This is a YouTube video titled "The Little Moment of Awareness Before the Mind Steps In | Q&A Eckhart Tolle" containing a monologue or lecture by Eckhart Tolle recorded in April 2021. In this content, Eckhart Tolle discusses the concept of presence and awareness, particularly focusing on how professionals such as physicians and therapists can cultivate moments of stillness and presence before engaging their conceptual mind in therapeutic or daily situations. The talk emphasizes the importance of these brief moments of non-thinking awareness to deepen human connection and avoid superficiality.
Are there specific suggestions for cerebral helpers, physicians, therapists, etc. To help us become present and stop thinking, to listen better just prior to encounter taking deep breaths prior to entering patient room, perhaps. So what suggestions for cerebral helpers I mentioned, I talked about that a little bit couple of days ago. People who use a lot of knowledge in their work with others. So if you are a certain type of spiritual healer, then you would most probably not apply your conceptual mind in the healing situation. But if you are a physician, whatever, then you have to apply your knowledge to the healing situation acquired over many years. And so just to remind you of what I said a couple of days ago or three days ago, you need to be able to still use whatever modality you use your knowledge, apply it, but see if you can also have the application of your knowledge interspersed with little spaces of aware presence. Sometimes that happens when you listen to whatever the patient is telling you. Sometimes it may happen when you look at the patient. Sometimes it may happen when you place attention on a particular symptom. And you might notice before you come to a conclusion about whatever the condition of this patient may be. There is a moment when you are looking at the patient or at the presenting symptoms. And there is a moment, perhaps of three seconds when there is no thinking yet anybody to look at something first. In the first moment of looking at something you're not yet thinking, most people miss that completely, don't realize that for the first two or three seconds when you're looking at a patient, let's call him patient, client, whatever you're looking. And before the. Before the mind begins to the application of its knowledge to the situation, there is a space of just aware looking and that many people do that without knowing it at all. It's a natural thing to do. There's a moment of space. But if you're aware of that moment of space of looking, then it becomes a little deeper and longer it goes. And that is you become aware of what already you're doing naturally without knowing it. When you become aware of it, it actually deepens and it might get a little bit longer. Instead of looking for three seconds, you might look for five seconds before the mind comes in. And that's okay. This is what this person needs. Now I need to do this, this, this, and this is interesting. Whenever you encounter a new situation, and not just not. Let's take it beyond the therapeutic situation. Whenever you encounter a new person comes into your field of vision, you're walking, you're going around a corner, a new vista opens up Anything, Somebody is knocking at your door, you open the door and then you look who is standing there. And for the first two seconds there's no thinking. You need to take it in first. You need to take in the sense perception. So naturally in daily life, people have the tiniest moments when they are not thinking. And it's always something new arises in your field of consciousness. And in the first few moments or in the first moment, there is not yet an interpretation of it, there's only an absorbing it. If you find you're particularly peaceful or at ease, then you find there are longer periods. When you're out in nature, then you spend longer periods, perhaps five seconds looking at a tree before your mind says anything. You go, oh, this is so nice. Be aware in your daily life of the first. Whenever something new comes into your field of vision, there will be a moment when you are just aware of it. And usually the mind tries to come in as quickly as possible because it does not like. The egoic mind does not like to be in a state of not knowing what's going on. It needs to adopt some kind of position towards what you are seeing, what you are perceiving. So as quickly as possible it wants to come in with some kind of judgment or interpretation. I need to know if you become aware of these naturally arising moments of presence where a very, very brief, then you can. They will be there consciously and if they're there consciously, they naturally become a little bit longer and there's a deeper awareness. So catch those things in your daily life. They will be there every time something new arises. You need to look first and there's that space before the mind steps in. And if you are a deep person, so to speak, then that space that precedes thinking is longer. That's all. Then you become a deeper human being. If that space is incredibly short, almost non existent in some people, immediately then they are superficial. They might have two PhDs, but they are superficial. There's no depth to them. Which means, well, there is a depth, but it is as if it wasn't there because it's totally covered up. So a deep human being has longer spaces of no thinking before that person replies or that person now don't. This is a natural thing. You can't. You can make it into a practice. Yes too. As long as the ego doesn't get in there and say I want to appear, I want to be a deep person. So I'm going to take a long time in answering any question from now on. So in the therapeutic situation also Be aware of this. So bring in the spaces and observe the spaces that occur naturally in that situation. They will be brief, in addition to the spaces that occur naturally in the situation. Bring in these spaces. For example, when listening to the patient, just listen. When you may also occasionally be aware of your breathing. So any way you can bring in little spaces, give fullest attention to whatever you're doing. You're preparing something, perhaps you're going to administer something to the patient. If you're a physician, you're preparing something. In that moment, there's another opportunity for absolute presence. So it's an art to have your knowledge not completely obliterating these little moments of spaciousness in you. It's an art that needs to be practiced. Otherwise the effect that it has on you, after many years of being completely, completely absorbed only in your knowledge. When you work with people, then you live in a world complete conceptualization. You will no longer be able to see the human being. You will see a patient. You will not relate to a human being anymore. You will relate to a patient. Or you will only relate to a symptom in a patient. And some doctors, unfortunately, have gone that way because of the. Because nobody has taught them that another way is possible. So perhaps many of you have experienced being with certain doctors who actually don't see you as a human, they see you as a patient, or they only interested in the symptom. Some doctors even hardly look at you. Of course, there's pressure of work. They have to have a few minutes to see you. So it's. But all those physicians and other cerebral, as the questioner says, practitioners, of course, obviously you are here because you have already gone beyond that to some extent, so you're not totally burdened by the acquired knowledge, so that it obliterates everything else interspersed. So. But what applies to the therapeutic situation applies to anybody's daily life too. You must have your daily life interspersed with presence. Otherwise it's just the human mind dragging you along. 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.
