Why silence has become unbearable for so many people | Eckhart Tolle

There are many people these days who are afraid of silence. They can't stand it. In some buildings you even have piped music in the elevators. I've seen buildings where you have a little TV screen in elevators, and when people go into there— To get in touch with the deep I, to connect with it, to realize it, space meditation, so to speak, is a very helpful thing. Now, you can even do a space meditation in a room. It's maybe not as powerfully effective, but quite simply by looking around you at the room and see what's in it, And usually it'll be furniture, and it will be the ceiling, the walls, and the floor. So there's stuff in the room, and then you can ask yourself, what is the essence of this room? Is it the walls? Is it the furniture? Is it whatever else is there? No. The essence of this room is the space of this room. So that which you cannot really— you can't see space because space doesn't exist. It is, but it doesn't exist. That's very weird, isn't it? Space is, but it doesn't— there's nothing there, and yet that nothing gives rise to everything. And so, you can become aware, even sitting in a room, of the space of the room rather than focus attention on what's in the room. And this is— so you're not focusing on one thing, there's an awareness of the totality of the space in this room. And that again brings about an awareness of inner space, and suddenly your mind becomes— or not your mind, you become spacious inside. And then you can do the same thing. This is a visual meditation practice, so to speak. You are seeing something that's not anything. You cannot see space and yet somehow it helps to connect it with the visual. Similar practice is auditory meditation practice and that helps you to connect with the deep I. You listen to the silence in the room or outside. There may be some noises, you don't need total silence, but instead of becoming aware of the noises that you hear, become aware of the silence that's there in between the noises. So you listen to the silence. It needs alertness, it needs attention, and you listen. And not just for 3 seconds, you continue to listen to the silence. And that becomes a very enjoyable thing. To do, to listen to the silence. Why is it enjoyable? It's enjoyable because the moment you listen to the silence you become silent inside, there's stillness, that's the deep I. The moment you listen to silence you have to be silent inside because otherwise you cannot be aware that there's silence around you. There are many people these days who are afraid of silence. They can't stand it. In some buildings you even have piped music in the elevators. I've seen buildings where you have a little TV screen in elevators, and when people arrive back home, they have to turn something on because they can't stand being in a silent place. And that is because they are so disconnected from the essence of who they are that they feel they die if they're exposed to silence for too long. It's terrible. But So, the space in the room, or listen to silence. Again, it's like looking out into space, you're listening to nothing ultimately. So, what remains when you're looking at something that's not really there and when you're listening to something that's something that is nothing, all that remains is... Silence. Conscious attention. There's no longer content in that consciousness, there's only consciousness without the content because you're focusing on no thing, you're focusing on nothing. So normally your consciousness is content, you're always conscious of something, that's normal. You're not only conscious of something, a thought, a sense perception, a feeling, A memory, which is a thought. You're not only always conscious of something, you are identified with that thing that you are conscious of. Every thought that you are conscious of, you're identified with it. But you're never conscious of nothing because you think that doesn't make sense. And now we're introducing this little practice where you pay attention To the vastness of space, or you pay attention to stillness or silence around you, not the noise, you pay attention to the silence. Certain types of music you can do it too.