In this dialogue, Eckhart Tolle contrasts the heavy, serious tone of unawakened consciousness with the spacious, timeless awareness of awakened consciousness. He describes his own experience of the world as a light‑show‑like, insubstantial flow, likening it to a lucid dream, and explains how this state coexists with the ever‑changing phenomena described by Heraclitus ("everything flows") and the unchanging timeless consciousness referenced by Parmenides. Tolle emphasizes the practice of contemplating impermanence—suggesting visits to cemeteries, observing gravestones, or meditating in morgues—to detach from the egoic sense of importance and recognize the brief dash between birth and death. He clarifies that while the world is not illusory, its relative importance diminishes when one knows the absolute truth of being consciousness. He discusses the body as a doorway, not the self, and advises staying with immediate experience rather than mental abstraction. The conversation concludes with guidance for daily life: maintaining awareness of spaciousness amid ordinary situations, avoiding reactivity, and appreciating the world without despising it, thereby integrating awakened presence into everyday living.
Chapters
In the unawakened consciousness, the world has an enormous heaviness and an enormous seriousness to it. It is— everything is so serious and matters. Every tiny situation draws you in and it becomes so serious, and you don't realize how insignificant most situations actually are.
If the body is not experienced, does the world appear?
Can you relate this to something in your experience?
Sure. If you don't experience sensations, or sometimes feel a hollowness, it feels like the body is not experienced always. Does it mean that this is headed where we say the world is not experienced anymore? And I want to know your particular experience right now of the world. In other words, how do you feel, sense perceptions, and what's the state of your consciousness?
Okay, I'll tell you, and then I'll ask you about yours. It's hard to find the words to explain it. Somewhat insubstantial. All the things that happen around me, it's a little bit like a light show or some insubstantial— I know that everything is continued in the process of disappearing and appearing and disappearing. So the world doesn't have that heaviness for me that it has otherwise in a normal identified consciousness, a little bit like a dream, and there's something that is untouched by it. That's the timeless consciousness, and from there I experience the flux of becoming, of being born, dying, forms appearing, disappearing. It's quite pleasant. You may— there were two philosophers in ancient Greece who had contradictory philosophies. Heraclitus, or Heraclitus, said the famous saying, "You cannot step into the same river twice because everything flows." His main statement that he's remembered by is, "Everything flows." In ancient Greek, "panta rhei" means "everything flows." So he saw how the Buddha's teaching of Impermanence—whatever you see is not going to last, everything flows. And that is one truth. And then the next philosopher came, Parmenides, who said, 'Nothing ever changes.' They didn't like each other. Nothing ever changes. The reality is unchangeable. The reality. So they were both right. Parmenides was referring to the timeless realization of consciousness. Nothing changes there. And Heraclitus was referring to the flux of phenomena, the world of form. And so that's really when there's a certain— there's a detachment from things. I participate in the world, but there is a space around it. Like, yes, I think the dream is the closest that comes, but it's a lucid dream, so I'm in it and it's It's not an— it doesn't mean that everything is— I don't see it as everything is totally illusory. There is something in the dream that is of the essence, and it is important that these dream figures that are sitting here should awaken out of the dream by realizing who they are beyond form. So that's important. So I value the world in that sense. It's very hard to talk about, but one becomes so used to one's state of consciousness. I certainly don't think about it, so it's very hard to verbalize. What is your relationship with the world?
So there was a time where I awakened and it appeared to be a dream, so illusory, and as you said, and everything had a relative quality except from the place where I was watching. So, and over the course of time, there were many events that brought me back to the egoic consciousness and back out of it as well. And I feel like I'm witnessing right now. And sometimes the body does not disappear completely, but is not felt and appears again. And I believe that this means that the world is probably on its way out then. So what does it mean? That means I want to know in terms of sense perceptions how it would appear, and also whether that means I would experience everything as consciousness and probably no body.
