it is the consciousness that you both share is the one consciousness and to recognize the consciousness of the other as your consciousness as one with your consciousness that is spiritual love and there you don't lose yourself you you found you have found yourself and so you don't lose yourself in the other anymore if there's only emotion then you could lose yourself in the other but the emotional bond and then this the the recognition of the other as yourself happens with anyone you have the same love for somebody you meet casually somewhere for a few minutes as to a close family member but with a close family where you have the additional emotional bond but the spiritual love is not does not single out one or two people as special the specialness comes within in the on the emotional level and that's fine so [Music] that's gradually you will there will be a shift the emotion will still be there but [Music] there's an underlying recognition of the other because you've recognized who or what you are in your essence and there's no longer then emotion is fine there's no loss of self in it anymore because you know who you are or what you are so gradually that dimension because i can predict because you're here that gradually that dimension will come more and more into and the relationship with your child children so yeah and it doesn't do away with the emotion but something deeper comes in and that transcends the emotion transcend doesn't mean that it excludes it or it comes to an end transcendent it contains it but is much faster can you speak about how to be in this world with this constant push for connectivity how did we how did we get to the most profound things from a relatively simple question oh yes we talked about doing and being without feeling that being present is another thing to do how do you be in this world without this constant push for connectivity well the first thing is you turn off your push notifications [Applause] that's already a big step forward and you need to be disciplined in the use of your device your phone whatever tablet phone so that it doesn't take you over because it's simply an extension of the mind and if it wasn't enough before we invented these devices humans had already been taken over by their minds even 2 000 years ago that not tom not as much as now but even two thousand years ago jesus said why are you always thinking about tomorrow why i will always why are you always worried about the next thing look at the flower look how it lives in total alignment with the present moment and it's being sustained [Music] by the one consciousness that's my translation of [Music] so already then humans had been taken over by by mind but even more so since then its mind has proliferated and then the clever human mind came up with these devices said let's extend ourselves into the realm of things and then we can create this which is an extension of the human mind so when you you might have noticed when you are when you're with yourself you have the voice in the head unless you begin to awaken in which case you are able to experience spaces of alert still presence it's beautiful but otherwise you have this thing commenting talking arguing and then this becomes a burden for many people of course it is a burden because a lot of the stuff it says is actually not pleasant and so you experience it as a burden and since you derive your sense of identity from it it becomes yourself you this talking voice you think that's you it becomes the self and you walk around with this this burden of the self and in order to unburden yourself one thing you can do you think you can do is you can watch the television or you can go on to what the countless things that you can watch on the little screen the entire world's knowledge at your fingertips and the moment you watch the screen whether it's television or whatever screen you might have noticed that the your own your so-called own thought processes come to a stop so to some extent you're free of the self this is why people sometimes find watching television relaxing say okay i just need to relax now just turn it on by this they mean while they watch the television screen they are not burdened by their self-induced thought processes what they do however they replace the their own thoughts with the collective thoughts so they just you're in a state you're not in a state of thoughtless awareness when you watch television or you watch something on the street you absorb the thoughts from there into your mind and you you link in so it for people often are in a state of semi or hypnosis when they watch and it kind of paralyzes you it can also happen with the screen with television already started of course um i don't know when whenever i tell 60 years ago whenever television started and you go and so your mind is just absorbing whatever is playing it's the tv mind which is receiving stuff from where it comes from it's going into your mind and you become a no longer thinking your own thoughts occasionally you might you say oh this guy is so stupid and then you're watching again and then another thought why am i watching this rubbish half an hour later this is so awful but you can't you can can't turn it off here's the here's the remote let's let's just try one more channel there might be something out there oh no that's stupid try one more this is this is how an addict behaves and the device is even more addictive you go because you have carry them with you and you have to admit you may have to admit that you there is an addiction in you not everybody here but quite a few it would be almost normal to feel this draw towards it and you use it even when you don't need to use it that's the amazing thing when you're standing at the elevator waiting so another person is standing next to you and he or she is pulling out the phone and then you pull out yours you don't know why and or anywhere you are in a you all have all waiting you're ordering a tea or coffee somewhere and you're standing in line and if you look around there's almost nobody and probably nobody who is not looking at this little thing this is scary zombie-like now if somebody from the past the so-called past time traveler from the past came here and even not the distant past let's just say even 20 years ago and he arrived and would see in the streets in restaurants and cafes everywhere public transport people are walking around with these things staring at these things