Eckhart Teaches a Young Man - Full Length Movie

When I had been in my darkest moment, I happened to read the Power of Now. What Eckhart Tolle had to say about happiness had been the impetus to go on this journey. I was in Vancouver to meet him. You were there on a park bench for two years. And you. You slept on the park bench?

Rarely. But I did spend most of the days on park benches in parks, different parks in London.

Did you eat three meals a day?

No. No. One meal a day, if I was lucky. As you sit here, is it possible for you to simply watch what's happening around you without adding any interpretation to it, to just be present with what is, and you get a taste of what it's like to be on a park bench with nothing further needing to be added to this moment. The sounds, sights, people, sound of the water.

The light. Just allow it to be as it is.

With that comes peace. You don't get continuously drawn into events and thoughts and emotions and reactions. You are the wider space in which.

All these things happen.

You are the awareness behind it, without which none of this would be here. It would just be atoms and molecules in space. You are the awareness that enables this entire world to be. And so knowing that that is who you truly are, not through a concept, but through the actual realization of stepping back and allowing the phenomenal world to be as it is at this moment, allowing this moment to be as it is, that takes you deeper into yourself. And you may notice there's a certain peace in the background that happens. An alertness is required for this. You need to stay alert to what is, to sense perceptions and the energy behind sense perceptions, which is the consciousness, the alertness that's there. Without the alertness, you will drift off into thinking. And then you think about the next. What's going to happen to me tomorrow? There is a place for making plans, but not right here on the park bench. This isn't the place for thinking about tomorrow. Because you miss all this beauty and aliveness around you and even your cold. Not to even think about it as a cold. No, it just is the sensation of it. Don't even need to call it cold. And then that's okay too. It's okay. The reactivity goes out of life always against something, wanting to clutch at something.

What about the search for meaning?

Now you notice that just a moment ago you were in that state of alert presence. And it never takes long for another thought to come in and ask a question, because thought cannot tolerate the state of presence. So it will always come in and say, yeah, but what About I don't quite understand yet. Can you tell me what does it all mean? So it wants to add something, wants to control in some way by understanding what this all means.

Now.

If you can let go just for a moment, not for the rest of your life, just for this moment, let go of the need to understand anything, so that you're truly present in this moment. So you don't need to do it for the next hour or the next 10 minutes, just right now, just what is. But don't forget yourself, because you are the consciousness behind it. You are the space, the presence. Can you feel that your body is alive? So stay with that feeling and then perceive. It's easier to perceive without interpretation. When you can feel that your body is alive, you feel the inner aliveness throughout your body. So some attention, some of your attention is there. The rest is on the outside world.

That roots you in the present moment.

It anchors you in the present moment. And if a thought comes into your mind, you can watch that also. Just the same way as you watch a dog walking past, you can watch a thought arising in your mind, and you don't have to follow it to where it wants to go. So you simply watch the thought that arises in your mind and let it go. In the same way that the dog walks past you. Or if you choose to, you can follow the thought and then you can say, I just thought of another question can do that too. But you see the possibility that also in the same way that you observe the outer world, here as you sit on the bench, you can also observe the inner world, the world of thoughts and emotions. Thoughts want to arise continuously, and that's fine, that's what they do. But there's no need to get drawn into each thought that arises and immediately go with it to where it wants to go.

Otherwise you're just.

You're always following every thought, like a dog following the scent.

Does it matter which?

No, it doesn't matter. You can experiment. You can experiment with thought. You can follow some thoughts, and you can watch other thoughts. You find out for yourself. You can play. You can see that you are bigger than your thoughts. You don't have to be dominated by your thoughts, because thoughts create lots of problems too. Unnecessary problems. And they can obscure the aliveness of life. At this moment, there are many people walking around here who are thinking about other things. They're thinking about the next one. They're thinking about tomorrow. But this is not the place for that. There is a place for planning and thinking about tomorrow. But why spoil the beauty of this and the aliveness of this. We're thinking about the next moment. Is that going to be better than this one?

This is it.

It's not going to get that much better. This is what could be more beautiful than. It's the awakening of something within you that is deeper than thought. That's really the main thing. And that's already there. You just didn't know it.

Why didn't I know this?

It's a deep seated habit of being totally identified with thinking. It's the human condition which could be described as lost in thought. Because up to now evolution has been unconscious, it was automatic. But now evolution is consciously chosen by a species. And that's a revolutionary thing. And you are part of that.

I can still make movies. I can still have a girlfriend, even if I'm.

Yes, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's a playground. You play around with the world, you take action, you relate. But you're not lost in it. Most humans are lost in it.

What about pain? I mean physical pain or emotional pain of losing someone?

Most of the human pain is psychologically created. There's an enormous amount of psychological pain. Suffering. I call that when suffering goes. And there's a possibility for humans now to live without suffering.

That is the possibility.

There may still be some physical pain. It may be that you get toothaches or bodily pains from time to time. Suffering is another level that lies on top of the pain. Suffering implies a story. A little me that is unhappy, a mentally constructed entity. The little me that has an unhappy story, that is its identity. And that creates an enormous amount of suffering. Not only do you make yourself suffer, you make people around you suffer. To be at one with life is to be at one with the present moment, because that's the only place where life can be found. You cannot leave the space of now that stays with you whatever you do and wherever you go. Your life has never been not now, and will never be not now. Are you making the present moment into an enemy some way internally, through thinking about something that's nothing to do with now? I need to figure something out. Well, first of all, be here fully. And then whatever is needed in your life comes. It comes out of the power that.

Dwells in the present moment that most people overlook.

There's an enormous power here which is the power of life itself. And most people look for something and ignore this. And the power of life itself is inseparable from who you are in the depth of your being. Many times you will forget, but the moment you realize that you forgot, there's a possibility of saying, ah, yes, I lost the present moment. And there's a possibility of choosing to re enter the present moment. The first thing that happens when you re enter the present moment, you become more aware of sense perceptions. You suddenly, there's a greater alertness. And then you become more aware of the aliveness in your body.

You feel the life within.

It's like the entire vibrational frequency of your body shifts when you become present. It's a different state of consciousness.

More alert, more alive.

And many times you will lose it. And then you'll remember. That's good enough. Now then, don't believe the mind when it tells you, oh, you can't do it now. You've got too much on your mind. You can't be bothered with the present moment. Those are just thoughts. There's no need for you to follow those thoughts. Just watch them. They are thoughts that the mind throws up. You don't need to believe in them because they're not true. And the mind tells you, you can't be present now because you've got too much on your mind. Then, okay, you can say, okay, let's see if that's true. Then you feel, there's an aliveness in my hand, there's an aliveness in my body. There's beauty all around. And you become present again.

Alertness.

