Eckhart Tolle explores the Bhagavad Gita's teachings on the self, consciousness, and ego. He distinguishes between the thinking mind and a deeper, timeless awareness within you, pointing toward spiritual awakening and self-realization.
People who are unaware of the true self within do not recognize this soul in them, that is using the senses. As the senses are limited to the mind level, they are incapable of comprehending Atma, which is above the mind. Now, Krishna, the personification of God, here explains a little bit more about human life, human existence. It I will now explain more about the individual soul, which is called Jiva in Sanskrit. I'm now using for one or two sentences, which I scribbled in here this translation, which I thought was slightly better in this case. A spark of my eternal spirit becomes in this world a living soul, and it draws around its center the five senses and the mind. So this is again the divine God, the one consciousness talking. A spark of my eternal spirit becomes in this world a living soul, and it draws around its center the five senses and the mind. A body comes into existence, the Atma, which is a part of divinity. Atma, a part of this God within, enters into a body in the womb before birth. Thus it enters the world of matter. And in this translation it says it draws around itself the five senses with the mind as the sixth sense. Now comes a very poetic way of looking what happens. Like a breeze wafting the scent of perfume. The Atma, when it migrates from one body to the next, carries with it the mind and the senses. So the atma is the. The consciousness. And it carries with it this scent of fragrance of previous existence. That means it brings along the intellect, the ego, the sense of being, a separate identity, and the lower mind, thought, mind, transferring thoughts and tendencies from previous lifetimes, the individual soul, because it has drawn the senses around itself, experiences the pleasures, desires and pains of the world. Now, important part comes now. People who are unaware of the true self within the underlying atma, the underlying timeless consciousness, do not recognize this soul in them, that is using the senses. As the senses are limited to the mind level, they are incapable of comprehending Atma which is above the mind. The yogi, however, the yogi is the past engaged in spiritual practice or spiritual living. The yogi, however, possessing the eye of wisdom. The yogis, however, possessing the eye of wisdom, do see me, their atmic self within the eye of wisdom. The translator, here put in brackets, intuitive faculty. Now, this is, according to the Bhagavad Gita, the faculty of becoming aware within oneself of that which is deeper than the person. It calls the eye of wisdom. And the translator, to explain a little bit, as I said, put in brackets the intuitive faculty. And really, this is what my teaching. It's not my teaching is all about is of course becoming aware of yourself as consciousness. So that there is the dimension, the timeless dimension suddenly is realized within you. And you do it at any moment by becoming aware that you are aware. Like right now. Can you become aware at this moment that there is a presence there, that you are awake, that there is an underlying presence even when you are not thinking, without which you couldn't exist. There's an underlying aliveness, a presence, whatever you want to call it. You don't have to think to know that. In fact, it's only when there is a gap between two thoughts. You become aware that you haven't disappeared, or that you don't remember your personal history. You don't even at this moment, you don't even remember your name. You don't need it. But there is an essential aliveness or presence there. And that is the eye of wisdom that suddenly arises knowing yourself. As you could also say what's left of you when you stop thinking. You can't think about that. The usual tendency when I ask a question like that, it seems difficult to comprehend, is you start thinking about it. So when I ask what's left when you stop thinking, then you might say, oh, I have to think about that. But that's never the answer. So there is that which has assumed form in you, which is the person with its history, and there is that which is timeless and formless that underlies it all. That is actually the essence of your sense of identity, Atman. And that is self realization. It says here, to obtain this eye of wisdom, you must do two things. Surrender your ego and purify your mind. And that is done, I would say, by realizing that you are not your mind. Because if you are identified with every thought that comes into your head, as many humans still are, then basically you are your mind. And beyond the thoughts that go through your head, there is nothing else. That's all you know. And the thoughts that go through your head are conditioned by your upbringing, by your past, by your environment, the country you live in, the time period you live in, your family background. All those things determine what kind of thoughts go through your head. And all those thoughts that go through your head habitually make up who you consider yourself to be. That a certain story arises in the mind and that becomes the mind made self. And that is the reality for most humans. And it's also fact that for most humans, that is a very limited reality. They don't realize how limited their worldview is, how limited all their opinions are. They don't realize that they are inhabiting these little presents in their minds. That's their reality. And when you're totally trapped in your mind, then you create a lot of conflict, because then all the other minds become like enemies to you. And then you can become an extremist, whether political or religious, or you just have a lot of conflict in your personal life. You're just totally stuck in your little. In your head, cannot recognize your connectedness with nature, your connectedness with other human beings. You're cut off by concepts, by thoughts. And so that's most people's reality. And spiritual awakening is realizing that there is a dimension in you that is far deeper than that. And that here, according to the ancient teachings, atma, which is the God within, the divine, within whatever you want to call it. And that's a liberation. Even just having glimpses of that is liberating. That there is more to you than the little person that you. That before was running your life. And with that, an intelligence comes into your life that is greater than the intelligence of your conditioned mind. And that's what all spiritual teachings are about. It.
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