Eckhart Tolle explores beingness and consciousness, using analogies like ripples on the ocean and sunlight to describe the interconnectedness of life. He discusses awakening, presence, and the transcendent reality that exists beyond form and thought.
No, you will never solve your problems. If you solve two problems, three more will creep up behind you. That's how life is. It's not meant to be free of challenges, it's meant to awaken you. And this is the possibility of awakening is to realize this beingness. Now, beingness comes from the verb to be. To be the most fundamental thing to be. Now, what's the first person singular of to be? It is not I be. Strangely, you say I am. I am. Now, all you know when you're not thinking is that you are. That's beyond doubt. You can sense the presence that you are. And that is the realization of yourself. Not as a person or as a form identity, but the realization of yourself as consciousness. In essence, who or what you are is consciousness and it's not yours. You are manifestation of universal cons, only one consciousness that manifests in countless forms briefly. And if you can go there and be rooted in that and realize that is who you are beyond form. The analogy that works quite well that I usually use for this is if you imagine yourself to be a ripple on the surface of the ocean. Let's say every human being here is a ripple on the surface of the ocean. Now, ripples are short lived, but so are humans. A little bit longer than a ripple. But from a more universal perspective, a human life is a brave thing. It's a flicker, goes birth, old age and death. So every, everywhere on the planet there are these flickers of consciousness. But it's the same consciousness continuously manifesting form. I am is the word. All you can say is I am. But you don't need, you don't add anything, not this or that I am. In the Old Testament, God is asked who are you? And that's perhaps the most profound sentence in the Old Testament is I am that I am. Where God defines him, her itself as the I am as the essence identity of all forms. And also another beautiful sentence in the Old Testament. As you know, the Old Testament is a mixed. The Bible is a mixed bag of fantastic things and other things. But I like to look for the jewels that are there. Another beautiful statement that points to all this is be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. Now these words are all synonymous. Be refers to being. Still is the state of consciousness without thought, stillness, Being and stillness the same thing. And know. There is a deep knowing in that. In fact it's that is because that is the source of all intelligence. There's a deep knowing. But from the point of view of the conceptual mind. It looks like unknowing, it looks like ignorance because it's not knowing through concepts anymore. It's. There's a deeper knowing. And this is where what we call wisdom arises. Which is very different from intelligence. The IQ kind of intelligence, the wisdom that the world needs, not more intelligence, please know, but wisdom that yes, be still and know that I am. It is the I am of the. The I am of being God. Oh, here we come to a difficult word, but they're all synonymous. What is God then? I rarely talk about God because you can't really. It's so transcendent that whatever you say would be very limited. As you know, human language and human thought is relatively limited. How can I make statements about the ultimate transcendent reality Just by producing a few weird sounds with my vocal cords, plus air pressure through my tongue and lips. Oh, the vowels. A, I, A, E, I, O, U, E, U, R. This is what language is. Okay, now tell me the ultimate secrets of God in the transcendent universe. You can't. It's absurd. Just produce a few sounds and that explains. No. However, I'll carry on talking. All we can do is give an analogy or like a poetic image of what God might be and how God relates to who you are. And that image that I prefer is the image of our. We can only use images from our sense perceived universe. The sun is a life giving thing in our universe. The sun gives of itself ceaselessly for millions and millions of years. One could almost say eternally. It's not eternal, but as far as we are concerned, it's eternal. Without the sun there would be no life nor physical life here. So the sun gives off itself, it emanates continuously. The very heat in your body ultimately comes from the sun. So the sun, if you use the sun as an analogy for the. The transcendent God, God has no location in space or time. God is neither there or if we have to say anything, we could say God is right here because it's transcendent to this dimension. So if we use this as analogy, the transcendent emanates into this dimension something that creates form, that creates life. And what it ultimately this thing that it emanates is consciousness. At first, very little at first. Consciousness appears as if we're frozen as minerals and stones. And then consciousness becomes as if it were a liquid, if we use analogy of water. And then it becomes vegetative. Life and consciousness gradually evolves. So one consciousness, more of it comes in, then you get animal life and then you get human life. It becomes ethereal. It's a human mind so emanating from the source of all life. That is transcendent, of which you cannot say anything into this world. As the sun emanates light, the God emanates consciousness. And this brings about this universe. And in this universe, it's a process. It grows in the transcendent. We don't know anything about that. So the important thing is the ray of sunlight that you come, that hits your hand. You feel the warmth on your hand. That ray, it's not the sun. You couldn't say, I have the sun on my hand. I mean, if you got close to the sun, you would immediately disappear. But this ray of sunlight is still connected to the sun in some way. It is still part of the sun. We can't even say where the sun exactly ends. It doesn't really end anywhere. It doesn't have a clearly defined surface. It extends outward. So it emanates continuously. So what? The source of all life emanates is consciousness. And you can sense that in yourself. When you can sense yourself as consciousness, the presence, then you realize this. The ripple on the surface of the ocean has realized that it is not only a ripple. I'm mixing analogies now. It's not only a ripple. More fundamentally, the ripple is the ocean. And suddenly the ripple is no longer fearful. Because it can sense its deep connectedness to that which is vast and all encompass sa.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
