The Real Message of Good Friday | Special Easter Meditation with Eckhart Tolle

Welcome to our live Easter meditation. You are here not because you want to awaken, but because you are awakening. Unless somebody dragged you here, or wherever you are, wherever you're here is. If our meditations are deeply enjoyable, then you are awakening. So this is all part of the awakening. The collective awakening process goes far beyond the personal. In fact, that which is transcended in the awakening process is the personal dimension. Transcended does not mean it gets totally eliminated. But you go beyond no longer dominates your conscious. And in a manner of speaking, you die to the personal dimension. And for some of you, or many of you, most of you, it's a gradual dying process. And for a few, it's a drastic and sudden death. For most, as I said, it's a gradual dying of the being centred in a personalized sense of identity. And that dying of the the personal self of which our being together here is a part. That's the Good Friday message, the truth contained within that. The death. As I see it, the death of Jesus happens on Friday. And the birth of Christ, the resurrection, the rebirth into a different dimension, happens at Easter. And until the death of the personal sense of self is voluntarily embraced. It's painful, but what's even more painful is to be trapped in that narrow sense of self. What is that narrow sense of self? Consciousness is identified with form. Another way of putting it. Consciousness is trapped in form, doesn't know it. Dreamlike state. Whenever you get upset about trivial things, what he did or he said or she did or she said, or your parents or your spouse or your ex spouse or money matters, and you get upset and reactive. That's a good indication that consciousness is trapped in form. And then form becomes all important, which is a delusion. So you are trapped. Another way of putting it. You don't know who you are. Another way of putting are nailed to the cross of matter. You are nailed, you, consciousness are nailed to the cross of form and you suffer. Eventually you surrender. In other words, the reactive entity does not operate anymore. And then you are free. The awakening to who you are beyond form. The words I am speaking here are of course thought forms. But there is the unseen dimension to our being together here that has nothing to do with thought or sense perceptions, but is the awareness that is arising of consciousness itself, the formless dimension in you. One could say the words which are forms, thought forms, continuously point to that. That to which they point is of course beyond words, beyond form is who you are essentially. And you recognize it as we sit together here, that there is something here that Is not the words, not what you see, not the image of this person, the form. But something arises from within you that you cannot name. Although I occasionally try to find a little word for it. Inner space, stillness, awareness itself arises. That's where the personal is transcended. Of course, this is helpful to be here together and enter that dimension or allow that dimension to rise in which the personal is transcended. The real challenges in everyday life, which for many people seems to consist of nothing but the personal and all the personal concerns. And some of you who are able to be here, or sometimes when you are not disturbed or you go out into nature or sit quietly in a room, you can become still alert, present, transcend the personal. And some of you, yes, you're able to. It's beautiful, the awakening is happening. And some of you are not able yet to sustain it. The moment a challenge comes from the world of the personal, the phone rings. Are you able when you answer the phone and talk to whoever, your accountant, be there as the person who deals with whatever needs to be dealt with, but also not lose awareness of spaciousness. That's the real, your purpose for being here, not just here, now, on this planet, here is to master that art of being rooted in the impersonal and still dealing with the world of form, the world of matter, the world of thoughts, ultimately more effectively than before. Because one of the great benefits of mastering this art, of this dancing the dance between form and formlessness, one of the most wonderful benefits is you lose your fear of form, the world, other people. In other words, you lose fear. And fear is that which blocks love, which would naturally be there in the absence of fear, fear. Ultimately, saying form is all there is now. A belief that there is something beyond form doesn't help you. I believe in God. I believe in the spiritual dimension. That doesn't help you because a belief is still a thought form, so you still have fear. It needs to be an actual realization, not an understanding thing that, ah, now I understand. No, it's not that kind of realization. A knowing, non conceptual knowing, a living knowing of that in you that is formless, that is still present, alert, spacious. You have to bring that into this world, into the world of madness. Madness meaning the complete absence of transcendence. Otherwise the world makes you mad. And whenever you go back into the world, you become mad again like everybody else. So you can bring sanity to the world, or you can allow the world to make you mad, draw you into its madness. Whenever you are fighting something or someone, the world is drawing you into its madness. Of course, somebody 2,000 years ago already said that forgive your enemies is basically the same thing. Saying the same thing. Don't fight anything or anybody. Fighting is an inner state of consciousness, a reactive state of consciousness. Any reactivity is a form of fighting it. So you have all the fights in the world that are not working because they are fights. The fight against terrorism, the fight against drugs, the fight against crime, the fight against poverty, the fight against illness. So these are not solutions. They add to the problems the solutions. There's not really solutions. There is one solution to all the problems, which is find the transcendent dimension in you. And it's not a question of saying, okay, I found it now what's next? By finding means to continuously live that knowing. It's not a once, okay, I found it now I'm awakened. It's a continuous knowing in the background of your life. Non conceptual awareness stays with you. That's what it is. Shines through the personal and then through that the light that shines through the person that was before was so heavy and dense. That is what transcendence means. It.