Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

The one thought you cannot have while thinking | Eckhart Tolle

14 Oct 2026 · 4 min

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3:32

In this brief teaching, Eckhart Tolle asserts that the only absolute certainty is the awareness of being conscious in the present moment. He explains that true knowledge comes from experiencing thoughtless awareness—being aware of one’s own presence and the presence of awareness itself. Tolle distinguishes between ordinary consciousness, which is directed toward objects, and a higher state where consciousness becomes self‑conscious, a condition he describes as awakening. This awakening brings a profound stillness that, when embraced, naturally gives rise to love. The monologue references Oprah’s famous “What do you know for sure?” question to illustrate the universality of this insight, and encourages listeners to become comfortable with the stillness that arises from present‑moment awareness.

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What you know for sure ultimately is— there's really only one thing that you can know for sure, and that is that you are conscious right now. So just find out if you can be Right in here and now, in thoughtless awareness. Just being aware of your own presence, being aware of presence, being aware of awareness—really is what it means. Yes. There's one thing— I don't know if you could— Oprah has this famous question at the end of when she interviews people. The last question that she often asks is, what do you know for sure? And of course, well, she also asked me that. I don't know what I said in that moment, but what you know for sure ultimately is there's really only one thing that you can know for sure, and that is that you are conscious right now. And it's amazing to become conscious that you are conscious. It stops the mind. It has to, otherwise you can't be conscious that you are conscious, because when you're thinking you're conscious of something, but you're not conscious of consciousness. It's just a linguistic construct; it doesn't mean that there's a subject and an object. It's only when you talk about it that there's a subject and an object: I am conscious of consciousness. But all it means is consciousness has become self-conscious— not self-conscious in the conventional sense, Consciousness has become conscious of itself, and that's awakening. And that's— so the mind is still in that. Become comfortable with that stillness. And you not only become comfortable, you begin to love it.