From Suffering to Awakening: Embracing Consciousness in Virtual Worlds | Eckhart Tolle

That makes a difference if you can reach people in their own language. And people were grateful that I made this effort. Normally, I'm not into efforting at all.

Hi Eckert, My name is Baba and I started listening to you, I think a year ago during the pandemic. Thanks a lot to my partner who introduced me to you. I have a three dimensional question for you, sir. As a technologist, I come from this experience of creating virtual worlds and I would say there's some good news. The good news there, both as a producer and a consumer, is there's a lot of suffering there. So. And as you always say, suffering is the foundation to consciousness. So hopefully, hopefully we'll find a solution there. On a serious note, the three dimensional question I have for you is in regards to language, how has the understanding of multiple. I don't know if you've addressed this in the past, but just listening to you speak, since you have a grasp or a decent grasp of multiple languages, how has your understanding of multiple languages enabled you to get access to wisdom in the conscious dimension and communicate that in accessible ways? So that's the first one. Then the second one is pushing, wanting to explore your mind around digital media. So I don't know whether you've experienced digital media or whether you spend much time on there, but if you were to explore your mind and talk about how you would design social media in conscious ways, what would you recommend there? Because I literally quit my job to live in my car to explore some of these ideas and because, yeah, I think as the pandemic showed me, it's important we solve this problem. And exploring your mind would give me some insights. And the final one is the power of now. And it's. I come from a different community whereby thoughts like yours was inaccessible to me and I feel like it was a language barrier. And I would like to work with you and your team to help make the power of now accessible in major African languages. Because I. Because it has really, in my own personal journey, first of all, being able to, like I've grown up speaking English and being able to access your perspective. I grew up Christian, but being able to access your perspective opened my mind to another dimension and I was able to heal my deep. Like Kim says, laundry, like there's a bunch of laundry. I was able to heal, but after healing my laundry, I came to the realization that, okay, there are a bunch of these amazing things I want to communicate with my parents, but I really can't because I speak English to them. English is not their first Language, it's like speaking of unconsciousness, slavery and colonization. It's like a second third language for them. And so there are some things that are not accessible. But the weird thing is I started learning my native language and there's some weird thing that started going on. It's like the same thoughts you were saying is actually accessible in other languages that already exist. And I'm like, oh my God. And I started speaking my language to my parents and it's bringing so much peace to them. And it's like what you're saying is actually true. Like ancient wisdom and ancient civilization. Like those things are real. So I'd love to work with you and your team to make this accessible. So please. Languages, Digital Media and PowerPoint.

Thank you. Wonderful proposal and that will help perhaps millions of people. However, I must confess that I have forgotten your first question.

Your understanding of several languages, does that help in accessing wisdom from the conscious dimension and does that help in communicating that in accessible ways?

