The Greatest Mystery, with Eckhart Tolle

You don't necessarily equate stillness, this inner stillness, with needing to sit still. In the English language, still can mean motionless, but it can also mean absence of noise. So it does it at first? Perhaps, yes. You practice. Or you might do some meditation. Every meditation practice, if it works for you, is designed to help you realize the dimension of being that's always already there within you. It's always already there. So what we are talking about pointing to realizing here is this realization of being, which is sometimes expressed as the pure I am. When you realize who or what are you, when you don't remember your past at all, you don't give it any attention, you don't give it any attention, or you don't give the future any attention? Let's just imagine there's only this moment. I'm saying let's just imagine because there is only this moment. But let's put aside, let's say there's only this moment. And in this moment you do not need to remember your personal history. In this moment you do not need to remember what might come in the so called future. In this present moment, let's say you let go of your memory of past or expectation of fear of future, any thought. In other words, because past and future are experienced as thought forms, you let go of the thought forms. Now stillness arises, presence arises now. Interesting question. One could ask, who or what are you now without reference to the historical person? What does it feel like to be you in this moment without reference to the historical person? Very hard to put that into words. But that's you, that's the I. There is something there, but you can't talk about it. A presence remains, a sense of beingness. That's amazing. I am. That's all you could say in that, if you wanted to say something. And surprisingly, in the Old Testament there's a passage where the prophet goes up the mountain and meets God. It's a story, but it has a deep meaning. He goes up the mountain and he meets God. And he asks, what is your name? God. And God says, I am the I am. Sometimes translated as I am. That I am. I would translate as I am the I am. That's the weirdest answer that you could imagine God giving, since that way is God says, I am. And then the prophet asked, what shall I tell when I go down? Come down from the mountain? What should I tell my people about your world? He says, tell them that I am spoke to you. That's an amazing story. And then we have, if you want to those of you who have a distaste of the Bible, I apologize deeply. But just one more passage from the New Testament. This time Jesus said, before Abraham was I am. So what does that mean? Does he say, I have existed for longer than Abraham? No, it points to his essential reality as the timeless being I am. He never didn't say before Abraham was I already existed. That would be past. Before Abraham was I am. It is the I am that is the essence of every being. It is not only the essence of every being, it's the essence of the universe itself. It is ultimately that sense, the deep sense of I am is your connection to the ultimate source of all life, which I prefer not to name. But it has three letters. It's your connection to that. But ultimately it is the unconditioned consciousness, which is a light that emanates from the source into this world in the same way that the sun emanates light into this world, the transcendent source of all life. This emanates the light of consciousness into this world. So you can your connectedness to the source, the three letter source, is this deep realization that you are I am. Timeless consciousness, which is not a byproduct of the chemical soup of the brain. It is not the byproduct of the physical brain. Although undoubtedly there is a correlation, a connection between consciousness and the form that consciousness takes when it moves through the brain. Mainstream science mostly still believes that, well, it has no idea what consciousness is. It doesn't even want to go there. Science even doesn't know what a thought is. Nobody knows what a thought is because a thought does not exist in the realm of physicality. No scientist has ever found a thought in the brain by cutting up the brain with a microscope. Yes, there are neurons, transmitters, nerve cells, billions of them. There is a connection. But in the same way, if you turn on the radio and it happens to be playing the ninth symphony of Beethoven, it's beautiful, beautiful. And then something goes wrong in the radio and suddenly the sound is no longer beautiful. Eventually it stops completely. So the radio was necessary for the perception of this beautiful music. But it came from a transcendent source. It did not originate there in the same way that consciousness does not originate. One day science will realize that there are already some non mainstream scientists and others who are realize that, you know, but you can realize that experientially. One could say, you know, people like Robert Sheldrake and others have done interesting work in that. So it's the, the consciousness that you are is ultimately the greatest mystery of the universe. The universe is the vastness of the universe. The macrocosm is unbelievable. It's a huge mystery. Does it ever end? When I was 11 and 12 years old, I asked my dad continuously, does the world have an end? Does space end somewhere? And he couldn't answer it. And I dragged my brain, if it ends somewhere, what's beyond that? Because it has an end. There must be something beyond the end. There's no answer to that. The microcosm is great mystery. This atomic, subatomic realm, very weird realm. These are all great mysteries. But the greatest mystery of all is that the universe is conscious. And science hasn't really been able to do anything with that. The universe is conscious. That is amazing. How do I know that? Well, I'm conscious, and I'm an intrinsic part of the universe.