15 Minute Guided Meditation: Deepening Your Sense of "I" with Eckhart Tolle

We are here to deepen our sense of I. This is the most important thing really that you can do in this lifetime. Most humans, that's a sad fact, are not very deep at all. Most humans are superficial. Their sense of I is derived from external things and is derived from certain ideas in their head about who they are. Those ideas, of course, are connected to external things. What other people think of me, what I own, what I possess, my history, all things, ideas in your head. So when the average person says I, he or she refers to that superficial sense of self that really is derived from the movement of thought and the emotions that go with it. But the wonderful thing is that there is the possibility in every human of deepening their sense of I. So that when they say I they no longer refer to the mind made, idea based sense of self, but a much deeper sense of self or being that has nothing to do with thinking and has nothing to do with external things. And you arrive there, you get there by dropping down, taking your sense of your attention behind thinking, let's call it that. And that's what meditation is about, and that's why we're here. And that's what's happening. While you listen to these words already there is a deepening in you which is part of the transmission, which miraculously works even through electronics and the camera. And you notice that there is a sense of presence or beingness behind your thinking. And that realization is already the deepening. And of course I'm inviting you to enter that state of realizing that there is a presence there in you. The presence that is more essentially you, or that's I really, that is more essentially who you are than anything in the realm of external things, physical body or ideas in your head. So there is a dimension in you that's much more real, deeper than anything in the world of form. Because that's really what the superficial sense of self comes down to. Its identification with some form, external form, thought form, emotional form. And identification with form means, what does that mean, identification? It means you derive your sense of self, of I, of who you are, from some accumulation of forms, ultimately thought forms, emotional forms, thought forms, external forms are really also ultimately experienced as thought forms. You cannot experience anything out there as it is, it has to become through sensory perception. And as your mind is transformed into a mental image, and that's the thought form. So identification with form is. If there's nothing else, of course the form dimension is there, you cannot deny it. But if that's all there is in your life, then you are A superficial human being. And a superficial human being is anxious, fearful, easily upset, worries a lot. Gets depressed when things don't go as they should. Gets temporarily elated when something so called good happens. But it never lasts very long. And often even the elation turns out to be a delusion. So a superficial human being is continuously frustrated. In their search for something more real, more lasting. But because they are looking for that which is more real, more lasting and more fulfilling in the realm of forms. They never find it and they remain superficial. But that which is more deeply fulfilling than anything in the realm of form is very close to you. You don't need time to arrive at it. You don't need to acquire, is very close. That space where you are essentially formless but intensely alive, intensely intelligent, but formless. That formless inner space is very close. There was an astronomer once said that outer space. We don't realize how close outer space is. He said you can get in your car. And if your car could drive vertically upward. Within an hour's drive from where you are. You would be in outer space. An hour's drive is not that far. So if you go upward, you drive for an hour, and you're in outer space. A totally different dimension. Now, inner space is even closer than that. And when we call it space, it's another word for formless, undifferentiated. So on the one hand, your I is the surface I of the physical body. Of all the sense perceptions, of all of thoughts and emotions. That's the surface I with its name and its history, its temporary form. And then there is the deeper I. As far as the surface eye is concerned, you and I are different physical appearance, different kinds of thoughts, different history, different name. But as you go deeper within, behind thought, where all there is is a sense of presence, beingness or aliveness. That's exactly the same presence, beingness or aliveness that is in me. And if we both go to that dimension of depth within ourselves. We can meet there in a sense of oneness, the surface self. There is no oneness there. It's all differentiated. So if I'm stuck only on the surface dimension. Every other human being is totally other. That's the egoic dilemma. The ego actually wants it because it defines its identity through the otherness of others. So. So it loves to criticize and judge and dismiss and gossip about the faults of others. And so it makes the others more other than it feels more itself. That the love is totally impossible in that state. And what the ego calls love, of course, is not love love at all. It's a clinging and a wanting. It's only when I realize that apart from my surface self, there is a deeper I that has nothing to do with thinking or any form. And if I can sense that deeper I as a silent presence within, not just when I go and sit on the floor and meditate, it's fine there as an introduction to it, but in everyday life. So that you can simultaneously be the form I, the form identity and the deeper sense of self. You can function in this world on the two levels.