Can You Be Conscious While Using Your Phone? | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

So in itself, of course, it's neutral. The technology is neutral. It's not either bad or good. It depends how it's used. It is at the moment. It is to a large extent, a reflection of the unconscious mind. So if you want to learn about human unconsciousness, you want to learn about the human ego, just go there and read what people pose and look at the reactivity of people on social media and so on, the comments they leave. You can learn a lot about unconsciousness and identification with mental positions. So the first thing, of course, is be careful with what you put out there, what kind of thing you post. If you post things on online, is it reactive? Give yourself a moment when you read something before you type in an answer or comment. Give yourself a moment and go within and avoid making people wrong. You can talk about issues, but don't make people wrong. And amplify your ego by making others wrong, even though they meant their position, political or otherwise, you may regard as completely misguided or erroneous. There's still a human being behind that. So you can put forward arguments against somebody's perspective or viewpoint without making another human being wrong. So what you put out is very important. Is your communication conscious or not? Or is it reactive? And then it can be used for other purposes. I'm there too sometimes. There are certain places where I appear. Could go to YouTube or whatever, and then suddenly there's a spiritual teacher talking. There are some meditation sites on all these things, so there's great potential for raising consciousness there. Somebody recommended to me several apps for meditation, which I now have on my phone. I haven't tried them yet. They've been there for a while, but I have four or five that are there. Want to try them out? So that's the very thing that otherwise would clutter your mind can actually also be used to bring about space or spaciousness in your mind. So it doesn't necessarily mean that when you have your phone or the 99% of cases when people look there, their mind is being cluttered. But maybe they're on a meditation app. Maybe they're looking at a beautiful, spacious picture and. Or listening to some sound or saying, take a conscious breath. Have a little reminder every two hours to take a conscious breath and bring spaciousness. Oh, yes, spaciousness. So the very same thing that otherwise clutters your mind can now unclutter your mind. Possible. So I believe that is also going to grow now. And it has to, because otherwise that technology could potentially drive humans completely insane, remove their ability to focus on Anything for more than a few seconds. People create. Young people who are totally uncentered, have no spaciousness within, don't even communicate with humans anymore because they prefer to communicate digitally. So these things are important. What you put out is important. So always take into consideration whether this brings people to presence or whether it clutters somebody's mind. And perhaps you can combine. Of course, what you do needs to be also commercially viable, but I believe you can combine the two. It's not necessarily a question of either it's commercially viable and it clutters people's minds or its presence. And we are going to go out of business. Doesn't have to be like that. It's up to you to be creative use. The more still you are, the more creative insights you will have. And we might get some amazing ideas of what is possible. I can't tell you what is possible. I don't know enough about it. I know very little about it. But you are in a wonderful position. So allow yourself to go deep enough within because then it is then the creative ideas seem to come. And if you find a thing that not only brings people to presence but also helps your company to grow, then that then becomes a conscious business, which is wonderful. It's challenging. Of course it's challenging. So don't let all your attention be absorbed though, by that kind of activity. You still need to connect with nature, take it off as much as possible away from there, connect with nature and then bring it back. What tends to happen is that these devices, people are never. They're still in bed and they're still doing stuff on it. And that takes you over there at dinner and they're doing stuff on breaks the relation with other people you had dinner with. I see people in restauran, the couple sitting, having dinner together. And both are on their phones now that probably means they've known each other for a while. If it happens on the first date, that's the first date will probably be the last one. But it happens after they've known each other for two years. Then it's almost a normal thing. They're not present with each other or then they exchange a few words and then she looks at the phone again. And then he stares into space and then she's still on her phone. I've actually observed it. She's still on her phone and he's staring into space. And then finally he gets out his phone too, because he doesn't want to be staring into space. And then I wonder, are they texting each other? Two good things that I did. I learned that in some huge companies. I believe it might be VW in Germany. Well, they've had enough problems. But now they tell their employees after 6pm they're not allowed to use the company phones anymore, not to deal with emails or anything. They need to get off. And that's a very wise thing because the more people's attention gets absorbed by this, the more confused and non creative they become. The more cluttered their minds become, the more ineffective they are even at their work, not to mention as human beings, their quality of life decreases enormously. So don't give yourself spaces, don't allow these things to take over your life. That's vitally important. So it's wonderful that some big companies like that have this policy now. No emails or anything after 6pm well, that's wonderful. I talked a couple of years ago to Arianna Huffington, who has a famous news website and has also written some books. And she describes in her latest book how her life deteriorated more and more, although she was making a lot of money. And finally she collapsed and hit her head on her desk and complete breakdown. And now she has, for example, in her private life and that's a good thing. She has this policy of no digital device in my bedroom. So in her bedroom she still has books, sometimes she reads in bed, but it has to be a book, not a Kindle, not the iPad, not the iPhone. No digital device in my bedroom. And that's a good thing to have that. At least you have that space for yourself. So everybody needs to be really conscious of the addictive nature of these devices. It.