The alertness returns. And when there is time to think, then you think. Then you sit down and say, okay, let's think. What plane am I going to catch tomorrow? What time do I have to go to the airport? What do I have to do now? Pick up the phone, make a phone call. Fine. It's beautiful. You're not losing yourself in future. It's practical matters. And once you've done the practical matters you've thought about, you've planned your next week, then you come back to the now. The inner transformation is not really about finding lots of answers to your questions, but finding a new relationship to thought where not every thought seduces you anymore. And if a beautiful girl runs past and you find yourself following her, you don't have to think, oh, I shouldn't be watching this girl because I'm spiritual now.

No, you.

If you can let go just for a moment, not for the rest of your life, just for this moment. Let go of the need to understand anything so that you are truly present in this moment. Just right now, just what is. Don't forget yourself because you are the consciousness behind it.

You are the space.

The presence.

Life.

Wants to support you, but first you need to be open to life.

So you've probably come here with lots of questions. But let's start off with me asking you just one question, and then you can ask yours, okay? May I ask how old you are?

Yes, I'm 24.

24. Not that it matters. So 24 means you've already had quite a few life experiences. You've been to school, you've fallen in love.

I think so.

Fallen out of love?

I think so.

And have had all kinds of experiences, perhaps in different places, meeting different people, different circumstances. The body probably has been, well, most of the time. But you've also experienced maybe one or two illnesses. Now, is there in all those things that you have experienced so far, which is continuously changing flux of things, is there any ingredient in there that was always the same, that didn't change? I'd just like to ask you to see if you can find any ingredient in all the things that you have experienced so far that's always been the same. We could start perhaps by asking, could it be the things around you? Obviously not, because the things around you change continuously. Could it be your thoughts? No, because the thoughts that go through your mind also change continuously. Could it be your feelings or your emotions? No, as you know, they also change all the time. So what is it, if anything, that hasn't changed, that doesn't change? Is there one ingredient in all your experiences, good or bad, up or down, that's always been there?

Well, I think I've been in here. I've been inside.

Now, when you say I, what does that mean? What is that I? Now, because we've already seen, it can't be your thoughts because they change all the time. Your feelings or emotions, they change all the time. Your sense experiences, things that you perceive around you change all the time. So wherever we look, this change. So when you say I and point to the I as that which doesn't change, it cannot be what happens to you. It cannot be the thoughts that go through your mind. It cannot be the emotions, the feelings that you experience. So what is the nature of that I? What does that word mean or point to?

Listening. It's what hears, what's behind.

What'S behind the thoughts, what's behind the sense perceptions, what's behind all the experiences and the feelings and so on. So the question that I'm asking is, does not really require an abstract answer, but I want you to actually feel or sense inside yourself that which doesn't change, no matter where you go, no matter what you do or who you are with, or whether the body is well or unwell. When I ask, you said, it's I. And I've asked, what's the nature of that I? And now you may be stuck for words, but you said one word, and that was listening. Now, when you're truly listening, there is a certain alert spaciousness. Otherwise you're not truly listening. And so if that had to be expressed through a gesture, it could be you could raise a finger gently and say, listen. So I say to you, listen, and you listen. There is a moment of spacious awareness, and there is no thought in it. So when you said listening, you were actually getting very close to the nature of who you truly are underneath all the circumstances. Your life and circumstances includes thoughts and emotions. If you don't find that who or what you are underneath all the circumstances, no matter how many questions you ask and how many good answers you get, won't help you very much. And there will be no end to the questioning because every answer generates further questions. So we are talking about becoming familiar with a different state of consciousness. Not that that has never been there. It's always been there because it's the I, but it's always been overlooked because the circumstances, things that happen to you and your thinking and your emotions have such overwhelming pulling force that they always pull your attention in completely. And so attention is that which is there when you are truly listening. And in the moment of attention, there is no thinking, but there is an aware presence. So the answer that you gave is absolutely right. Not everybody would have put it this way, but listening points to who you truly are underneath all the things that continuously change. Now, I'd like you to, as we speak, this is not an intellectual discussion, because if this were intellectual, you should have gone to a professor of philosophy or some intellectual at a university.

I've been all there.

And ultimately you get many answers. But all those answers will always make you end up with more questions because they don't get you to the core of who you are. So let's start off with that. And what we are pointing to is a sense of I, of beingness that is deeper than anything that happens in your life. That's always there, has always been there right now. And that is closely related to the state of attentive listening. To get in touch with that, to sense it. Underneath it all, there is a timeless presence. Even in 50 years time, in 60 years time, when this body is getting old and this body, the cells, it won't be the same body, the Cells of the body will have been renewed many times. There's not a. There won't be a single cell materially. There won't be a single thing that's left. In 50 years, even though you may still be alive, there won't be a single thing that's left materially that's here now. Every cell will have been renewed and so the body will have grown older. And yet something timeless deep within will still be exactly the same as it is now, untouched by time. I, I, before it becomes this or that. Because the moment you say I am American, I am this or that, I am a professional, or I am a jobless person, or I am a millionaire, or I am a homeless person, these all form identifications with changing circumstances. And so people look for something there to provide permanency in their lives. They want to identify with something that they finally can say. There, that's it, I found it. What they really want to say is I found myself finally. So they look for themselves through external possessions, through acquired knowledge, through an accumulation of experiences or sexual encounters. Some people derive their sense of self from that. The more women you can conquer or seduce or have sex with, the more you feel, I'm getting somewhere. Of course, after a few years you realize it's not getting you anywhere. Not if you are. Nothing will get you anywhere. Which means to yourself, if you are looking for yourself in any experience, and that's the fallacy of most people, they look for themselves in changing circumstances. They look for themselves in their thought processes. They identify with their thoughts and opinions and their judgments and this and that, and it changes. Your opinions may change. You may be a Democrat now and in 50 years time, when you become a solid citizen, you may become a Republican. You have completely different set of opinions. It's just different set of opinions. And then you feel the thoughts have changed, but the underlying I hasn't changed. So can you go through life being in touch with that? Being in touch with that in the different situations, different circumstances, different places, so that you are not completely lost in the things? I sometimes call it the thingness of life. One thing after another. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you haven't found yourself yet, if you don't know what that I is, then you're looking for the I in things. And things include your thinking. Because every thought is also a formation. It's a. It has a certain form, a thought form. It comes and then it goes. Every emotion it comes. It's an energy field inside you. It comes as a certain Lifespan and then it subsides and then another one comes. That's all the thingness of life. It's forms that come and go all the time. The only thing that doesn't come and go is I, that which underlies all that. And that's not an intellectual thing that I'm trying to convince you of, because that would not be helpful. The question is, at this moment, can I sense the presence that I am? That is prior to anything that happens to me or has ever happened, or can ever happen. Can I sense that right now? Yes, you can. Because if you couldn't, you wouldn't have said listening. Because listening you already knew it came from that deeper place of alert attention that in itself has no content. The content comes when things happen. But in itself, the I that you are, one could describe it as space. It's not lifeless, it's full of life. All of life comes out of that. But in itself it is spacious. Buddha called it emptiness. And it's completely misunderstood by people because the university professors look at the word emptiness and then say the Buddha was. Buddhist teachings are life denying the total opposite is true because Jesus called the same space the fullness of the life. Because at the same time, it is life in its fullness. To be able to sense that. At first it's very subtle in the background, but as you become familiar with that dimension, it's always there somewhere, no matter what you do. Even when you meet a beautiful girl and you're talking to her and you can from there you can, you can listen to yourself talking and it's fine, you're not totally lost in your experiences. There's always a sense of aliveness and peace in the background. And that influences how you live your life, that sense, the I, the timeless I. Because on the surface you have the time bound I that grows older. It identifies with thinking and emotions and things happen to it and so on. But underneath it is the timeless I. Now, the word I is probably the most frequently used word in the language. Whenever you listen to people say what's the most. The words they use most frequently. When you listen to a conversation, probably you'll find it's the word I. Now, what they refer to is not the timeless because they haven't found that. They refer to a superficial sense of identification with things, with thinking, with emotions. I am angry, I am American, I am this, I am that identification with something. So that I is the greatest delusion because there is no substance there, nothing permanent.

