Aligning with the Present Moment | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

Some people are still coming in, finding their seats, hopefully. Hello to everybody, half a kilometer away at the back. A good spiritual practice. While we are waiting for everybody to settle down, why not start with a good spiritual practice, especially for people in the back rows? And it may sound a little bit funny, but it's actually a very powerful spiritual practice. And that is to become aligned with the present moment. Obviously, this is. I'm Mr. Now, so I'm talking about the present moment. Become aligned with the present moment and refrain from complaining, for example, that you are too far away mentally. Very powerful spiritual practice. So then you become okay with the isness of things. And the isness of things happens always in the present moment. You might have noticed nothing ever happens that's not now. One could almost say the word happen must imply present moment. And most people completely underestimate the incredible importance of the present moment and of living in a harmonious relationship with the present moment. And you would be surprised how many people in this world live almost constantly in an antagonistic relationship with the present moment. And that, of course, causes a lot of unnecessary suffering and unhappiness. So one of the most important things in life to be aware of is your relationship, so to speak, with the present moment. And this is now, of course, is the present moment welcomed or appreciated or at least accepted for the way it is, because it already is the way it is. That's the weird thing about the present moment. It's already the way it is. No matter how you argue in their mind with it. The isness of things is already the case. And that's all there ever is in your entire life. Your entire life. This is not something to just understand intellectually, but to grasp at a deeper level. Your entire life unfolds in the present moment. That's all there ever is. That's all there ever is. It's this moment. And most people live as if some future moment, whether it's a minute from now or tomorrow or next year, they live as if some future moment were always more important than this moment. That is implied. They don't tell themselves, oh, the next moment is more important than this one. No, it's an assumption, an underlying assumption. It's a mindset. And that mindset is a form of conditioning, cultural conditioning. And that mindset, by implication, if not literally, always says, there's something more important coming, and I'm on my way to it. And that is a dysfunctional way to live, because you are never fully alive. You never feel at home. You're always looking for your home in some future moment, or when you get old enough and you realize there's little future left, then you think about the past more than the next moment. This is why many old people talk continuously about the past. So coming into alignment with the present moment brings about a shift in consciousness. And this is so simple and yet so profound now. And this shift in consciousness is what our evening here together is all about. It is about a transformation of consciousness in you. And the reason why you are here, most of you, is that this transformation of consciousness is already happening. It's a process for most people. It's already happening in you. And you are here because you know that this or you hope that this is an opportunity for deepening this shift in consciousness or accelerating the shift in consciousness. There are other terms we could use. We could say it is about an awakening of consciousness. It is about the spiritual awakening. And this is a term that in several spiritual traditions is used and has been used for a long time. The term of awaken, which implies that the ordinary, the normal state of consciousness of most human beings is a kind of dreamlike state. It is a kind of sleep. But people, if you tell that to somebody, says, what are you talking about, dream? I'm completely awake. This is just nonsense. It.