Eckhart Tolle explains how presence transmits silently between people, independent of words. When you're fully present, others can feel it if they're receptive enough to receive it. This silent transmission is how real teaching happens.
We heard just a few minutes ago before you came on stage that there was a bit of a rush to get very close proximity physically to you. And I think I might have heard you mention before the idea of a silent transmission of the teacher between the teacher and the student. And we just talked about how someone who's deeply unconscious in a room, when you go in that room with them, you can feel it and you can feel the pull. And therefore, when you're with someone who's very conscious and present, you can also feel that and feel open. Can you speak to that a little bit about the physical presence of someone?
Yes. There is the. In addition to the words that are being spoken, the words come out of a certain state of consciousness. So when we meet, there is the dimension of the verbal dimension, the words that are being spoken, but there's also a state of consciousness out of which the words come. And that state of consciousness also emanates. It's less noticeable than the words because the words, the mind looks for the words and mentally they are taken in. The sound is decoded, translated. And in addition to the words, there is another dimension of teaching that is the emanation of presence. And I'd like to. I'm glad you bring this up now because for the second part of our retreat, I'd like to have a little bit more silence also so that you can, or many of you will be able to directly sense that power of silence. And if you can sense silence coming from me, or stillness rather, that means it's also in you. If you can sense that there is an emanation, it must be in you. If it were not in you, you wouldn't even know it. So if you can sense there is a silent emanation behind the words or silent emanation when no words are being spoken, then that's a wonderful thing that can strengthen your own presence. It's a bit. I believe I used the analogy in one of the books of burning a burning log in the fireplace. There's a log and if you put it next to another log that's burning strongly, then that will help the block that only just started to burn. Maybe burning is not the best analogy, but it's burning in a good sense. Because in a way, what's being burned up here is the unconsciousness of the ego. The unconsciousness of the ego can be burned up through suffering. And this is happening to most people on the planet. That is how they make progress spiritually, through suffering. A lot of it self inflicted, either on themselves or by Humans on other humans. And the other way of burning up the egoic self is through exposing yourself to a spiritual teaching teacher. And that can be done through a book. A book has a certain power that is released if it came. If the book was written from presence in some strange way, which I don't know how it happens. The words still have a certain power the moment you read them. And if there is an opening into presence in you, the words can put you into presence. So there are many people who read my books. They have read them several times, and they pick them up again and again. Not necessarily to learn something new on the level of information, although that can also happen. Because sometimes you realize when your conscience has changed, you hadn't really understood something that you had read previously, but you pick up the book. Because just reading one page or half a page can put you again into the state of presence. So there's definitely. Just as unconsciousness spreads, a very unconscious human can infect many others around them with unconsciousness. And nowadays you don't even need to be around them. You can infect others through the Internet. So the Internet has a lot of. It can be very infectious. And a lot of unconsciousness in itself, of course, it's neutral. It can be used to spread consciousness. And I'm attempting to do that, of course, but it is also used to spread unconsciousness. So it's a neutral thing, can be used for. For higher purposes and lower purposes. Yes. A state of consciousness infects others. Presence I would no longer use for presence. I would no longer use the word infect because it has negative connotations. Presence can pull others into presence so that. But only if there is some opening in the other. There needs to be that receptivity. It is almost to say that there is a faculty in a human that in many humans is dormant or completely obscured. And that faculty is the faculty of presence. It's like an organ that is not operating yet, but not a physical organ. The ability to be present is a faculty, a potential in every human being that still, in most humans is still dormant. And at some point in a person's life, that something happens to awaken that faculty, and it comes to life. And when that happens, and often it happens through suffering. But it can happen in some cases. There are some children born these days that already have that openness. I've met some who are already born. That was perhaps almost unknown in my generation. They're already born with that faculty that's already awakened. So they are immediately receptive. Even at the age of six, they would be receptive to it. I wasn't, I believe. I don't know. But there are also some, and those tend to be born also into relatively conscious, a relatively conscious family. So definitely there is the wordless teaching and there is the teaching through words, and both operate.
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