In this Q&A, Eckhart Tolle addresses a question about feeling lazy after an awakening and how to keep the sense of communion with presence while still engaging in daily life. He explains that awakening often creates an initial imbalance where the desire to stay in the dimension of Being overwhelms the willingness to act. Over time, life offers subtle hints—encounters, questions, opportunities—that invite purposeful action. Tolle shares his own story of being approached on a park bench, which led him to recognize a purpose of helping others, prompting him to take practical steps such as part‑time work, giving talks, and eventually teaching. He emphasizes that the specific form of doing is secondary; what matters is that the activity remains aligned with presence and does not revert to meaningless, stress‑driven busyness. He notes that most activities can be reconciled with Being, except those fundamentally at odds with consciousness (e.g., criminal or toxic environments). Tolle also points out that individuals differ: some are more being‑oriented (like himself) while others are more doing‑oriented (e.g., Oprah), yet both can maintain connection to presence. He advises compassion toward one’s own inclination, avoiding the pursuit of a perfect 50/50 balance, and staying alert to life’s cues that guide purposeful action while preserving inner stillness.
As you might realize, I am more inclined to being than to doing. And even now, I have a confession to make, even now, my ability to do things, except teaching, if you call it teaching, but other kinds of doing, I'm not very good at it.
My question is, I find myself feeling more and more connected, and yet I somehow feel lazy, like I should be doing more. How do I keep the sensations of this communion with the blissful presence within and Also create, do, and play my role in society. How do I allow the aliveness of being to express itself through the personality and consciously approach daily living?
It basically refers to the need to find a balance between being and doing. Balance between being and doing. And it sometimes happens that people, when they first discover the dimension of Being, they feel so wonderful and so drawn to it that for a while they lose the balance between Being and doing. It happened to me too, because it was so wonderful to be immersed in Being and the the peace of the present moment and the appreciation of it and so on, the inner peace. In my case, it lasted perhaps, I don't know, a couple of years that I lost all interest in doing. And this particularly can happen if, as you first, as I said, as you discover the dimension of Being, don't want to leave it anymore, and then doing becomes more difficult. And after a while, in my case, I found that gradually life gave me little hints that some more doing was required. In my case, it was relatively very organic. People asked me questions. The first time it ever happened was I was sitting on a park bench minding my own business, which meaning I had no business. I was sitting on a park bench just enjoying the present moment and being, and a man sat down and we had to— he asked the— we had a brief conversation a long time ago. He had— and then he asked me something about his personal life, and I gave an answer. I don't remember what it was. Uh, And he said he found that very meaningful and very helpful. Thank you so much. And I didn't know where that answer came from, it just came. And then gradually it happened again, another occasion, and then gradually I realized that my purpose was to to help people with their suffering. That's how it seemed. Then I had to take some action. I had to find a place where I could do that. I had to find my own place. I had to find a way of surviving and get some part-time work because I couldn't live on just helping people because there was no— so I had some part-time work and was helping. Then gradually I had to give it more form, though, so people would come. Then there's donations. I got some donations. I had been more active and got invited to give talks in people's homes. And now what in the doing came more was the— a lot of the doing that humans are engaged in these days is relatively pointless. It's— but doing that has a deeper purpose and meaning to it, that's something that ultimately is what you want to find and see what it is that in the present moment life will probably give you little hints of a certain course of action that where the doing and the being can merge so that you're not You're not confined to the being mode, because you don't want to return to the pointless doing for the sake of doing, or for some superficial reasons, but to gradually move back into doing without losing the connectedness with the dimension of being. No matter what it is, even if you set up a business, Let's see, something, I don't know what comes into your mind. You set up a business, maybe it's, it's a physical business, or you may set up a business on the internet. There's countless possibilities, who knows. Or you create your own YouTube channel and start speaking truth to human, other humans, whatever it may be, the countless possibilities. But see what— maybe life will give you a few hints here and there. You just have to be alert to identify them. Ultimately, what you do is secondary as long as it's aligned with the being. So even if it on the surface it looks superficial, let's say you suddenly decide to become— set up a hairdressing salon, To make people look good with their hair, whatever. That might look superficial from— but it could be that you don't lose connectedness with being, and everybody who comes to you feels something in your presence. And more and more people will come because they feel good being with you, provided of