Eckhart Tolle explains how everyday pressures and task-focused busyness cause people to "lose" awareness of their essential nature — the background of spacious awareness or "being." He argues that a healthy life requires a balance between being (awareness/presence) and doing (activity), describes a period in his life when being flooded him and later regained balance, and offers practical prompts (e.g., noticing irritation) to check whether one has lost touch with the present moment.
Chapters
When things need to get done, things need doing. There's a whole list of things that you haven't done yet. And there's pressure on you, and this happens. And then you completely forget. That there is this background in you of spacious awareness. It's just not there anymore. You don't know it's there. I have often observed how people who already have the ability to be still. The ability to step out of the conditioned mind. But even many of those, when they go back into their daily life. They kind of are so drawn into whatever it is that life demands of them. That they completely lose it. And then what is it that they lose? They lose awareness of themselves, of their essential nature. They lose awareness of awareness. Another way of putting it. They lose awareness of this inner spaciousness. That is a dualistic way of saying it, because I'm using language. There is no awareness of your inner spaciousness. Because your inner spaciousness is the awareness. Sometimes when we use language, we create. Well, always when we use language, we create duality. Another way of putting it is in your daily life. You think that something is more important than your state of consciousness. Right now in this moment. You think something out there is more important than your consciousness. And yet your state of consciousness is the very thing that is the foundation for your reality. And ultimately it contributes to the collective consciousness of humanity. It's so easy to forget, though, that in any situation that you encounter. When things need to get done, things need doing. There's a whole list of things that you haven't done yet. And there's pressure on you. And this happens. And then you completely forget that there is this background in you of spacious awareness. It's just not there anymore. You don't know it's there. It's covered up. And then you pursue every. Another way of putting it is to say you get lost in doing. And when you get lost in doing. By losing awareness of being. For a balanced and sane human life. You need awareness of being. And then you do. Doing and being are in some kind of balance. Even if it's only. You cannot really quantify it. Even if it's only. 10% being awareness. It still keeps you relatively sane. 50. 50 would be great. So you can be active. But while you're active, there is a peace in the background of your action. And even while you are busy, you are not lost in your busyness. And even while you are thinking. You are not totally absorbed in every thought that comes into your head. The thoughts arise against the background of stillness or awareness. And of course, as I'm sure you know, it's only then that thinking can actually be empowered and fruitful and creative and bring up something helpful instead of creating problems, instead of creating misery in your life, which is all the overthinking that humans do. The compulsive habitual thinking that constitutes the foundation for most people's sense of identity. A terrible state to be in. So the balance between being and doing is the art of living. When it first came into this happened to me, the being flooded in very much overwhelmingly. I for a while lost the balance between being and doing. So there was a time period in my life when I couldn't do much. I don't know if I couldn't do much. I wasn't interested in doing much. I was just sitting around. And that was fine. While it lasted, there was just complete happiness. To use a relatively superficial word. Joy might be better, an underlying peace, joyful kind of peace. Contentment with this moment. Because there was nothing else and there is nothing else. This is fine. I don't know what I'm going to live on tomorrow, but I'm not thinking about tomorrow. Because this moment is so great. That was my state. So gradually I was able to do again. And now it's almost paradoxical to talk a moment about myself. My doing is mainly concerned with helping people to be aware of being. That's my doing. If I didn't have that. So I travel, I go from here to there, I speak, all right, or whatever. If I didn't have that, I don't think I would be doing much. So the primary, your primary function is to stay connected to being. And whatever your doing may be, it varies from person to person. You may be involved in great enterprises and create this and that, or doing on a small scale doing your gardening, cultivate your garden, grow your vegetables, Or buy a huge complex to set up a huge center for conscious business, conscious Internet watching or whatever. So this is a good question to ask yourself at any given moment, which really means this moment. Have I lost touch with being? Which means have I lost touch with the present moment? Which means have I lost touch with myself of who I am beyond the form? Or can I still. Oh, whenever upset, irritation arises and you go, you lost awareness and that's a good alarm clock. That any non harmonious state that arises is a good alarm clock. Oh, you lost the present moment. One way of putting it. Sa.
