A Meditation to Hear the Silence and Calm the Voice Inside | Eckhart Tolle

So, as you can guess, I'm in the summer, the southern hemisphere. We just finished our retreat here on the sunshine coast of Australia. It's very warm, but a cooling breeze coming from the ocean. So let's settle into the present moment, access the stillness that's already within you, even though you might not have realized it. Even with people who have the most turbulent and chaotic minds, there is stillness underneath it. And to find that it is vital to find that stillness within, because otherwise you are at the mercy of your mind and you are lost in that continuous noise. So here it's helpful for you to, as you, I'm sure you know already, to become aware of the silent spaces between the words, rather than just pay attention to the words. In fact, be more interested, so to speak, in the silent spaces than the words. The silent space on the external level is when I stop speaking. So the sound is no longer produced and there's an absence of sound. And that's what we call silence. Maybe not complete silence here, because there are some background noises, or perhaps you can hear birds, but when I don't speak, there's the absence of noise, except for the birds. And when you are aware that there is an absence of noise, there is a silence which is an external thing. Simultaneously, something happens inside you. And that's why it is so wonderful to be aware of external silence. You may know this already, but whether you've heard this before or not doesn't matter. The important thing is to realize it now. So when you pay attention to silence, what is it you pay attention to? Nothing in particular. There is no content to silence. When I speak, the words, the sounds, are the content. When I stop speaking, there's no content. And if you're new to this, you might even ask, what is it that I pay attention to when I pay attention to silence? And the answer is, nothing really. Well, then the question arises, how can I pay attention to nothing? Well, you pay attention to that space of no content. And then something happens inside you simultaneously. You might notice that when you pay attention to just the fact that there is a silence, you can do it when you're alone in a room, you can do it in the middle of the night, you can do it out in nature, you can do it in a church, preferably when it's empty, or a temple. Anywhere where there is some silence, you become aware of it. Don't overlook the silence, and don't always look for the noise. So what happens inside you when you become aware of that absence of noise? Thinking subsides and you become still inside. The moment you become aware of silence and pay attention to silence, you become still inside. The ceaseless stream of thinking subsides. And what's left is only that enlarged space. You may not be able to sustain it for very long by yourself. It doesn't matter as long as it's there, if it's only for a few seconds. Good enough to start with. And here, perhaps you're able to sustain it, perhaps during the entire duration of our meditation. In other words, let go of thinking without falling asleep, and just be here, present as a presence, conscious presence. Now, the words I speak are so simple that you can't really think about them because there's nothing to figure out. So to understand what I'm saying, you don't need to add some more thought to it. So the best way of being here with me is to embrace the state of thoughtless awareness. No need to think. And you haven't disappeared. The essence of who you are is not only still here. The essence of who you are has emerged more fully now, when you are still it.