Right. Well, just when was it? Three weeks ago. We had a retreat in Mexico and for the first time ever I wanted to challenge myself and decided to do the entire retreat in Spanish. And that was. I learned Spanish a long time ago, over half a century ago and haven't used it very much since. Reading. Occasionally reading a book. And I experienced the. At first it was very hard for my mind to find the words that there's an intuition that comes before you speak. It's very hard to describe before language happens. You already know what wants to be said at a non verbal level. And then this knowing what wants to be said, it is a non conceptual knowing then gets translated into concepts and words. And with a verb. In English they say your language is rusty. When you haven't used a language for a long time, you say it's rusty. And that's how I experienced it. The impulse came to say something and sometimes the flow was there. It was fine. Then can't find the right word immediately. The mind has to work overtime to find an equivalent or similar word. It slows you down a bit, but that was fine. So I was able to reach and after a couple of days it flowed. So it came back and it went much more easily. Quite enjoyable. Reaching people in their own language, that makes a difference. If you can reach people in their own language rather than have it translated into their language. This is why I wanted to do it. So I was able to and people were grateful that I made this effort. Normally I'm not into efforting at all, but I made an effort to speak Spanish. And it worked. And that was good. Similar thing in Germany years ago. I so out of touch with the German language that I spoke as a child. And I said, I cannot possibly. That was 20 years ago. I said, I cannot possibly give a talk in German. It's just the words are not there anymore. And at the first event, I had a translator. I spoke English, and the translator interpreted into German. It didn't feel quite right. And a few times I knew the translator wasn't correct, but I couldn't say anything. And at the second talk, the organizer said, why don't you tell your just say a few words in German and explain to them why you are not going to speak German. And that's a good idea. So I started and I talked. The reason why I'm not going to speak in German, I said in German, the reason why I cannot speak in German to you because I haven't used the language in 60 years or whatever. And so. And then I cleaned and talked and talked. And 15 minutes later, I said, oh, I'm still speaking German. And then they continued. Translation was unnecessary. The flow was there. It was a miracle. And so after that, I've always, whenever I go Germany, Switzerland, I speak in German now. That's good. But language is a strange thing. It's of course, it's an abstraction language. I use language to teach. And the words that one uses in spiritual discourse, the words have a different function from the function that words have in ordinary discourse. In spiritual discourse, the words are not the thing. They only point to the thing. All the words point us to something that is beyond words. So using words in order to point something that is beyond the words. Even when I say stillness, the word stillness isn't stillness. So it's a pointer. When they say the awakening, spiritual, awakening, presence, whatever it may be, they're all just pointers. They are not something to believe in. You cannot learn the terminology of spirituality and then believing, because you have mastered the words that are used in a spiritual teaching, then you have mastered the spiritual teaching in ordinary subjects. This is how it works. You learn. You learn the words, and in exams, you regurgitate what you have learned. You write it all down and you pass your exam. And so to learn the words is you become proficient in spiritual discourse. If you learn the words, you might become proficient in spiritual discourse, but it hasn't done anything to your state of consciousness. There are actually people around these days who give talks, spiritual talks. I've seen a few on YouTube who have mastered spiritual discourse, especially in the area of what in. In India. India is called advaita. Advaita Vedantas. People who have mastered the terminology of advaita. And they can beautifully explain that whatever you say to them is. Yeah, that's obviously. It's all delusion. Of course. It's all totally. Everything is denied. It's very easy to. To make sense, apparently, but it doesn't make sense at all. And you can see it hasn't done anything to the state of consciousness. But they have mastered the terminology. So the language has a different function in spiritual discourse. And so that's. I don't know whether that has anything to do with the answer to your question, but that's what came to me. When you talk to your parents, did you talk to your parents? Do you speak English to your parents?

Growing up? I did, but I always felt they didn't really understand me. But when I started, like. Because it's the same thing you're saying. So because I'm still not fluent in my native language. So I go through the exact same process. There's a pause. You're searching for the word, right?

And.

And then the word just flows through you.

Yes.

And there's a silence from them to show that they. Like in English, it's like a debate. The conversation feels like a debate. But when I speak in their language, there's a silence, a pause, and an acknowledgement and a.

That's good. Very good. That's wonderful. Because this means. Because you haven't quite mastered the language, the communication is not totally obscured by concepts. There are gaps in the concepts. And this is why you can actually communicate better that way. Although you are not proficient at the language, that's actually a plus. Especially when you communicate something even remotely connected to spirituality. It's a great. You're lucky. I don't know whether Kim has mentioned to you. It reminds me of Kim's. I don't think it's a secret she has spoken about it before. Kim has a very good relationship with her mother. Her mother is 99 years old, still very active mind. Very. Also physically good. But Kim as a child, because she was a minority in her. At school at that time, there were very few in Asian people. She decided when she was 6 or so 7, she didn't want to speak Chinese anymore. Not speaking Chinese because she wanted to fit in with the others. So she refused to speak Chinese. So she lost most of her Chinese completely as a result. Now communication with her mother is virtually impossible except for very elementary things. And her relationship is wonderful. No Problem arises ever. So that's a big plus. And yours is not quite as extreme, but it's similar. Yeah.