course your relatively good at doing their hair, so that's a secondary thing. But even there, so what you do ultimately is of secondary importance, although there are certainly— there will be some things where you could say that this particular type of doing is still not really easily reconciled with the dimension of being. There may be some things that you wouldn't reconcile with being, well, criminal activity, for example. Not that you would be drawn to that, but— or living in extremely— working in an extremely dysfunctional environment. that you would not want to be there, you would remove yourself. However, with the exception of those extreme cases, many, many things are compatible with— many kinds of doing are compatible with being. And so, as I said, what it is is secondary. But so Life may give you little hints and show you which direction to take, and it may be that the first thing that you undertake may not be the ultimate thing, but if you, if you go with one, it might lead to something else. As long as you stay connected with Being and bring consciousness into the doing, the consciousness that flows from the dimension of being. So ultimately, all our challenge is, all of us, is to bring together the being and doing mode so that you are not— on the one hand, you don't lose yourself in pointless doing and you become stressed, stressed and anxious and always next, what's the next thing I have to do and the next thing and the next thing. Well, now I have to do that. Don't talk to me, I have no time. You don't lose yourself in the doing, but also you don't completely disappear in the being. Unless, yes, there may be a certain period in your life when being is called for, when you relinquish doing for a while. That is possible. It's also possible that you reach a certain age, advanced age, where being becomes the only thing that is left that is of importance to you. When you reach the age of 95, you may not have big projects of doing anymore, it would be— but being becomes primordial. That's the— so there may be certain periods in your life when when being is called for, and that's fine, you allow that. How long that is, nobody knows, whether it is half a year, a year, 2 years, who knows. And then a time to move out of it without losing your connectedness with it and start doing it. And the wonderful thing is to bring the 2 together. And then any activity that you're engaged in actually becomes quite satisfying. When you bring the being and the doing together. However, there are very few humans, and nor is it necessary, to be totally in the— to have 100% balance between being and doing. Very few people have 100%. Usually you are either inclined a little bit more towards doing, Or a bit more towards being. As you might realize, I am more inclined to being than to doing. And even now, I have a confession to make, even now, my ability to do things, except teaching, if you call it teaching, but other kinds of doing, I'm not very good at it. So there are things that, in the realm of doing paperwork or this or that, that needs to be done and dealt with and this and that, I can do it, but I'm often behind with it and catching up. I don't meet that— everybody knows that I don't meet deadlines, and so I'm not That great of— not a great doer except spiritual teaching, if you can call that doing. So the strange thing is my doing is mainly concerned with teaching being. So that's fine, that's wonderful, I enjoy that. So that's the— my doing is the teaching of being. In other areas, my doing— I'm not that great at doing. And I still love the being dimension. I'm not continuously active. I still love periods virtually every day when I just sit and be. When I contemplate, I look out of the window, look at the sky or the trees, or I go for a walk. In the forest, come back, and even sitting in a room for a while every day without— not saying I'm now doing a meditation, no, no, I'm not doing anything, I'm just being— to sit around the room. I have a lovely view out of my window, fortunately. I see mostly trees from my living room. I look at the trees. Moving in the wind, or still skies beyond. What else could one wish for? Just being quietly sitting in the room, feeling inner peace. So I do love still being and. But I haven't completely lost the ability to do, even in those areas where I'm not good, that I'm not good at. Anyway, what I'm saying is I'm more, always more inclined to being, but I can do. And other people may be more inclined to doing, but they don't lose their connectedness with being. I observed Oprah, for example, how she operates. She's continuously, she's doing this and then the next thing, in the next project, in the next. So she's much more in the doing mode, but she does not lose connectedness with being. So she has the connectedness with being, but she's doing and doing and doing. I would— I mean— She is younger than She's— I'm— she's a few years younger than me, but still the— just when we were doing the webinar, it's now more than 10 years ago, or now more, who knows. When we're doing the webinars, we do a couple of hours of TV thing in our studio. And I then, I felt afterwards I needed to come back into being immediately, and she would rush off to the building on the other side of the street and then do a radio program about what we had just done. No stopping. So that's— I'm not striving towards that because that's not— Yeah. how I operate, but she operates like that and it's fine, it works beautifully for her. So don't seek a perfect balance, be compassionate with yourself and accept, see whether you tend more towards the doing or the doing without. Again, don't lose yourself in the doing, don't disappear into the being unless It's time to disappear. All right, thank you.
