Confidence and The Source of True Satisfaction with Eckhart Tolle

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke briefly at a conference in San Francisco. A big conference, close to 10,000 people. Annual conference, mostly for business people, but always towards the very end they have a spiritual person, which is better than no spiritual person. And then the organizer invited a small group of people who spoke at the conference and some who attended the conference to his home for dinner. Small group meaning 150. And he organized even some entertainment. The main person providing the entertainment is a kind of yogi magician. Nobody knows exactly whether he's more of a yogi or more of a magician or whether it's a combination or whether everything is just tricks. Anyway, this person the main entertainment of the evening. When people had eaten in the garden, they had erected a tent, a big tent, enough for 150 people. In the middle of the area there was a raised pedestal. And on it was a gigantic water tank, glass, transparent, with a few fishes swimming in it. And then it was announced that this man would now come and get into this tank and hold his breath for seven minutes. And that's what happened. He came, still wearing a few clothes, and he climbed up, submerged himself in the tank. And of course everybody could see him. He was floating in there. And there was a countdown and for seven minutes. And while he was in there, he. He looked at everybody from inside the tank like a fish would look at you, but completely kind of still. And he managed to hold his breath for seven minutes. And then finally he came out. And then after he had recovered from that ordeal, the organizer wanted me to meet him. So there were a few people standing around, and he was there. And one of the people standing around said, can you do that? He asked me, and I said, I don't think I can, but I can stop thinking for seven minutes. And the man who had been in the tank said, it's very much like that. He meant, I suppose, being in the tank. And he probably meant when he's in the tank, he's not thinking, because if he were thinking, he wouldn't last for seven minutes. Presuming that it's not a trick, we don't know, but it didn't seem to be a trick. He was just in there holding his breath. So I mentioned this story because I. I want to emphasize again this afternoon the main point of why we're here. And that is to fully realize that there are two dimensions, so to speak, to who you are. The one that is defined in form, which includes the physical form and the psychological form and the thinking entity. So your consciousness has the two Dimensions. There's an intermediate area, but we don't need to go there. There's the conscious dimension of thinking. And that creates your conventional sense of identity. And there is the deeper space where there is a vast consciousness that is not defined in form. So there's the two of you, the known, the person, and the unknown, the undefined, or as the Buddha called it, the unmanifested, the unborn, the uncreated. And the Buddha added, this is one of the sutras in my free translation. So he said, there is the unborn, the unmanifested, the uncreated. If there were not. Sorry, the sutras are a little bit repetitive. If there were not the unborn, the unmanifested, the uncreated, there would be no escape from the born, the manifested, and the created. And I'm adding in my free translation. And you would be completely stuck in it and with it. So there is a dimension in every human that is far deeper than what you conventionally consider is the I. So you can say there is the I that is defined through thought, and there is a deeper I that is not defined. And the purpose of your existence really is, in evolutionary terms, is to find that deeper being, the undefined, the unknown, and bring that into this dimension and into your life. And you all have made the discovery already that you don't need to think continuously. And that your deeper sense of who you are does not depend on what your mind is saying about who you are. There is a more immediate, much more real sense of I than you could ever find through thinking about who you are. So to access the unmanifested, the unborn, the uncreated, if you want to use those words, you have to find within yourself the space of no thought, which is always there. It's just covered up by continuous thought. Doesn't have to be. So gradually you find that the unknown you comes through more and more. First you have to become comfortable. I mentioned it briefly the other day. First you need to become comfortable when you enter that space with not knowing anything. Because that is the. You are accessing the unknown, the undefined, which is primordial intelligence itself, not intelligence that has become thought. That's the only thing you can measure to a limited degree. But there is primordial intelligence. In order to access that, you have to give up. Not completely, because it's still there, but your reliance, exclusive reliance and main reliance on accumulated knowledge and on thinking. If you don't give up your reliance on conditioned knowledge and thinking, you can never go beyond. So you would Be very limited, not be creative and ultimately not wise. You can have a highly developed mind, but lacking in wisdom. And to have a highly developed mind and lacking in wisdom as an underlying guiding force, and that comes from the deeper level. To have that highly developed mind, whether it's a person or a society culture, is a dangerous thing because that mind can create havoc for yourself and others. And the more developed it is, the