- Whatever this, the obstacle arises, you bring this penetrating
stillness to it. (bell dinging) You can also look into manifesting, but then the question is what is it that wants to
manifest through this form? It's no longer, "This is
what I want," the surface I. What is it that wants to manifest through this form? Very different. And you may not know that immediately. There may be a time period when you don't know exactly what to do with your so-called
life, which is not yours, just a conventional way of speaking. There may be a, for a while you don't know
what to do with your life. And so you're just there
being as still as possible. Do your, whatever activity
you're already doing and but bring stillness
into it, presence into it. And then at some point, either
the realization of what it is that you need to do that
wants to be done through you comes from the outside. Somebody tells you something, "Ah." Or you wake up one morning and say, "Ah. This is what I have to do." And then you start taking action. Always making sure you're not
so attached to the outcome that you think it's more
important than the present moment. An action can become egoic
when you lose yourself. It becomes egoic when you
lose yourself in the doing. And a good sign or good criterion is when something happens to that is against your,
seems to be an obstacle, a person or situation say, "I want to do this or achieve that." And suddenly somebody's
says, "No, you can't do that. No, they won't allow you to do that." No, for some, or a situation
becomes a challenge. It's difficult, it's blocked. You want to go, somebody says, "No, you're not qualified to do that. You shouldn't do that. It's not allowed." Whatever, "You need this and
that which you don't have." Obstacles come all the time. If you get upset, that means the ego is back in the doing when obstacles come
and you you go (gasps). If you're not upset, you're still present and you look at whatever the obstacle is and you look at it with this
penetrating gaze of presence, which is stillness also, you look at whatever
this, the obstacle arises, you bring this penetrating stillness to it and that is like a light shines on it. And then that dissolves the obstacle or it shows you a way around it. That's the power of consciousness. It always happens. Either it shows you how to get around it or it shows you how to use the
very force of the obstacle. And you turn it around. If the obstacle is going to go this way and you go with it for,
I'm just demonstrating now, something counteracts what you want to do, it's coming this way. You want to go that way, but you don't meet it head on and start complaining, saying, "No, this shouldn't be happening." No. Perhaps you go with it for a little while and you go. And then you turn it around, and the very power that was against you then works for you and you
achieve your goal through that. It happens, and this is the wisdom that
comes with non-resistance. So whenever you go into
this conscious doing, resistance always pulls you
back into unconscious doing, can easily happen, because it's an old habit
pattern, unconscious doing. Inner resistance to whatever
arises in the present moment pulls you back. Inner resistance is
some form of negativity, some form of complaining, some form of fear, aggression, anger. And this is important, because whenever you complain
about what somebody else does that you are already beginning to fall into that trap of unconsciousness. And of course you, yes,
you meet lots of people who are still trapped in ego and they may not like what you do, but just no judgment. Just look at what the, they say this, they want
that, you want that. And they don't say, "Oh, they're dreadful. I know what he wants. He wants to deceive me. And he always does that. He wants to go just," no, just clear. This is what he says he wants. This is where I want to go and see. Okay. Never any judgment of
a person or situation. Just clear seeing, clear facing. This is the power, it's like a light beam of consciousness. It falls onto, illuminates that situation, that moment, that that person. That's the power of consciousness. No resistance. Jesus already talked about
the power of non-resistance and that the moment resistance comes, you're drawn back into
identification with form. Protection, resistance, fighting. It's a, are you going to succeed
all the time in this? No, it's a shift from a way of doing that has been with us
for thousands of years and a new way of doing
that is only arising now. So you are transitional beings between the old consciousness and the new. And don't judge yourself if you fall back occasionally
into the old consciousness, but you will quickly know it. How will you know it? You begin to suffer. (audience laughing) You get upset. You get upset about situations. You get upset about people. You get upset about what somebody said. You get upset about what
somebody should have said, but didn't. You get upset about what
somebody did or failed to do. Oh, there's a sign that
you've fallen back. Beautiful line in "The
Course in Miracles", "I'm never upset for the reason I think." Now upset is a generic term. Could be any, in any way that, yeah, out of alignment with isness, there's a disagreement with the
isness of the present moment and then you become upset. Now, many people are
upset a lot of the time, but they don't realize they are upset. And if you talk to them and
say, "Why are you upset?" They say, "I'm not upset,
I'm just bloody angry." (audience laughing) Or, "I'm not upset, I'm deeply hurt, because he didn't invite
