In this monologue, Eckhart Tolle explains that various experiences—such as being in nature, interacting with animals, listening to or creating music, dancing, and engaging in sport—can temporarily lift a person out of their conceptual or egoic self and bring about a moment of presence or a brief spiritual awakening. He emphasizes that while these moments are valuable and can serve as helpful gateways, they are fleeting and do not constitute lasting transformation. The core challenge, he notes, is maintaining presence amid the continual demands and responsibilities of everyday life, which requires deeper, more permanent work beyond temporary escapes.
Chapters
So nature can free you from yourself temporarily, and that's a wonderful thing. Certain activities that you engage in also can temporarily free you from yourself. By self I mean your personality or your person, the conceptual self. The egoic self. So let's just talk for a moment about the quiet moments that you— if you— spiritual awakening for some people comes the first time they experience it might be in nature. You can also use nature as a practice. You can, you can go into nature and give it your attention as fully as possible, and then you can see how nature can help you transcend the conceptual mind. Even a dog can do that. If you live with a dog or a cat, you may not know it, but relating to a dog potentially can, to a limited, to a small extent, free you from the conceptual mind, unless you continuously talk to the dog. And you think the dog must understand you. But if you can relate to the dog— of course, sometimes you will talk to the dog, that's normal— but if you can also relate to the dog on a deeper level when you're not talking, you're just— there's a communication, there's a meeting. So anything natural can free you temporarily from the Your conceptual mind, if you allow it to. And that's great, so give yourself these opportunities, but it's not enough. To be in a protected environment and being able to be present in a relatively protected environment is a wonderful thing. It means, yes, presence is arising in you. You're no longer continuously carrying the heavy burden of yourself around with you, so nature can free you from yourself temporarily, and that's a wonderful thing. Certain activities that you engage in also can temporarily free you from yourself. By self I mean your personality or your person, the conceptual self, the egoic self. Certain activities can do that, sometimes music can do that, playing an instrument can Sometimes listening to music can do that, if it's music, especially music that comes from a deeper place, music that has an essential quality to it because the person who created it had this connection with the transcendent dimension. It could be simple music or it could be a complex piece of music, it doesn't matter. So listening to music, giving it attention, playing an instrument can temporarily free you from yourself? It's temporarily, it can be a help, it's not a permanent thing, but it can be an additional help, and this is people who even are not awakening yet can experience These brief moments occasionally when they listen to music or they make music or dance or sport activity can be very helpful too. So these are all things that can be helpful, but what is the most difficult thing to deal with is The stuff of this world, that the stuff that you need to deal with, no matter what your profession is, there's an enormous amount of things that you continuously need to deal with.
