Becoming Self Aware | 20 Minute Meditation with Eckhart Tolle

Welcome to our live meditation, which today apparently is not live due to technical difficulties. One minute before we were due to start, everything crashed. Nobody knows why. But I do know that sometimes it's happened quite a few times before. The energy of presence does affect electrical systems quite often. So it's still the present moment. So I'm inviting you to become aware of the present moment, which you may know has two levels to it, the external level or dimension of the present moment. So it's quite easy. Your attention moves into sense perceptions, visual, auditory. So this is what you're doing here, looking at the screen, being peripherally aware of your surroundings. The deeper dimension of awareness of the present moment is to be aware of yourself as the presence. That's really the present moment. We could call that consciousness, whatever, to sense your own presence. When I talk about it, there's a duality because language creates the duality. I say you sense your presence as if that which is sensing the presence and the presence were two things. But it's not. It's a single thing, or rather no thing. It's the arising of self awareness, maybe a better way of putting it. And as that happens, you feel rooted in something very deep and vast. And then whatever happens externally and by saying external, I include even your thought processes and emotions, they are still on the periphery. And of course, whatever happens outside of you is perceived as peripheral. When you're really rooted in being, there is a calmness and a depth at the center. These words are not quite right. But from there, whatever happens around you, and even whatever happens in your mind or your emotional field is the surface phenomenon. And you can enjoy it and participate in it, yet at the same time be rooted in something that isn't touched by whatever is happening on the surface. One could say on the surface of being, because you are in touch with, or to put more accurately, you know yourself as the being itself of being yourself. And that is what all ancient, any true spiritual teaching is only about that there is nothing else. That's what every teaching points to. That's the pearl of great price that Jesus talks about. That's the end of suffering that Buddha talks about. Because unless you know yourself as the presence, you are at the mercy of all toughest phenomena. Whatever happens has enormous power over you. Your thoughts, you're controlled by your thoughts. You're at the mercy of your emotions, you're at the mercy of events. Something good happens, you go, wow. And a few hours later, a day later, and you're continuously in fear because you know you're at the mercy of very unstable fluctuations continuously. And that's why ancient spiritual teaching talk about that. You need Christian teaching. You need to be saved. Saved from what? You need to be liberated. Some teachings call it liberated. You need to come to the end of delusion. So what are you saved from? Liberated from. You are liberated from all surface phenomena, including your thoughts and emotions. So that's what becoming aware of the now really is. Yes, you become aware of what's going on on the surface of being, but primarily you are aware of being itself as the underlying presence, the I I am. You become aware of your I amness, the essence of your sense of identity, which gets mixed up with mental emotional stuff. And you think you are your memories. No, you are that which enables the memory to be. Consciousness, awareness. There's the story of. It's a Zen story. So they are all Zen stories, little strange. They are meant to be strange because they always point to something that you need to. Can only understand by experiencing it. So the story goes, there are two young monks in a Zen monastery, and they're walking outside, and there's a little hill just near the monastery. And they see on the hill, the master of the monastery is standing there. And one monk says to the other, I wonder what he's doing on that hill. And the other monk says, I think he's looking for a place to plant another tree, because he likes planting trees. I think that's what he's doing. And his friend says, no, I think he's looking to see if he's probably expecting somebody and he's wanting to see if they are. They are approaching in the distance. Then they say, oh, let's go and ask him, see what he's doing there. So they walk up the hill, come up to the master and say, master, what are you doing here? And the master says, I am standing here on the hill. End of story. Meaning in the usual state of consciousness or unconsciousness, the present moment is always in the service of something else. It's used as a stepping stone towards the next moment. You want to get to it. It's always reaching out to the next moment because all you know is surface phenomena. Oh, by the way, I'm just told that we are now live. So that's fine, let's carry on. The all you know is surface phenomena in the usual state of consciousness or unconsciousness. And so you always look to the next thing to arise, the next thought, the next emotion, the next event. And the now is continuously in the service of some imagined next moment. So when the monks go up to the master on the hill and say, what are you doing here? They expect the master to say, I'm here in order to do this, that or that, but he's not. When the master says, I'm standing here on the hill, what that points to is that the master is rooted in being. Primarily, that is his state of consciousness. The present moment is not reduced to a means, to an end. He is in the depths of being, which is the now, the present moment. His consciousness is rooted in that. His consciousness is that. And so when the master says, I am standing on this hill, period, so the monks are amazed. They don't probably still didn't get it, because the implied question is, aren't you always here for something else? Well, it does not exclude the possibility that the master may also be on that hill in order to look for a place to plant a tree, or in order to look for, see if somebody is arriving, as the monks had suggested. But the master is primarily rooted in being. Whatever else he may be doing is secondary and peripheral. And that's why the master didn't say, I'm here to look for a place to plant a tree or to see who is going to arrive. No, primarily I'm here now, standing on this hill, or in your case, or in my case, I am here now, sitting where I am, and I am aware of myself as the presence. Therefore I am rooted in being. Therefore I'm not reducing this moment to a means, to an end. I'm fully in this moment. Then I can still take action without losing myself in whatever I'm doing. And then I go. You can see how you go out, completely out of yourself, and then you go, what's the next thing that's going to upset me? What's the next thing that's going to satisfy me? And of course, what's the next thought that's going to come into my head and going to take possession of me to such an extent that I become the thought to such an extent that creates an emotion reflecting thought. So you emanate a completely different energy when you root it in being. There's a calmness, a peace, also a power that comes and emanates through you. And all your doings will be, Will become more intelligent, because you are in touch with the source of all intelligence, all intelligence itself, without being rooted in yourself, being rooted in being, most of your doing creates more problems, more karma, more suffering, and none of it is satisfying, not for long. We could also say that when you are rooted in being, then There is a stillness in you, even while you are thinking. Thinking happens. Or there may be periods when you're not thinking, which is wonderful, this space opens up and you're just present. But there are times when you need to think. And even when you're thinking, there's a sense of presence behind your thinking. In the same way that now that you are listening. But there is a sense of presence behind the listening, without which there could be no listening. And I am speaking, which means the mind is active, but there is a stillness continuously behind it, so to speak. And that stillness or that presence moves into the mind. And then the mind is at the service of that which is beyond the mind, rather than the mind serving itself, self serving mind, which is what the ego is. The false sense of self that distorts everything. The way you interpret the world. Other people distorted by a misperception, A fundamental error underlying all your mind activity. And that fundamental error also creating dysfunctional action. Action that creates more suffering for yourself and others, even if the intention is good. And it may sound reasonable. And then the old saying implies the road to hell is paved with good intentions.