Why your ego is afraid of silence and stillness | