Free Online Gathering with Eckhart Tolle: A New Earth Youth Initiative

Foreign welcome. Welcome to this special Eckhart Tolle foundation online event. I'm so glad that you're here with us. Thank you. My name is Tammy Simon. I'm the founder of Sounds True. And I have had the great joy and and honor of working with eckhart tolle since 2001. And I'm also on the board of the Eckhart Tolle foundation and have been on the board since its inception. And it's a great joy to be your host for this special online event. During this event, you'll be hearing more about the Eckhart Tolle Foundation. Perhaps for some of you, this is the first time you'll be learning more about the Foundation's history and its activities. And we're also going to introduce you to a new Earth Youth Initiative, which is a new program that the Eckhart Tolle foundation is sponsoring. And it brings Eckhart's teachings and the experience of of presence to young people who very well would otherwise not have access to these teachings and the experience of presence in Eckhart and Kim's presence. And you're going to be learning more about that. Also, as part of this online special event, we have two surprise videos. Not going to say much more about it except that these videos are from some celebrated visionary humans who are expressing their support of bringing Eckhart's teachings to young people. Most of all, I want to thank each and every one of you for being with us. There's a kind of ripple effect that comes from us connecting together in this way with a shared intent to bring presence to more and more people without financial barriers to access. So it is so wonderful to be with you and to have this experience together. Oh, and of course, as part of our time together, you're going to hear from Kim and Eckhardt. Did I forget to say that? Yes, indeed. That's going to happen, too. And now I'd love to introduce you to someone who is the president of Eckhart Teachings and the co founder and board chair of the Eckhart Tolle Foundation. This is someone who's very special to me personally. I've known this person for more than two decades now and watched her grow into her role with such beauty and dignity and the power of a generous heart, Erin Jacobson. Erin.

Thank you, Tammy. And thank you all for joining us tonight. I just wanted to spend a few moments and tell you a little bit about how we started and some of the inspiration for the foundation. I've been working for Eckhart Teachings since It began in 1999. And our mission has always been the same same. And that's to share Eckart's teachings with as many people as possible. Of course, back in the early days, we did not have a big team. We basically did everything by hand. You know, there's almost. It was the early days of the Internet, and I can still remember like it was yesterday, folding paper flyers in the living room and packaging audio and video cassette tapes. Being in charge of duplicating the audio and video cassette tapes, I was the one taking all of the phone, fax, and snail mail orders, packaging them up, and walking several blocks to the post office every day. In fact, our very first covers were actually black and white photocopies that we made at Kinko's. As you can imagine, over the years, we have received a lot of feedback from people who have been impacted by the Power of Now and A New Earth. And some of the most impactful feedback that we've received have been letters from people in prison writing to Eckhart and expressing their gratitude, as well as telling their stories. And we have been so impacted by these letters, and Eckhart keeps every single one. And even though we were impacted, it still made us think about all the communities with very little access that. And we were wondering, like, how can we help them? And giving back has always been a part of Eckhart teachings. And we've been doing so by giving those that can't afford to pay event scholarships, access to online courses. We have a lot of teachings available for free on YouTube and other streaming platforms. And even though that we've been giving individuals help, we still wanted a way to be able to focus and give back to underserved communities. So in 2016, we launched the Eckhart Tolle foundation. And we chose to support incarcerated people, hospice patients, and the underserved youth. We've had a couple of large conferences where all the proceeds went to fund the foundation. We've been giving tens of thousands of books away to prisons, hospices, and the underserved youth. We've brought the youth to learn directly from Eckhart and Kim in person. And we've been donating, we've given grants to these communities. And we also recently partnered with Adobo and they are providing tablets and access to Eckhart and Kim's teachings to over 250,000 people. And we're also planning for Eckhart to speak in a couple prisons soon in person. Tonight, we're highlighting the underserved youth because they need mental, emotional and spiritual support and not only for their own personal well being, but because they represent humanity's future and this world needs more conscious and aware people. We are committed to helping these communities and help them relieve the suffering caused by the dysfunctional egoic mind so that more people can show up in their lives, present and aware and in touch with their essential nature. If you're inclined to be a part of this impact, we have three ways that you can help. Number one, by sharing our social media posts about our book donation programs and our grant programs with your networks. Number two, we of course graciously welcome any donations. And number three, and it truly is the most important, my personal favorite quote of Eckhart's has always been the world can only change from within. And that does mean that you being here, connecting to presence, and continuing to practice living your life from Presence is the most essential. I'd also like to thank all of you, our incredibly generous donors and our dedicated board of directors for their service, our staff and our volunteers, and of course our executive director, Ali Weibel. All of you are making this work possible. Now it's time for our first surprise video expressing their support for the work that we've been doing by bringing Eckhart's teachings to young people. This person's team reached out to me several years ago in hopes of connecting with Eckhart and little did I know at the time what their vision was and where this connection would go. I'm amazed by this person's commitment to sharing Eckhart's teachings with his massive audience. I would say that he is making spiritual teachings cool in the eyes of young people. He's definitely opening a meaningful conversation and he's using his art and his platform to not only share his own learning and wisdom, but also Eckhart's teachings. Eckhart was featured in his most recent album throughout his whole album, Almost Mr. Morali and the Big Steppers. He is a multi platinum Grammy and Emmy award winning artist. He was the first non classical, non jazz musician to win a Pulitzer prize for his 2017 album Damn. Here he is, Mr. Kendrick Lamar.

