This is a YouTube video titled "How to Stay Conscious in Difficult Moments | Eckhart Tolle on Attention and Awareness (Part 3)" created in July 2025. The content features Eckhart Tolle delivering a monologue or talk focused on spiritual awareness, vigilance of inner states, and how to remain conscious and present during challenging life situations such as financial hardship and emotional reactivity. The speaker emphasizes the importance of attention to the present moment and inner consciousness over external circumstances.
Welcome all the problem areas in your life because that's your area of practice. If it's financial limitation, if it's some relationship limitation or health problem in whatever it may be, bring attention to that so that something different can arise through it and that is the end of reactivity. Welcome it. For many people this financial limitation is a, a big one. So I had that for many years. I only realized afterwards that for many years I was actually poor. And I didn't see myself as poor. I didn't have a concept. I'm living below the poverty line. They have some official figure. A single person who makes less than that is poor. And so I was like that for many years. But I didn't. It wasn't in my conceptual consciousness that I'm poor or I haven't made it. I had to look at every price and when I bought something I had to look carefully. But that was just a fact. I was surprised. I remember occasionally seeing when people just. I was once in a self service restaurant and somebody was. There was a couple there, they were just taking whatever they wanted, put it on their tray and they didn't look at the price at all. They just took and took and took and said, oh amazing. So when you bring attention to the problem area, then a lot of things, you relinquish the complaining in your mind, the conceptualization of who you are, but that those problems make you into who you are. You let go of, you let go of conceptual identities. You as the person who has failed or you as the person who might fail or it's about to happen, they're about to, you're about to be fired. Perhaps whatever the mind does, just attention. I give the example in Somewhere in the stillness peaks. Perhaps because it comes from my own life. Say if you're sitting on a park bench and you put your hand in your pocket and see I only have 50 cents left. Does your mind then come in and say I'm ruined. And then many other thoughts follow from there, a whole thing playing itself out. It's too late, you're not going to make it anymore. It's. You've wasted all these opportunities, you're going to spend the rest of your life in poverty. Or are you going to just say, well this is what is right now, here's 50 cents. Without constructing a story in your mind, just give attention to the bare facts of any of the present moment. This is what is. It's not a problem. And that's an amazing difference between putting your hand in your pocket and say, I'm ruined and just looking at. And your attention remains and you become one with the present moment. And the amazing thing is sin. You tend to attract what you need sometimes at the last moment. I experienced that many times. And the amazing thing is you've survived this far. You've survived for whatever, 40 years, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. You haven't starved yet, but if you had to starve, you could also starve consciously. It's fine, it's not a problem. I'll still help. And then, even if you starved, you would still, as you start, bring consciousness through that into this world. Absolutely possible, it's unlikely that living where we live, that that will happen to you. So the vigilance then, as regards your inner state is very important so that you no longer believe the outer is more important than the inner. That's the great delusion. Some outer condition is more important than state of consciousness. So the vigilance needs to be there. And I'm saying that to you because there's enough awareness in you for that vigilance to arise. Without the vigilance, you have no idea what's going on inside you, and you project it all outside. Then you don't even know. This is the essence of unconsciousness, spiritually speaking. Many really unconscious people, they don't even know that they are suffering because everything is projected outward. All the bad stuff is out there. Other people and whoever they blame, it's all out there. Everything is projected. They have complete unawareness of their inner state. That's the essence of unconsciousness. But even humans who have already begun the spiritual path or the awakening process can still be taken over periodically, regularly, completely by the delusion that something out there is more important than your inner state of consciousness. When you go in that moment, you become reactive. And in that moment you become identified with the reactions which are mental, emotional forms that arise. And so you are lost. And you think it's all out. It's out. So the vigilance can tell you the moment you become upset about something. Upset is a generic term. Upset could be about upset could be anger, it could be despondent, it could be fearful. Anything that's not rooted in the peaceful depths of being is upset. So then you wouldn't notice anything that upsets you. And you might be surprised that little things perhaps can still upset you. Just tiny things. Somebody not turning up for an appointment or handyman, not doing a good job, or all kinds of something taking too long, somebody not treating you with respect, that you deserve. All kinds of little things can Wake you up. Driving people get upset when they drive. It's strange. I mean, none of the other drivers knows you and you don't know them, but they are regarded by the unconscious ego as personally insulting to you. Somebody pushes in from the right, well, how dare. If a gust of wind came, probably you would not get upset because it's hard to personalize that. But if you're very unconscious, extremely unconscious, you can even get angry with that. But it's less likely because it's just a gust of wind pushing you, forcing you to go that way. You wouldn't say to the wind, how dare you? Unless you're almost that. But an unconscious person is just like a gust of wind. It's no more than that. It's nothing to do with you whatsoever. And of course, you find these unconscious. Every day in your daily life, you will find people who are just acting out their unconsciousness. Some are driving around the streets, and some you meet in other ways. And it's never really personal. They are definitely not in the traffic. So be vigilant to see. Do you still get upset by other drivers? And then it's not something to beat yourself up about. Say, oh, dear, you see, I'm no good. I've been on the spiritual path, and I still get upset by other drivers. All you need is to notice it. And so when you, whenever you become upset, oh, what's going on? And then always, you know, I confused. There was a confusion in my mind of what really is important. I thought that thing out there was important. And you forget, this is important. What do I bring to this situation? And then you dissolve conflicting.
