Reflecting on the Roots of Christmas | a Guided Meditation with Eckhart Tolle

Foreign welcome to our Christmas Meditation. Lots of people are joining us today from all over the world. Let's start with a moment of silence and so we can be aware of our breathing, breathing consciously in and out. I was reading the other day about something that happened at Christmas in the year 1914, in the middle of the First World War, when the soldiers, I believe it was in France or Belgium, the soldiers were in their trenches. French, German, British soldiers. And then on Christmas Eve, the fighting spontaneously stopped. And the soldiers could hear on the opposing trenches singing of a Christmas song that everybody recognized. And that song was Silent Night, Holy Night. And gradually they came out of their trenches. And in the area between the trenches, so called no Man's Land, they shook hands, started talking to each other, exchanged gifts of food and other little items, and they sang together that song, silent Night, Holy Night, each in their respective languages. They talk to each other, showed each other photos of their families. And that became known as the Christmas truce of 1914. Somebody even wrote a book about it. And then the superiors, the officers, the command in the command centers were informed that this was happening. And they said, oh, we must put a stop to this. Fighting must resume as soon as possible. And of course, a few hours later or the next morning, the craziness, the insanity continued. And in a way, that event that happened spontaneously, the spontaneous arising of ultimately is what is only sanity between human beings, that seems almost miraculous. And the insanity seems almost normal. So if you believe that our present political discourse, not only in the United States, but also in other countries in Europe, if you believe that's crazy, then, of course, just think back to the first half of the 20th century and the insanity of all that. So that moment and that song which triggered it, that Christmas song, Holy Night, Silent Night, brought about a shift in consciousness. It didn't last. And that's an interesting song. To me, that song embodies something that transcends anything cultural or anything belonging to any particular religion. It transcends all that because the song Silent Night really embodies the essence of spirituality, which is inner stillness. It was composed in the early 19th century by. The lyrics were written by an Austrian priest in a village in the mountains in Austria. He had written these lyrics a year before. And then Christmas Eve arrived, and he had to present a piece of music in the evening service in the church. So he had the lyrics, and then he went to the schoolmaster of that village, I believe he was. And he, in the last few hours before the church service, composed the music to it. And then that Evening they both performed it together in the church. And then it's gradually over the years, it spread all over the world because human beings recognized something in that that went beyond any particular culture or even religion. Although the words point to something specifically Christian. The birth of Jesus, the spirit that this song embodies goes beyond that it transcends or that it goes very deep. And so it was actually declared by UNESCO as something, I don't know what the official designation was world, an intangible world heritage. So in many ways Christmas of course has degenerated into consumerism and so on. Although there's nothing wrong with buying gifts and giving gifts, that's a beautiful thing. But it has degenerated into that. So it's important to rediscover the essence of it in the English language. Christmas in English speaking countries, many people don't use about Christmas anymore. They call it holidays. The intention behind it, I suppose is not to exclude people who are not Christian. And I can see the reasoning behind that. But there is something there that is of great value. And somehow to me the word holiday does not. Although originally that word is also beautiful because it refers to the holy day, but it's been used in so many other contexts that it no longer really has that does not carry that sense anymore of holy. But Christmas still has the Christ in it. And that's a very interesting word, Christ in English it's pronounced when it's only in its by itself. It's of course pronounced Christ. Christ. It's usually associated with Jesus, of course, but we need to remember that Jesus Christ was not his name. Jesus or Joshua was his name. Christ is a title that was given to him later. In the same way that Buddha was not a name, it was a title given to somebody. And Buddha means the awakened one. And Christ means literally the anointed one. It refers to anointing with sacred oil, which a holy person, you could do that to a holy person, you would pour sacred oil over them. It's the anointing that is a literal meaning. But I believe there is a deeper meaning behind that word. And I also believe it's no coincidence that Christ or Christ and Krishna, the deity, one could say in Hinduism, the most important figure in the Hindu tradition. Those names are so uncannily similar. Christ comes from the Latin Christus, which comes from the Greek Christos. And then we have Krishna, Kristos, Krishna. Is that just a coincidence or are they etymologically related? I believe they are. And if it's just a coincidence, it's A very interesting coincidence with a deeper meaning. Because what that Christ refers to in its esoteric sense is a particular state of consciousness. In mystical Christianity, that's called Christ consciousness. And in some traditions, even the term Krishna consciousness is used. And a similar term in Buddhism is called Buddha Nature. It refers to all these refer to a particular state of consciousness that is possible for humans to realize. Not to achieve, to attain, to acquire, but to realize. Why am I making that distinction? Because that state of consciousness is not something that is not already here. That consciousness which we could call the awakened consciousness, Christ consciousness. Buddha nature is a potential that's already there, dormant in many humans, but already there. So you don't need to acquire it or go somewhere else or find it in the future. It's a realization that within you there is a deeper state of consciousness than the one that you experience mostly in everyday life. And that's the realization. In mystical Christianity it's called the realization of the Christ within. In Buddhism, it's the realization of your own Buddha nature, which is your deepest sense of identity, of being. So you are on the one hand, a person or a personality. And the kind of personality that you are is determined by your past, all the things that have contributed to the arising of that particular personality or person. And beyond this person, which consists of mainly of mental and emotional conditioning, beyond that, you are something deeper. And Jesus pointed to that in his teachings when he said to his disciples, you are the light of the world. And somewhere else Jesus also said, I am the light of the world. I believe the I am the light of the world is in the Gospel of John, you are the light of the world is in one of the other gospels. In other words, the essence of who I am is also the essence of who you are. The difference between us, this is the implication, the difference between us is only that I know I realize the essence of who I am and you have not yet realized it. That's the only difference. And therefore Jesus also, all the things that I do and greater things you will also do. So ultimately we are one. The essence of who we are, Jesus said, is the same. You just have to recognize or realize that essence within you. But how do you do that? Now, I could use examples from Buddhism or examples from Christianity that point to the possibility of realizing that dimension within you. Let's look just at one saying of Jesus again, because this is Christmas, our Christmas meditation. Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven. That's perhaps the very foundation of his teaching, seek and find the kingdom of heaven which is within You. That's the foundation. Some people believe that love your neighbor as yourself is the foundation. But I would suggest to you that that is not the foundation, because that cannot be a starting point. It is pointless to tell anybody who has not realized the essence within themselves to love their neighbor as themselves. They won't be able to do it, not for long. Because if they have not recognized their own essence, they cannot recognize the essence in the other and realize that who I am in the essence of my being is one with who you are in the essence of your being. And when I realize that, then I love the other as myself. But I cannot tell somebody, you must love the other as yourself. They live totally trapped in the mental emotional conditioning of their personality or their ego. They may want, genuinely want to be a better human being and try to love the other, but they will always fail again and again. So the foundation is finding the kingdom of heaven that is within you. And then as a consequence of that, you will love the other as yourself. In other words, it will change your relationship with other human beings. There will be a goodwill, a benevolence coming into your interactions with other human beings. Your interactions with other human beings will no longer be dysfunctional. The dysfunction that we see on every level, not only when we listen to the news, but. But in our personal lives, in every level, personal to collective, within nations and between nations. So what is this? The kingdom of heaven that is within you? What does that mean? Of course they read it in the churches. I have been reading it for a long time, and mostly it's been misinterpreted. Although Jesus clearly said it is within you, Christians traditionally have believed that it is somewhere else. It's going to come when you die. You will enter the kingdom of heaven, or it's come at the end of times, or the kingdom of heaven, and so on. Disregarding what he said about, don't look for it here or there. You can't say, oh, there it is, or here it's over there. That's what he said. It is here now.