I believe people can, they truly can use, well, not people. Young people. Young people need to hear Aircraft's words the most because today we live in society where there's so many things pushing and pulling. You know, whether it's a lifestyle, social media, brands, trends, so many things consume young people and you know, their decision making and to truly crack that code and have that balance, you know, everybody want nice things, right? But to have that balance is to also go within. As I said before, I wish I would have read these books when I was 16. When I was 13, I'd probably be far more advanced in my personal life and my daily, you know, interpersonal dynamics, not only with people, but with myself. But I'm fortunate enough to come across it in my 30s. But for the kids that's out there listening, 12, 13, 14, 15, and up, I truly recommend that you get into them because it'll open your mind up further than you can even imagine, further than the things that you want, further than the things that you think that you need. You explore a whole new journey of self worth, passion, purpose, creativity and stillness within yourself. It's worth it a hundred percent, not only on the professional level, because I know everyone has dreams and goals and aspirations, but on a personal level.

It.

Plays the same rules. And when you intertwine the works between the two things are happened for you.

Kendrick Lamar saying Young people need to hear Eckhart's words the most. What a terrific surprise video. Let's learn more about the New Earth Youth Initiative. And to share with us more about the details, we have a fellow board member of mine on the Eckhart Tolle foundation board. One of the best parts of participating on the board is the type of allyship and friendship and creative partnership that I can have with somebody like Elizabeth Lesser, co founder of Omega Institute, author of several bestselling books, including Broken How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow and Cassandra Speaks When Women Are the Human Story Changes. Elizabeth, over to you.

Okay, thank you. Hey everybody. What a pleasure to be with you. It's a cold, chilly night here in New York.

It's.

And I imagine you're all coming in from all over the world in the country. It's just great to feel everybody on the Zoom and YouTube and wherever you're joining us. So I'm here to introduce our next guest. But first, I want to tell you briefly about the foundation's youth initiative. We're calling it the New Earth Youth Initiative. And it's really meaningful to me to. To be working on something about young people and kids because I've been in education my whole life. I started out as a kindergarten and elementary school teacher and then I made worked my way up to working with grownups in education when I co founded Omega Institute 47 years ago. And it dawned on me as I worked with kids years ago that grownups also need to keep learning, that it's actually imperative for adults to learn how to grow and change and expand our consciousness as as we age. And not just getting facts, but the important things like how do I quiet my mind and open my heart and relate to the mysterious parts of myself, my soul, my consciousness. And throughout my 50 almost years at Omega, I've had the privilege of being in the presence of educators of the mind and the heart and the soul. People like Eckhart Tolle, although there's really no one like Eckhart Tolle. And I get to. I got to really experience him in his full eckhartness back in 2008 when I helped Oprah produce a webinar focusing on a New Earth. The book, the 10 chapters, I don't know, many of you may be tuned into that. Millions and millions of people around the world tuned into that webinar. I remember the first night we did it. It was one of the first things like it in the world and the entire Chicago Internet down because so many people were trying to get on. And I learned during that that his work wasn't just for serious spiritual readers and seekers. That anyone trying to figure out this tricky thing called being human could access the depth and the scope and the magnificence of his work. And that made me think, well then kids could also. And young people don't just need to learn how to read and write and do math. They need education of their hearts and their minds and souls. The way Kendrick Lamar was saying, if only he had had that learning way back in his early teens, what a difference it would make. And that's why we're doing this. That's why we are raising money and spending the money we raise to do things like bringing his books to schools and school libraries, creating programs specifically for young people. Like the lectures Eckhart did a few years ago with NYU students and offering grants to like minded organizations working with youth. And I'd like to introduce you now to a leader from one of those organizations. And he happens to be a dear friend of mine. He has taught at Omega Institute for many years and his work inspires all of us at Omega and here at the foundation greatly. His name is Andres Gonzalez and he's one of the three co founders of the Holistic Life foundation and the co author of Let yout Life Shine, which is a powerful book that documents the way yoga and meditation have transformed and empowered thousands of historically underserved kids in Baltimore. For 20 years, Andres has shared wellness, healing and present moment practices in public school systems and beyond. Breathing life back into a community destroyed by drugs, poverty and systemic racism. And what I love so much about Andres is how he personally walks his message in the world. He has this message that love can heal any heart, including our own. And he is that kind of healer. And welcome, Andres.

