This is a YouTube video titled "Handling Challenging Social Interactions and Unconscious Minds with Eckhart Tolle" created in January 2019. The content features Eckhart Tolle discussing how to deal with unconscious people in group settings such as work meetings, meditation centers, and other collective environments. He emphasizes the importance of presence, non-reactivity, and understanding the collective unconscious dynamics in organizations and groups. The talk also touches on the challenges of remaining conscious in negative or unconscious environments and when it might be necessary to remove oneself from such situations.
This is a question about unconscious people in group situations that draw others around them into their negativity. I have seen this especially in meetings at work. Yes, this is very common. It happens even at church meetings and meditation centers. When you go to committee meeting. Center for Inner peace, committee meeting. I'm not referring to anything. I don't know if there's a Center for Inner Peace. If there is, please excuse me. What do you recommend that would help change this situation? And while it is happening, is there something I could do or say in the moment with this person to get the meeting to a more constructive place? I cannot specifically say what you could do or say. But the most important thing is that you don't react to the unconsciousness in the other, because that's the easiest. The most seductive thing is that reactivity arises. And the moment you react with negativity, even saying, why don't you just shut up? We are fed up with listening to you, and we'll see what happens. If you can be free of reaction, or rather reactivity, then something is possible. If you react, you are being drawn into unconsciousness and the same level as the person you are reacting to. So in other words, you become what you are fighting against. And this is not uncommon. There are ways in which you fight against unconscious people or people they might do things that look evil. But of course, it arises out of unconsciousness and the fight without you knowing it. Gradually you are at the same level as those people. So that can happen very easily. So let's come back to the meetings. So to be intensely present is so that your state of consciousness is one of intense presence as you look around the room. So in intense presence, there's no reaction, and you see everything for what it is. You don't personalize the unconscious behavior of another person. You don't say, what a dreadful person that is. No, it's not a dreadful person. It's just human unconsciousness in action. A manifestation of the current evolutionary stage of the majority of humans. That's all. Nothing personal about it. Manifestation of the current evolutionary stage of most human consciousness. Nothing personal about it. Oh, well, that makes it perhaps a little easier. But you don't have to tell yourself even that in order to be present. You're just present and you feel. Go into the body so that every cell of the body is alive with presence. And you feel the. The aliveness in every cell of the body. Because otherwise the body and the emotion that lives in the body will react to this person's emotion. It will come from there if it doesn't come from the mind, be in the body. The body is your anchor for presence. And there you are as a point of presence in this room. And whether or not you say something or what you say, or what action you take, I don't know, because it can only come out of presence. Or whether you say anything at all, or whether you just totally ignore this level of discourse that the other person is involved in and just continue presenting the situation, what we need to look at. In some cases, you completely ignore. In other cases, you might address this person and speak to the sanity that's hiding somewhere underneath the insanity. You might address that. That might work. You don't know, but you will know what the right thing to do is or if there's anything to do in that situation. But it's vital to be absolutely present, especially in the conscious, in the presence of very unconscious people. Sounds a little contradictory. I'm using presence in another sense. When you are. When very unconscious people around you, then it's extremely important to be highly present so that you don't get drawn in. And then something can happen, the situation can change. And so you represent a different level of consciousness there. You can probably even. I'm saying probably because I have little experience with it. You can probably even do it on the Internet. Because the Internet is full of things that have come out of very unconscious minds. And so it is sometimes possible to just give your contribution as a conscious contribution. That will contrast with all the unconscious very negative or aggressive contributions of people, what they have said. And there's one person who says something that is. And a few people will respond to that, and it might make some difference. So you're never attacking anybody. Of course, in any statement that comes out of consciousness, you're not attacking anybody. You might rectify a lie. You might rectify something that's totally false. That's a different matter. In extreme cases, of course, if the entire room becomes wildly unconscious, you may have to remove yourself and you will find the right. When the moment comes, you'll find your body is getting up and you find yourself walking to the door. And it could even be that you never return to this office. If you live in a very unconscious business environment or office environment, then it may be a place where no matter how present you are, there's not much that you can do. Perhaps we can affect one or two people. But if the entire. The collective energy field, because a company is also a kind of a collective entity consisting of all these humans. And if the majority or all of the humans are deeply unconscious. Then you have a company structure that is deeply unconscious. And the company has its own. Is more than the sum total of the parts that make up the company. So it almost has its own ego identity. A company is an ego too. Even a nation has an ego identity. So a company has an ego identity too. And it can do bad things that the individual human, although they are unconscious, might not be capable of doing if they were acting on their behalf, on their own behalf. But if they are drawn into identification with the. I hinted at that yesterday too, last night. I believe if they are identified with the. The collective, insane collective ego structure, then humans are capable of atrocities that as individuals, as individual egos, they would not be capable of. And this applies, for example, also to cults and sects where people within the cult and sect people are very honorable and helpful and loving to each other and give up their personal ego. But they have exchanged their personal ego for the collective ego. And the collective ego with reference to the outside world is insane. So if you are in a totally insane environment, your presence may not be enough to bring about much change there. So there are certain environments that it is better to remove yourself from. But there too, it's good to be just to be present, because then you don't have agonizing decision making involved in. Should I stay in this company or should I not? For security. I should stay because it offers some kind of security. But of course I'll be happy for the next 22 years until I retire. Am I going to stay in here and be happy for the next 22 years of Friar for security and for my pension that I'm going to get afterwards? No, no, I'm not. I'm not staying in an insane environment for the sake of a delusional security, because it's not even security. By the time. In 21 years time, your whole pension fund will have collapsed anyway. I forgot to say hello to all the people who are watching us in different parts of the world. And what parts of the world? I don't know, but. Or maybe you're in an office building right now watching this on your computer when you should be doing something else. But of course that's what the company says. But you know that you're doing exactly what you should be doing, Sam.
