Who Are You in Your Essence? | Eckhart Tolle

Many people who are unawakened are very, very strongly identified with their physical form. And that's only level one of their form identity. In the moment of noticing, you are not thinking, because you cannot notice a silent space and think at the same time. There needs to be something in you that corresponds to that silent space, and that is the inner space of awareness. And amazingly, that is also a way of realizing who you are at the most essential, the most fundamental level, because you are essentially that silent presence, that awareness, that consciousness. That is the essence of who you are. It's the essence of each person in this room. And that's an amazing realization. It transforms the way in which you perceive your identity, your sense of self, because that is perhaps one of the most important questions in life, in your life, is the question of identity. And that's why the ancient Greeks, in ancient Greek philosophy, probably going back to Pythagoras, one of the most important sayings they had, which is actually inscribed at the temple of Apollo at Delphi, know thyself, know thyself. That is one of the most important things in your life, to know who you are. Now, most people think they know who they are because they identify with first of all, of course, you have a physical body. And on the level of form, that physical body is of course, a part of who you are. I call that this is the level one of form identity. So the most important realization, this is so essential. I don't know why they don't teach that at school or university. The most important realization is that there are two dimensions to your identity. Whereas most humans on the planet, which is all those who are not yet awakening, only know themselves through this, through one identity, one dimension, and that's the dimension of form, form identity. Form identity begins with the physical form. So, and that is the first thing, of course, when you meet somebody else, the first thing, of course, you notice is the physical identity of that person, a man or woman with a body and an external appearance. And that's the first thing you notice and with yourself. Many people who are unawakened are very, very strongly identified with their physical form. And that's only level one of their form identity. They are very strongly identified with their physical form, either in a positive or a negative sense, meaning some people are proud of their body and appearance. Look at me and compare themselves mentally to other bodies who are not as beautiful, strong, or whatever it may be, very strongly identified with body and with appearance, and that's all negatively identified. I'm very unhappy about my body. Looks so awful. That again is a negative identification with body. And of course that's amplified these days through the clever technology that humans have developed. Selfies are very popular these days. And usually they show aspect of your body, I suppose, your appearance. So you go and then you send it out to as many people as possible. And then everybody, all your friends, including hundreds of people you've never met, they look at your body or your external appearance and feel bad because you look so happy. And that makes them feel even more unhappy than they were already. And to compensate for this, they also get out their phone and take a selfie, looking extremely happy. And perhaps you can find a background that makes people feel envious. Or you show yourself in a restaurant having this incredible meal. And for a while that can keep people, well, not never happy for very long, but busy. And you feel relatively okay in that dimension. Of course, sooner or later a time comes when the body changes, strangely changes its appearance. And you may think that the mirrors are no longer as good as they used to be because you don't look quite the same as before. And so there are many options open to you. But you begin to be then a little bit unhappy because you identified with something that doesn't last. And particularly people had a very strong body identification, become very unhappy as they grow old, very unhappy. And nobody has told them that such an identity is extremely limited, extremely limited identity. But they don't know that that's all they have all their life. And then suddenly the body that made them feel superior now becomes a source of great unhappiness. And that is the fate of all those who do not go deeper within in order to discover deeper levels of who they are. So I never particularly was tempted to identify, even when I was young, with my body, because it wasn't particularly strong or good looking. So what do I do? I felt inadequate. It was a source of suffering. However, I realized I am more than my body, I'm also my mind. If I can't look stronger and more beautiful than the person next to me, I can be more intelligent, I can be more knowledgeable. So my sense of identity shifted instead of physical, although there was some negative identification, but my sense of identity shifted to my mind. It shifted to that which of course is the next level down to your form. Identity is your mind. Your mind is all the accumulated knowledge and memories and so on that are kept alive by thought processes. So to compensate for my inadequate body, I read as much as possible so that I could make other people feel inferior to me because they didn't know as much as me. So I was still very uneasy. But whenever I was in a group of people, I would immediately start talking about knowledgeable things and show how much I knew to make other people feel less than me. That's a very normal egoic strategy. Was that the ego saying, don't talk about me so much? Of course I wasn't happy. I was continuously in a state of unease because there were always people who knew more than me. What do you do with them? And then there were others who didn't know more than me, but they had something else to identify with. They had high social standing, went to university. I met a few lords and ladies. They haven't. They didn't do anything to deserve those titles. They were born with them. So the baby comes out of the mother's womb and say, oh, this is lady so and so so. And many of those people had a very strong. They derived a very significant part of their identity from their social background. Upper class, basically, it means family history. So they identified very strongly with that and it could give them a sense of superiority towards most others. And even if the others were more intelligent, you had so much more class, so much more influence, background, whatever you call it, even the way you speak in English language in England, even the way you speak, you will immediately show others. Well, not a little less these days. But when I was young and lived in England, the moment you opened your mouth, people would judge you which social class you were. Working class, middle class, upper class, upper middle class, upper class. And many, of course, pretending, trying to sound very upper class in an exaggerated way, very embarrassing. But they thought it worked. Again, people are looking for an identity and the sense of identity is never ultimately satisfying. They're always looking for more. They're looking for something to strengthen their sense of identity, to strengthen their sense of who they are. And the ego, basically, that's what the ego is. To have a sense of identity that is based on the conditioned mind plus the emotions that reflect the conditioned mind. If ego, Usually people think when one speaks of a big ego, that is, ego is people who are bigger than life. They have a huge ego. They think they are the greatest and the most wonderful and superior to everybody. That can be one aspect of ego. There's also another ego. If you don't have enough stuff to identify ways, you don't have more knowledge than most people. You don't have a great body or appearance, you don't have social class, background, you don't have possessions, what do you do then? What do you identify with then oh my God who am I Or then the ego will very cleverly save to a kind of victim identity I've been treated so unfairly by life my parents it started when I was born dreadful background life always been at a disadvantage always been a victim either you personally or you can identify with the whole social group and say we have always been victims and we still are victims not that certain of course people have there are individuals who have been born into very dreadful circumstances there are also there have been on our entire groups of people who are born into bad circumstances that is undoubtedly true the danger is that making that into your sense of identity that keeps you trapped very much in a kind of prison very seductive there's a big tendency these days for people to have a collective victim identity very seductive for the ego you can read about it on the Internet very quickly how this becomes more and more fashionable almost these days to have a collective victim identity it.