Thank you so much, Elizabeth. It's so good to see you. It's been a while. I hope you're staying warm where you're at because it's chilly here in Baltimore as well. So before I get to just a few of the topics that I wanted to address, I really just want to give a shout out to the Eckhart Tolle foundation for all the amazing work they do. You know, the Holistic Life foundation has been going for 20 years, and recently they've been supporting us not only financially in terms of giving us funds to help run our Holistic Roots program, which is a mentoring program. It's really helping these underserved kids in the city, but also they've done books to us, countless amounts of books. I mean, books on top of books on top of books. So we can give them to the youth, to the adults, to teenagers, to anyone that we run into in all of our programs. They're accessible and they're there to spread his message and his truths. And just amazing what they're doing. And this new initiative as well is incredible. And it's so needed. And I've seen it through the work I've been doing for over 20 years now all across the nation and across the world. And I wanted to start by talking about a metaphor and how important this work is. Our teacher, Uncle Will used to use this extended metaphor to describe how important breath, work or meditation is for people in general, but I think in particular for our youth and the transformation that it can have on them when they start using these skills and techniques to learn how to self regulate. The way he would do it, he'd say, you know, our body's like a boat and the world is the ocean. And more oftentimes than not, our waters are calm, right? We can set our sails and go whatever direction we want to go. But if you think about it sometimes, and actually now I think about it most of the time, right, Our waters aren't calm, right? We're bombarded by external and internal stimuli. Externally, we have what's going on in the world. You had your family, you have your friends, your parents, your loved ones, significant others. You have co workers, bosses, you have society, social media, politics, right? We're so that's smacking us around externally, that's moving our boat around. We're trying to set our sails. It's getting tougher and then internally the bombardment. We have our fears, our doubt, stress, worry, anxiety, trauma that we faced, whether it's, you know, our personal trauma, secondary trauma, intergenerational trauma. So really those waters, this world is chaotic and we're bombarded by this all the time and it's pushing us around all over the place. So it's hard for us to set ourselves. And our teacher used to remind us how the breath or meditation, that that is our anchor that allows us to steal ourselves, which in turn will still our waters, which will allow us to set our sails and go in whatever direction we want to go and achieve whatever it is that we want to achieve. And, and I seen firsthand the amazing transformation this has with kids that we were based of Baltimore and we're in northwest Baltimore. So like where the wire came out, like the hood of all hoods, right? And there's a young lady in elementary school we got with her, she was from the same project that Freddie Gray was from. And for some reason people would bully this girl, right? She didn't have, you know, the cool clothes or the backpack. She was kind of, you know, had a little less material wise than anyone else did. So they, they picked on her, they made fun of her, they said stuff to her. And we're always confused why. They chose her because her brother had showed her how to throw her hands a little, right? So you know, how to box. And he showed her. So I was always confused, like, why do you keep picking on this girl? She's gonna beat you up. She's stronger than you. She knows what to do with her hands, right? So you know, we teach her some of these techniques, some of these practices of breath work and meditation. And this is early on in us, in us providing these techniques and practices to youth. And so myself and the other two co founders, Ali and Atma, were at this school and with the principal and we go and we're walking through the halls and we turn the corner and when we turn the corner, this young lady has this other lady, she's grabbed her by the shirt and she had her thrown up against the lockers. And she's looking at her and you can tell she is about to cock back and hit this little girl. And, and she looks at us and she sees us walking down the halls and she looks at the girl and she looks at the guests again. She goes, looks at the girl and goes, you lucky. I meditate. And she lets go of the young lady, sits down and starts breathing. And it was one of the most powerful things the principal was looking at me like, what did I just see? Right? And we were like, oh my God, what did we just see? Because we seen how she was with the other kids too. So it's just so powerful and amazing to see the impact that it can have on these youth. And, you know, not only does it help them with dealing with their stress, dealing with their anxiety, dealing with that bombardment I was talking to you all about, but honestly, some of these kids in these neighborhoods, these techniques and practices that we're talking about that this new Earth Youth Initiative is focusing on will help these kids so much that in, in some cases it may end up saving their lives because now they're no longer reacting to what the world is throwing at them, but they're learning to still themselves and they're able to respond. Know. And Elizabeth mentioned I'm a big love guy, which I am, as you can see by the clothes. And I just think love is the most powerful force in the universe. And I think that these techniques in particular, one of the things I think when, when, when youth learn to go inward, like Kendrick was talking about 1316, learn how to distill those waters, learn how to. To be able to go inside and just be. Remember we're human beings. When they learn that, they. They gain this sense of love, self love, they learn to love themselves. And then now when they're looking out at others, they're more empathetic, they're more compassionate. They start seeing themselves in everyone and everything. Now they're not alone. Now they're not so disconnected anything. Now they see the interconnection between themselves and everyone. They're not just their corner anymore. They're not just their block. They're not just the east side or west side of Baltimore. They're not just Baltimore or Maryland or the United States. They're not just this country, this continent. They start seeing that universal self, that omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent self that they truly are. And that's when you see that transformation occur. And it's so beautiful and it's so powerful and it's so needed in the world that we're in right now. And it's just. It's amazing. So kudos to this foundation and the initiative they're making. I have two other things that, these two quotes that, that Eckard has in his books I just wanted to talk about because they really ring true to some of the stuff and the synchronicities and the synergies that we're doing with the Holistic Life foundation that are with his work. So one of them is from the power of now and our teachers to always talk about how the only time that exists is right now, right? And Ecker says, as soon as you enter the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out of the present moment, awareness, whatever you do, becomes imbued with the sense of quality care and love. And our teacher used to always said, he said, the past causes anger. Someone said something to you, they did something to you. You might regret something you did. The future causes anxiety. What's going to happen? What am I going to do with myself? What's going on? When we teach these youth to be in the now, which is the only time that exists, right? The past is gone. The future is never getting here. But when they learn to live in this now moment, this present moment, this present, it's a gift. That's the reason it's called the present. It's so powerful. And what we're doing is we're allowing these kids to remember that they can access that whenever they want to. And that reminder is something my teacher used to always say. He says, I'm not a teacher. He said, hey, I'm not a teacher. I'm a reminder. I'm a conduit. And Eckhart talks about that, too. And stillness speaks. A true spiritual teacher, he says, does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you. We have it all already, right? Such as new information, beliefs or rules or conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth of who you already are and what you already know in the depth of your being. And that's what this initiative is going to be able to do, y' all. So really, we need your support. We need you to tell your friends to tell a friend. We need y' all to really understand the impact this can have. If we can take kids from inner cities, underserved communities, who have never had a retreat experience, never even left their city, they get to go hang out with Ecker. Like, I want to go to the retreat.

You know what I mean?

So, for real, special, shout out to the Eckhart Tolle foundation, all the amazing work that they're doing. Thank you for continuing to support the Holistic Light Foundation. And please, all y' all, please do the same, support as much as you can. This new Earth Youth Initiative is so Powerful. It's so incredible. We're honored to be a part of it here at the Holistic Life Foundation. I'm honored to be here and I really just love to all of y' all and don't forget that love is the most powerful force in the universe.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Andres. Bring in the heart. And it's time for our next surprise video. I notice when I say that I imagine like there should be confetti and music and sounds that go like rocket ship. Okay, in a moment. And this next surprise video is from a quintessential multi hyphenated artist, a Grammy nominated singer, songwriter, actress, New York Times best selling author, Jewel. Jewel is also the founder of the Jewel Never Broken foundation, which works with children and at risk youth to give them the tools that they need to develop and grow into whole human beings. I want to connect a few dots for you here before we hear this surprise video from Jewel. Andres mentioned that the Holistic Life foundation is part of the support partnering with the Eckhart Tolle foundation in an upcoming retreat for young people to come be present with Eckhart and Kim in a retreat and environment. The Jewel Never Broken foundation is also partnering with us as is Echoes of Hope, a shout out to Echoes of Hope and other nonprofits who work with youth. And we're identifying 100 young people who can travel to Southern California and attend this three day retreat with Eckhart and Kim at the end of May. And we're specifically raising funds. This is the current focus of our new Earth Youth initiative coming up in 2024. One aspect of it is to raise funds for the travel and the food and the lodging for these hundred young people to be part of this retreat experience. Eckhart Teachings is donating, gifting the tuition for the retreat, but you can imagine there are costs involved in bringing these hundred young people to the event and providing them with the travel, food and lodging they need to attend. And that's our goal here in this fundraiser, is to raise funds specifically for these hundred young people to be at the retreat. We have a matching grant right now that's in effect, so when you donate, and I'd like to invite you if you feel inspired to donate, there's a donate button below the player page to do so and your funds will be matched. And this is our chance if this matches your inspiration. And with that, now let's have our surprise video with Jewel from the Jewel Never Broken Foundation.