So exploring your mind, do you have thoughts on how social media, digital media, can result in more consciousness? I think this is going to help technologies like new design things for the next generation.

Right? Well, I am not an expert on.

That's why you're the right person.

I'm not only not an expert, I am computer, almost computer illiterate. But I'm observing things. I know how these things function, how they work. I don't have a creative solution as such. I do know that a few things that appear in the virtual world are actually helpful. They are apps that can teach you to meditate or to breathe consciously to bring you back into the present moment. Also, there are talks by Eckhart on YouTube. I was. Not long ago, I was going for a walk. And you know that people have different conceptual identities. One of my conceptual identities is I'm a writer. When people ask me, I usually say, I'm a writer. Or if I don't want any further questions from them, I'll say I'm retired. Which is not a lie because I've been retired for many decades in a deeper sense. So I'm a spirit teacher. I rarely say I'm a spiritual teacher because I'm not a spiritual teacher, except in the moment where when spiritual teaching happens, I don't carry around with me a conceptual identity in my head, I am a spiritual teacher. I'm an author. Okay. Anyway, I was walking, a young man was coming with his partner opposite direction. And the man stopped and he looked at me and said, I know you somewhere. What's your name? Said Eckhart. Oh, I watched you read you on YouTube all the time. And then he said to his girlfriend, look, this guy is a famous YouTuber. And then I realized I have a new identity now. So sometimes the virtual world is used for good purposes. This is not the only example, of course, but there is an inherent danger in the medium itself. That's the. It's hard to describe even a simple thing. When I occasionally read, I love books, the physical presence of books. But sometimes when I travel, I have things on my iPad or virtual books, because books are heavy. Otherwise it is not quite the same to have the experience of reading on a screen as they have the experience of the book. I find it hard to describe what the difference is. It's almost if I was leaking energy when I'm. When I engaging with the screen, I have sometimes the feeling there's an energy leakage. That energy pours out. It's kind of the screen sucks it out. And perhaps it's to some extent this happens to everybody because the energy is directed onto that screen. And energy, attention is energy. So there's an outflow of attention onto there. And so I don't know what the screen does with it. Here we have a nice idea for a science fiction movie that the screens are sucking up human energy. It's the Matrix. I don't know if I finished. Probably not. The somehow to nobody can control what people put out there. There's nothing you can do about that. That if people are very unconscious, what they communicate will reflect their state of unconsciousness. So there is not much you can do to censor people becomes problematic. Although obviously there are already laws against threats of physical violence or slander and things like that. Then to in an ideal world, one would say, oh, let's only allow polite and nice messages to come through. Anything other we need to censor. That would not be the right way to go. But I have no solution except to encourage you to apply your presence that is already there and apply it so that you have creative insights into what is possible. Use the presence. Instead of looking to me for an answer, because it appears that I don't have one. Instead of looking to me for an answer, look to go into that stillness, that presence, and see what arises. Because creative solutions, creative answers come from there. So trust yourself, not the personal, superficial self, but trust in the depth of your being where intuition resides, the source of all creativity of not the personal superficial self, but trust in the depth of your being where intuition resides, the source of all creativity. Become present, become still. Direct your attention. Have a question what you want a creative answer to to allow the virtual world to become a helpful tool in the development of human consciousness or whatever your purpose is to direct it. And then you become still. You ask the question. The question is let go of the question. It drops into the stillness. This applies to any creative solution that you may need. You ask a question and then you become still. And perhaps not immediately, perhaps after several days, weeks or months, an answer rises and repeat that process several times. Ask a question. So you focus and then be happy with not finding, not having an answer. Allow the answer to come up. So what you're asking, the question you're asking me is what you should be asking yourself. You will find a creative solution to that. I can sense that that will happen. And the African languages reaching people in their own African language is a wonderful idea. So please connect with us so we can pursue that.