I Wished I Wouldn't Have Said That | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

I would just like to thank you for this morning's talk. My mother died Friday.

Died on Friday.

I just thought it was so appropriate and the peace of mind that gave me what you said this morning was fantastic. But that wasn't my question. The question I had was really related to. With all the talks you give, the retreats and advice, have you ever looked back and thought afterwards that man, I wish I wouldn't have said that, or boy, I goofed up there. This was a mistake.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, only the Pope is infallible. The teaching, if we can even call it the teaching, of course, is not mainly based on information, not primarily based on any kind of conveying of information or facts, but on its most fundamental level, the teaching is awareness, which is non conceptual, so that can't be wrong. So on the most fundamental level, nothing could possibly be wrong because it transcends all concepts. That's the essence of the teaching. The moment you move into concepts, the possibility of error, of course arises. But the first of all, the first level of concepts that are used are concepts that point back to that which is beyond concepts and beyond thought. So the concepts that I use in the teachings are. Are concepts whose purpose is to point back to that which is beyond. So. And that also there can't be much wrong about that, except that it could be that I used a pointer that perhaps was not the most appropriate one for a certain person or group of people. That could happen if we. But again, error doesn't really apply here. Just it might not be the best possible point. Maybe I wake up in the middle of the night and say, oh, I could have said that that's maybe possible. But usually it doesn't arise next level up. Occasionally I let information slap in about to illustrate certain things. I might talk about something historical or might talk about some fact, about something I read in the paper, or what just as little illustrative stories. And of course that's where things occasionally get wrong, even in the Power of Now I wrote, for example, that 100 million people had been killed in the 20th century alone by other humans. And I later realized that the figure was much too low. Apparently it's quite a bit higher. It could be 140 million, nobody knows exactly, it's dreadfully high. And so I got that wrong. And sometimes in talks something may come in historical fact or something, until later somebody tells me, you got that wrong. In one talk I talked about taking depressants, antidepressants, and I wasn't perhaps careful enough to emphasize that you should do this extremely slowly, with the help of a conscious physician and so on. And there was one or two physicians in the audience who got upset. And this is all wrong. It's all wrong. Usually what happens is that the answer to a question or even the general talk, always there's a correspondence between the questioner and the answer, or when there's a talk, there's a correspondence between the energy field in the room and what comes out. And that's not decision based. There's nothing in my mind that says, oh, in this energy field I better talk about that because I don't know before the words come out what's going to come out. So that doesn't apply. So it can happen though, that a person asks a question and an answer comes. And I later realized that the answer was not the deepest answer that I could have given. But I do know that the answer that comes out reflects the degree of openness in the questioner, usually. And so if the answer is not that deep, then the question wasn't that deep. That seems to be often the case. Occasionally a deep answer comes even when the question is not deep. But perhaps there's an intuitive realization then that it is possible to break through the surface layer. Not this question. No, your question was deep enough. Thank you.

Well, I do want to say this morning was perfect. You were right. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. So there's an ancient saying, of course, which you may have heard, that says the teacher and the torch together produce the teaching. So it's a two way process. It comes out of presence. It doesn't really come out of a person. It comes through the person who is empty enough, spacious enough so that it can come through. It's not off the person. So on the surface level then, yes, mistakes are quite possible. On the most essential level. No, I had a. I knew a person many years ago. I only knew her for about a year. Then she died. She was a psychotherapist and she would sometimes come to see me. I was still doing private sessions then. She would often come to see me once a week or so to ask questions. And her questions were so wonderful. The deepest answers came with that person always. And I said to her, maybe we should record because your question seemed to be so draw out these wonderful answers. And she agreed. And then a little later she was too ill and she died. And just before she. In the months before she died, she went through this shift where she didn't need to ask any more questions. She went through complete presence shift. Surrender to what is and her body became virtually transparent and luminous. And she was just there. And then she didn't need to ask any more questions. So it was too late for recording anything. Just the shift happened and the flowering happened. And that was enough. Thank you. Thanks.