Hey everybody, it's Jewel and it is an honor to be here with you all today and support Eckhart. I know we are all here because we love him and his teachings. And I love what the foundation is doing to make sure that these types of teachings can get into the hands of so many people through the foundation, through the book programs, making sure it gets into the hands of youth in prison systems. This is such important work. I really hope that you will donate and make more of these types of things possible. His teachings have helped not only me, but my youth in our foundation. We are a foundation that's been working in mental health with youth for 22 years. And I cannot tell you how many times our kids have come up to us saying how his books have impacted them and their life. I know this is not news to you. I know you're here because you know this. And we all agree. Eckhart has done incredible things donating books to our foundation. And it is just a privilege to show up here today because through his foundation, I know we can do such incredible work.

Thank you, Jewel. And now we have the chance to hear from Kim and Eckhart directly. We'll start by hearing from Kim Eng, Eckhart's teaching partner, the founder of Presence through Movement, Kim. Here we go.

Thank you, Tammy. Hello, everybody. Hello, friends. So what I'd like to do is for you to sit kind of like in a meditative state, but we're not going to really do a formal meditation. This is something that you can.

Do.

For yourself, like, you know, five, ten, three times, 20 times a day. And that is to be able to just sit in presence. And even though things are happening around us, there may be voices, maybe things that you see in the background, but we're just going to kind of allow that to kind of go in the periphery and hold our hands, like with our palms up, maybe just on your lap, but the palms up in a receiving. So you're receiving that spirit within, receiving that consciousness that is within you. So not only that, you are receiving it. So you are that hole in the flute in which a life then can breathe through you, create through you. So as we sit here with our palms up, we're in that receptive receiving and also emanating that light of consciousness. So our purpose in life is unfolding of that spirit within, or as Jesus said, seek the kingdom of God within, or Buddha. He didn't say it in those words of kingdom or God, but he said the end of suffering. And right now, we are in this. These times, it's a challenging time. There's a lot happening in the world. And these youths is the next generation to create a new earth, to create a better world than what we have created. I mean, it's all been a process, you know, and it's not always uphill, but it comes around. But they are our next generation. And we are as what Ecker calls, we are the frequency holder for this next generation. And these youths, I mean, as all of us have been challenged not only by external, but by the internal, the ego, the mind. And these youth will probably also have to go through that. But if we hold that frequency of consciousness for these youths to be able to live in this world and create something that will be harmonious, peaceful, holy. And this is what we are moving towards. We're allowing that consciousness to come through our very, the essence of who we are, come through our being. And we are that vehicle, just as those youths are the vehicle for the light of consciousness to shine through, for a new world to be able to be here, that we will end suffering, that will have the kingdom of God shine through us. So we are here to share this together. For it's one consciousness, one life that manifests through all these various forms. So we have our part, we each have our part. And maybe our part is just being a frequency holder. Maybe our part is working with the youths, so it is just being a frequency holder. Maybe our part is working with youths so it doesn't matter what is happening in, in the family life of the youths. I mean, ideally, it'll be nice be able to have conscious parenting that's happening in their family life. But just as we, each one of us, just as a school teacher even, they may have that student one hour, three hours, five hours, whatever. How many hours in a day? It doesn't take all day to be with a student. It just takes a moment of pure consciousness to be that light where that student can then just basically transform. They will remember that time. We all can go back probably in our memories and think of somebody who has been there for us, no matter how small, in a way short of time that it's been. But we, the older generation.

The middle.

Generation and the younger generation, we're here to awaken, to unfold, to manifest a new earth, to be present, to let go of that egoic form and that identification with form, so that we can live and breathe, be conscious. So these youths may be the next leaders of our country, of the various countries that are around, and so shall it be that will they live and be a leader, be the vessel in which consciousness can use their speech, use their mind use their bodies in the sense of creating and living, bringing together a global.

Peace.

Now, we don't know what that requires, whether that means we go deeper into as a collective world, deeper into, well, deeper into suffering, deeper into the. The fall of or the end of a maybe of a civilization. We don't know that. We don't know what's going to happen, but we do know, and I know that life comes around. So it may be take five, 10 steps back, but it'll come back around. And we are. That's the evolution of human consciousness is that we are evolving. So and what we do, what can we do but be present, accepting what is in this moment? And maybe there's a lot and there's a lot of challenges that is happening in this world at this moment, but we can go deeper into that space consciousness so we can be that frequency holder. And from that space of being that frequency holder, we begin to learn and accept the spiritual laws of just accepting, allowing this moment to be as it is. Even though that there may be some challenging times and there will be challenging times for youths. I think anybody who is going to be go into a leadership role is challenged and they will be challenged. But we keep coming back.

To being.

