Eckhart Tolle presents a spiritual teaching that defines the unawakened human condition as being "lost in thought," argues that many societal problems stem from a prevailing collective unconsciousness amplified by social media, and emphasizes individual awakening through cultivating presence (the "I am" awareness, thoughtless awareness, and regular practice of being). He offers practical guidance—use the mind as a tool but do not be driven by it, notice and return to presence after brief engagements with online content, and prioritize being over reactive doing.
The human condition then could be defined as lost in thought. That is the human condition, the unenlightened, the unawakened human condition is lost in thought. It's a dreadful state. And that doesn't mean that thought is bad in itself, in the same way that a hammer and the saw are not bad in themselves. And even the phone, the Samsung or iPhone, as long as it doesn't explode, is not. Is not bad in itself, but the way in which it is used, or rather to be its servant, that is crazy and that is dysfunctional. But if you're able to use them, it's great. Use your mind, enormous tool, but not be at the mercy of your mind. So that is the. All the problems of humanity arise, including of course, all the political craziness and so on, arise out of a particular state of collective consciousness. That's where they arise. Obviously there's a different consciousness, they don't arise. Every 19th century French philosopher said a perhaps somewhat controversial or perhaps even politically incorrect statement. Every nation has the government it deserves, but there's a lot of truth in that. And that means that what government nation has is an externalization of the underlying collective, the predominant collective state of consciousness of the nation. And that produces the so called government. And so the real change must happen in the individual. If enough individuals awaken out of the egoic consciousness, then there's a different government. That's simple. And so it's important not to be drawn into the collective unconsciousness, which has a powerful gravitational pull and which is particularly because it is. It is amplified and energized and fed by the social media and Internet culture. It feeds and amplifies the collective unconsciousness. And it has a gravitational pull that every time you tune into that, you can sense it wants to draw you in. It wants you to be as unconscious as the collective. It wants the reactivity, it loves, it wants that. And so this is another challenge for you. You are obviously you're being challenged by your mind. The externalization of the mind, the, the hive mind on the Internet and social media, the outrage culture, very challenging. But you have to. But it can also awaken you when you can see the dysfunction of it, when you say, oh, look at that, look. Wow. And then perhaps you can contribute something. If you feel called upon to contribute something to it. You can contribute something that is sane, not insane. You can make a sane statement that does not demonize the others or whatever it does. It's not reactive. You can bring in some sanity. But again, we need to go back to it all goes back to being sufficiently connected to the language, connected to the, the transcendent I, the deep I, so that that is there in your life and using all those moments when doing is not required for being present, rather than filling it up with useless doing. And you'll be surprised how many moments there are during the day when this happens. It doesn't necessarily mean that you, doesn't mean that you never look at these things. You know, you think, okay, I'm at the airport now and I must not look, I must not look at. Perhaps you do look. Maybe you look for two minutes or three minutes. That may be something to look at, maybe it is something important, but then you don't get absorbed into it because. And then it leaks. Okay, now let's just take out this and then let's check out that. No, then once you've looked, dealt with it or sent a message and you're able to put it away again and return to being present. And when you're present, you're aware of your beingness yourself. The I am the presence, you are the awareness. And the more you practice that, the more power grows in you, the power of presence grows in you. Before, although I went through a transition at the age of 29, there was a continuous. There was still in subsequent years there was occasionally the pull of the mind wanted me to go back into mental reactivity and the old patterns of the mind and the pull of unhappiness occasionally still came, come this way, be unhappy, think these thoughts. And so there were several years after that when I spent long periods of time simply in thoughtless awareness. I could sit not only the time when I didn't have a home, I would like sitting on benches. But even once I had a home, I would still often just go out somewhere, whether it was a city or park and sit on a bench or in a cafe or go on my bicycle and just be there as nobody in particular, just a presence, just a presence. And during those times the presence grew and grew. There was more, but nothing externally, nothing much was happening, no particular change yet. But the presence grew and there was. That power grew. And it wasn't my power, it was the one power there is. And it grew and more and more strongly. But it only, it was kind of. I began to love it, so to speak. And those were, perhaps those were on an external viewpoint, non constructive. It was a non constructive period of my life because externally nothing significant happened except that I began to counsel individuals very slowly began, but very little event happening on the external level. Just living on a minimum. And that those times were very important because those were the times when the power of presence grew and grew, so to speak, manifested more fully and then eventually created also. But so it's important for you to. To realize that most important thing is to use a Buddhist like, to use the word cultivate. You cultivate presence in your life. You invite it. You welcome it. You are it. It is the transcendent I. And go there as much as possible in your life. Don't believe the fiction of your mind, which tells you, I have no time for this today. It's a thought and it's a lie. You no longer believe every thought that comes into your head. That's a big step forward. Because if you believe in every thought that comes into your head, you go astray completely because all kinds of weird thoughts come into your head. No, no, no, I can't. I have too much to deal with today. I can't do presents. Just don't. It's. I've got much more important things to deal with right now. Don't tell me. Don't tell me about presence. Look. Look at this. This is what's happening. Oh, my. Sam.
