Don’t Miss the Now by Hurrying through Life | Eckhart Tolle

That forest trail that leads up to this building, that would be enough. All you need, walk it consciously four times a day. What else do you need? Enough. Walking it consciously means one step at a time, means perceiving without labeling the beauty. Even without labeling it beauty. The depth you are walking, the depth in which the perception happens. And the step you are taking at this moment is not a means to an end. If you're walking along the forest trail in order to get here, this could happen. Every step that you take is a means to an end. And that's not conscious. The end is mind. Mind projected future. I need to get there. So it could happen. Especially if you're late, you may be hurrying. Maybe he started speaking already and I'm missing something important. But you're missing that step. This definitely is more important than what the speaker is saying at that moment. The amazing thing is you can actually walk fast. Also, you're not reduced to walking slowly always. No, to walk consciously. You could even hurry to get somewhere. And you're really. Maybe there is little time. Maybe you need to catch it train or whatever it may be. And maybe you need to very quickly. Now you have five minutes to pack your suitcase. And that can be very beautiful to still be present even when there's fast movement. Enjoy every movement of that. The energy movement of it. It's an energy dance. And there you are going through your drawers, picking this and that, and not even without. When you're present, thought is just an interference. Because all you do in the state of presence is you see, you look. And in that perception, the looking reveals to you what is needed. Without going through the complicated and complicating process of thinking certain things. Yes, thought may be required, but you may be surprised for how many things. Thought is actually more of a hindrance than a help. The ability to just look in that clarity of clear, the clear space of awareness. You look at any situation in that looking. Again, it's the same kind of looking that we are pointing to here when we speak of looking at a tree, looking at a flower. But if there is pressure on you due to some external challenge, it could be something as simple as needing to get ready, it's late, or more of a pressure, some situation. Then you may find that the alertness that is there as you look intensifies. So facing an imminent danger coming towards you, that looking would intensify. And out of that action then comes. So it could be a simple thing like needing to see, what is it that I need to pack? I only have five minutes. And then you simply look and you take what you know beyond thought, what is needed. And you take very effective way of handling things. If you started to think you would become stressed. I only have five minutes and I have to work out what I'm going to pack. And you're projecting yourself to the end of the five minutes when you need to be ready. It's so much pressure produced. But there's only this movement now. So any situation clear, looking at any situation that may appear complex, reveals to you what is needed. If anything is needed. If any action is needed, you will find yourself doing it. Or you will find yourself not doing anything. There are situations that are better left alone in one's life. And knowing what situation requires action and what situation is better left alone. You could agonize over that. If you start thinking for a long time, should I or shouldn't I? If I do, on the other hand. But so the ability to come to a situation and simply see that there is a space of awareness. It is intelligence operating. But it is not intelligence as most humans know it. It is not the intelligence that does the crossword puzzles. The intelligence that is good at solving IQ tests. Although it may come in even there, I don't know, it hasn't in my case. It is an intelligence that works not analytically. It doesn't break things down into bits of information. Because the human mind has certain similarities with a computer. It analyzes, breaks it down the thinking mind. But then there's another. There's a depth there. Also there's a greater intelligence than the personal mind. And that is there when awareness arises and becomes part of the perception. That is silent intelligence operating, unconditioned consciousness operating in your life. Things get much easier. Then needing to work things out. A lot of that falls away. So how it's so important we started with such a simple thing like looking at a tree. And allow the perception to arise in the space of awareness. In then situations you're not always in such peaceful surroundings as here. Some people would say it is easier to be present here because you are not being challenged. That may be true for some, quite a few. For others it is true that they become more present when they are challenged. Some people are drawn into unconsciousness the moment the first challenge comes into their lives. Which could be leaving here and stepping onto the ferry or missing the ferry. And so there could be this peaceful four days, five whatever it is here. And suddenly a little thing goes not the way it's supposed to go and the reactivity comes back. Could do, oh my God. Or it could be that the first challenge comes, whatever it may be, and you go, oh. You recognize immediately the isness of that. It's the suchness of that mist, the fairy. And that moment is good. Your retreat can last a little longer. Cooperate with the movement of life internally. Always. Great power lies in that, behind anything that goes wrong. If you cooperate with that movement that the mind calls wrong, cooperate internally with that movement that the mind has labeled bad, you can be sure that it turns around or something reveals itself that is of a greater good than the good that you seem to have lost. In that situation that you call bad, there's always hiding something underneath that which the mind had labeled bad. When you continue to be trapped in that labeling mind, you don't even see that most of the time. It can then not reveal itself to you. You wouldn't even see it because you've already decided that this situation is bad. And then the good that's hiding, more often than not, you would not even see, or