Present to connect with that consciousness. And since that consciousness is the one consciousness, we as the individual human beings are holding that frequency. So it's all just one, one consciousness manifesting in all these various forms, whether it's good, bad. For in the world of form, there are opposites. So there's going to be good, there's going to be bad, there's going to be happy, there's going to be sad, there's going to be good times and bad times. But within those times, can then consciousness come through and a shift begins to happen? Something will happen. And we know if you go within, you know that this shift that is happening is happening in, if we can say the world, the form that it is, transforming this world as we know it. And this is what is needed is just for all of us together to be that frequency holder. So speaking of the world, I forgot to check my time to see when I started. So I don't know whether I've gone over, I'm under, but it feels complete. If we could just sit in again, silence and just allow consciousness to feel that consciousness within you with your palms facing up. We are one and connected and holding that space for the next generation. Thank you.

Thank you, Kim. And now over to Eckhart.

Hello everybody. Good to be with you. It's as the Buddhists would say, an auspicious evening. The full moon has just risen above the treetops here. I've been watching it. And traditionally, those are very powerful moments in time for meditation and going within. So it just happens that this session here coincides with the full moon. We haven't been planning it, and the moon is incredibly still. It rises. It looks enormously big when it first rises. Then it seems to get a little smaller. But it's such stillness around it. It. It's challenging being a human being. It's also an incredible opportunity for the arising of consciousness. But it is undoubtedly not easy. Humans are facing and seemingly endless succession of challenges. And challenges is a. Already a positive term. Some people would call it bad things happening. When you become a little bit more conscious, you recognize that seemingly negative things that are happening, Limitations arising in your life, obstacles arising, difficult situations, circumstances, people. And then at some point, you realize that those difficult situations, in whatever form they manifest, are actually an essential part of being human. And an essential part, as far as the flowering of consciousness is concerned, the next shift in consciousness that we are moving into. So for young people, life is particularly challenging. The most difficult time in my life was childhood and adolescence. And many other people find that also when you're a child, you're born into a particular set of circumstances over which you have no control. You're completely at the mercy of whatever circumstances you're born into. Your parents, your environment, family background, the culture you're born into, the environment, the country, all this your. And there's nothing you can do about your inner child. You are the seemingly the passive recipient of whatever life is throwing at you. And some humans are born into extraordinarily difficult circumstances, even as young children. And then you reach adolescence. And then often it gets even more difficult. Because adolescence for many people is a very disconcerting time. When you're halfway between childhood and adulthood, the time of transition. For many adolescents, it's a time of great upheavals and unhappiness. Even when they're not. Even when the external circumstances are relatively okay. They're being challenged by an inner turmoil in many cases. And they're completely unprepared for that because nobody at school has prepared them for it. As they enter adolescence, they're going to enter probably a time of inner turmoil. No matter what the outer circumstances are. And sometimes, if the outer circumstances are relatively okay, the turmoil. The inner turmoil can be even greater than if. If the adolescents were born into poverty or to fight for survival every day. So Whatever it is, it's not easy. And it's essential for youngsters to be prepared for, not just for adolescents to be children to be prepared for what's coming, and then adolescents to be prepared for what's coming when they grow into adults. And what we are attempting to help with in reaching as many youngsters as possible is teaching the basics of awareness, which is a key to transcending the suffering that otherwise arises in the human mind that is inherited from generation to generation. So the most basic teachings for a young person, and it should start in childhood, is to be aware of their inner states rather than being at the mercy of their inner states. They may be at the mercy of, until they become a little older, of their outer circumstances, but they don't need to be at the mercy of their inner states, which means emotions and thoughts. If they could become aware, if it could be shown to a child, it's not complicated that emotions arise and that it is possible to be aware of these emotions instead of being totally absorbed in them, being totally taken over by them. That it is possible to stand back, so to speak, and witness the emotions there it is. That's extremely important in adolescence, when sometimes very negative and violent emotions arise. Is the emotion taking you over completely? Or are you able to allow the emotion to be there, but not being totally absorbed in it, not being totally identified it, so that it doesn't make you do sometimes things that are irreversible in many cases. So basic teaching is awareness of inner states. That could start at the age of six and a few. Some individual teachers are kind of introducing that making that part of the teaching is not yet. Has not yet entered the curriculum of many schools, maybe a few alternative schools. But the most important curriculum at school should not be any subject, whatever it may be mathematics, English or whatever language, geography, whatever. It's all secondary relative to what is primary. And that is to be aware. That should be the main subject. In a more enlightened subject, we are going in that direction. So it's awareness of emotions, which could be shown by role playing, by telling stories. All kinds of possibilities can help children to develop the ability to be aware. And the arising of awareness is the essence of spirituality. Another word for awareness is presence. The arising of presence is the essence of all spirituality. So that if we can