Going beyond the Thinker | 20 Minute Meditation with Eckhart Tolle

This is our live meditation, which basically is learning to stop thinking. Which sounds a little paradoxical because usually learning involves thinking. So it's more like unlearning. Because we are conditioned to think continuously. And a lot of the time it's not only unnecessary but also destructive. Cuts you off from the depths of being, of who you are beyond the thinker. The most dreadful limitation for a human being is to know him or herself only as the thinker, with its opinions and beliefs and reactions and whatever else the mind can continuously comes up with. And that cuts you off from that vast dimension of consciousness that is there beyond thinking, not separate from thinking. It makes thinking possible, but it's deeper than that. And here, as we meditate, which is probably not the right word because it sounds as if we were doing something, but we're not doing anything, we're not doing a meditation. But we are here to realize that beyond doing there is another dimension, more vital and that we could call being. And to sense that in yourself there needs to be at least a gap in the stream of thinking. Even a few seconds is already a slight deepening and a little bit of peace and aliveness and a little bit of joy coming through the cracks, so to speak, in the what is otherwise a solid wall of. But we are here to go beyond that. Not just wait for the little cracks to appear occasionally, but to embrace that dimension without which your life is not really that enjoyable. Frustrating, in fact, pointless. The continuous worry and upset, anxiety, complaining. That's what most people's lives consist of. Maybe yes, the occasional crack is there, or maybe when they get tired, they feel a little bit better because they can't think anymore and then they go to sleep. But really, without that deeper dimension, life, is it worth living? I don't think so. What for? Do you think you'll ever sort out the problems in your life? Never. You sort out one and another two appear. So there's nothing more important than this. And realize when you stop thinking or thinking subsides, we could say you essentially are still there as a conscious presence, a still conscious, aware space. And that still conscious, aware space needs to be there in daily life, in the background. It doesn't mean it can only be there when you don't think. You access it most deeply when thinking subsides. But as you sense it, you realize even when you think again, it doesn't go away completely anymore. That conscious, aware sense space can be there even while thinking happens or while you're talking to someone or dealing with things that need to be done. And then you can enjoy life every moment. But the enjoyment doesn't come from all the things that happen in your life, it comes from a deeper place. And then what happens or does not happen is of secondary importance. You're not dependent on what happens or is not happening, and you want it to happen it. And then you move through life embodying two dimensions. The dimension of form, which is thinking and doing, and the dimension of the formless presence, the conscious aware space. The two are there simultaneously. The conscious aware space interpenetrates, if that's the word, the world of form. Then perhaps you realize the truth of the ancient Buddhist scripture, one of the most famous sutras, which says form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form in formlessness, being there as one. And so the way I put it occasionally, you may have heard it before, it's not the absolute truth, it's a way of talking about it. There's two of you in any moment, in any situation. There's a person who thinks and does things and deals with life situations and people. There's you as the person, and then there's the other you as the conscious presence. So you can still deal with things as a person. But behind that and even within that there is the aware space. So you become a spacious person, so to speak. Anybody who has not realized that dimension within themselves are not spacious. And of course that still applies to many humans. They are what's the opposite of spacious, let's say they are dense, the density of the person you can look at anybody that you know, or even strangers when you observe them, how they go about life, how they deal with things, how they interact with people, how they react or respond to changing circumstances, especially when things go wrong, so to speak. By just observing them, you can sense and see how dense or how spacious they are. And that's not a judgment, you just see it in just the same way as you see whether it's light or dark. You're not judging when you say, oh this, it's getting dark. It's not a judgment, you just see it so you can see it in others. And sometimes so called people who are into spiritual awakening, even they can sometimes, very quickly, when they are challenged by events, become very dense. The spaciousness is lost. So that's your spiritual practice. Of course, it's everyday life. Can you embody the spaciousness in addition to being a person? So you don't need to achieve perfection as a person? The person will always have certain limitations and shortcomings. And when Jesus said, be ye perfect as Your Father in heaven is perfect. He doesn't refer to the world of form, but the deeper perfection, the wholeness, that is spacious presence. It in ancient Greek philosophy, they often use the term the good. What is the good? Where is the good? And of course, we know what it is and where it is. The good is not in the world of form. The world of form is good and bad. Nothing stays good for that long. Then it either disappears or turns into its opposite. The good is within you, and it is the formless presence, the source of aliveness, of joy, the source of identity, the sense of who you are. The source of that is beingness, presence, spacious awareness. I am it.