so what's that something has happened to humanity they've all become zombies something terrible must have happened what was that there are these are wonderful devices the incredible possibilities of having access to all kinds of knowledge but there's always the downside there's a huge huge downside to it they are addictive they stimulate the mind the thing you want to become free from you want to become free of mind and this will prevent you from becoming free of mine so as you need to be disciplined enough to not automatically look at it whenever there's a moment and you're waiting for something or whatever it is and not there's no need to check these things i don't even know what they are but i just know that facebook is the biggest thing and then they see instagram and snapchat and countless names and some people have all of them on their phones but you need to know the latest thing crazy so but if you detect the addiction in yourself then you have to first of all admit that you are addicted don't deny it you know alcoholics anonymous the first thing when you go there you have to say i am an alcoholic now some people say well that's not a good thing because your identity is not being an alcoholic of course not so it could be misunderstood but you're not your nature is not being an alcoholic it's your present condition is that but to recognize the problem the difficulty the challenge is just you state it yes i'm addicted to this phone and i choose not to be addicted and then you can be the only one in many places who is not looking in waiting rooms waiting in line whatever it is waiting on the waiting on the phone for somebody to talk to you and in the meantime but you use the this beautiful thing of just being just being present and you look around and you step out of thinking and all the others are still in the hypnotic state so practice don't not to use it unless there is a true purpose if you want the answer to something in a conversation there's a what is what then you can get the knowledge you have the world's encyclopedia there then you can look it up okay that's how it is and then you put it away again there are some apps that are meditation apps i want to check them out a bit more i have a few on my phone but i haven't tried them yet they've been there for a year or two and that would be something great it but it transforms something that otherwise would uh amplify your mind and it it transforms it into into its opposite some people are still coming in finding their seeds hopefully hello to everybody half a kilometer away at the back a good spiritual practice while we're waiting for everybody to settle down why not start with a good spiritual practice especially for people in the back rows [Music] and it may sound a little bit funny but it's actually a very powerful spiritual practice and that is to become aligned with the present moment obviously this is i'm mister now so i'm talking about the present moment become aligned with the present moment and [Music] re refrain from complaining for example that you are too far away mentally how very powerful spiritual practice so then you become okay [Music] with the is-ness of things and the is-ness of things happens always in the present moment you might have noticed nothing ever happens that's not now one could almost say the word happen must imply present moment and most people completely [Music] underestimate the incredible importance of the present moment and of living in a harmonious relationship with the present moment and you would be surprised how many people in this world live almost constantly in an antagonistic relationship with the present moment and that of course causes a lot of unnecessary suffering and unhappiness so one of the most important things in life to be aware of is your relationship [Music] so to speak with the present moment and this is now of course is the present moment welcomed or appreciated or at least accept it for the way it is because it already is the way it is that's the weird thing about the present moment it's already the way it is no matter how you argue in their mind with it [Music] the is-ness of things is already the case and that's all there ever is in your entire life your entire life this is not something to just understand intellectually to grasp at a deeper level your entire life unfolds in the present moment that's all there ever is that's all there ever is it's this moment and most people live as if some future moment whether it's a minute from now or tomorrow or next year they live as if some future moments were always more important than this moment that is it implied they don't tell themselves oh the next moment is more important than this one no it's an assumption an underlying assumption it's a mindset and that mindset is a form of conditioning cultural conditioning and that mindset by implication if not literally always says there's something more important coming and i'm on my way to it and that is a dysfunctional way to live because you're never fully alive you never feel at home you're always looking for your home in some future moment or when you get old enough and you realize there's little future left then you think about the past more than the next moment which is why many old people talk continuously about the past so coming into alignment with the present moment brings about a shift in consciousness and this is so simple and yet so profound now this shift in consciousness is what our evening here together is all about it is about a transformation of consciousness in you and the reason why you're here most of you is that this transformation of consciousness [Music] is already happening it's a process for most people it's already happening in you and you're here because you know that this or you hope that this is an opportunity for deepening this shift in consciousness or accelerating the shift in consciousness there are other terms we could use we could say it is about an awakening of consciousness it is about a spiritual awakening and this is a term that in several spiritual traditions is used and has been used for a long time the term of awakening which implies that the ordinary the normal state of consciousness of most human beings is a kind of dreamlike state it is a kind of sleep but people if you tell that to somebody says what are you talking about dream i'm completely awake this is just nonsense there's a sentence in i believe it's in the book