make that the main teaching, everything else would then fall into place. So it should start in childhood, and then it becomes very important in adolescence when emotions do tend to arise, powerful emotions also. Not just awareness of emotions, but also to be aware of Thoughts that arise, what are you telling yourself? These are simple things that can be taught even to a child. It's not complicated. But by telling stories, as I said, by telling stories, by acting it out, role playing you, a child can learn to become aware also of how they speak to themselves in their mind. The inner voice. What is the voice saying so that they don't become the voice. Because if you are the voice, that's. You've been taken over by the conditioned mind. The mind which is conditioned by your environment, by whatever circumstances you were born into, whatever your parents have done, what people have done to you, etc. The conditioned mind, yes, it's there. You can't get rid of it easily, but you, you don't need to be totally absorbed by it, not totally identified with it. So how do you, what is your mind saying, what it's doing? Simple things could be taught to children and then for, and then gradually that ability grows, the ability to stay aware when difficult things happen, as they will in every person's life. Every person is not only facing external difficulties, but also problems arising from the workings of the human mind. And the human mind also has incredible possibilities for manifesting and creating. But there's also built into the human mind a deep seated dysfunction that everybody inherits. In some humans it expresses it in a more acute form than in others. But in every human, this deep seated dysfunction which we could call the ego, the egoic mind operates in one way or another in every person's life. So we have that. It's been recognized in all spiritual traditions that yes, humans are wonderful beings, the wonderful possibilities, they also have created amazing things. But also there is a huge downside to being human, and that is the inherited, let's not call it by more direct term, the inherited craziness of the human condition, of the human mind. So we all inherit a little bit of insanity and sometimes a lot. If that were not the case, the world would not be the way it is now. When you see the enormous amount of suffering, most of it created by humans, some suffering created by natural disaster, yes, but more suffering created by humans. But what does that mean? It's created by the consciousness, the collective consciousness in humans that creates this world. And that's what you hear about when you listen or watch the news tonight. What you're going to hear is manifestations of the collective consciousness of the human, the human mind. And it's not, it's not pleasant. So, and so this needs to be shown to young people so that they, then you would have a wonderful start you'd have already the power given to you of how to face the difficult life circumstances that are going to come sooner or later. Sooner probably. So give children, give youngsters this gift of showing them the possibility of being aware, of being present instead of losing themselves in their emotions and in their thoughts completely. So. So that's really the essence what we need to teach young people. Traditionally the knowledge of this is always come in much later in life when people beginning to suffer more and more and more and then they just can't stand it anymore. And at some point there's some awakening. Not it's not guaranteed but at some point when human suffer, they awaken. And for quite a while people coming to talks and retreats seen certain percentage of young people, but not. But it's now the young people seems to be growing now slowly. Traditionally it's been people in the second half of life who've come because they have suffered enough so that they finally begin to awaken. Seems that humans need to suffer until they. Until there is the beginning of an awakening. But it doesn't have to be like that. Humanity has already suffered a lot. And I have observed two things in young people these days, seemingly contradictory. One is a high degree of disorientation and of aimlessness and of sometimes nihilism. Nothing is worth doing. Sometimes a high degree of suddenly being possessed by some ideology that you subscribe to that reduces the complexity of life to one or see single things. This is the answer I have the answer for everything to become possessed by an ideology. And then you. You act it out violently sometimes and others completely aimless or they can't stand a seemingly empty life. So they, they're looking, they're going, they take drugs and so on. So that's. That's a very negative development on the one hand. But I've also observed and it seems almost contradictory in something is an increasing readiness in youngsters to awaken. They just need to hear the message, but nobody has told them. They just need to hear the message. And then the shift can happen even at an early age. But the strange thing is this the message. Most youngsters have not yet been reached by this message. So there is on the negative side. Being young these days is very difficult. I don't want to go into it too deeply. A huge challenge is that the technology that being absorbed in the virtual dimension, the virtual world screens that you youngsters interact with being drawn. This is a huge challenge for youngsters and for a huge challenge for the human consciousness. So that's one would need to address that specifically. That's one of the major, if not the major challenge for young person now is how to live with this new technology, not lose yourself in the new technology. And this technology is really an externalization of the human mind. So the human mind has always been a problem. Losing yourself in your mind, which is the egoic state of consciousness and having no awareness at all, being taken over by one thought after another, one thought after another. That's always been a problem already for hundreds and thousands of years. But now you have the additional problem. This incessantly stalking acting human minds that comes up. It never stops. One damn thing after another. It's become now externalized through the technology. It comes at you interact with these screens and it never stops. As a continuous input of stuff. You're bombarded by stuff. And youngsters, many youngsters these days, the major part of their reality is not this life here, the actual life that surrounds them. The major part of their reality is a virtual