more destructive it potentially is also. So you find that often with people who, some people who run countries, of course, they have a university degree and they. Well, not all, but some might be considered intelligent in conventional terms. And yet very often their actions are actually very unintelligent. They don't take into account the totality of the situation, the deeper implications of their actions. So they are not. Whatever they say or do is not connected to the realm of wisdom. Don't need to mention any names, but. But look at any politician that comes to mind. Look at the past 20 years, some may come to mind such lack of wisdom, quite amazing. And then you have the highly developed industry that creates dreadful weapons of destruction. And these people who make these, they're all intelligent, otherwise they wouldn't be able to do that. But how can you build an atom bomb without intelligence? It requires highly intelligent people. So wisdom, intelligence needs to be guided by something deeper. And that deeper then can actually use the mind, the human mind, as an instrument for its expression. And so again, in order to get to that place, which is not a place, it's just a deeper dimension to who you are, you need to give up that reliance, that unconscious belief that you continuously need to think to work things out, because otherwise things will get out of control. So every moment you need to have some kind of comes to some kind of conclusion about this, what's happening at this moment, immediately have some kind of opinion and conclusion and call it something. And often at school, that quick, the quick, like very quick, the comeback is often encouraged. The people who are. When the teacher asks questions, the one who can give the quickest answer is usually considered the best. And then there are others who may be slower and they don't even have time to raise their hand because they haven't. It hasn't sunk in yet. The question hasn't. The question needs to sink in and then at some point an answer may come, but they don't wait for them. There was, for example, When Einstein was 4 years old, his parents became concerned because the serious concern was that he might be mentally retarded because he was so slow thinking. So we need to have that courage to go into that unknown place. And what is that unknown place, which is not a place. It's not to impose immediately interpretations on the world and on situations and on people and whatever arises. So to be able to just look at things, look not just visually, but look in, also used metaphorically, which means to give attention to whatever is here now. And to feel the power of your attention itself, which is intelligence, like a light that shines on a situation or on a person. And to feel that inherent power of consciousness that flows is not produced by you, it comes through you. Then you feel enormous amount of so called self confidence, not egoic self confidence, but you are connected with. You can feel there's a power at the depths of who you are. And that power can flow into this moment. And it is there when you give your fullest attention to something and you're not thinking about it, you're just looking, you're just giving attention. It could be a situation, a person, you're looking at whatever it is, you're just there as a field of attention, of awareness. And so you are the bringer of awareness. And that flows from a deep place that is far transcends who you are as this physical form. That deep place connects you not only with others, all other humans, it also connects you with the source of all life. And so you are not disconnected, you just seem to be. And the ego is a disconnected sense of self. You are not disconnected from the totality of the universe. You are an aspect of the totality of the universe. You are not autonomous. That's the delusion that every person is considered to be an independent consciousness. Whereas the truth is every person is an expression of the one consciousness. So when you can feel that one consciousness as presence within yourself, you don't go around in continuous anxiety anymore. What's the next thing that's going to upset me? And of course it always comes. So in other words, a certain confidence comes in that is not based on anything that you have perhaps achieved on the level of form. It's not confidence because you have an important position. It's not confidence because you have accumulated wealth. Not confidence because other people think you are great or not confidence because you have a certain ability that you have developed that you are better at than most people. Usually those things. Or you look, you look better than most people, at least above average, either good looks or you have a great body. So all those things could give you your sense of confidence. So a person who is very good looking would gain most. Unless there are other factors where that person is even more remarkable. But in the absence of other factors, the good looking person would predominantly gain self confidence from looking in the mirror and seeing other people's reactions to who they are, which could be admiration and envy, depending on who is looking at you. And the ego would quite love that. It loves admiration and envy. And so it feels you feel confident because, because you're so good and good looking. And that could last for a few years. And then it gets shaky because good looks don't last indefinitely. And that's just one example. But whatever it is, it could be wealth, it could be what other people think of you. So you derive confidence from some source, but it's always very shaky. SA.