So if I'm not something, am I nothing?

Yes, I would pronounce that differently though. I would say you are no thing. Now, there's a difference between no thing and nothing. Nothing is simply denial. But no thing means there is a presence there. But it has no form, nothing that you can grasp. It has no shape and no form and no name. The ancient Chinese call it the Dao, which cannot be named. There's a beautiful, it's 3,000 years old Chinese book of wisdom, the Dao Te Ching. I recommend it to everybody. And the first line in it is, the Dao that can be named or spoken of is not the true Tao. And so that there is the presence that you sense. A presence that has no form. In ancient language, Christian, Hebrew, there's the word spirit. But I don't use that word because it's been used for hundreds of years and misunderstood. So if I used spirit, people would immediately have some image of what it is, some form, or call it the Holy Spirit. And there's hundreds of years of misconceptions of what spirit is. So we forget about the word spirit. But in its original, true meaning, that's what spirit points to. The essence of who you are is formless. Now, we could use the word consciousness as the essence of who you are. And you can sense it, but you can never grasp it. And you cannot really know it. You can only know something that is not you, an object, anything that becomes an object of consciousness. I look at this plant and I know it by looking at it. And by having a thought, a name for it. I say, I know this plant. This plant is an object that arises in consciousness. And I look at you. I see a shape and a form, and obviously what I see. Nobody knows whether what you see out there is actually there, because the image that you have in your mind of your surrounding environment, there's an optical, the eye, like a camera lens. They send a picture into the brain. The picture is translating to nerve impulses and chemicals that reach the brain. And the brain decodes what I see and then reassembles a picture. And then suddenly I see you. Nobody knows what's actually out there, but let's just leave it here. We have looking at you, this is an object that arises in consciousness in the space that I am. Then I look away and another object arises in the space that I am. Or I listen to something that arises in the space that I am. A thought comes that arises in the space that I am, the presence that I am. But the presence itself, you can't know it in the way that you know a Plant. Or, you know, a person, or, you know, a sound or, you know, a thought. Because it has to. It would have to reflect back on itself. You cannot make it into an object. So you cannot make yourself into an object of knowledge. You can only be that presence, but you can't know it because you would externalize it. And this is the mistake that humans have made over thousands of years. They made themselves into an object. And they talk about me and my story. I'm sure you have one. The story of me. And so when you make yourself into an object, you live with yourself. Some people love themselves one day and they hate themselves the next day. And the following day they're not quite sure. And then you have some other. And then you have feeling guilt. People have relationships with an image that they have in their mind of themselves. Me. People talk to themselves in their mind. Well, that wasn't very good. She didn't do a good thing. Shouldn't have done that. Who is talking to whom? There's a voice in the head that talks to yourself. The mind has split itself in two and is talking to itself. And out of that continuous talking comes the story of me and identification with that. And the questions that you are going to ask probably have a lot to do with the story of me. To find out more about it, about my life. Because, after all, that's what everybody is most interested in. You are here because you are the main character in the story of yourself. And the main character in that story has quite a few things that he feels puzzled about and doesn't understand and wants questions. And the story, in some ways it's worked, and in other ways it hasn't worked. And so the character in the story has come here and wants to know how to make the story work better. Isn't that so?

Yes.

