Give Up Waiting as a Normal State of Mind: Special Teaching with Eckhart

We are here to give up waiting as a state of mind, normal state of mind, and that there's another state of mind, or rather no mind, in which you're not waiting for the next moment. That's why we are here to discover that state of no mind, awareness, you could call it, or deepen it. We are not here to add anything to what we know. We know enough, enough to have come here. So we are here to discover that thinking is not the only possible state for humans and not the highest state. And as we go through the shift from thinking to awareness, thinking first of all loses its predominant place in our lives. And as a side product of losing its predominant place in our lives, it actually becomes more effective. Thinking becomes more effective, less destructive, not destructive anymore. So no answer here is going to come. If you're looking for the answer on the level of thinking or on the level of adding something to your mind, the answer lies in stepping beyond thinking simply by allowing what is, which is now, allowing what is to be as it is because it is. And you discover that the compulsion to think is to a large extent connected with not being willing to allow what is to be as it is now. Because there's a little mind made entity consists of thinking and accumulated thought patterns that thrives on resistance to what is and on reactivity and is always looking for the next thing to get a little bit bigger. It's never quite enough. This little me is never quite enough. Most of you have come here because there is at work within you something that goes far beyond the personal. Something that is an expression of the evolutionary impulse of the universe. On the surface level, it looks as if a person had chosen to come here. But it is also possible that one or two have come here expecting something they're not going to get. What's that? More. More experiences, more knowledge, more beliefs, more opinions. So if there are one or two who have come here expecting more, then they might want to leave as soon as they discover there's no more, or they suddenly after. If they can endure the discomfort that arises when the need for more is not met and don't run away immediately, they can endure the discomfort. They may be able to break through that mind pattern. Please pay attention not just to the words, but to the silent spaces between the words. That's where the shift happens. In that alertness that is required to acknowledge all or to listen to that dimension of stillness that underlies the words and is in between the words. That is why we're here. And that's not an adding to because that is discovering something that's already there but had been ignored. Just as I was coming here this beautiful night in this incredibly beautiful place, I took off my shoes and I looked up at the sky. Clear sky, stars, brilliant points of light. And there is something. When you look up there, there's something that is so easily overlooked, but should be obvious to anybody who looks up there. It can tell you something about the nature of the universe. When you look up, what do you see? You see little points of light. You see basically there are two dimensions there. Objects, celestial objects, suns, planets, the moon, galaxies, billions, trillions. So there are celestial objects, things, objects in space. And there's space. The universe consists of things. You can look. It's so obvious. There are things in space and there's the vastness of space. The things are that which is manifested. But when you look up, the what produces the feeling of awe, of the feeling of infinity, is the vastness of space. The depth of it, which is inconceivable, has no end. That is such that even the our neighboring galaxy, our next door neighbor, in terms of galactic neighbors, the Andromeda galaxy, if you traveled at the speed of light, which is very fast, 300,000 kilometers per second, which is the distance from here to the moon in one second, is the speed of light. If you traveled at the speed of light to our neighboring galaxy, and there are billions of galaxies, the closest one to us, it would take you 2.3 million years to reach it at the speed of light. 2.3 million years. Such is the depth, the vastness of space. And what is out there applies also. The so called external universe applies also to the so called inner universe. There is also within you things. Let's keep it simple. Things. And space in your life now. Things. It is obvious that your life is surrounded by things. There are many things in your life, physical things. In many people's lives, there are so many physical things to deal with that they are constantly running after the next physical thing that they need to deal with. They may have a house, they may have this and this. And everything demands attention. Their entire attention is absorbed by the things that surround them. And it's just at the moment, just talking about physical things. This is needed and that's needed and that. And then there's the belief that there are not enough physical things yet. I need some more, because I don't feel quite complete yet. And then there are other things in a wider sense, all the things that make up your life situation, conditions of your life events, things are Constantly happening and constantly new things pop up. So it's not just physical things. All kinds of things make up your life situation, what people call my life, but I say it's only your life situation. They don't know what their life is. Their life situation consists of an accumulation of events, things happening, situations demanding attention. Everything saying, this is important. Give me attention. So there's the pull of things, not just physical things, the pull of situations, of demanding. So it's the world, the world, your world, consisting of things that need to be dealt with. And it's never quite enough time to deal with it all. And when you've dealt with one thing here, there are three more things cropped up there. And so that's. People go through life with that pull into the world of things doesn't leave you alone for long. And on a primordial level, on a basic primordial level, all the world of things starts with thoughts. Because all the things, whether they are physical or events or situations in your life, really only exist in you as thought. Nobody knows whether actually there's anything out there at all. Because what reaches you, they say sense perception happens. Visual, auditory and so on, is translated into nerve impulses that reach the brain. And those impulses are decoded. And then some kind of world picture emerges. Oh, this is what's going on. Nobody actually knows what's out there beyond the impulses that are being received. Decode it, and some kind of world picture is put together. So that some philosophers have even doubted that there's anything out there at all. And it could just be a dream. And there are certain indications that it is a dream. It's in the nature of dreams to be fleeting, to evaporate very quickly. It's in the nature of situations in your life, whatever condition, any situation, everything is fairly fleeting. It's there one moment, it is gone the next. Where was yesterday? What happened yesterday? When you first wake up in the morning, you might think, was it a dream or did it happen? And then you meet some other people who agree that it did happen. But it could be that these other people are part of your dream. So all the things that seem to be out there, the world of things is really an inner phenomenon. It's to do with mind, it's to do with thought. We don't need to take any position here. We don't need to say yes, the external world exists or no, the external world does not exist. Very often. The answer is both or neither. The answer is not yes or no. From one perspective, it's yes. From another perspective, no. So most people's life is filled up with things, which on the most basic level means thoughts, mind, movement, one could say objects that appear in your consciousness one after the other. And sometimes they are battling for one thought, another thought. So their people's lives are crammed full with that mind stuff. And you can see it in people's faces, the way they lead their lives, the way they interact with others. What you can see is very often the absence of space. Well, it can't be absent. But they don't know it's there anymore. All they know is things that appear, that any sense of space is gone. And so they experience their life as a continuous stream of. I'm quoting Churchill again, as I love to do, who defined history as one damn thing after another? And if you ask many people about their personal lives, they might give you the same answer. How's your life been up to this point? One damn thing after another. And the next damn thing comes just in the moment when you thought, now you've made it. Success at last. Recognition. Everybody loves me. And then everybody wants something from you. It.