Eckhart Tolle on Finding Spiritual Liberation

And the amazing thing is that those. The realization of this truth is already gone. It's there throughout. You go back thousands of years and it's already there. It has come out. There's a little thread running through of a few people here and there, always throughout history have realized that truth. It runs through history. The undercurrent, not the madness of history. There's a thread sometimes, it's called the perennial philosophy. That which the timeless truth of human existence has already been there. But very few people were able to realize it. Many people who came into contact with those teachings but were unable to realize them. So they only looked at the teachings through the mind. They misinterpreted. And the very same teaching became part of their false sense of self. This is quite common in religion. All religion points to the transcendent. But what has happened is that in most cases religion has become part of the false sense of self, the opposite of transcendence. Well, is that a. It's funny and sad at the same time. It's probably better to see it as funny when you see human. The human dilemma, the human unconsciousness. When you see those basic patterns or this really, this one basic pattern of delusion. When you see it and recognize it first, perhaps in others, you can see others doing it, and then eventually in yourself. Then if you laugh sometimes you can't help. Especially if you see it in yourself, you may begin to laugh. And that's liberating. That's a moment of transcendence too. And then you see all the. All my drama, the last 20 years, 30 years, it's been manufactured by my mind out of nothing, for nothing. Complaining about situations and people and feeling this and that in the sense of self. Is this all based on a. One basic delusion? One basic delusion creating the entire drama of my existence and dreadful suffering. Can't take anymore. Can't take anymore. So then it's a beautiful thing then when through this, the nightmare of your life turns into a dream. That's quite pleasant because the way in which you experience life changes when the transcendent dimension comes in. It changes the way in which you experience life because you no longer then experience life through the filter of a false self. And the false self distorts everything that you experience. The false self wants the conflict. The false self wants the unhappiness. It doesn't know that. But why does it want it? Because it strengthens itself through it. So you can. You can see it when you observe people in daily life, how they do it. They want it because it gives them a stronger sense of who they are. It can start with a simple thing like complaining about situations and other people or your own life. Complete distortion. You're looking at through the false sense of self, which through every little complaint strengthens itself. Because when you complain about something, it means something is found deficient. It could be a place where you are, look at this, or strike from or some person that you've just met and then you complain about him or her, whatever. Something is found deficient, which means you put yourself in a superior position to that situation. You are the judge of it. You are the judge of this situation or this place or this person. You're judging it as wanting in the old sense. Not wanting something, but wanting, meaning lacking. Yeah. And so you become. You become really superior to whoever you complain about or criticize. It enhances the false sense of self. And you can sometimes see it in people who have nothing else to identify with. They. They run around the street shouting angry obscenities or remarks to everybody who comes past you. It's the. Their sense of self, their fault. And themselves strengthen itself through accusing everybody of being bad and evil or whatever they say. Wow, this gets stronger and stronger. I have to do this because I have nothing else I can identify with. I need those thought forms. It can be very strong. So the. What we need to learn is take attention out of thinking. That is transcendence. You transcend the primordial forms which are thoughts. And then in your life you have form and space. In daily life, there's not just forms. One thought after another, one reaction after another, one thing happening after another. Forms. If you're not doing something, you have to think about this and just chasing forms, really. Forms chasing you. You chasing forms. And then you drop. You go to sleep for a while and then you wake up and you have one minute before you remember. Like the dog chasing the. The rabbit. That's a dreadful thing. There's only form in my life. Just things that I have to think about and do and be worried about and react against. Forms, forms, forms. Form. No space. And now there begins to be also space in your life. And that changes everything. So while. While forms happen, there's a. The need compulsively to impose interpretation on what's happening. Goes. And you allow what is. People, situations, places which before you would have criticized or complained about. They are as they are. Of course they are as they are. Are they a problem? No. If you don't criticize and complain, they're not a problem. Can you still take action if change needs to. Things need to be changed. Very often action is necessary and perfectly fine without the complaining about it. You take action without complaining. It's a different action that flows. Different energy flows into what you do. So this and then you move through life as a spacious being, not a heavily burdened personality. A spacious that is Nothing else is spiritual, if you want to use the word spiritual. Spiritual has nothing to do with what kind of thoughts go through your head. You can think about angels and God for 24 hours a day. It's not spiritual. Spiritual is not identifying with thought. That's when there is space in you. That's the spiritual dimension and that's the liberation. That is the transcendence of your mind. The transcendence of. You can call it the transcendence of the world. You can call it the transcendence of time because this is the time. The space in you is a timeless dimension.