This is a YouTube video titled "Awakening and Special Abilities | Eckhart on Healing Powers, Aura Seeing, and Much More" featuring a conversation with Eckhart Tolle recorded in February 2023. The discussion involves Eckhart Tolle and another speaker exploring spiritual topics such as healing powers, aura seeing, siddhis, and the significance of these abilities in relation to consciousness and ego. Eckhart Tolle provides insights into the nature of these phenomena and cautions against overemphasizing them in spiritual practice.
And then it has often happened. And I personally know of people who had genuine abilities. And then they couldn't produce them all the time. The ability came when it wanted to come. Healing, for example.
I love your teachings. And I have a small practice I do every day. I meditate. I feel it's helped me tremendously in my life. I feel that all of the questions basically come back to the same thing. Obviously being present. But in my spiritual journey, I've come across certain ideas that I don't quite understand. And I'm wondering if you could comment on them. And those would be things like a manipulation of reality. And I don't just mean the power of intention, which I feel that I have employed in my life consciously. But things more like lucid dreaming or functioning at a higher frequency. That phrase or octaves of the multiverse or seeing auras.
Well, all these things at different levels functioning at a higher frequency is the one expression that I can relate to most. Because this is another way of putting what this is all about. So we are learning to function at a higher frequency. There are many other. There are other expressions that have come to people. Some of them who have gone very deeply. Perhaps a person who came up with functions at high frequency. Maybe went deeply. And then this is the words that came to somebody else who goes to the same deep place. Different words may come. Because what words you use to describe an inner reality, a deeper reality, depends on the conditioning of your mind. So you will use different words. But also what people consider important also is a reflection of their state of consciousness. Seeing auras is a wonderful thing. It's not the ultimate thing that will transform your consciousness. It can come as a byproduct of a certain development of consciousness. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. It is not something to be sought as the ultimate thing to achieve. Because even if you see auras, you're still in the same state of consciousness, which may be egoic. In fact, you may become so identified with your ability to see auras that your ego gets even bigger. Then there are. As consciousness evolves, it sometimes happens that certain abilities arise. That are considered some almost miraculous to some people, they come. To some people, they come and then they go again. In India, those abilities that arise spontaneously as a byproduct of spiritual awakening are called siddhis. So siddhis are, for example, to be able to telepathy or to know what somebody is thinking. Or to move things, to create telekinesis or whatever. Any of these things spontaneously, very often are things that Happen. And all the real teachers in India, they do not teach you to develop cities. They all point to the fact that siddhis, you should not give them too much importance when they do come because then you lose track of what really matters, which is your state of consciousness. So all the great teachers have said, okay, cities are fine, they tend to come and go and even if they stay, it's not the main thing. If you get drawn into that, you get lost and you're no longer, the evolution is no longer proceeding. And in most cases, if you get drawn into some extraordinary ability, ego usually comes in because it's something you identify with as an enhanced sense of self in your mind. And then it has often happened. And I personally know of people who had genuine abilities and then they couldn't produce them all the time. The ability came when it wanted to come. Healing, for example, healing through oils. I knew one or two people personally when they went into the healing state, suddenly there was oil that manifested fragrant oil in their hands. And they would put their hands on people and often there would be healing. They started to practice more and then they began to realize, or they never said that, that they couldn't, the oil just didn't come all the time. Then they tried, there's no oil and I've got a room full of people wanting to be healed. They're coming at 8:00. And some because they had an ego investment, it became their livelihood. And so what one of them did, I'm not mentioning the name of course, what one of them did, as was told to me by his personal assistant, he put like a rubber thing filled with oil under his armpits and then there was a tube going down. He had short sleeves, but the tube just went up to the edge. And then whenever he, when he went like this, the oil would putting pressure on his armpit. The oil would be squeezed out and would flow into his hands and nobody would know it because it ran down. There was a tube ended here, the sleeve ended there and the oil would run down into his hands. And so he, because he had an ego involvement in it, he became he was both genuine and a fraud at the same time. It's not uncommon for people who attach great importance to these powers to become they have both a genuine power and when it leaves them, they are fraud. So but of course that's their spiritual path. And at some point there is, who could say that this person cannot evolve beyond it if they, if he realizes what he's doing at some point awareness may come in, and then he may well give up doing his healing. So all these things, what these various terminologies, expressions, they come. On the one hand, they come from people whose state of consciousness values that particular thing. And then often they create that expression, say, this is the ultimate thing. And of course the ultimate thing is the one that I can do. And there are teachers who can perform so called miracles, and in by relatively unevolved humans that can be mistaken for great enlightenment. But sometimes these abilities, like yogic abilities, there are people in India who can stop breathing for an hour or two or three. They can. They bury them in a box, a sealed box, and they emerge days later. And does it mean that they have gone beyond ego? Not necessarily. In fact, the ego may be very big while they're in the box, and especially when they come out of it and everybody goes so. But if these things come as a byproduct of awakening, it's fine. But not giving them excessive importance, that's really the main thing.
