This is a YouTube video titled "Is This Thought Intuition or Ego? | Eckhart Tolle" containing a monologue or talk by Eckhart Tolle recorded in May 2022. In this content, Eckhart Tolle discusses the creative process of writing a book, exploring the difference between ego-driven thoughts and deeper intuition, the resistance faced during creation, and the importance of focus and presence. He also reflects on the challenges and conditions under which great writers have produced their work.
The great things. The vital thing about the book is you receive it as kind of inspiration. Then your mind has to give it form. So it's again, it's a form and formlessness giving birth. How do I know if a continuous thought is intuition or ego? I have been thinking about writing a book for a long time. When I sit down to write there is great resistance in me. But still I cannot seem to drop the idea of writing it. Now you need to look within to find out whether you have an idea that writing a book would be a good thing to do, or whether there's something in you, perhaps you've not clearly formulated whether there's something in you that wants to be written or wants to be given birth to. So if it's just an idea in your head that it would be great to be a writer, wouldn't it? Okay, I think I'm going to write a book because it's so great to be a writer and to have written a book must feel wonderful. Of course, that's an egoic thought. I asked a 17 year old girl once, what do you want to. What do you want to be? What do you want to do in your life? She said, oh, what I really want to. I want to become a brain surgeon also. I said, are you interested in brains or in the human mind or in the body or biology or medicine? No, I just want to. I think brain cell is the greatest thing. It must be the most wonderful thing, the most complicated thing. She wasn't interested in any of the things that are the essence of being a brain surgeon, but she had an idea that it would be great to be a brain surgeon. So there was just an idea, there was nothing behind it. You have to see whether. Do you feel that there is something valuable in you which may not yet be formulated very much on the level of form, but whether you can sense something that wants to be born through you, that would then become a book, then it comes from deeper level than the ego or whether you just have an idea that it would be great to produce a book. That's of course an egoic thought and it's not going to be very good. Now let's say there is something that wants to express itself. I don't even know whether this book that you feel you want to write, whether is it fiction, is it non fiction? Do you have a story that. Do you feel that these characters already exist in embryonic form somewhere in you? Or is there a story, something that's already you can feel in embryonic form existing in you? Or do you have something to say to this world? Maybe it is non fiction. Who knows what it is? Something spiritual, perhaps it's a spiritual book, but is it? And so if, let's say, there is something that you feel wants to come out through you and when you sit down, yes, you may, even then you may still find resistance because it's a totally. There's a momentum to your normal life. And to bring out into form that which is only. Which still largely exists in the realm of non expression, halfway between form and formlessness. To give birth requires an intensity of focus. And so you have to first of all give yourself the space where this intensity of focus can be there. Not sit down at a desk or whatever and say, okay, can't think of any. It's not coming, it's not coming out. I better have a cup of tea first and then scroll back. Oh, I need to. I need to polish that window. Oh, it's not happening today. I can't do. Won't happen. You are not creating the space you need to. And this is a recommendation. If you do feel you have something within you that wants to be born through you, you need to provide the space for it to happen every day, if possible, on a regular basis. So you have a space of an hour, two hours, three hours that is set aside for this to come out, to come through you. And then you sit there and it. And let's say no writing happens, at least you give the space of one hour where you honour that space. And if you only write three words, at least that's a start. Maybe one sentence within that one hour that comes, or two sentences, or maybe nothing at all. But it's better to write something, see what comes, whether you can give form to that which wants to come through you. And then gradually a certain momentum builds up as you write a little bit, a little bit more. And there needs to be total presence and total focus on just that and an openness, the great things. The vital thing about the book is you receive it as a kind of inspiration. Then your mind has to give it form. So it's again, it's a form and formlessness giving birth. And once the momentum is there and the process starts, you may find, as I did when I wrote the books, that it consumes your whole life and you're not. It's hard to do anything else. So it can take up your entire focus of your energy for a while and there's an intensity there. While the creative process happens, there's an intensity of energy that flows into it. When I wrote A New Earth, I noticed the I couldn't pay attention to anything else. So my place became more and more messy because there was just continuous focus. And even now I haven't dealt with the mess that accumulated then it's still there. It's creative disorder. Anybody who wants to create also don't fall into the error. It's an excuse of the mind that says I don't have enough space in my life to do this, to write this book, to be creative. There's too much going on in my life. If it really wants to come through you and you give it, there's always a time you can choose to give it space, even if you have to get up two hours earlier. And if the momentum does build up, you have to see whether it can be reconciled with other things you still have to do. Many writers find it can be reconciled. I was lucky I didn't have any children to look after. I didn't have a job as such. And so that was very helpful. But I know of great writers who have recently had a dialogue here with Steven Taylor, who is quite a prolific writer of spiritual books, and he teaches at the university. They have three young children look after and I believe he told me that he writes mainly early in the morning and late at night when the children are not running around screaming. And you will find if you look at the history of great books, under what circumstances they were written, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, you often find that they were written not in the ideal conditions that one would think would be for writing a book, but in people who lived under great limitations, either financial or living situation or health situation. Some great writers were permanently ill, almost permanently ill, and they wrote in that state. From D.H. lawrence, some of the post Nietzsche verga writers, continuously ill. And yet they produce their creative work under extreme limitation. It's almost as if the limitation created the pressure for the creation to happen. It.