it cannot even come through. So we are going back now to the forest trail where it all starts, where you take one step at a time. There's such beauty in walking. Not surprisingly, Buddhists have developed mocking meditation to simply bring awareness into something that otherwise would be reduced to something meaningless, a means to an end, automatic anything. You can bring awareness to that otherwise, that is often with you or always with you, but usually you wouldn't even know it because it's always there or it's usually an unconscious movement. And those are beautiful meditations. There's no real technique here. You're simply bringing consciousness to what's already there. So I recommend for the rest of the time that particularly when you walk here between your room and the beach, or on the beach, or between here along the trail, to be conscious of walking of each step, you don't need to change the way you walk. When Buddhists learn walking meditation, it's fine, they do it their way. You do it very kind of. Every walk is a kind of very careful movement of the foot. The heel goes down, the rest of the foot goes down and the heel goes up, and then the foot lifts up. Let's keep it more simple. Just simply watch. That's the way the walking that's taking place now. The other one is fine too. But here, let's just do the normal walk and be conscious of each step, the simplicity of each step, and the beauty that's in there. Where does that beauty come from? Is it in that step? Well, to some extent, but it really arises out of the awareness, that sense of aliveness, that sense of beingness, of presence that is there with every step. It's not the step in itself. It is because awareness arises and the step happens within that spaciousness of awareness. And that awareness is beauty beyond form. That awareness is sacred. Then every step is sacred that you take. There is something that you cannot describe that is there. There is a quality, every step, an aliveness. And that's only walking. And of course, as you walk, you also perceive, says that, and you watch. It's the end of believing that all you are is a person. An exclusively personalized sense of self, a walking. To use the expression of that writer, one could almost say you're just a walking narrative story with your memories and heavy. And so you're walking as consciousness, a field of consciousness. Perceiving you are a field of consciousness. It is a lessening. This is why we are here. As you spend time here, there's a lessening of the personal dimension of your life. Not that you lose it completely. If you lost it completely all at once, it would be very disconcerting. So that doesn't usually happen. It happens to some people, but probably not to you. And it's not necessary. There is a lessening of deriving your sense of self from your personal life and having to carry that around with you and remember it all the time. Me and my story. And it hasn't worked out yet, it hasn't quite completed yet. So there's the future. Constantly hanging over your head is a threat. Oh God, what is going to happen to me if you walk around like that? It's a burden just to be alive. And you can walk in the forest with a thread over your head of your future. Of course it can come in. When you fall back into mind, you realize the future is uncertain. Oh my God, Maybe I'm not going to get what I need to complete my life. Or maybe what I have now might be lost, and so on. So that exclusively personal me becomes transparent as awareness arises. And more and more you go through life and you go into situations. Not just when everything is fine. You will find it arising also when situations are difficult. And you may find that whereas before any challenge or difficulty in your life, and the world is full of that, you go back into the world, and before you know it, it will face you in one day with five challenges, 10 challenges, often in the form of people. Occasionally it's a mist ferry, but it's in the form of people more often than not. And so the challenges come and you may find what before the challenge pulled you back into reactivity. And the miracle is when a certain level of presence has been reached within yourself. There comes a point when it is less likely that a challenge will pull you back into unconscious reactivity. Then you complain you are a personal self. Complaining that the world is not complying with your wants and desires. Complaining in your head or out. The world is not doing what you want it to do. Basically, that's the challenges. It's not going the way it's supposed to go. And so there's the complaining. And that's the reactivity of the egoic sense of self and fear. And when a certain level of presence has been reached, which may be the case with most of you, you will find a change happening. And that change is that the challenge could still pull you into. Occasionally it still pulls you into unconsciousness. But there's a different tendency now, and that is for the challenge to intensify the alertness. That is that state of spacious presence, that is the non reactive state. And so there now there is the ability to look at the challenge or the situation in that clarity of awareness. And you have accessed an intelligence that is greater than the accumulated intelligence. And that intelligence is not confined to your head. That intelligence is connected to the totality. So it can even operate and seemingly come in as an external factor. Once you have accessed not just operates from within you, that intelligence, it also operates from without. And that often happens as just the right thing happening for that situation, such as is the case in synchronistic events and so on, or just simply at the right moment. What is needed is suddenly, suddenly it appears. And sometimes almost. It won't fall down from the sky, but it sometimes you see, how could that have happened? Just where did that come from? And the intelligence operates both ways. This is a the beauty of that intelligence. You have accessed the totality. You are no longer cutting yourself off by tying yourself into a little knot within the web of the whole. The little knot claiming an independent existence for itself. And it's called me. And the rest of the web of the interconnectedness of all things. That's the world. The rest of the world. It.