Now, whatever answers anybody can give you of how to make the story work better. There are things you can make the story work better. But all that doesn't really help unless you get to the bottom behind the story, the I behind the story. Then if you are in touch with that throughout your life, the story will unfold with much greater ease. Because there is a deeper dimension that is there. But if there's only the story, nothing will ever satisfy the main character in that story you. If the main character in that story you has never known the deeper I, the timeless presence that is the consciousness that you are the attentive, spacious it can you feel that your body is alive. Because when you feel the aliveness inside your body, I call it inner Body, the usually hyperactive mind slows down. Now, the hyperactive mind is extremely repetitive. You might have noticed that 90, probably 99% of your thoughts, you've had them before, they are repetitive. So new thoughts are relatively rare. When there's only the hyperactive mind, it's just the old, same old things going through your mind again and again. The moment you feel the inner body, in order to be able to feel the aliveness here, some of your attention has to go from the head within into the body. So you're removing some attention away from thinking. It doesn't necessarily mean that thinking stops totally, but it subsides, slows down. There may even be little spaces in between one thought and the next thought. So thinking slows down because part of your attention is in the inner energy field, the aliveness that most people never feel because they are so absorbed in their thoughts, they don't even feel that they are alive anymore. So thinking subsides. Or even little spaces in between thoughts. And then it's much more likely that thoughts that come then are new thoughts. Sometimes they are insights. They are new ways of looking at things, sudden realizations. They can only come if you are able to calm the mind, but not as something that you feel I need to calm my mind, but simply by diverting attention away from it, not by making some effort to calm your mind. All you do is you take attention away from it. And so then there is more spaciousness, not just one thought after another. And then your thinking actually improves, which means it's more alive, more original, it's more powerful. You have better ideas. And the way in which you interact with people is more real. Because the real comes not from the accumulated stuff in your mind. That's all the roles that you play, not just you. Everybody, everybody plays their roles. They've been conditioned to play certain roles. You have an image of who you are. When you meet a beautiful woman, you play a certain role. You want to have the best possible image. You present the best possible image, and she does the same. You can observe it. When two young people are attracted to each other, they meet the first few days and weeks. They look different from the way they usually look because they present an image that wants to attract the other. And it's unconscious. It's a role that they play. It's only after the honeymoon, when everyday life begins, that gradually the image. And you believe that that image that you see in her is who she is, and she believes that. You don't know that you're both playing roles, but you cannot keep up the roles indefinitely. So after the honeymoon, gradually they wear down the roles. And then there comes. Becomes some discontent arises, and suddenly the mask slips. The role. You can't play a role continuously. The role of me, the attractive one. So that's to get out of the role playing that otherwise you're stuck with for the rest of your life. You have a certain role for your part, partner for a while. You have another role for your work situation. You have another role for wherever you go. You slip into subtle differences in the way in which you behave. When you talk to the chairman of the board or the Dalai Lama, you will behave in a certain way. And then you might notice when you talk to the plumber, there will be subtle differences in the way in which you talk. You play a different role. You think, oh, this is not appropriate here, right? It's only when you stop playing roles. When you observe the Dalai Lama, how he behaves now, you might have thought, well, the Dalai Lama probably plays the role of the Dalai Lama. But he doesn't. There's such simplicity, openness and genuineness in him. He talks the same way to everybody. Whether he meets the plumber or the Pope. Makes no difference, because he doesn't play conditioned roles anymore. And that is only possible when you access a dimension within yourself that is deeper than the mind. And we just did it, or we are still doing it simply by taking attention away from thought and direct it into the aliveness of the body. That means suddenly there's some space between thoughts. And then you can relate to other human beings more genuinely. And you don't need to prepare things that you're going to say next. You don't say things in order to manipulate that person. You don't say things in order to create an effect. They simply. Spontaneity comes out of that place. Spontaneity doesn't come out of the accumulated stuff in your mind. The spontaneity comes only to the extent that you can access the dimension that is deeper than mind, which we may call the deeper I, which we may call alert stillness. That is always there. Alert spaciousness, access that. So mind subsides. Then you live differently the more you access. At the moment, these are only glimpses for you, but that's good enough. A glimpse later becomes a wider space. So that is something to remember, not as a memory, but to remember to do in your daily life as much as possible. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whoever you are talking to, or even when you're alone, go within. Sometimes and feel that the body is alive. There's life in my hands. You're not imagining anything. You actually feel that there is an aliveness here. And then once you can feel the hands, you can feel the arms, the feet, the legs, you are inhabiting the body. And the body loves that. It loves your attention. Most people don't give their body attention, even if they look after the body extreme. Like you go to a gym every day, or you use all kinds of stuff to put on your body. You might think that these people are looking after their body, or all they're looking after is the. The external of the body. They are not necessarily present within. They cannot feel the aliveness. Some maybe they can, but most not. They are only concerned with the external body. Here we are concerned with the inner. So it doesn't matter. The inner body has nothing to do with what the external body looks like. Whether you're 80 years old or 20 years old, whether you have a young body or an old body. The sensation of the inner body is always the same. It's alive. And the body loves your attention. It's a bit like when you don't give enough attention to a child. After a while the child cries because it wants to attract your attention. The baby does it. And then finally you give. Because attention is energy. It's enormous energy. Now, most attention. Attention is consciousness. Most attention for most people is continuously absorbed by thinking. You can see it when you talk to them. They're not there really. They're thinking. They're looking at you, but they're thinking about the next thought. They're going to ask as you sit there, maybe you're thinking about, okay, I have to. What's my next question? And that's normal. It's not a personal fault of yours. Normal to lose yourself and then you lose. That means you're not really present when you're thinking about the next thing. So that's normal. So you don't have to beat yourself up for that. It's normal. But there is another way to live. And that's the way to be present. To give attention not just to your thoughts, to give attention to your body. If you don't give enough attention to a child, of course a child can also become addicted to attention. But that's a different matter. There needs to be a balance. But a child does need attention. It's vital. Not an excessive amount, but enough. Because attention is energy and the body loves it as much as a child. It wants to be noticed. It wants your attention. And if it doesn't it cries, it might become ill. That's the crying of the body. You're neglecting it. You're not inhabiting it. You're inhabiting the uppermost loft in your house. You're in a big house and you live always in the under the roof. You never go downstairs. There are lots of floors. You have no idea what's going on there. So that's a vital thing. And it is a way of also accessing the space within. That is the I that has no form. That is the consciousness. That is also intelligence. We think of intelligence as the mind's ability to accumulate knowledge and to solve problems. That's probably what we consider to be intelligence. But that's an extremely narrow view of what intelligence is. What people can measure in IQ tests is an extremely narrow view of intelligence. I cannot solve the most, the simplest of IQ tests, so I've never done a total test. But I'm sure my IQ would be extremely low because that is not how this mind works. Solving little puzzles. I've never been able to do that. But intelligence is a much vaster thing than the ability to accumulate information and then regurgitate it or analyze it or cut it into smaller and smaller pieces. What they do at universities, research projects, the pieces are getting smaller and smaller and smaller. The PhD subjects are getting more and more and more specialized because so many people are working on things. And then you have to tiny pieces like, okay, I take this piece and write my PhD about that, can cut that up a hundred times. And then once you've written your PhD, somebody else comes and takes a tiny piece out of that and says, I can cut this up even further. And that's considered intelligence. But true intelligence, the true intelligence resides in that dimension of alert stillness. If you have access to that, that's where the original intelligence resides. So anybody who is creative, there are not that many human beings in this world who are truly creative. Anybody who's creative has some access, perhaps only in the little area of their field of expertise where they have some access to that dimension, this stillness. Einstein had it, he was very slow. He was not considered intelligent at school because he was too slow, they said. Not suitable for mathematics, they said, and physics because his thinking was very slow. Now what does it mean? It means there were lots of spaces in between the thoughts. He wasn't at school like one of the so called intelligent children. Always when the teacher asks a question, the hand goes up immediately. I know, I know that's very superficial. Occasionally it may be okay, but there are Some children, and that is not recognized by our society, who are very deeply intelligent, but not in the way that we consider what we consider intelligence. And they tend to be slower. They don't immediately have an answer because they know it's superficial. To have a true answer, you have to go deeper within. But if you allowed those children to go deeper, then you would see how original their thinking actually is. So when we just went into the. You went into the body, already you noticed some new thoughts came. Not the old thoughts. It only requires a tiny space for something new to arise. Not that you are doing it in order to have new thoughts. You are doing it because it feels good to feel the aliveness within you. And the more familiar you become with that, with inhabiting your body, the more strongly you can feel that aliveness. It's almost as if you could feel every cell of the body vibrating slightly. It's a beautiful feeling, just an aliveness there. And that is an enormously healing thing to do for the body.