the little classic uh the little prince see that book and i believe it's in that book there's a lovely sentence that says what is essential is invisible to the eye i the eye this i what is essential is invisible to the eye now i stands for all sensory perception it's not just the visual so what that points to is that the essential reality is hiding behind phenomenal reality and you also every one of you and myself are you can't really put a percentage on it but let's just say you are 90 percent invisible who you are actually all what we can see is the outer form of you and which is the physical body that senses can see but now we can even one could cut open hopefully not your your brain or whatever and look for you there on the physical level on a material level with the most powerful powerful electron microscopes and you would they would not find you at all that's a strange thing that you are you are not a material physical entity all the things that make up who you are or these are actually invisible and they remain invisible even if you can't open your brain or other parts of your body and examine what's there including your millions of memories where do they live could you find a memory that you have of the your first teacher walking into the classroom when you were five or six years old there he or she is hadn't thought of her in a long time but suddenly there she is where did she live all this time in your head in what form did she live in the form of certain molecules that's that are the memory of your teacher where would you ever find this or your room if you had a room or the living room of the house that you lived in when you were eight years old i could go there i could go there and i can i can even touch things still and feel that's what it that felt like and there was that table and that curtain where does all where do all these countless things live in you and these are just mind forms just memories not to mention the deeper dimensions within you but even those relatively superficial dimension of just memories are all totally invisible and will can never become visible as material entities so you are and every human being is almost entirely invisible all you see is the surface shell of the body and all your thoughts science talk we don't even know what a thought is and how it survives in you but not really so it's all it's invisible and you cannot find it through in the sensory realm and so the same of course applies to your dog what is it that you love in the let's talk about we could talk about human too it's surprising that there are quite a few many people who who feel more deeply attached or connected to their dog than to another human being and i'm not saying that that is bad or that should not be the case but because i can see how and why that happens because being is less obscured in the dog than it is in the human the you in the human the being dimension depending on who it is depend depending on the density of your mental emotional conditioning is is obscured by that sometimes you can get beyond it and you can deeply connect with a human and recognize what the consciousness that you share with the other and when that happens we call it love but with a dog it's easier to do but it's important to realize that what you love in the dog is the invisible dog although the the visible is pleasant it's pleasant to the touch when you look into the eyes of a dog then you can there you can sense the consciousness of the dog so what you're really loving the dog is the consciousness of the dog otherwise you could have a stuffed dog and or you could have one with a little bit have a little electronically controlled dog maybe one day they will have it and it goes but it's not the real thing so with a dog you you look into the eyes and next time that with your next dog realize that the essence of the dog is not what you see you can sense it when you look into the eyes of the dog you can sense the invisible essence of the dog but but only if you have some access to this invisible essence the the beingness in yourself and as i mentioned yesterday probably the it happens that even people who normally don't have access to that dimension within themselves they feel drawn to the the the dog or the cat because for very briefly the dog or cat by connecting with the darkhead very briefly it enables this person to have a glimpse of being within themselves and this is why i don't know if you there's a little book that i produced together with a cartoonist and since i have a bad memory the name escapes me at this moment and the title of the book is guardians of being and it's mainly about dogs but i believe there are also some cats in it and it's based on a few quotes of things i have said or written i don't remember what and wonderfully inspired drawings uh that go with the text so and and i call dogs guardians of being for humans because i have a theory that millions of more humans would go insane without their dogs their mind would just think they keep they provide a kind of anchor into the realm of of being so the realization that the essence of the dog is invisible and also indestructible and then you still love the dog but the excessive attachment to the form of the dog might not be that strong anymore you will still be sad when the dog passes away but you won't be devastated the supplies now obviously also to humans when you connect we're deeply connected with another human being one of the most difficult experiences in your life is to experience the passing away of a loved one especially if it seems to come prematurely that is even more difficult and therefore it is advisable that at all times you keep alive within yourself the realization that this human being is essentially the being and the human is only a very small part and this human being is essentially invisible and what you love in him or her is invisible love is the recognition that you share the same essence the the it's this in this essence we could call it consciousness it doesn't matter what name we give it but that's what you share with you can you recognize yourself the essence of yourself in the other so part of this is of course to be give more attention to the present moment because the more you think the more future you generate and the more attention you give to the present moment the less thinking because to be really present you don't think about it you just are with it give it attention i recommend