Eckhart Tolle on the Primordial Spiritual Practice

Primordial spiritual practice. Is observing your relationship with the present moment. Is it dysfunctional? Is it antagonistic? Are you always reducing it to means, to an end? This moment as the most important in your life because it is this moment. Instead of reducing it to a means, to an end. And then you give your fullest attention to this moment. When you engaged in an activity. Instead of already wanting to be done with it, you give it your fullest attention. That enhances the quality of whatever it is you're doing. And if the quality of your doing, which means there's an energy that flows into it, it is your consciousness, flows into what you do. You no longer do it reluctantly or with distaste. You do it fully, and then that has repercussions. Because then that leads to the next thing that reflects the quality of this doing. And your entire life improves through that. Challenges always come, but on the whole, your entire life improves by bringing this. Make the present moment your friend is a very important spiritual practice. If that were all, you would already be well on your way to full awakening. Just living in and through the present moment. And that is very important realization that the entry point into the transcendent dimension is always the now. For example, when we started, when I started, by directing your attention to the silence in the room. That also means taking attention away from thinking. Thinking operates through past and future, creates past and future. Ultimately thinking. Ultimately, past and future are created by the human mind. Now, you may say, no, that can't be true, because I had breakfast this morning. That was this morning. It's not created by the human mind. The human mind might say that. But of course, when you had breakfast, it was the now. When you remember the breakfast, it's still the now. It's always just the now. And that's an amazing realization. So when you pay attention to silence, your mind becomes still for a moment. And when your mind becomes still, you're totally present. And that's the ultimate secret. I didn't want to mention it at the beginning. Because some of you might have run out of the room to be. What is that presence? Presence is consciousness without thought. It doesn't have to be long, just spaces of just consciousness. Like, for example, now, let's symbolize this by holding my hand up like this. Here's past, past thinking, future thinking, past thinking, future thinking. And then suddenly you go, there's a now, no thinking, but full awareness. And then thinking comes back past, future. And then again you take a deep breath. That's another way of getting in touch with the Present moment. And then again you take a deep breath. That's another way of getting in touch with the present moment. Observe your breath. Become aware that you're breathing and your thinking stops. During that time when you aware of your breathing, thinking stops. But you haven't fallen below thought as you do when you drink alcohol or you very tired, you're about to fall asleep. No, what is happening here is we are rising above thought, which means we transcend thought, which means it doesn't mean we don't think anymore, but we realize a dimension within ourselves that is deeper than thought. That's what it. So it's not. You don't. Of course thinking is necessary. You continue to think, but it's a different kind of thinking. The useless problem making thinking, the incessant stream of unnecessary and often negative commentary on your life and other people and what's happening. It's part of the present moment, being your enemy that falls away. This incessant voice in the head, it doesn't stop talking to you. It's just. I wonder why he said that. What's he doing? I don't like him because he. Last year he did this and that. Oh, he's such a liar. I mean, he lied to me. I never lie, of course. Never, never. One judgment after another about people and situations. You can't get out of this. And then you start thinking about my life. Oh, what? What? That was horrible. But it's all pointless anyway, isn't it? What's the point in carrying on? I mean, just. I might as well give up completely. It's so awful. Just can't stand it anymore. Can't take another day, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Can't take another. And finally and suddenly you step out of that, take a conscious breath. That's why it's called awakening. You awaken spiritually out of identification with that noise making machine in the head. Oh my God. And the space opens up. That's why it's called awakening. It's like coming out of sleep, a kind of spiritual sleep. And you find there's a space when you're not thinking, but you're fully there. And you can sense the being of you as the presence. But it's nothing to do with the historical person. The historical person has subsided for a while and something else has emerged. And that something else is the enlightened being. And then of course it's possible that this enlightened being, then the historical person comes, reasserts itself after a little while and suddenly, no longer aware of that dimension and then you remember, oh, I lost the present moment. Then, okay, then don't believe your mind when it says not now. You can't do it now. You can't take a conscious breath now. It's too much. It takes too long. One conscious breath. No, no, no, I have to think about my. When I've solved my problems, I can do it. No, don't believe your mind and says no. Now space opens up suddenly again. At first you practice when you're not being disturbed, and then gradually you take it into your daily life. And then you might be sitting in the tube and instead of getting out your device, you just sit there and present and you just take. And then you might be sitting in the tube and sensory perception happens beautifully. In fact, you're more acutely aware, instead of getting out your device, you just sit there and present of your sensory perceptions. When they are not being veiled by the conditioned mind and its interpretations, you're more directly and deeply aware. You notice it especially with natural things, flower, tree, sky. But also with other humans. You're more just able to be present. And then gradually, these little spaces of no thought, you discover that they begin to emerge in your life on a daily basis, almost spontaneously. Here and there, you become aware of that there suddenly a spaciousness. And when you notice gets a little longer, you then, oh. And then you begin to invite, so to speak, that dimension, which is it? It is a dimension of consciousness that before you didn't realize, you begin to invite it into your life. The oh, this is a moment. Let's take a moment of presence.