Transcending Limitations to Awaken, with Eckhart Tolle

Internally transcendence is possible. And some people had to encounter the most severe limitations on their lives through physical disability, complete loss. Had to encounter in whatever area severe limitations on their lives, prison cell to go to realize that there is a freedom within where limitations can be transcended through non judgment of the present moment, non reaction. Reaction is unconscious response. Yes, reaction is against. Through bringing that openness, the yes to what is the internal yes. Not necessarily a verbal yes, but as in the inner attitude of being one with the present moment. That opens up in you that which is beyond form. And there you transcend limitations and there's freedom. And that's what being dead means. Dead to the world. It's not a negative thing at all. You are much more alive when you are dead, much more alive. And you are much more powerful when you are valley than when you are a mountain. The mountain aspect of you. By mountain we mean the form identity. Of course, you have that for a while anyway. You don't have to worry about that. Yes, you are still, you have a form. Okay, be the valley while you are walking around as if you were a mountain. And that's peace, that's inner peace. You walk around this world which is not peaceful as an energy field of peace, not the peace that has abdicated consciousness and said, okay, I'm going to go back into semi consciousness, desensitize myself to, and go back into the vegetative realm and be peaceful. In that way there could be an escape also from the world of form. I'm at peace now. Peace. Ah, that's the state you can also encounter just before you go to sleep. In that last few moments, something pulls you, something very sweet that we call tiredness. Something very tiredness is something we think we know what it is because we have a name for it and it's so common. But there's something very. What is that? And you say I'm tired. It means there's a pull. You're being pulled from within. That pull gets stronger and stronger. And that pull can get so strong that you'd rather give up your life than resist it. People who get lost in the wilderness, they. They will lie down in the snow knowing that they're never going to wake up again. But the pull becomes so strong. Now, in conventional terms, we say they are so tired they have to go to sleep. But what is tiredness? It becomes so sweet wanting to go there. You can tonight have a look, have a feel to stay conscious and feel the pull. How sweet it is to go into sleep. Just as you enter sleep, feel the sweetness of sleep, and there are no problems there. Now, am I saying that's where we are going? No, but that's one way. You're going below thought to the One. Our destiny is to go beyond thought and then reach the one. Consciously reach it, realizing that you are it, but consciously so. The sweetness of being is there when you go into sleep. It's so beautiful. After a long day, you lie in bed and go, ah, no more problems. You're going below, thinking into that beautiful sweetness of being. And here the evolutionary impulse of the universe is to encounter that consciously, to be one with that consciously, which is the dead state. Because when you go into dreamless sleep, you're virtually dead. You don't exist as a person anymore. Temporarily you unite with the Source and then you come out again. But it is our destiny to consciously unite with the Source. Don't ask me why. I know that it is. It's our destiny to consciously unite with the Source of who we are. And you can only do that if you go around as if you were already dead. Because dead means it's the formless. Death is just the dissolution of forms. But death ultimately is already life. So that's why we have the old saying, the ancient saying, die before you die, die before you die. Or we could, in some traditions, find death before death finds you, because death will find you. And if you find death before death finds you, in Christian terms, Jesus teaching you find what he called eternal life. Now, eternal, of course means not. It goes on and on. It means timeless. If eternal meant it goes on and on, it would become very boring. It would become a limitation. In heaven you would be. After a while you say, I don't want to be in heaven anymore. Maybe there's more going on in hell. There was a song somebody played to me some years ago by a music band. I don't remember the name, but the title of the song was Heaven, the place where nothing ever happens. So find death before death finds you. Beautiful, eternal life. Of course, the teaching of Jesus has been misunderstood. First of all, they interpret it as being something that you're going to find it in the future where after you die, you find eternal life. And then eternal was interpreted as everlasting. There are even some translations of the Bible where it's called everlasting. But that's not right. It's eternal means timeless. So I would substitute. Then I would neither call it everlasting nor would I call it eternal anymore. Timeless. Timeless. The timeless life that you are. That's Hiding in death. And so as we realize that, more and more humans realize that dimension. That is a new evolutionary level that humanity reaches. Consciously uniting with that, that means you save the world. The world becomes saved. The world out there. And it's an added bonus. Oh, that's good. And if it were to collapse, ultimately, there is no death. Only the forms dissolve. That is the deepest. That's not conventional reality, of course. In conventional reality, death is everywhere. So we've had the bad news, which is the Everybody's going to be wiped out of the planet, okay? Which ultimately is not the bad news at all. It's the good news. If you realize that how so fleeting it is. That. Why attach yourself to form as if that were all there is? The little problems of my life obscuring the divinity of who you are. The depths of who you are. All the little stuff of your life. Allowing it to completely obscure who you are. How vast you are. As an expression of the whole. As an expression of the timeless life of consciousness itself. How vast you are. And you're allowing little marital troubles and stock market concerns to obscure that. Ultimately, you are allowing the mind, because that's what it is. The stock market isn't the problem. Your thoughts about the stock market are the problem. And the identification of millions of people with their minds. Have actually created the stock market. But that's another matter. So it's not. The problem is never out there. The problem is always your thoughts about it out there. You may have a situation that may require action. That's fine. You look at it, become still for a moment, and you act. Action arises out of intelligent action. Out of the stillness. That little space of no thought, alert stillness. You look, okay. And then action, if possible. If no action is possible, you look and you are. That's what is. That's power. You're in touch with power. Not your power. The power. So we do not need to fear the end of the world. Nor do we need to long for the end of the world out there. Get to the end of the world in you. The end of the world is the end of reliance and identification with the mind. Because the mind is the world. You don't even know whether there is a world out there. Because you can only experience it through your mind. The mind is the world. Attachment to the world really is. Attachment to your mind, to your thoughts. And so that is the transition from one state of consciousness to a higher state of consciousness. The relinquishment of that attachment to every thought that arises. Is there a world out There, or is it just our mind? Maybe it comes to the same thing. Waking up means stepping out of identification with thought. And that means death. So simple it's death. When you don't believe in thoughts anymore, Suddenly a spaciousness arises, an awareness arises, which from the point of view of thought, is called death. Thought calls it amazing. All this we could call the Good News. This is one sometimes the gospels in the New Testament, I call it the Good News. And of course, basically, that's what it is. The basic message was already there. It became distorted and obscured and misinterpreted. That's all very well, but it's there. All the ancient teachings point to it. And now it comes in a new form. Because the expression of it is form. That which it points to is formless. And that out of which the expression of it arises is the formless also. So what is happening here is happening because the universe wants it to happen. Life wants this to happen. This awakening, awakening out of the dream of form. Ultimately, consciousness is awakening. It's a huge, vast thing. I do not fully understand it. Nobody can. But you can be a conscious expression of that movement. And it frees your life from problems. Oh, that's in a little bonus. Oh, and it gives you inner peace. Oh, that's another bonus. It makes you a loving being. Oh, that's a bonus. You no longer contribute to spreading unhappiness in the world. Oh, that's good. And you actually, you change the world by being an expression of that shift in consciousness, by allowing it to happen through you. You change the world because you are all that and a few more not doing it, but realizing it. And the world changes. Now, whether in the meantime, whether the world as we know it now has to collapse substantially first before the new change can manifest and express itself also through new forms remains to be seen. It perhaps depends on how quickly the new consciousness arises in humans. And if forms need to collapse that were created by the old consciousness. From Soviet communism to Wall Street. Just to take two extremes, but basically the same things. The political system, economic system, social, the institutions and so on. Are they going to survive? Some may survive. Many probably will not. Is that something to be feared? No, it's enormous change coming in internally and externally. They go together. It.