the little things of life to be more attentive to all the little things that make up every hour every day every minute every hour and give them more attention walking steps one step at a time [Music] objects that you're handling your all the time you're handling objects in your life they're always touching something putting something here there is everything that you handle just a means to an end or are you able to just appreciate the simple presence or even of a so-called inanimate object contemplation also of all the lovely things that make up your environment part of your environment for example if i were sitting here alone let's say i'm waiting for everybody to arrive i might be sitting here looking of course at the flower sense of stillness and then there's a glass table here and then there's a glass of water here and there's a clock and a bell and tissues and they all reflect the light in different ways there's a little bit of a rainbow effect in the glass of water here and then the lights are reflected on the bells almost like a mirror and there's the clock ticking away it's a beautiful scene sometimes you go to an art gallery well not so much with modern art but a very favorite favorite thing would be still live artists and it took a while in art before they discovered the the artists in the history of art before they discovered the seemingly insignificant things and started to give attention to those before that happened they were very much interested in the huge things the saints or the kings or the huge battle scenes or the the big they had to they painted those things or the important people or some dramatic thing volcanic eruption or whatever fire and then at some point they started to discover the beauty and the incredible sense of the quality that is in the little things they started painting for example simple people the dutch artists perhaps perhaps they were not that knowledgeable about artists but the the famous dutch paintings so they don't it's not so much big important people they show simple people to in the woman in the kitchen baking bread people simple people sitting around the table eating a very simple meal and it's the light incredible light effects it comes light comes through the window there's an incredible sense of presence and aliveness in the painting and this is a scene that in normal life you would never have unless you're really very conscious nobody would have stopped and said oh isn't that amazing these people are sitting around the table eating a simple meal and there's light coming through the window nobody would have done that perhaps after these more of these artists depicted relatively in seemingly insignificant things perhaps it motivated some people to give more attention to that but even now it's still people very much overlook that until you overlook then a large part of your life you don't give it attention when i say give attention there's an element of appreciation of everything of the little things and you begin to realize that your entire life consists mainly of little things even if you have vip it still consists mainly you're always just always sitting somewhere standing somewhere looking around handling things going from here to there either on a bus or your private jet and this giving attention that is sometimes called um gratitude it's that's kind of part of it this appreciation but i don't necessarily use the word gratitude too often because it implies that you say to somebody oh thank you but there's a simple appreciation of the is-ness of things of their presence so you no longer regard almost continuously your entire environment as a means to an end and what's the end you need to get to some future moment where suddenly everything is going to be better than now and so the always on your way it's a stepping stone to the next moment in every object that you handle is only has only utilitarian value but there's no value in itself it's never appreciated for its beingness and then you do the same to human beings the only regard what can they do for me now how do they fit into my schemes into my plans because there's a future orientation continuously which is the mind because there is no future it's created by the mind it becomes extremely enjoyable to be just to be contemplating the little things that surround you then you there is something yes there is an element of gratitude that comes with it this appreciation it's an element or you appreciate the sense perceived world this is an aspect of reality it's not the deepest aspect of reality but it is the surface of the ocean and it's beautiful and that also means it's not just when you are quietly contemplating it's also when you're going from a to b to perform some action you're going to buy something [Music] going to the whatever it is post office um appreciate the journey and every step of the journey and look around so that the 10 minutes of going to the shop or driving to the shop or taking your bicycle to the shop isn't completely wasted and reduced to means to an end and you can actually that every moment is significant and ultimately it's only ever the one moment and then this waiting game comes to an end waiting for the for the big break that's an expression i don't know what break what breaks but waiting for whatever it is of course you have a goal you may have a goal in life and you're moving towards it but in the meantime this is now and yes you know you're moving towards it it becomes very enjoyable to be wherever you are when you have this ability to con contemplate the little things both when you're passively contemplating or when you're even when you are moving in being engaged with things [Music] you

Channel: ECHKART TOLLE - ASUNA RAVEN

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Keywords: SUN, moon, earth, venus, mercury, mars, jupiter, uranus, saturn, neptune, pluto, chiron, planets, planetary, transit, natal, natal chart, astrology, hermit, mental, mental illness, loner, anti-social, weird, awkward, music, tarot, oracle, agoraphobia, help, angel, god, love, jesus, january, february, march, may, june, july, august, september, october, november, december, 2021, 2022, april, natal clock, ontario, eckhart, eckhart tolle, tolle, compilation, message, messages, youtube, starseed, spirit, spiritual, spirituality, source, prescence, light

Id: hw8LfDWjGGo

Length: 83min 3sec (4983 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 02 2021