I really want to know about guilt. I feel guilty all the time for little things I'm doing or that I'm not doing. And there are things that I know I did that were mistakes to other people. So I know that you're supposed to be free and liberated in the now. But shouldn't I feel bad about this stuff and what's going to keep me if I'm free and liberated in the now from, like, doing bad things to people?

Human beings act out of their conditioning. So every human being is conditioned by their upbringing, by the surrounding culture, by many factors, conditioned to think and feel and. And behave in certain ways. And so people do all kinds of things to other people and even to themselves without knowing what they are doing. They are simply acting out the conditioning of their mind. And Jesus knew that because he said on the cross, forgive them, for they know not what they do. So humans create an enormous amount of suffering for themselves and others, but they don't know that this is what they are doing. People act out of conditioning. So when you suddenly see that something that you did in the past created suffering for yourself or others, both. When you see that the seeing of it does not come out of the conditioning of your mind. When you become aware of certain behavior or thought patterns in you, the awareness, the presence, the deeper presence that you are has come in. And from there you can see what you did was very limited. It created suffering for yourself or somebody else or other people, and you didn't even know it. So what was acting at that time? If you say, that was me, and therefore I must be bad. You are equating the conditioned mind, your conditioned mind, the conditioning of your mind with who you are. If you say, I did that, therefore I'm bad, or continuously think about it. You're equating who you are with what we could call unconsciousness. Unconsciousness means to be totally identified with the conditioning of the mind. So you just have to act it out. Now, there's still millions of humans on the planet who live in that way. Because the dimension of awareness hasn't arisen yet. So they never know what they are doing. They continue to inflict suffering on themselves and others, to act unconsciously. But they don't know that this is what they're doing. They cannot do otherwise. So the moment you this is what I did. Who you are is the awareness that sees that who you are is not what you did. What you did was the conditioning of your mind playing itself out. So you trap yourself in an illusory identity. If you feel that I did that, no. Who are who is speaking? Who is I? Are you the conditioned patterns of your mind? Or are you the awareness that sees? That's the spaciousness within the deeper I that sees what the mind is doing. It sees what the mind created in the past. It even sees what the mind is creating at this very moment. If you are aware of the things, the thoughts that go through your head, how you speak to another human being, you may be acting out a role. And suddenly there's an awareness that you know that you are acting out a role. And then comes the possibility of instead of being the role, being the awareness. And then act in a truly genuine way with enhanced intelligence. So the unconscious action was unintelligent action. Because it was action created by the conditioning of your mind. Which has nothing to do with who you are. So there's a tendency for the mind to personalize the conditioning and say, I did that. And that creates guilt. And that keeps you trapped in a very narrow sense of self. Because you have equated who you consider to be yourself. With conditioned patterns that you acted out. At the time it wasn't you. It was unconscious, human unconsciousness no more. And now you see it, so you see it. And at this moment, you would not act in this way. Because the awareness is there. Maybe the awareness will stay and this will never happen again. It also possible that the awareness becomes obscured again. And the same behavior pattern happens again. And you don't know it except afterwards, when the awareness comes again. Oh, I did it again. And this can happen quite frequently. So it's important, it's good to be aware afterwards. If you do not misuse the mind, don't allow the mind to misuse the awareness and make some identity, manufacture some identity out of that for yourself and say that was me, it wasn't me. That's the main thing. Who are you? You are the awareness. Anything else is forms that arise, thought forms, emotional forms, behaviour patterns. So your destiny and your purpose in life is to increasingly be the awareness rather than the conditioned pattern. But as long as the conditioned pattern is there, it's there. It's good. If you, if the moment, the moment of transformation comes, if the awareness is there while the pattern plays itself out, that's the beginning of the end of the conditioned pattern. So if it's, if it's a certain kind of behavior, perhaps with women you do essentially the same kind of thing and it happens again and again and the awareness comes afterwards. And one day the awareness comes in the middle of doing it. In the middle of it you see what you are doing, there's a seeing of it and that's the beginning of the end of the pattern. Then it may just one or two more times, the pattern may come up in a weaker form and it will then collapse. So in other words, you're making what was unconscious conscious and that changes it. So you do not have to manipulate yourself and try to engineer inner change. I have to make myself into a better person. That doesn't usually work, that just creates conflict because you have one image of yourself as the good person that you want to be, or that you would like to think of yourself as that, or you'd like others to think of you as a good person. And then you have unconscious behavior patterns that completely contradict that image of a good person. And then for the rest of your life you live in that conflict and the good person can talk to the bad one in your head. It's just two thought patterns. So that doesn't work. What works is to be the awareness, to see it, to be awake enough, alert enough, and that where the present moment comes in to see are you present in this moment to what happens in this moment, not only externally, but internally also. And are you allowing it? Don't reject anything. If you feel a thought comes in, an emotion comes in, and maybe it's not a good thought, maybe your mind says after the thought has come in your mind, oh, that wasn't a good thought, I shouldn't have thought that. But they are both just thoughts, the so called Bad thought was just a thought. And the next thought that wasn't a good thought was just another thought. Now it's possible that the bad thought made you do something bad. That's possible. But the good thought cannot prevent that. The only thing that can prevent that is to be conscious so that the thought does not control you, the conditioned mind doesn't control you. Be there as the witness to your thoughts. Just don't reject anything. So don't go wrong there. I know you're concerned about your mind and certain thoughts that go through your mind. And you would rather be a good person and have good thoughts all the time. But it's not happening. And I can assure you it's not happening to anybody. Somebody who's just having good thoughts. Because the human mind is the human mind. It has polarities of good and bad and high and low. So don't try to bring about on that level the perfect me. It doesn't exist. Allow yourself the imperfections. Allow the thoughts to be there. They come. If you fight them, you make them stronger. People who have the worst problems with thoughts are people who are spiritual, so to speak. They see themselves or are seen by others as spiritual. They have to live the role, for example, the vicar, the priest. They have to live the role of a spiritual person. And they cannot admit to themselves that they have bad thoughts. So they suppress. And they may have bad emotions, anger, resentment. And they, and they say, no, I'm not having bad emotions, I'm a good Christian. They can't even admit to themselves. And that makes it even worse. And then suddenly very bad behavior comes out of them and they don't know where it came from. So all you have to with thought, all you need to be concerned about is to be the awareness. Allow the thoughts. Then they actually have less power over you because you are not. Don't look for yourself in any thought that comes into your head. It's not who you are. They're just thoughts. It's not who you are. If you have bad thoughts for two hours doesn't make you into a bad person. It just means that so called bad thoughts are going through your head. And then you watch it. And as you allow them, there is a deeper space, the I. From there you watch thoughts are like clouds passing. You don't have to follow every thought. And then thoughts can become very tedious. You can have one repetitive thought pattern going on in your mind for hours or even days. Days. You don't have to follow every thought. When you're aware, you watch the Thought. Then it comes. What you're going to do to this obnoxious person? I'm going to kill this obnoxious person. Comes the thought. And then the thought drifts out of and the awareness remains. And then it's lost power already. It's nothing. So you find a spacious relationship with your thoughts. That's you are not, you are nothing that arises in that beautiful space of who you are. The consciousness that you are, which is spacious intelligence. None of that is who you. They are forms, they come and go. So thought is not a problem. Be there as the witness to what goes on inside you. Then change happens by itself. The mind will always have good and bad, up and down. It has polarities. But that's not who you are. And you don't have to act on it. Increasingly you act from the state of aware presence. Action can come from the limited mind and it's not usually skillful. Action or action can arise out of the state of aware presence. So that's the end of guilt.

