Signposts to Awakening | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

And so I'm right now I'm using certain concepts as signposts towards presence. But you may notice, especially if, and many of you are already going through this awakening process, you may notice in a way that you cannot explain as I mention these words, there is a kind of recognition in you of what I'm talking about. But you would not be able to perhaps explain it. Because as I talk about presence as a state of consciousness, as I talk about it, there's not only the words which are signposts that are pointing towards it, there's also underlying the words. And in between the words there is already that state of presence. And this is then the hidden dimension of our gathering here. The hidden dimension of this gathering is deeper than words. And this is why sometimes I slow down a bit. It just happens. So that you don't attach excessive importance or give excessive attention to the words. They are helpful. But don't be like somebody who collects signposts and has a wonderful collection. Let's say the signposts say Rome or Mecca. And if they point that way and say, oh, this is a beautiful signpost, I'm going to keep this and talk about it. Then after a while you confuse the signpost with the destination. So you don't become a collector of signposts. Because then you become intellectually very knowledgeable, perhaps about spirituality. But you're like the proverbial person who writes a PhD about honey without ever having tasted honey. So there is a knowing, the possibility in you of accessing a knowing that is non conceptual. And this is completely overlooked in our civilization, almost completely. Because our civilization encourages the ability even already in young children to conceptualize and to analyze and to think. And the teacher asks a question. And the best students, according to the educational system are those that immediately go, ah, I know that's not it. And then you begin to mistake names for the deeper reality of things. It starts with something like when the child learns language and the child asks the parent, what's that? The child is looking at a big something, doesn't know yet what it is, what's that? And the dad or mom says, that's an oak tree. Oh, oak tree. Okay, thanks, dad. And from then on, whenever the child looks at that kind of tree, says, oh, that's an oak tree. And you confuse the naming with what it is. In many, many cases, when you think you know it's only the illusion of knowledge because you've attached labels to things. And the moment the mind attaches a label to a thing, the mind says, oh, now I know. Dad, how do birds find their way when they migrate every year from here to South America? And how do they find their way back to their nesting grounds the following year? How is that possible? Dad, please tell me. And the dad says, oh, that's easy. Instinct. Oh, okay, you've attached a label. Now you think you know how it works. It's by instinct they find. Then the exam comes. And by instinct the birds find. Oh, great. Give it an A. So part of this awakening of consciousness is to realize that there is a hole hidden. Until now or until recently, there is a whole dimension of consciousness in you that you had been unaware of, that you had always overlooked. The whole dimension that actually our whole civilization is continuously encouraging you to overlook. Just don't look there. And there are many ways in which we can approach talking about it. But more importantly, of course, here we are here to deepen our experience of that dimension and that dimension of consciousness, which in spiritual traditions, all the ancient teachers have pointed to it using different kinds of signposts, which, of course, the collectors of signposts say, no, this signpost is totally different from that one. Look, they're totally different writing on it. And let's analyze it even more, not realizing they point exactly the same way. So the ancient teachings and teachers have spoken about it in various ways, whether they talk about liberation, awakening, salvation, or the Buddha in negative terms, the end of suffering, or another term the Buddha used is emptiness, which is not very inspiring, as you might have noticed, but it's very deep. If the Buddha says emptiness, he's giving you a signpost that is very hard to take and say, I believe in this signpost because it's a negative term. But he's pointing to a certain state of consciousness. He's pointing to a certain realization, and he calls it emptiness. Very wise, because this discourages people from worshipping the signpost. You can worship the kingdom of heaven. It's the term that Jesus used, by the way. They talk about exactly the same thing, as you'll see in about two minutes. They talk about exactly the same thing, but the Buddha. One of the key terms in Buddhism is sunyata, which means empty, translated as emptiness. That's an interesting choice of signposts, because you cannot worship or make an idol out of emptiness, but you can make an idol out of the kingdom of heaven, because then you can say, oh, where is it? It is somewhere, probably up there, and when am I going to get there? So you create space and time, and then the kingdom of heaven is a certain location and you can even become part of you. We all thought structure, and you begin to worship the kingdom of heaven, not realizing that it's a signpost. So emptiness, the Buddhist term emptiness is closely related to the kingdom of Heaven of Jesus in churches. They won't explain it to you. Of course it's closely related. My translation of emptiness is spaciousness. And my translation of the kingdom of heaven is Kingdom in modern terminology is dimension. Heaven is the vastness of the sky. This vastness of the sky. The sky stands for spaciousness. The dimension of spaciousness is the kingdom of Heaven, which is Buddha's emptiness or spaciousness? Same thing or the same? No thing. And what is this thing? What is this dimension of spaciousness? It is a dimension within you. It is a dimension of consciousness that is possible for humans to access, although in most humans it only exists in seed form, as a potential. Not that many humans have actually even begun to realize that that dimension exists in them, except you. And that's why you're it.