20-Minute Guided Meditation: There is No Future | Eckhart Tolle

Welcome. Are you there? Of course you're not there, you're here. I sometimes quote. I don't know who said it. When you get there, there's no there there. In other words, wherever you are, it's here. That applies to the spatial dimension. It also applies to time. There can be used with reference to some other place in space. There can also be some place in the future. I want to get there tomorrow. I want to get to tomorrow. So when you get there, there is no there. There can be applied to space and also applied to time. You're always here, and it's always now. There's no there there. Let's talk about it briefly with special reference to the temporal. There's no there there with reference to the temporal means that there is never a future moment. There is no such thing as a future moment. The there, the temporal there. There's only ever the here, the here and now. Nothing else exists. It just seems to. It appears to. And that appearance that something else is there is very strong. And it runs most people's mind. They live unconsciously, as if the there was where more important than the here. That's the unawakened state, or one aspect of the unawakened state. So any meditation, and our meditation here, if you want to call it meditation, is to bring your attention into the now so you become aligned with reality. So that you learn to dwell in the now consciously. That's really the awakened state. So I'm inviting you not just to listen or try to understand the simple fact that there is only now. There isn't much to understand there. There's only now. Or let me think about that. Is that. Of course it's true. So there's not much to understand. But there is only now is a powerful pointer to a shift in consciousness. So I'm not asking you to agree conceptually or figure something out mentally, but to experience or to sense what that implies or what that means. There's only now. So I'm inviting you to sense, let's put it like that for a moment, the presence that is the now. Now, whether you perceive that as something outside of you or inside of you, it doesn't matter. Ultimately, it's one and the same. This is a wonderful realization, if you can join me in that. To feel or to sense the now itself, the presence, not what happens in the now. What happens in the now in this very simple now are just words that you perceive and other, the visual perception, the focus of your visual perception, and the peripheral visual perception. Wherever you are on the periphery of your vision. You see the room or whatever it is, just as I do. But when I say become aware of the now, yes, it includes the sense perceptions. But that's not the main thing that I'm referring to. Becoming aware of the now is to become aware of something that is deeper than the things you perceive. A presence. Let's just say it's within you. It is. It's also without. But let's stay with the within. Once you sense it within, you can also sense that it pervades everything. A presence that never changes. Eternal. Which does not mean it goes on and on. But it has nothing to do with time. There is no time in there. It is presence itself. Another dimension. Coming into this dimension of space and time. There are other pointers one could use to point to that presence that you can sense. And another one that I sometimes use, of course, is stillness. You feel a stillness within that presence or that stillness, although I just said that it is something that you feel or sense within. That's language. We're using language. It's not quite right, of course, because you don't sense the presence, feel the presence, subject and object. I feel the presence. That's how language works. It breaks things up into duality and multiplicity. That's the mind. But it's not really correct to say, although I sometimes do say it, I feel the presence because in that arising of presence, there isn't you and the Presence. There is no duality. There is only the Presence. And you are that. I don't need to point out to you. I'm sure you know that. That as I speak, the presence can be felt most strongly by paying attention, so to speak, to the silence or the stillness in between the words and underneath the words. That's why we call it a meditation. So again, there is no duality in that presence. You don't achieve it. Attain is you. It is the essence of who you are. The very foundation of your sense of identity. And that foundation of your sense of identity has no form. It is formless, timeless presence. So your true identity has nothing to do with that which arises in the dimension of form. Which, of course is first of all the physical body. And then it is the thought forms that arise in the mind. And then it is emotional formations that come and go. And then it is external things you identify with that give you a sense of who you are. That's all very limiting. You don't need to push that away or push that out of your life. But realize there's Something much vaster than that. If you miss that vastness, then your life is a very limited affair, reduced to the merely personal. And the most you can hope for is to identify, perhaps to go beyond the personal a bit more with the collective other. You identify with us, a group, which is dangerous, by the way, if there's no transcendental dimension to who you are. So if you don't, if you are unable to leave the world of form, then you have only the personal sense of self or the collective sense of self. So the me or the us, both are very limiting. Both are ultimately egoic. But that's all people know. Now, in quite a few people, the formless dimension, the timeless presence, sometimes shines through a little bit. Although they are identified with form, there are moments and on occasion that some presence shines through. They don't realize that, but it comes through when there's pure contemplation of beauty, for example, comes through when there's an appreciation of just the presence of another being without wanting anything from them. It comes through when there's some selfless action helping somebody or be truly open, listening to somebody. In that state of openness. When there's an experience of joy and aliveness, there's some presence coming through. And in some people, they have that more than others. So the degree to which people are trapped in form varies from person to person. It.