What's the test? I mean, how do you know? How do you know that this is out of the awareness after the fact? If you could go back and look at your ashes. Yeah, that was out of awareness. No, but that wasn't. How would you know?

Well, you know, awareness doesn't create suffering for yourself or others when it comes out of awareness. So you know, when you look at action, it has a totally different quality to it. It's not self serving. The action did not happen because you needed something from that person. Awareness is not needy. When action arises out of awareness, you do not need to use the other human being for some purpose, ulterior motive. But when you act out of the conditioned mind, the egoic mind, you're always trying to. You're not only trying to use the present moment because you're hoping to get to some better moment. You make the present moment into a means to an end. You also make other human beings into a means to an end because you want something through them. So that's where you want to be with this beautiful woman because you want to be seen with her, or you want to conquer her and so enhance your self image or you want sexual pleasure from her, but you want something. If you are acting out of awareness, the acting is not under the law of wanting. It's not that you want anything. And that's also where loving action can only arise out of that. Because love does not want anything. True love does not want anything. So that's where all you have to with thought all you need to be concerned about is to be the awareness. Allow the thoughts, then they actually have less power over you because you are not. Don't look for yourself in any thought that comes into your head. It's not who you are, they're just thoughts. It's not who you are. If you have bad thoughts for two hours doesn't make you into a bad person. It just means that so called bad thoughts are going through your head. And then you watch it. And as you allow them, there is a deeper space, the I. From there you watch. Thoughts are like clouds passing. You don't have to follow every thought. And then thoughts can become very tedious. You can have one repetitive thought pattern going on in your mind for hours or even days. You don't have to follow every thought. When you're aware, you watch the thought and it comes. What you're going to do to this obnoxious person? I'm going to kill this obnoxious person. Comes the thought and then the thought drifts out of and the awareness remains. And then it's lost power already. It's nothing. So you find a spacious relationship with your thoughts. That's you are not, you are nothing that arises in that beautiful space of who you are. The consciousness that you are, which is spacious intelligence, none of that is who you. They are forms, they come and go. So thought is not a problem. Be there as the witness to what goes on inside you. Then change happens by itself. The mind will always have good and bad, up and down. It has polarities. But that's not who you are. And you don't have to act on it. Increasingly you act from the state of aware presence. Action can come from the limited mind and it's not usually skillful. Action or action can arise out of the state of aware presence. So that's the end of guilt.

What's the test? I mean, how do you know? How do you know that this is out of the awareness after the fact? If you could go back and look at your actions go yeah, that was out of awareness. No, but that wasn't. How would you know?

Well, you know, awareness doesn't create suffering for yourself or others when it comes out of awareness. So you know when you look at action, it has a totally different quality to it. It's not self serving. The action did not happen because you needed something from that person. Awareness is not needy. When action arises out of awareness, you do not need to use the other human being from some purpose ulterior motive. But when you act out of the Conditioned mind, the egoic mind. You're always trying to. You're not only trying to use the present moment because you're hoping to get to some better moment. You make the present moment into a means to an end. You also make other human beings into a means to an end because you want something through them. So that's where the. You want to be with this beautiful woman because you want to be seen with her, or you want to conquer her and so enhance your self image, or you want sexual pleasure from her, but you want something. If you are acting out of awareness. The acting is not under the law of wanting. It's not that you want anything. And that's also where loving action can only arise out of that. Because love does not want, want anything. True love does not want anything. So that's where it's totally selfless action. And when you look back on it, you can see very clearly whether there was self in the action. You wanted something for yourself to enhance yourself, or whether that was truly action, totally free of self. And that's the most effective and the most powerful action is when the self, the image of me, the thought structure of me, goes out of the action and action arises that is totally selfless. That action doesn't create problems. Such the Buddhist monk said when he was asked, what's the meaning of Zen? Zen Buddhism, what's the meaning of Zen? And the monk said, oh, that's easy. No self, no problem. That's it. So you begin to live and act without the mentally constructed. That's it. So you begin to live and act without the mentally constructed self. You live from the aware presence, but for a while the two are there. And the awareness often comes in after something has happened that was unconscious. And you see it. Don't beat yourself up. It's only the human condition. But whenever you see unconsciousness has just happened or happened the other day and now you see it, or you see it in the middle of it, it's good to see nothing. It's not who you are. That's the main thing.

So can the now make me rich, powerful, free, happy, smarter, more loving, more loved?

