This is a YouTube video titled "How to Handle Success Without Losing Your Peace | Eckhart Tolle" containing a monologue by Eckhart Tolle recorded in November 2024. In this talk, Eckhart Tolle discusses the relationship between external events, such as success or loss, and inner peace, emphasizing the importance of being present and conscious in the moment rather than being attached to outcomes. He uses examples from everyday life and spiritual teachings to illustrate how to reconcile the doing and being dimensions of experience.
And the strange thing is you can experience the superficial emotions of happiness and unhappiness while you're connected to the deeper dimension of being. So when somebody close to you dies, weeping can happen. So one cannot say, I'm still happy. My mother has died, my father has died, my child has died. I'm still happy, though. I'm happy. Oh, you can't be. How can you be happy? But you may be weeping, but deep inside you're at peace. Even while on the surface there is a movement of sadness which one call unhappiness. And then something good happens and say, oh great, it's fine, but it's not. It doesn't make you ecstatic. When something good happens to you, you win the lottery. That's the thing. People think of that when something good happens. Oh, by the way, as you probably know this, you've been written books about it. Many, many people, majority of people who make big lottery wins their life deteriorates over a period of five to 10 years. They become more unhappy than they were before. But that's another matter. So something good happens. And again, if you are totally dependent on external conditions for their for your happiness, then if something good happens, like in Ottoman, you go, you're incredibly, incredibly on a huge high. You can sometimes see people, I don't know where achievements, people suddenly achieve something and think, wow, that's a high. And it won't last for very long. So but if you're connected with being, you still go, oh, that's great. But it's no longer, there's no longer this unbalanced reaction. Right? The. I remember Oprah was telling the story about me. I'd forgotten about it, but she told it several times and she called me the Power of Now. Many years ago, she wanted to tell me about. I think it had been selected for a book club. Or was it the New Earth? I think it was the New Earth. Anyway, she called me, I have selected your vocal. I said, oh, that's good, that's wonderful, great. And she thought, well, that's strange. That's not how normally people react. And then she said, and also I want to do with you a six week, six or eight seminar every week. We're going to do it together on webinar on the book, one chapter per week. I said, oh, have you done this before? He said, no, I haven't. It's the first time. Oh, that's great. Yes, I'll do it. And she found that so strange that later she talked about. He said, when I called Eckhart he just said, okay, I. I was happy. And then perhaps a couple of years later, I haven't heard from her in two years. She's forgotten about me. So. And this applies to whatever, even a simple thing. I gave the example of going on a hike or a walk or whatever, again, to bring in the appreciation of the present moment, even while you're pursuing a goal, so that the activity, the action, is of a high quality. That's an interesting way of putting it. You perform an action consciously in the present moment, not because you want to get to some other moment. You give your fullest attention to whatever action you're taking at this moment, Whether you're on a hike, it's the step you're taking now, and you're looking around, there's beauty everywhere. So you give your fullest attention to the action you're taking. That's high quality action. Consciousness flows into what you do in the present moment. And the strange thing is, you are more likely to succeed in your endeavors if that is the underlying state of consciousness. You are more likely to succeed when you no longer desperately need to succeed. And so you begin to bring together the being dimension and the doing dimension in activities. Honor the present moment. It's more important than the next moment. Although, yes, you want to get to your goal, but whatever is now is of primary importance. That's a shift in consciousness. Whatever your activity or you're doing is now is of primary importance. The arrival, the getting there is of secondary importance. You need it, it's good, but it's of secondary importance. There's a story of a Zen master who was watching an archery competition where they have to big bows and arrows. And there wasn't a famous master of archery. And he wasn't doing very well. He was not hitting the target, and the master was watching. The disciple asked, why isn't he doing well today? And the master said, something like, his desire to win deprives him of power. His desire to be the best deprives him of it. In other words, he is not totally present. He is focusing on the outcome. Not totally present in the doing. And so the doing is of a lower quality. This is a shift. And the wonderful thing is, not every endeavor that you undertake is going to succeed. That's just in the nature of things. You may have great plans, maybe you never arrive. It's possible. Go to Los Angeles, where in every good restaurant, all the waiters and waitresses are actors. But for the time being, they are out of a job. But they are wanting to arrive. Obviously a few do and many do not. Does that mean a failed life? Not at all. Something else will arise. It may be infinitely better than acting. But in the meantime, how do you perform the activity that you're engaged in now? Do you honor the present moment? What would you like? Yes. Okay. An omelette. Right. Okay. And then you bring it and you put the table down. The plate down on the table. Consciously. It's very different from somebody who just. A waiter just puts it. There it is. Here you are. Okay. Put it down consciously. Doesn't have to be slower than normal, just consciously. And then you honor the other. The person. Is there anything else I can get you? Is there any. Oh, and so you're enjoying even that instead of mentally saying, this is what has come to know. I'm working as a waiter and I was meant to be a great star. And perhaps life will move in a totally different direction. But the starting point is the performance of the action now, which may, if it's done consciously, much more likely to lead to the next thing, whatever that may be. It may be totally different from acting. A point may come when you are happy that you never got these, you never became a great star in Hollywood, because we might see that a lot of that is actually extremely fake. It doesn't necessarily mean that everybody is in there is fake, but, well, many are not all. And then the next thing, reconciliation, to reconcile the doing and being. This is advanced practice while you're engaged in speaking and thinking, not to lose yourself in the stream of the mind, the mental stream.