world. The virtual world has become more real to them than the real world. Humanity has never faced a challenge of that kind. It's for the first time and it is an enormous challenge. Enormous. This is why it's so important. So it's always been important to live consciously, but now we have no choice. If we do not bring awareness in, we are going to lose ourselves completely in that. The externalized mind, which is a virtual world. The virtual world can also be helpful. We're using technology here to reach people. It can be helpful, but it needs to be used with awareness. Without awareness, without presence, it will consume you. So it's now an absolute necessity for humans to become aware. Otherwise they will be consumed not just by them, by their mind. They will be consumed by the what they have created, the externalized mind, the virtual mind. They will be consumed by it. So it's a, it's a. And this is a greater. This is the greatest danger for human consciousness. The greatest challenge, greater than any other challenge in the external world. Agreement, so it's dubbed. It's so important now. Only awareness can liberate us from all that. So the teaching then, the main teaching, otherwise we are actually confronted with a life threatening situation in technology. So it's not just. It's always been a. Traditionally the awakening of consciousness as only. It's always been there for already for thousands of years. They've always been humans who have awakened. Yeah, we're able to transcend the egoic mind and become aware. But up until recently it's been a kind of luxury almost. It was great. Some humans were able to realize it. Some, many. And through the existing religious teachings, although religious teachings to a large extent have also become corrupted and misused by the human ego to a large extent. But there have always been some who were able to awaken through that. But now that's not enough anymore. What we now need is an awakening on a much larger scale. And the possibility is there when I talk to youngsters, and I want to do it much more. Okay, I've given talks at some universities. I've spoken at Stanford and New York University. And at first I wasn't sure, but first I wonder what they're going to make of it. And I was amazed how open they were to the teaching. And some said, wow, I've never heard that before. So the openness is there, and we just need to create channels so that they can be reached with this message. And the message, basically, if I had wanted to express it and define it in one single sentence, the message is that there's more to you than meets the eye. There is a possibility of accessing a deeper or higher state of consciousness. There is a different. There is a dimension of consciousness in you just waiting to be discovered. You don't have to achieve it because that means you need a lot of time to get there. It's not something the awakening is not something you need to achieve. It's something you discover. And to show that to youngsters, and not just conceptually, but experientially, to show them the possibility, for example, of being aware of the way in which they talk to themselves in their head, just what. What are you saying to yourself? There's already an awareness or the possibility of discovery between two thoughts. There is a space. We can call it stillness. And again, everything in this world goes against that. Every device that you have with a screen on it is trying to obscure to prevent you from accessing the dimension of stillness. Because it's the opposite of stillness. It's stuff getting at you, Content stuff. Another text message, another Facebook post, another this, another this coming up, interacting. Never, never a moment of. And so the possibility of discover still, I mean, there are a few apps on. There are quite a few apps that you can get that teach you meditation. And that's good. So it can be used for a helpful purpose. It can be. Most of it is in the service of unconsciousness, this technology, but it can. But a small percentage of that is actually helpful. There are some apps that teach you how to breathe consciously, how to be aware of your breath. One of the simplest Most fundamental ways of accessing this inner dimension of stillness that transcends thought. Be aware of your breathing. So you have this little app. I tried a few on my iPhone. Oh, that's quite good. So it goes, you can choose the duration in those. Breathe in, inhale. And it goes, tick, tick, tick, tick, hold, exhale, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, inhale, hold, exhale, hold. And what happens when you follow that? The mind becomes still. So it, it can be used in a constructive and helpful way. It can be. 90% of it isn't yet, but so we need to be to use it skillfully. With awareness. Without awareness, it will destroy you. With awareness, it can be wonderful thing, this technology. And then you may have heard about the latest developments of AI, artificial intelligence. It does the most amazing things. You can ask it to write an essay on some, some subject, and he'll Write it within 5 seconds. It would take you 5 hours to write that. It might not be as good. It can do amazing things. And so quite soon, perhaps the AI will be better at thinking than the human mind. So that's another reason for going beyond thinking. So that to discover a dimension in you that is actually higher and more powerful than the thought, the dimension of thinking. It's time now, because otherwise it'll defeat you. It becomes better at thinking than you are. So you have to rise above thinking the way we are able to use your mind and use the technology, but are not consumed by it. You are above it. And that is presence, that is awareness. So this is a wonderful thing, but this is an incredible time we live in when things are extremely challenging. One could say, who knows where it's going? It could go very, very wrong. It could. Or it could be the very seemingly negative thing that we have created can be the opening into that higher dimension of consciousness that is waiting to be discovered in every human. And that's vital. It's waiting to be discovered. It's dormant in, in you. And so that's. Children need to grow up with that. Give, give, give a child this gift, then the child will grow into an adult and will be able to use that. And then it will become, it will grow, it will become more powerful. Every challenge that then this human faces will make that human more conscious instead of drawing them back into unconsciousness. But of course, always, no matter.