Looking Through the Disguise - Eckhart Tolle

It's only through the spaciousness that opens up that the true recognition of being in whatever life form appears in front of you, that recognition of being is there. Being recognizes itself. It disguises itself in millions of life forms, temporary disguises. And you recognize, you look through the disguise and sometimes the disguise is very strong. That's the play of the universe. You have to really, let's really disguise ourselves. And some humans are heavily disguised God, disguising him herself very well. And with others the disguise is not so heavy, but the heavy disguise is more challenging. It's more fun in a way. I'm talking about, of course, difficult humans to recognize shared beingness in a flower is of course much easier because the disguise is far, far, far less much easier than to recognize the shared beingness. When confronted with an angry human who says, but there is the space for that also. And you look, give him or her the space to do their act and you don't need to react, let them do their act. But you don't need compulsively to react, because if compulsively you react, you adopt your own, your disguise again and you play your part in the drama or the dream of existence. All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely play as however else Shakespeare's phrase goes. So to recognize your essential beingness is such a simple. It's so simple that it becomes difficult for the complicated humans. It's so such a primordial fact. And then consciousness recognizes itself, really, that's what it is, and that is joyful or blissful. And so the Indian teachers, masters, they string together three words and make it into one. Satchitananda being, consciousness, bliss. To describe that state of connectedness, of oneness with being very simple, too simple. And what do you access also is intelligence itself the unconditioned out of which anything new arises an insight, an idea that is the place of true intelligence. I call it sometimes non conceptual intelligence or the unconditioned consciousness. And that's where suddenly creativity opens up in your life. Because the person is not creative, the mind is not creative, but it can be an instrument of true intelligence. And the mind has no intelligence of its own. It borrows its intelligence from universal intelligence. So the secret then of is to not lose touch with who you truly are as you go about this world, seemingly participating in the play, but knowing at the same time, not conceptually being the space and then pretending also to be the person while you do things. So you are the space while you talk to someone, listen to someone in spacious awareness. So you bring that dimension into the interaction. If you only did that listening whenever other humans are talking to you. You only did that if you are able to use every opportunity whenever any human being talks to you. Listen in spacious awareness. Instead of listening through mentally immediately agreeing or disagreeing or thinking of the next thing you are going to say or. I know exactly what you need. Let me tell you what you need. I know that already. But be there as an open field of aware presence. If you only did that, it would be enough to transform your life, your relationships with every human, because the old patterns would no longer be operating through. You will transform your relationships with all human beings and of course will also help others. Without you feeling that you are helping, you're not doing anything. But it is an invitation to others, if there's the slightest openness in the other, to join you in that field of aware presence. And if they don't join you in that field of aware presence, it's fine too. But if that were your only spiritual practice, listening in that way to other human would be enough to transform your life. And if enough humans transform their lives in that way, then of course the world gets transformed. It's only a collective expression of the collective consciousness. So unless you live as a hermit, in other words, you never listen to anybody except your mind. And most of you are not hermits. So you interact with people. And every day you listen to people, you're on the phone. Well, unless you get so much into texting that you don't talk to them anymore. For teenagers, I may have to think of some other way of being. If they. Only if they don't talk anymore. No, no, it goes with your thumbs. You can see I'm a. I haven't only had a phone for a few months of that kind, so I do like. So if that's your only spiritual practice. Quite enough. Just the listening. Because whenever you listen, you are not there as an egoic entity. You're not bringing in your past. You're not even there as a person anymore. The person recedes and you are there as awareness. And it doesn't mean that now you have to be. You can't talk anymore. No, it means then as you talk or reply or give your viewpoint, you very clearly realize that what you are giving is your viewpoint. You don't merge with your viewpoint. And then anybody who questions or attacks your viewpoint is considered a mortal enemy because you have confused who you are with the thought in your head, which is your viewpoint, which is insane. This mind made sense of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are beyond your history and your life situation. It.