Eckhart Tolle on the Realization of Being

So I would suggest that the universe is engaged in an evolutionary. There's an evolutionary impulse behind the arising of life forms throughout the universe, and that is the greater expression of consciousness. And consciousness is the light that emanates from the source of all life into this dimension. The source is not part of this dimension. So when you sense that I am Ness, then what you sense is your conscious connection with the three letter word, your conscious connection with source. And then the amazing thing is this realization, although what you realize is timeless, it deepens because there's a paradox. It looks like a paradox because in this dimension time operates, but we are talking about accessing the timeless dimension. But in this dimension, it is gradually. Here your realization of the timeless dimension deepens and it's. And then you can sense its power, that there is an underlying vast power that behind it all. Not egoic power, it's the one, the power of life itself. And you can sense that it is the dao, as the ancient Chinese dao, that underlies it. You can sense it within yourself as yourself. And it is within and without both, there's ultimately no difference. This is the dao. This is what ancient cultures, no matter where you look on the planet, all ancient European cultures and all tribal cultures, South America, Asia, Australia, they all had a deep sense of the universe, had embodied a presence. And everything in the universe is more than what you perceive with your senses. It embodies a presence. There's a soul in the universe. In antiquity, the ancients in Latin called it anima mundi, the soul of the world. In other words, there is an underlying, we could say vast intelligence that gives rise to, to the billions of life forms that are gradually evolving. And this vast intelligence is beyond, it's transcendent to this physical realm, but it gives life to this physical realm. And that is what all ancient cultures could sense that still. And sometimes it's called panpsychism, which means that pan means all or everything. Panpsychism means everything has a soul, everything. The ancient Romans believed that also Australian Aborigines, North American Indians, Africa, everywhere that they could, they all. Why did they all believe it? Was it just a. They came up with a mental thing in different cultures that have no contact with each other. They came up with this mental thing that, oh, let's think. No, the thinking mind was not as active yet, the ego was not as developed yet as it is in contemporary humans. So they still had this ability to sense it in an obscure, sometimes they misinterpreted it a bit, but they could Sense there was something there that was alive. They inhabited a universe that was alive. Then the 19th century came with materialistic science and theory of evolution. Of course there is evolution, but the evolution is not hazardous. It's not chance, pure chance. It's like there's an intelligence behind it. And that intelligence operates in you. So I'm just saying those things to give a little bit of context. But for practical purposes, it's not even necessary to go there. For practical purposes. What is necessary is here and now, as much as you can to access that dimension in your life which always brings you into the present moment. And whether meditation is good for you, you have to see whether. Can be helpful. Can also be misleading. How can it be misleading? Meditation can be misleading if you approach it in not the right way. Now, what does that mean? You do not approach meditation in the right way. If you regard the practice of meditation is something that you do, it becomes a doing. You can even put it in your calendar to appointments, lunch appointment, meeting at such a time, catching the train and such and such a time. 9:30, meditation. So many things to do during the day. And then the last doing is the meditation. But meditation is not something that you. Ultimately, you can't do it. If you have this mind pattern that meditation is something that you do. It becomes the barrier to the realization of being. Because being is timeless here and now. It's all it already is. So if you, if you. Okay, let's do a meditation. Okay, I've done 15 minutes now another five. Okay, now what's the next thing? But the realization of being. You have to relinquish even the idea of doing so. And that can't be the realization of being, can it is accessible at any moment, which is now. Oh, and how is it accessible? A brief cessation in the stream of thinking. Not because you have fallen below thinking, but you have risen above thinking. We set space again. And gradually you learn to access that dimension, to be rooted in that dimension in your daily life rather than having separate compartments. Compartment for being. No, I'm just going to be now. And then another compartment for doing. But you bring the two together so that even when you do become active, you don't lose touch with the dimension of depth. With a background presence. You can sense your presence, so to speak. It's not yours, we just call it yours. You can sense your presence in the background while you do in the foreground. And you talk to somebody and you listen somebody. You ask a question, the person answers. And while you listen, while you ask While you listen to the other person. You can sense the presence. You don't necessarily have to prepare the next thing to say. You just be present. Now what that present is a space of alertness. And not alert spaciousness. It's a beautiful gift you can give to another human being. The gift of alert presence. You also give them attention. Through that there's an connection that happens when alert presence arises. Instead of interaction happening exclusively on the personality level. Which is sooner or later leads to trouble and conflict. You might have noticed. Especially if you start living with a personality. Some other person. Very difficult. So interaction does not just take place. On the level of the conditioned personalities. There is a deeper dimension that is at work. And then you connect through that. The presence with the other. That is beautiful. And then you can even. In many cases. You can overlook the sometimes strange ways. In which the other person behaves According to their conditioning. You can kind of look through it quite often. Sometimes it may be so dense, the conditioning. That you can't look through it. But these are exceptional cases. Maybe we all know some of these exceptional cases. But so beautiful. And if you interact with nature in that way. It deepens the way in which you perceive the natural world. It's almost. It's not almost as if it's much better than any drug like acid could do for you. I tried it once and I said no, my normal state of consciousness is much better.