The First Step of Conscious Manifestation with Eckhart Tolle

20 20. In this series, Eckhart addresses how we approach conscious manifestation right now, right in the midst of the global pandemic, when so many people are feeling so much instability and economic insecurity. Here's Eckhart Tolle with part one on the first step of conscious manifestation.

So whenever you encounter adversity or loss or extreme limitation that suddenly comes into your life, some kind of disruption that comes into your life, that is a call to come more intensely into the present moment, first of all. So allow the. Whatever form, the adversity takes, whatever it is that you're experiencing right now, allow it to, one could almost say, force you into the present moment. If you're not in the present moment, you will be in a state of fear. So the first step for manifesting something better is to forget about manifestation and be completely concerned with the present moment only and give your fullest attention to the present moment. That includes not only whatever is happening around you at the present moment right now, your audio sense, perceptions, and so on. This is, of course, part of the present moment. It also concerns the thoughts that you're going through your mind at the present moment. So there's a huge difference between having thoughts go through your mind and being aware that certain thoughts are going through your mind at the present moment. This is something very important, easy to overlook. Thoughts go through your mind all the time for most people, particularly people who have not awakened yet in any way, who are still unconscious, which means completely identified with a thinking mind. For those people, there's no awareness behind the thought. This is why we say they are unconscious. Without awareness, there's only the movement of thought. And the movement of thought reacts to whatever is happening around you. And the way in which the movement of thought reacts to whatever is happening around you depends on the way in which your mind has been conditioned by past experiences. So the conditioning of your mind determines how you react to things that are happening around you, how you interpret them, what kind of narrative you create around what's happened, what is happening around you. You talk to yourself. That's the voice in the head. The thought process is this. Talking to yourself becomes a narrative. Without awareness, you are completely identified with the stream of thinking that is reactive to whatever is happening around you. And if something is happening that is challenging, in other words, some kind of adversity, limitation, loss, or disruption of your life, then the normal thing for most people is a very scary narrative that arises in your minds. The way in which you interpret what's happening is scary because you're not Only looking at what's happening now. You're also extrapolating from there and saying, how is this going to affect me? How is it going? What's going to happen tomorrow, next week? There's the future. You project yourself into the future with. You see things are getting even worse than they are now. You see already how whatever is happening now, how it's going to affect your life. And you play out scenarios in your mind which are not pleasant. And you don't know what you're doing. You. You believe that what you're experiencing is the reality, but it's not the reality. What you're experiencing is what your mind has created. It is a narrative that your mind has created as a reaction to what's happening around you. So you're not experiencing, really, you're not experiencing reality. You're confusing what is happening in your mind with reality. So once an awareness comes in, the awareness, another word for it is presence. When awareness comes in, you suddenly become aware of the kind of thoughts that your mind is creating. And that's. That is the beginning of awakening, spiritual awakening, the awakening of consciousness. That is to become aware of the way in which your mind functions and what it says. And that this is why it's so important to become conscious of the present moment. Because that is an intrinsic part of being present is to become aware of what your mind is doing in this moment. And this is why I said first step. The first step is to forget about wanting to manifest something different. We can go there later. The first step is become more intensely, more acutely aware of the present moment. Because if you are not, if you're not without that awareness, you are at the mercy of your mind, the conditioned mind. Without even knowing it, you have become a victim of your mind. And so it is true to say that for many people, their worst enemy lives between their two ears without. And they don't know it. So the most foundational step is coming into the present moment, which implies the arising of awareness or presence. And as that awareness arises, you become aware not only of your immediate surroundings, which. Which is part of the present moment, but you also become aware of the thinking mind. And what kind of what thoughts is your mind producing? And you look at the. Are these thoughts reflecting true, truly a reflection of reality? Or are they a fiction that my mind is creating, projecting itself into the future, where things are usually seen as going to get worse. And then you experience the emotions, the emotion usually reflects mind activity. So if your mind is producing thoughts that are telling you that your situation is dangerous or critical. Although in the present moment it is very unlikely, highly unlikely that, that your situation is dangerous or critical in this moment. If it is dangerous or critical, of course you take action. You have to do something to get out of this immediate challenge. But it's highly unlikely that in this moment there is immediate danger or your, or your situation is critical right now. So it's first step then is coming into this moment and realizing, okay, this is. You become aware of sense perceptions, then you become aware of thoughts. It may take a little while for some people who are deeply identified with the stream of thinking. It may take them. It may not even be very easy at first to become aware of sense perceptions, which is part of being present. Why is it not easy for many people to become aware of sense perceptions? Because their entire consciousness is continuously being