Entering a State of Presence | A Guided Meditation by Eckhart Tolle

The essence of this is to join in the state of presence. So it's not the words, it's the stillness. It may be helpful. And this is why we are doing this. To look at me or the image of me on the screen. Because I'm not, except in the moment when I speak. I'm not thinking. And so somehow I don't know how that state of pure awareness or presence kind of transmits itself. If you're open to it when you look at somebody, when you are with somebody who is in that state of presence, then it's easier for you to be present. When you're with somebody who is immersed in thought activity, identified with thinking, then it's more challenging for you to be present. Still possible. But then the danger is that you may be pulled into the same vibrational frequency, so to speak, of identification with thinking and lose yourself in it. It's just amazing that it's not yet common knowledge that such a state of consciousness that we call presence or awareness, that it even exists or is possible, that it is the secret dimension of consciousness. Because very few people seem to know about it. And it's not in the mainstream culture. All that's been there in the teaching of the ancient spiritual teachers. It's the essence of their teaching and yet misunderstood. So if I could just put it in a nutshell, just in one short, one brief sentence. What this is all about is to be here with me and all the others who are joining us here. We're all connected at a deeper level of the collective consciousness, human consciousness. To be here and to enjoy being aware. Fully aware, fully awake without needing to think. Conceptual thinking, inner dialogues, monologues, interpretations, viewpoints, Past, future, regret, anxiety, all produced by unconscious identification with thinking. Unnecessary thinking in many cases. If thoughts come in while we sit here together, don't follow them, just let them dissolve. Don't follow them with your attention. Every thought wants to grow and says, give me attention. But you just let it drift away like a cloud. The sky is blue, and occasional clouds may come. The blue sky is the awareness. The clouds are the thoughts. Now, I'm here to help you free yourself from unconscious compulsive thinking. And then you can do some real thinking that is effective and when it's needed. So, in essence, you are the sky. The vast, empty, spacious sky. Thinking of the movement of clouds in this analogy. But it is a good analogy. Now, if you. If there were so much thinking in you that we could compare it to a sky that is totally covered in clouds, then you would not Even know what it is I'm talking about right now. There needs to be in you at least a small opening, an interval between two thoughts, A brief, a small opening. The tiny bit of blue sky that you see as the clouds separate for a moment. And there you sense a spaciousness, a stillness. And then you know what it is that I'm talking about. And then you can begin to become comfortable with it and actually realize how deeply enjoyable or satisfying that dimension of consciousness is. It frees you not only from compulsive thinking, which is a dreadful affliction. It frees you also, and perhaps even more importantly, from a sense of identity. A sense of self that is created by identification with compulsive thinking. A sense of identity that is derived from thought. And then you tell yourself and others who you are. That is connected with your life story, a narrative in your mind which is the story of me. Whatever it is that it consists of, whatever you identify with, whether it's possessions or achievements or non achievements or successes or failures, whether you are proud or ashamed of yourself, it all comes down to thought forms that you confuse with who you are in material possessions. Of course, the only way you can experience a material possession or anything the in the outer world is as a thought form. It gets translated. Your sense perceptions get translated into a mental formation. So you see a big house there. And then the visual perception gets coded into nerve impulses that are sent to the brain. And the brain decodes in some way. And then you end up with a thought form and that says my house. And then you identify with a thought form of your house, which may add to your sense of who you are for a while. But there are many thought forms that you can identify with, positive or negative. You can have a thought form that you are. You have no house and you have no car, and perhaps you don't even have a bed. Does that free you from self identification? Well, it frees you from self identification with a certain type of thought form that corresponds to physical things. But it does not necessarily free you from identification with thought. Because you could have the identification with the thought of yourself. As someone who has transcended identification with possessions is therefore spiritually superior to all these unconscious people who live in their big houses and drive their big cars. You have risen above it. A subtle form of also of fictitious self, A subtle form of ego. You have to be very careful of any kind of conceptual identity. It's always derived from thought. Where is your true identity is non conceptual, cannot be found in any thought that you have about yourself. In the same way that you cannot find the true identity of anybody else. Through conceptualization, thinking about them. The art of living is to be able to function in the realm of thought. And function as well as possible without looking for yourself in the realm of thought. And usually that means looking for a stronger sense of identity through thought. Which, for example, you create by having a hostile or antagonistic attitude towards other people or situations. To make them into enemies, so to speak. That strengthens your conceptual identity. Even being angry with somebody strengthens it. You can see how the ego can get inflated. When you're angry with somebody. Or you observe somebody who is angry. So this is all part of a live event. Can't cut it out. And that's good. So if you can use thought, but knowing always who you are, that you are not anything that can be defined by thought, that you cannot know yourself as thought or a bundle of thoughts. And so we are here to deepen your knowledge of yourself as awareness, as consciousness. And that's nothing to do with conceptual knowledge. You can't break it down into bits and pieces. Knowledge may not even be the best word to describe it. Perhaps a better word would be knowing, knowing yourself.