So, yes, but don't go into too much mental abstraction, just stay with your immediate experience. And I know that in the unawakened consciousness, the world has an enormous heaviness and an enormous seriousness to it. It is— everything is so serious and matters. Every tiny situation draws you in and it becomes so serious, and you don't realize how insignificant most situations actually are. This is why I sometimes say go to cemeteries and look at the gravestones. I love that. You look at the gravestones and you see the date of birth and the date of death, and between there's a dash 2 inches long on a big gravestone, several inches long, and that was the life that was lived. All the anxieties and problems and suffering and things were so terrible, the drama, and so heavy and so important. What's left now? The dash between the date of birth and the date of death. And that, if you contemplate that, that detaches you from the world, that can bring about awareness. It's really contemplating impermanence. As you know, in some Buddhist traditions, the monks go to the morgue where the dead bodies are kept to meditate, and that is in order to contemplate without flinching, to contemplate the fact of impermanence of all forms. And what better place to contemplate the impermanence of all forms than be surrounded by dead bodies? Now, that would be in a normal state of consciousness very scary. You wouldn't want to do that. But it can be a very powerful thing. In Western civilization, death is still— although it's a little bit changing— death is such a fundamental primordial fact of life, is the short-lived nature of the form. Even now, not as much as before, but even now death is still a kind of taboo. In Western civilization. So it's hard to see a dead body. If you wanted to see a dead body, unless it's a close relative or family member, it's almost impossible. It's illegal. You can't say, "I'd like to see a dead body." No, you can't see a dead body. You have to travel to India if you want to see dead bodies, because it's not a taboo there. And it can be very shocking to see that a body is being— a few hours after death, the body is being taken to the fire and burned. That gives— that teaches you more about the reality of the fact of impermanence than any scripture. So there's— the world loses its heaviness and its absolute seriousness. The way I put it, things may still matter, they make a difference. You'd say it matters whether your body is healthy or not, or whether you live in a tent and are cold, or live in a nice place that is warm. It is relatively— things are still relatively important in this world. I wouldn't say nothing is, some teachers do that, It's relatively important, but not absolutely important. You have to know the absolute, what is absolutely important, and that is knowing who you are. And then anything in the world of relativity, anything that you experience, you can actually still enjoy sensory experiences. You can enjoy— I know there are certain teachers and certain in certain traditions that they despise the world. These traditions exist both in India, and they also have existed for many centuries in the West, in Christianity, of despising the world and denying the world completely. This is, I believe, not helpful because you're doing something before it— there's never a despising of the world. There's an appreciation of the world but without mistaking it for what it is not, fully realizing the impermanence of it and yet enjoying that also. You don't need it, but you enjoy it. We can talk about this for a long time, but the important thing is your state of consciousness, how you relate to everyday situations. It always comes back down to how conscious are you in everyday life. Do you still get seduced by circumstances and so on in your life that draw you out completely into reactivity, or are you able to deal and interact with situations and people always having in the background an awareness of the spaciousness, the stillness, who you are, know yourself as consciousness, or do you lose yourself in the world, which is also in your mind, Only you can— this is the determining factor. So that's your practice, everyday life.
Yeah, I think I'm not lost. It doesn't look like I can be lost easily. Yeah, I just have a couple of questions. Do you experience your body visually? I mean, do you see it?
Yeah, I think it's here. Yeah, if you go deeply into the body with your attention, then you go beyond the body. Going beyond the body can easily be done by taking your attention into the body and then realizing the animating presence is far beyond the body. So you can go into the body and realizing the animating presence, the consciousness without which there would be no body, and you've already gone beyond the body. So you could use the body as a doorway, just you walk through, and then you— so the body is not who you are, it's a misperception of who you are, It's a sensory misperception, and that's fine. I know that this will dissolve at some point, and I'm perfectly fine with that. This is not— the visible body is not who I am, so I'm not going to die. The body is going to dissolve. That's fine. There is no death, there's only life. And as I said before somewhere, the opposite— that life has no opposite. Death is not the opposite of life, death is the opposite of birth. So Thank you.
