Eckhart Tolle explores whether asking for help is spiritually useful. He argues that the search for self or God is itself the answer, and that the state of not knowing holds spiritual insight.
Please, I've been looking for so long. I only have a few more years to live. Still haven't found it. And I say the looking is it. Asking is. The ability to ask is wonderful. Please. Thank you. The because if you are truly asking, there is. There's a space of openness. If you're truly asking, you voluntarily enter the state of not knowing. And this is a wonderful ability to ask whatever it is so that you become a space. You can ask a person something, you can ask the universe something, but there needs to be the receptivity. You can ask any kinds of questions, but the question needs to be. The question needs to come out of the spaciousness of which is there when you truly ask. There are many people who ask questions and there's not the openness to receive the answer. And that is not true asking, but to put yourself in this. Basically it's connected with the state of not knowing. So that you can. And that's the part of the state of awareness is that an aspect of it is that you're in that state of not knowing conceptually. So there's nothing more beautiful than asking a question. And if it's directed to other human beings, then people love to be asked true questions and they can feel whether there is an openness there or whether you have certain expectations as far as the answer is concerned. So that in itself is a spiritual, great spiritual practice to ask. Of course there are certain questions that do not require an answer. Not all answers are necessarily conceptual answers. They may. When there's the non conceptual space, the answer may come as an intuition, as a realization that you may not yet be able to formulate conceptually. You just suddenly know, but you can't explain what it is that you know. And that certainly applies to your sense of who you are, which is you. Suddenly there's a deep knowing inside yourself. Perhaps because you asked yourself the question who am I? And that's a beautiful question. Creates the openness and the. And then you start to investigate. Your attention arises. Who. We talked about that before, but this is here relevant in this context. You ask who am I? Question mark. And there is a kind of looking, but it's not looking visually. There is a kind of searching. The attention arises. Right now the attention arises who am I? And it's looking. And suddenly it realizes what you are looking for is in the looking. Or in other words, you are what you're looking for. The very looking, the very question which becomes a non conceptual question is the answer. So when you ask who am I? There's just a silent presence which is that you're looking for the answer and then suddenly you realize that presence that arises the alertness that is there looking is it. So the search and the object of the search become a one. So if you are looking for yourself the looking is yourself. That's wonderful. So that is the ultimate secret. I'm glad I got a chance to say it before the end of the retreat and that is just. It's miraculous. So people sometimes come to me please help me find God or please help me find myself or please help me find the place where I and God merge Please help me find my place where I know myself as the source as an expression of the source. I'm looking for God and I've had some people have been looking desperately for 30, 40 years looking please help me they say please I've been looking for so long I only have a few more years to live still haven't found it. And I say the looking is it. It's always been there in the consciousness that you called you are it. Oh, some got it, some didn't get it and they're still looking not knowing that they already found.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