Yes, all of those things. Rich? Yes, let's start with rich and then we'll look at the next one. Can the now make me rich? Yes. Now what does it mean to be rich? Rich means it's not what people think it is. It's not to have lots of possessions. That may be one aspect of being rich. But rich means to be in touch with the fullness of life and the Only place where you can find the fullness of life. The intense aliveness that you sense when you are present to now is here. When you are open to the present moment, what comes in is a gratitude for what is. No matter what. It's a little plant, the air you're breathing, the light that's coming through the window, the sound of a bird. Whatever is there is a goodness to it. And even if it looks bad, even if it's a dead animal or dead human, when you are totally aligned with the present moment, there is a peace that comes into your perceptions. And with that peace comes a gratitude that is very deep. And so you are experiencing really life for the first time when you become present. And so to be in a state of gratitude for what is, is really what being wealthy means. The present moment is always enough. And so the definition of wealthy real is to be, to have enough, to feel already the fullness of life. An expression that Jesus used, He said, I want you to have the fullness of life. And people didn't quite understand what he meant. Was Jesus talking about shopping malls? That you have 500 shops in one huge shopping mall and you have thousands of things to choose from? Was he predicting the arrival of shopping malls? Is that the fullness of life? You can walk around and buy and have lots of money and credit cards, and you can buy anything you like. Now there are people who can do that. They are not happy. So then he's not talking about many, many things. When he talks about the fullness of life, it's not he's talking about the one thing. It's to feel the intensity of being alive. And you can only feel that intensity of aliveness when you're in the present moment with your attention. One way of being in the present moment, as you know, is to feel the inner aliveness of the body. To feel the aliveness that is in every cell of the body. Ah, it's alive. And the more you go there, the stronger that feeling becomes. And once you are connected with that, you feel that the world around you is intensely alive too. It was alive before, but you didn't see it because there was too much thought stuff going through your mind continuously. The world became dead because everything was immediately labeled mentally. That's a tree, that's a dog. The moment you label it and you don't look anymore, it's not alive anymore. Everything gets deadened through mental abstraction. When you go around the voice in your head immediately calling things, calling things names, giving things names. So when you become more present, there's this alert attention with which you meet your surroundings. Once you know the fullness of life that is already here now. And then gratitude arises for what is, no matter what it is, then living in this way, eventually that fullness, that in essence is an inner realization rather than outer. So that's the foundation for wealth, is to feel the fullness of life within. And then if you live in that way, in connectedness with that, eventually the fullness of life will also manifest for you externally, in various ways. Meaningful activity is a form of wealth. To know that what you're doing is helping other human beings brings an external fullness also into your life, which is a form of wealth. And wealth may also come in the form of things coming to you, more conventional things, home or car or whatever it may be. Those things also come much more easily when basically you already feel the fullness, even long before it comes externally. So basically you feel already wealthy. When you live fully in the present moment, you never feel really poor. I perhaps spent 10 years of my life, at least, living what people would say below the poverty line. And I never felt poor. I always felt rich. Although for a long time I had nothing, no external possessions. But life was. It was so fulfilling to live every moment fully present to the moment that life, it felt. I felt wealthy, abundant. And much, much later did actually external abundance come into my life to some extent. And that didn't make me feel better. I feel just when now I have a car. During those years I used a bicycle mostly, or the bus. And I don't feel better now because I have a nice car. I feel exactly the same. But it's nice to have a nice comfortable car with air conditioning in the summer. But it makes. Now I have a car. During those years I used a bicycle mostly, or the bus. And I don't feel better now because I have a nice car. I feel exactly the same. But it's nice to have a nice comfortable car with air. The fullness hasn't changed. It hasn't done anything to change that. So the foundation is to be fully alive in the present moment. And then it is much more likely that external worlds will also come to you as an outer manifestation. Conditioning in the summer. But it makes. The fullness hasn't changed. It hasn't done anything to change that. So the foundation is to be fully alive in the present moment. Engine OF AN INNER reality if you feel wealthy already, but if you feel poor and feel that you really, you need to make money now, even if you achieve it, you'll Be unhappy with your wealth because it comes out of the unhappiness. So there are many people who are creating wealth these days. They build up a big business. Then it is much more likely that external wealth will also come to you as an outer manifestation of an inner reality. If you feel wealthy already, but if you feel poor and feel that you really you need to make money now, even if you achieve it, you'll be unhappy with your wealth because it comes in as an enterprise. But it comes out of a deep dissatisfaction with what is. It comes out of an enormous neediness to show to the world that you are somebody or to prove to yourself or the world how good you are. And that is not conducive to. Out of the unhappiness. So there are many people who are creating wealth these days. They build up a big business or an enterprise, but it comes out of a deep dissatisfaction with what is. It comes out of an enormous neediness to show to the world that you are somebody or to prove to yourself or the world how good you are and that through happiness. The. The wealth. There are many wealthy people who are unhappy in their wealth and they're not really wealthy. And they are basically still deprived. They are deprived of the fullness of life. And they have perhaps five or ten houses in different places, cars. That is not conducive to true happiness, the wealth. There are many wealthy people who are unhappy in their wealth. So that's. And they're not really wealthy and they are yacht. And yet they're deprived of the fullness. And so they need more and more and it doesn't help. So here we have. Living in the present moment brings you into the fullness of life now. And then, basically still deprived, they are deprived of the fullness of life. And they have perhaps five or ten houses in different places, cars, yacht. And yet they're deprived of the fullness. And so they need more and more and it doesn't help. And eventually it will also manifest in different ways externally for you, power was the other thing. Will it bring me power? Make your life more empowered that what you do, Much greater power flows into what you do. Because so here we have. Living in the present moment brings you into the fullness of life now. And then eventually it will also manifest in different ways externally for you. Power. What you are doing, the action that you are performing, whatever it is in the present moment, the only place where you can do anything, the action that you are performing in the present moment is not a means to an end for most people. They are active. But they are active because they want to get there to that point in the future. They want to the end result. Their eyes are on the end result. So they may be busy building up a business because they want to become wealthy, but they reduce the quality and aliveness of the present moment. Because they are reducing the present moment to a means to an end, they give it inferior, inferior status in their minds. The future is more important because that's where they're going to be wealthy. But then the pattern remains inside them. And even when they have the money, they still have the same basic psychological pattern, which means they need the next moment. And always they reduce the present moment to a means to an end. So the action is not of high quality. It does not contribute to happiness. They don't make themselves happy and they make others happy with with what they do. So that's not truly empowered and it is low quality action. High quality action comes when you don't reduce the present moment to a means to an end. That's truly empowered action. Only when you no longer reduce this moment to a means to an end can you give your full attention to whatever it is that you are doing now. Some great artists do it, sportsmen do it. When they perform, they are totally present. It's not a means to an end. They're totally in the now. And so high quality action comes out of that. And this is empowered action. So living in the now brings power into your life, true power, not the pseudo power of the ego. And then whatever comes out of it, out of that action will be good in one way or another. It will not be, one could say. I call it. It's not karmic action, which means karmic action. It's an eastern term, karma. Karmic action creates more unhappiness. It comes out of unhappiness and creates more unhappiness for yourself and others. But out of presence alignment with now comes non karmic action. It does not create more suffering on the planet because so many people are very, very active. But a lot of that activity ultimately creates more suffering on the planet. So that's the power. What's the next thing that the now will bring you? What was the question?

I really want to know about.

Guilt.

I feel guilty all the time for little things I'm doing or that I'm not doing. And there are things that I know I did that were mistakes to other people. So I know that you're supposed to be free and liberated in the now. But shouldn't I feel Bad about this stuff, I mean, and what's going to keep me, if I'm free and liberated in the now from, like, doing bad things to people? Because that's a fear, I think the.

