Alert Stillness | Eckhart Tolle on Connecting to What's Around You

Some of you are already advanced enough presence, there's enough presence power in you that you can actually, by choice, say, there's nothing to think about, and I won't think for a while now. And then you can even do things in that state of complete, inner alert stillness. Prepare a cup of tea, and every movement happens against the background of alert stillness. Walk from point A to point B, and every step happens against this background of alert stillness. Look around you, whatever it may be, in a room or outside, perceive everything with your senses. And all the sense perceptions happen against this background of alert stillness without any mental commentary. And you know what you're looking at without imposing any mental label on it. When you look at a tree, you don't impose the label tree on it, but you know that you're looking at a manifestation of life the moment you put a label on it. Of course we need labels on a certain level, but we also need not to be trapped in the labels that we have given things. We need to be able to use the mental labels when they are needed, but to be entirely trapped in the mental labels that we've given to everything. That's a dreadful limitation because the tree is. Everything is absolutely mysterious. Everything is miraculous and mysterious. And when you put a label on it, a mental label, you think you know what it is, but you don't. It's just a mental label. So to really get to the an inner realization of a tree, for example, you have to let go of the labels. Then you can sense there's more to the tree than when you utter the word tree than you think you know. But there's a depth to that. It's an alive being also. And I'm using this tree as an example. So to be. Be able to. This is the practice inviting presence, thoughtless awareness into your life as much as possible. And see how much more enjoyable things become. How you notice things around you that before were meaningless. You didn't ever look at them before. You notice beauty in many places. That would be called ordinary. Not just beauty in things that absolutely stand out, but beauty in seemingly unremarkable things and aliveness in seemingly inanimate things. And that comes when you perceive the world against this background of alert inner stillness. And that is, in those times, the personality recedes. Occasionally certain thoughts may come and then they go away again, and then the spaciousness is back. So you will be amazed how as you become more familiar with that state of alert stillness, how that changes how you experience life. You no longer experience life only as that old person that you've been stuck with since you were born, that person is still. You have a you honour that because that's your form identity. And that person can also improve. It can learn things, it can improve in many ways. It can play in the world of form. But then the wonderful thing is the formless self or no self, and who you are as a person do not remain separate. There isn't that. There are times when you are completely in the formless still and alert. And then there are other times when you are involved in thinking. There's a possibility of bringing the two together. And that happens kind of naturally. After a while, as you invite the alert stillness into your life more often, then you'll notice that even when you think, you continue to be aware of the tiniest gaps in between your thoughts. Like now and then I speak again, and then there's another little gap. And in that you are aware of the gaps between thoughts. And you are aware, so to speak, also of a background to all thinking that the large stillness is still there. And then you could engage in a discussion with someone without losing yourself in the stream of thinking, of mind, and without identifying with any mental position which is seeking your identity to reinforce, to strengthen your identity. By defending your mental position about something, you don't need it anymore, because you realize no mental position is your true identity. You can still have mental positions, but without the self in them. So there's no longer a sense of me or self in your mental. Why not keep your opinions? Everybody has certain perspective on things. You have a certain perspective on whatever, politics, philosophy, spirituality, that's fine. But you're not looking for an identity anymore in being right about something. It still put forward your viewpoint because you are in touch with a more essential identity. And that's the stillness behind your thinking and in between the thoughts. So you can sense an alertness even while you speak in the background and in between. So the two dimensions come together. And so the way in which you use your mind changes. In fact, you're now able to use your mind, you as the consciousness. The mind is connected, linking into that deeper dimension of no thought, which is primordial intelligence. That's where all creative insight comes from. And then your mind becomes much more helpful tool. And it can create, it can manifest things, but what it manifests comes from the consciousness. Rather than a little person that thinks, I need to manifest this or that in order to be happy. And of course, once you have manifested it, you're happy for a little while and then you're unhappy again, needing something else to manifest. And now I need this. Okay, I've got the house now. Now I. The relationship, and then I need that. And then I need to be recognized by people. There's no end to it. And the more you have achieved on the level of form, the more you realize that that's not it. So the two dimensions of you here, we are primarily concerned with. We are primarily concerned with the formless dimension, because that's what spirituality is about. There are many other things where you can go to workshops to learn how to improve your form identity, how to strengthen that. You can do it. Yeah, yeah. And that's fine too. That has its place also. You could go to that kind of workshop. As long as you are in touch with something deeper. You can try it. I'm still planning to have a joint event together with Tony Robbins. But my idea about it, I don't know if it will happen, is that we would both exchange our position so that we are not in our comfort zone. He would be sitting in a chair and I would be pacing up and down and a sticking leg. And I wonder if that position would change our teachings. So we'll see.