me to his birthday party. Deeply hurt, not upset." (audience laughing)
(Eckhart laughing) "I am never upset for the reason I think." Now the deeper meaning of this
of course is you are upset, because you have lost awareness of being, your essence, identity. And the reason you think is superficial. If it's not, if when you lose
connectedness with being, just wait a few minutes and something or somebody will upset you. (audience laughing)
(Eckhart laughing) And so if we believe that that which seems to cause the upset is the actual cause, this is not the case. These are interchangeable,
could be anything, and it will. So you'll be upset many
times every day (laughs) by other people, by situations, by the slightest things
or the biggest things. Upset, upset, upset by, the
entire world is so frustrating. (Eckhart laughs) I'm never, so that's a little
sign then if you're upset, you want to go somewhere, but
people are not cooperative. Situations are not cooperative. (babbles) And you can talk to yourself, and. (audience laughing) So that's a good sign then you can use. Also shows you to what extent
the ego is active in you, because what's upset is not
you, it's the ego in you. The ego is the erroneous identification with form, a false sense of I, which wanted something to
make itself feel more at ease or bigger or more important or whatever and is frustrated in its aims. Well, well, that's a good,
then it's like a little, if you had a little, it's almost like having
a little technical device on your arm that tells you
whenever your ego comes back, it goes, beep, beep, beep, beep. (audience laughing)
(Eckhart laughing) You don't need that. Well, if somebody here
is a technical wizard and is going to invent it, it's fine. (audience laughing) But you don't need that
because all you need is to know if you are upset
or not in everyday life. Now, for many walking egos,
upset is their normal state. They might not even know it anymore, because they're upset
virtually all the time, and just waiting for some
other thing to happen to explain why they are upset again. But of course there's the underlying dissatisfaction is always there. Foundation then is stillness. That's the return journey. So can we be then simultaneously
in the return journey to the source of all life, spiritual dimension, God, stillness, and still be active in this world? And then if we are that, what we then do in this world becomes empowered by the intelligence that emanates from the source and then the source creates through you. No longer the power of the source is then no longer distorted by the ego and its power greatly
diminished to a trickle. So the source is like light, you can say sunlight wanting
to shine through fully, but for a long time, it's become reduced to a tiny little hole. And there's a little bit of light coming through just to keep you going, and now it can come through and use you. When we use language, we
always create duality. So when I say it uses
you, it's not quite true, because you are it,
but language does that. It uses, let's then once
we know that it's okay we can use those words. It uses you then, now what
exactly it wants, I don't know. Perhaps it simply wants to create beauty or forms that are alive
and joyful and enjoy that. It's enjoyed the drama for thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. It's enjoyed the drama of people cutting each other to pieces and eating each other up,
it's enjoyed the drama. The movie is changing now and perhaps it's creating
a much more pleasant movie and who knows what is in store for us. I've never, I cannot predict the future. I'm not particularly interested. This present moment is wonderful enough. But something is, there's
a change happening. And of course, there
comes a point in your life when you may not, this, the source may become much more important than whatever you do. So you reach a time when you say, "Well, I've done this and
that and it's been wonderful," and then all you, you are just still and you
emanate that stillness. And even then you affect
the world around you without any doing. If you just be there and whoever
you come into contact with, there's some almost I
could say transmission, even if they don't notice it. You can do that and some humans perhaps will
mostly live in that way. How much doing you do, how much varies from form
to form, person to person. Some will be very active
and into conscious doing and create and enjoy the creation. And others may do relatively little or may just continue to do
what they're doing already, but whatever they're doing will be a vehicle for consciousness or stillness that flows into it. This power, this beautiful energy that flows. It could be even a person
who just gives information. Let's say you work at an airport and you give information to
people and maybe you stay there and then everybody who comes to ask, "Where's gate number 16?" You say, "Well, you go that way and it's only about a three minute walk." And there were not only the words, there was a transmission of
stillness with the words, not in the sense that I am
going to transmit stillness, no. (audience laughing) It happens because you let
go of the sense of doing, of I do. It happens. And the person, this one traditional
word for it is blessing. The person goes away being
blessed with that energy, and so beautiful, so what you do really is secondary. Some may do great things, others may do things
that look on the surface not so significant, and ultimately what you do is secondary, but how you do it is primary, when the how means the consciousness that flows into what you do.