Only place where you can be free of the conditioning of your mind. Because freedom is not an external thing. It's an internal thing. You can be in prison and you can be free. People have written to me from prison and they've read the Power of now. And they said they now free, feel free. What does that mean? True freedom is freedom from your mind, from the conditioned. All the conditioned thoughts and emotions that otherwise control you. Freedom is the freedom to step back from the conditioning into the deeper I. The awareness that. That you are. It's freedom from thought, ultimately, so that not every thought controls you. So that's. It's the freedom from conditioning. And basically it's the freedom from the past. So you're no longer determined. Your behavior and your thinking is no longer determined by your past. It's also freedom from future. Because most people have a desperate need for the next moment. I call it psychological future. They need the fulfillment that they think the future will bring them. It won't. So this is something for you to be aware of. Because I know that pattern also still operates in you believing that something in the future will bring you greater fulfillment than you have now. But it won't. If you don't have it now, you won't have it then you have to access the power of now. Regardless of your external circumstances. You can have that now. You can't wait for the future. Because once you're in the waiting mode, you'll always be waiting for the next moment. Even when you become a famous actor, it won't feel quite right. Maybe you're already famous, I don't know. But it won't feel quite right. And there will be many things when you're very famous. I've met one or two famous actors and they come to this teaching. Why do they come? Don't they have everything? No. They've realized they don't have what really matters. And suddenly they discover the spiritual dimension. Because they've achieved everything else on the worldly dimension. So go deeply into the present moment. Become deeply aligned and at one with the only thing there ever is in your life. The present moment. And that is where true power resides. And that is the only place where you can be truly free. What's the next thing that you want? Happiness. Can happiness come in the future? When I achieve this or that, then I'll Be happy when I make it. But every situation that you go into will have a downside. If you're expecting circumstances to make you happy, they can do that for a while. And then you find, oh, it's not quite what I expected. And there's always another side to it. And very often, the very thing that makes you happy, if you have an external thing that makes you happy, that very thing will also make you unhappy. A woman comes into your life who makes you happy. One, two, three years later, the same woman makes you unhappy. The same thing or a job. A great job is offered to you and it creates so much stress that you make yourself ill. It makes you happy first and it makes you unhappy. You become famous and then you see the downside of fame. You can't go out in the street alone anymore. There's a riot the moment people see you. You're prisoner of your house. You can't go out without two or three bodyguards. Is that freedom? And you thought you would be free when you become famous? I've met one or two famous people who. They can't go out alone, it's too dangerous. And people stop them all the time. And they gather around them. They have to stay inside. Everything has to be organized. They have to jump in the car with tinted windows and bodyguards. Is that freedom? Are they happy because of their fame? No, they have experienced the downside of fame. It doesn't mean that you should not pursue goals. There's nothing wrong with being famous, but don't expect it to make you happy. The true happiness has to be found. It comes from being aligned with life internally. And where is that now? Here. A complete openness. And yes, to the present moment. That takes you deep into the present moment. That is, true happiness comes out of that. And then you can go on and do things and see if you can become famous. Why not experience that experience as much as you can, without hoping that some experience. Or when you have accumulated enough experiences, you will finally feel fulfilled and fully yourself. That won't happen. There's no end to accumulating experiences and achieving this or that. You cannot find yourself there. You can only find yourself in the present moment. For everything else, you need time to achieve success in your career, to learn to play the piano, to learn a foreign language, even to if you want to meet a woman. It takes time. You have to walk somewhere where the beautiful women hang out. And then you have to. It takes time. Everything takes time. And so the mind thinks, okay, finding myself who I truly am will also take time. It Thinks when I've added enough to who I think I am, maybe recognition from other people, fame, possessions. Put all these things in the bag, my bag. And when I have enough things accumulated, then I will be full. And that moment will come at some point in the future. It doesn't. Because the bag, no matter how much you put in it, will never feel full. Besides from the fact that also often things fall out of the bag. You put something in here and then something else falls out. You suddenly get wealth and then you're unhappy in your marriage, or you're happy in your marriage and suddenly the job doesn't work anymore, or you're. It's always. There's nothing. Stability isn't to be found in the external world. It's in constant flux. This universe is not stable. People have this absurd illusion that they are living in a stable universe and that they can achieve some kind of stability in their lives. They are shocked when suddenly big disasters happen and you realize how unstable really everything is. So if you look, that doesn't mean it's to be rejected. Play in the world and enjoy the play. Play as much as you can, but don't expect anything out there to truly make you happy or fulfill you. Happiness is to be found directly within yourself. It comes from being connected with who you are. This brings us back to where we started to be in touch, to feel the deeper I. And there's enormous joy in simply feeling the beingness that you are. To feel the I am that is deeper than this or that I am the very life that you are. To feel that, to feel alive. Out of that comes true happiness. And then you can play around in the world and you acquire things and then you lose things and you acquire some more and then you lose some more. And then in the end you lose everything that everybody does. You lose the body in the end. Form dissolves sooner or later. But it's finding something that is deeper than any form inside yourself. That's true happiness. Love also, true love comes only out of the true I. True love cannot come out of the pseudo I that says I, the actor I, the good looking actor, I, the famous actor, I the American I the poor one, or I the wealthy one, or I who is good with women. True love doesn't come out of that I. That's a pseudo I. That's what most people refer to when they use that word that's so common, I. But the true love comes out when you're connected with the deeper I, the I that has no form. Form, the one Thing that never leaves you. The one ingredient that's always there, no matter where you are, what you do, what you experience, that never changes. The I, the consciousness that you are, when you live in connectedness with that, aligned with that, that's where true love comes. Because when you meet another human being, you can sense in them also there is the depth of the same I that is your identity. You recognize yourself in the other and the other as yourself. And you feel a deep connectedness. Much deeper than anything that you can say or think with the other human being. And that's true love. Love is to feel that you're ultimately not separate. You're one that can only come out of the spaciousness that is part of the now. The now is space. What happens in the now is form. Don't confuse the two. The reason why people think there are many, many moments in every day, in your lifetime, in every hour. Because what happens changes continuously. The forms around you change continuously. The thoughts that go through your head change. The emotions that you feel change. The people around you change. So people think every time it's a new moment, this moment and another moment and another moment. If you look more deeply, you see it's not another moment. It's always now. But the form that appears in the now changes continuously. But it's always now. And ultimately, now is who you are. The space of now is the space of I. And then things happen in it, and they change continuously. So there are two ways of saying, when I ask you, what is it that never changes? What is it that's always there in your life, no matter where you go and what you do? You can say, it's always I, the deepest I, not the superficial I, that changes the thoughts, the emotions, who you are in the world. But the deeper I is, that's always the same. And so another way of looking at it is to say it's always now. The now never changes. And then you find the miraculous. They are actually one. The space of now. And who you are in the depths of your being is consciousness itself. Before it becomes something, the very foundation out of which all life comes. You could say God. God dwells in the depth of your being. Not as some entity, but as the formless one, life itself. That is the deepest meaning of what now is. And that's why the now can never leave you. So I am the now. In essence, I am not what happens. I am the space in which everything happens. That's your true identity. And when you live one with that, knowing that your life will be fruitful and a great and wonderful adventure. When you don't know who you are, then no matter what you do, what you achieve, where you go, who you meet, it won't satisfy you. That's how simple it is, Sam.