This is a YouTube video titled "The Importance of Cultivating Virtues | Q&A Eckhart Tolle" containing a recorded question-and-answer session from May 14, 2021, featuring Eckhart Tolle. The content involves a dialogue where a participant asks Eckhart Tolle about cultivating virtues such as loving kindness and compassion, and Eckhart Tolle provides a detailed explanation rooted in spiritual teachings, presence, and consciousness.
Thank you, Eckhart, for waking us all up. My question concerns the cultivation of virtue. I hear many traditions speak about cultivating loving kindness, cultivating compassion. And in our previous session I heard you say that loving kindness comes naturally out of presence. So can we cultivate virtues like you practice? You practice and you become it.
Thanks. That term tends to be used a lot in Buddhist teachings. The term cultivate cultivating virtues. And so in Buddhism there's a list of nice things that you. I only know the essential Buddhism. I can't remember the long lists that you get in Buddhism of virtues and so on. I know the basic thing which undoubtedly is what the Buddha taught is the origin of suffering and the way beyond suffering that the Buddha. I think all the longer lists were compiled at a later stage by monks who wanted to make things more understandable and accessible to other monks, but they were not fully present when they did these long lists. But that's okay. So ultimately, of course, it is better that somebody should at least attempt to cultivate the various virtues. The primary one in Christianity would be, of course, love your neighbour as yourself. That's the primary. And really it all points boils down to that in Buddhism, Metta, loving kindness towards others is important, but ultimately to cultivate this, it's a wonderful intention and it's better than not trying to cultivate it. But ultimately you won't really succeed unless there's a shift in consciousness in you that is primary. Once there is that shift in consciousness, and this is what our gathering is all about, it's virtually impossible to sustain the virtues for very long from the old state of consciousness, because the old state of consciousness is dominated by ego. And if you want to cultivate the virtues, it's very often a desire of the ego to improve one's self image not only for others, but for oneself too, because one wants to feel virtuous. And so the ego feels better if it can convert its sometimes negative self image into a good one. And so the ego, okay, I'm doing this, I'm virtuous now. But in Christianity, this. For hundreds, thousands, 2000 years, Christians have tried to live well, not all, many haven't even tried, but to love your neighbor as yourself. Not that many succeeded because I don't believe that Jesus actually said love your neighbour as yourself. I believe that they took, that was taken out of context. He said the kingdom of heaven, which I translated as you may remember as the dimension of formlessness or the dimension of spaciousness is within you. And there's only one thing that matters. There's only one thing that is of primary importance. There are many other things that are important. But there's only one thing that is of primary importance. And that is to find within you that dimension of consciousness. And then live from that dimension of consciousness. And if you live from that dimension of consciousness. Then naturally you will love your neighbor as yourself. Because you recognize your neighbor as essentially one with who you are. And then you will also love God as yourself. Because you will then recognize essentially. That God is the source of your very being. That's what he said. But perhaps people who wrote it down. They got to the bottom of the page. Where it said about the kingdom of heaven. And if you enter the kingdom of heaven. If that's dimension of consciousness, turn over the page. Then you love your neighbor as yourself. And then at some point, the two pages got separated. So all the virtues arise naturally out of that state of connectedness with being. Which is presence, love, benevolence, goodwill towards other human beings, which is all aspects of love. And whatever else, whatever other virtue, Sense of separation between yourself and other human beings. And bits of paper. And it had been selected for an answer too. But I'm glad you asked that. This mind made sense of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are. Beyond your history and your life situation. Sa.