absorbed by the conditioned mind. And so their entire attention is in the thought processes. So the entire attention is consumed by unconscious thought processes. And so they go. And if somebody says to them, become aware of your surroundings. It may not be easy at first for people who are deeply, deeply trapped in fearful thinking, particularly to even liberate some of their attention, so to speak, to extract. To take some of your attention away from thinking and, and direct it towards sensory perception. So you may find, particularly when you find yourself in a challenging situation when the mind has become very reactive and is thinking and thinking what am I going to do now? What's going to happen to me? I need to do something, but I don't know what. And all kinds of scenarios. So your mind is. Your. Your attention is completely taken up by the unconscious thought processes. And if then I say, or whoever it is says, become aware of your sense perceptions, you may find there is a. An almost magnetic pull by your mind. It does it, it wants to continue thinking and it has a certain. I sometimes call it a certain gravitational pull. There's a gravitational pull like a magnet and that. And you cannot free even, even a small part of your conscious attention and give it to sense perception. And sometimes you have a. The mind may even be creating a thought that tells you why you cannot give attention to sense perception. And that thought might tell you what's the point. I've got other problems now. I have to think about my life. I can't put. This is completely irrelevant. I have to solve the big problem of me, my life, my life situation. I have to think about this. Don't tell me about become aware of my surroundings or sense perception is pointless. So that the, the gravitational pull of the conditioned mind Is there. And it might even find some kind of justification to prevent you from taking attention, even some attention away from unconscious thinking. But once you discover that, you say, okay, you don't have to believe in every thought that arises in your mind. You don't have to believe every thought. Okay, even that little realization, that little realization, I don't have to believe in every thought that comes into my mind is already the beginning of a liberation from your mind. Oh, I don't have to believe in everything. Interesting, because that already implies that there's at least a minimum of awareness. It's not just the thought processes. When you. When you realize that you don't have to believe every thought in your mind, then that already implies that there's some awareness there from. Because it's only from awareness you can be aware of a thought. This is a very subtle thing. It's fundamental to understand this because your mind, your consciousness has another dimension. There is a dimension of consciousness in you that we can call awareness or presence. And many people, most people still don't know that. And millions on our planet still are so identified with the mind, they have almost no awareness. Some awareness occasionally arises, but they don't recognize it. In other words, there may be occasional moments when the mind subsides briefly. Ah, and that's a little bit of a liberation. But they don't really. They don't know. They don't recognize that. And immediately the mind starts up again. So you become aware of your thought processes, and then you realize how much of your thinking is directed towards the future, how much it is creating a scenario that is fearful. And you realize the connection between what your mind is saying. The voice in the head that says, it's partly. It may be. It's partly a voice in the head that thinks about. It could also be a visual image that arise to accompany the voice in the head. There are visual images that arise. And when these visual images arise, the. Then, for example, you see yourself suddenly as a homeless person sitting on a bench. Oh, my God. You see yourself living in your car. Oh my God. And fear arises. But the thing is, if you were actually living in your car for a while, some people are. And if you became present in that moment, it would actually wouldn't be that bad. It actually, there were times, occasionally I spent. Somebody once gave me an old car. That was the first car I ever had. That was shortly after I spent a period of homelessness. There were sometimes nights when I spent in that old car. And I enjoyed it tremendously. It was just almost Romantic to be in this little bubble. This is just a little anecdote. What this is pointing to is really the present moment is never quite as bad as the mental projection of some future bad moment. And in the mental projection of some future bad moment, there's nothing you can do about it. But if there's something in the present moment, you can meet whatever arises with the power of your conscious presence. This is what is. So you become. You come into this moment and become aware of this moment. And realize in this moment there is no problem as such. That's a very strange realization. It's not a denial. It's not a denial. It's. It takes you to a deeper level, a deeper consciousness, and that is presence or awareness. So you realize coming into this moment, you've taken some attention out of your thinking mind. And some attention now goes into sense perceptions. This is a very important part of becoming present and in this moment. Sensitive means you look around and you listen whatever noise may be there. And not just you really give attention to whatever it is you are looking at or listening to. Come to your senses. If you come to your senses, look at the sky, trees. Anything natural is the best thing to look at if you can. But it could be anything. So you come to your senses means there's less mind activity, more presence. And then you become aware that the mind activity that you have been engaged in is ultimately not helpful. That the mind activity itself, the narrative, these unconscious scenarios that the mind created, they are not helpful. You become aware that worrying is not helpful. And worrying, which is thinking in circles, thinking the same things and same lines again without. Without any possibility of taking action right now, you just. It's not only not helpful, it's actually destructive. And when you become aware of that, you can more and more let go of unhelpful mind activity and replace it with aware presence in the now sa.