Can Being Present Become Overwhelming? | Eckhart Answers

So to completely rest within yourself, completely come to the doing needs to come to a stop. But you cannot make that stopping into a doing, because then, okay, I need to stop my doing mode. That's more doing. Can you speak about how to be in this world with this constant push for connectivity on the Internet, without feeling that being present is another thing to do? You can make a list of things to do, answer emails, check Facebook, make these four, five phone calls, write the report, call your stockbroker, therapist, whatever, enter number seven. Be present. Yes, it's a good question. Being present isn't something. Although sometimes when we talk about it, it sounds as if it were something that you do. In the same way that when people meditate, many of you probably have a meditation practice. And there's that sense that, okay, now I have to do my meditation. It might even be on your list of things to do. But the very idea that you are now doing a meditation can be an obstacle to doing an actually effective meditation, because you're still doing something. And so even while you sit and whatever the technique is, it could be that there's still that sense of doing. And even there could even be remnants of stress there because you're doing. But you also know that there are many other things that you still have to do. But no, you really have to do this meditation. I'm doing it. Don't disturb me. I'm doing it. I'm trying to do a meditation. I'm trying, but I have so much on my plate. So the very sense that you're doing something can be the obstacle, because we could say that meditation or being present is the realization of being that's always already there, but just not realized. So it's not doing at all. It's the other dimension in which there's no doing, but there's being. And that is the fundamental dimension. Ultimately, there can be no doing without being. Being is the unconditioned consciousness. So to completely rest within yourself, completely come to the doing, needs to come to a stop. But you cannot make that stopping into a doing, because then, okay, I need to stop my doing mode, that's more doing. But if your approach is just be with what is completely nothing to do, nothing to achieve, nowhere to go, just being here, aware, aware of whatever appears in that space of awareness. And if possible, and it is possible, aware that you are aware, that's it. So there's no doing. So you've gone into being, realized being, it was always there and is always there. It's just overlooked continuously because of A certain state of consciousness in which the thinking mode has become so overwhelming that you have lost touch with the deeper dimension within yourself. Now, when I say lost touch, does that imply that once you, when I say you, I mean humanity or you. Does it mean that once you were in touch with that dimension, perhaps you were in touch with that as a baby until you started to think, but you went, if that is the case, you were in touch with it unconsciously didn't know it, it was a natural state. But it seems that if you go back into prehistory, humanity, they many, many, in many, many traditions and ancient civilizations. There is a myth of the Golden Age. Once we had that in the Old Testament, it's written of as paradise or the Garden of Eden. And there are other myths from different parts of the world, including India and so on, of the myth of a very distant past when the suffering wasn't there, the unhappiness wasn't there, it was the Golden Age. Is that just a story, a wishful thing, or is it something, some very distant memory of a different state of consciousness? And I would suggest that it is a very distant memory of something that we kind of lost. It's not absolutely correct word, but it does not mean that those ancient humans in prehistory necessarily. Well, we know very little about anything that goes beyond 3,000 years ago, and that's little. But it seems that humans lived in connectedness with the source because the mind had not yet either not yet started up, started to produce thoughts, or only very rudimentary thoughts. And they were still able to rest in that, in the being in the same way that a cat or dog. I'm using those two because many of you have observed them, because you have lived with them, you lived them. When they rest, they rest completely. And you can become, if you contemplate a cat at rest, it can help you to actually become still or a dog to go completely, even if they're not asleep yet. They're just. Some years ago I saw a movie, I think it was called One Million Years B.C. it's a ridiculous title, as if 2,000 years made a difference in 1 million years. But it was called One Million Years B. C. And you saw these transitional beings between animal and human. They were already walking and they had certain, already producing certain sounds, but not yet words or just very rudimentary sounds that were beginning to represent things. And then they got into a fight between two tribes, still making partly animal like sounds. And then the fight comes to an end, a few get killed and in the Evening. They sit around the fire and it's very. Done very well. I don't know if the rest of the movie is any good, but I just remember that particular scene. They sit around the fire. They have already. They've discovered how to make fire. That's an amazing thing. And they sit around the fire and instead of talking because they haven't got language about what just happened an hour ago, they just sit and they're completely just at rest. They sit around the fire and they all go, no. No nervous excitement left because it's not being kept alive by the mind and the memory. They're rooted again. They return. They're rooted in being. And that's the. So the. Every animal is more deeply connected, that still deeper connection with being. But it's. It's an unconscious connection. It doesn't know anything else. It's a natur state. And it's quite likely that humans once had that in their evolutionary journey. And then they started to think, which wasn't a bad thing. It was an amazing thing that they began to think. That was just associated with the creation of language, of course. Also, that's an amazing thing. When they discovered they could produce certain sounds to represent things. Amazing. And then they could produce sounds to represent activities. And then they began to realize they were having these sounds in their head too. They were beginning to hear thoughts in their head. And some anthropologists believe that. Not everybody agrees. They believe that at that time, humans mistook the arising thoughts as gods talking to them. So they heard their own thoughts and said, oh, what do you want me to do? Kill that neighboring tribe. Okay, you must kill them. And then, perhaps first time, a few humans experienced sleepless nights. And that was just the beginning. But an amazing. It was an amazing evolutionary step forward in all entire civilization. Many civilizations arose out of that. An amazing thing. But there was a huge price to pay. There's always a price to pay. In this world of opposites. There was a huge price to pay for that. And we all know what that is. It's loss of connectedness with the source. You are alienated from the source, unhappy.