Eckhart Tolle argues that spiritual awakening and presence matter more than health, money, relationships, or work. He contrasts the ordinary mind's constant longing to be elsewhere with the awakened state, and traces the awake-versus-asleep metaphor through Buddha and Jesus.
It's no surprise that this term awakening has been used in many spiritual traditions for thousands of years. Awakening and to be awake, that's the most important thing that could happen to a human being here. In fact, it's the only thing of absolute importance in their incarnation here. The only thing of absolute importance is whether you represent or embody the awakening of consciousness. That is the evolution of consciousness on this planet through you. And on a larger scale, it is the evolution of consciousness throughout the universe. It is an awakening universe. And you are an essential part of the awakening universe. In fact, you are inseparable from the awakening universe. You look like a person, but you are the universe in the process of awakening, disguised temporarily as a little person. With its problems and so much going on in my life, I have no time for presence. Maybe if things are going better, I'll be present, but not now. Got too much on my plate, as the expression goes. English expression. I have a lot on my plate, they say, which means a lot of problems. Of course, there's no end to the problems, but so there's only one thing of absolute importance, and that is whether you embody the awakening of consciousness. All the rest is secondary. I call, may be relatively important, all the things that make up your life, what people call my life, this very problematic thing that you call my life, that is all maybe important. Yes, there are things that are important. Your health is important, your, your relationships are of course situation important. Your home situation, your professional work situation important. All those things, whether you have money or not enough money. All these things are important, relatively important, but not absolutely important. So you have the two levels. I don't deny the relative importance of all these things that make up your so called life. But what humans neglect and do not realize that there is a more. There is a transcendent dimension to your life. And to encounter that, to consciously awaken to the transcendent dimension of your life, that is the only thing that is of absolute importance. Then everything else falls into place. It doesn't mean, if you focus on the awakening, whether you are conscious at any moment. The important thing in any situation that you encounter in your life is the state of consciousness with which you meet that situation. What is the state of consciousness in which you face whatever situation arises in the present moment that determines the next thing, how it's going to go on in the next next moment, in the next. How do you end? What is, how do you perceive, react to this? Whatever is arising in this moment. So whatever is arising in this moment, the situation that Arises, they come and go. Different situations arise. Is always maybe important, but it of secondary importance. More important is your state of consciousness. Now, if you could remember only that and live that, that's really all you need. So whenever you encounter any situation, realize what's my state of consciousness right now? And there's a situation that perhaps you need to deal with. Perhaps you need to take action right now. Perhaps there's nothing you can do and you have to leave it alone. We don't know. But what is your state of consciousness in the present moment? The vital question. And in order to answer that question, and it doesn't really have a conceptual answer because you immediately know whether you are present or not, that question can help you become present. What is my state of consciousness right now? Maybe are there certain thoughts that are happening that are telling you that something is very wrong? Emotions that are telling you that something is wrong? The seven thoughts, they tell you you'd rather be somewhere else. Very common thing. It's so common people don't realize it. Some people live almost continuously as if they were longing to be somewhere else, but not here now, to get away from here. Now. This isn't right. There's something not right. Never, occasionally it seems right. Ah, I have arrived. It's right. Whatever it is that makes it right. For a moment, it's an illusion. I'm in love. Wonder if this is the completion of my life. I've fallen in love. There's a person who's going to complete me. When you go to a restaurant and observe other people sitting at various tables, you can tell with their couples sitting at the table, you can tell whether their relationship is relatively recent. They haven't known each other for very long. They're in that state that they call falling in love. The way they interact is very different from those who have been in a relationship for longer or married. The ones that have just met fall in love. They are in a kind of state of delusion. You can see it in their eyes. Everybody's playing their part in it. It's a theatrical performance, but they don't know it. And that comes to an end. The latest when they start living together. So this, then the essence of all this is awakening, the awakened state of consciousness. And as I mentioned earlier, not surprisingly, this term awakening has been used over thousands of years, since the time of the Buddha and before. The essence of the teaching of the Buddha is to waken. The word Buddha itself means to be awake. The one who is awake, this is a Sanskrit root of the word, is to be awake. Buddha is not a. It's not a name of a person. It describes a state of consciousness and then go to Jesus. And there are quite a few parables that talk about not going to sleep, about staying awake. And these are not. He's not. These are parables. They're not to be taken literally. Obviously. Literally, you cannot tell a person, stay awake because eventually, of course, you'll go to sleep. So we are just using this analogy of awake and asleep in order to point to something that most humans are not yet familiar with. To quote Jesus again from one of the gospels, he said, and this is quite a bit of what we read about Jesus teaching may not be quite what he said or distorted, but a few things I can sense are absolutely literally what he said, a few things here and there. For example, he. And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake. Was that the Buddha or Jesus? No, it was Jesus. Oh, no, he's not talking about the normal state of wakefulness. Nobody could stay awake for that long because there's something that pulls you into sleep. So we are not talking about that. We are using that as an analogy. Everybody knows what it means to awaken in the morning when you've been asleep, which is a particular state of consciousness. You're asleep, and in sleep you have dream state and you have dreamless sleep. You have those two. And then you wake up, you awaken in the morning, and there's a huge difference between the state of sleep and the state of being awake. Everybody experience that every morning. And you go, suddenly you open your eyes and oh, completely different world. You've just awakened. It's a different state of conscious.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
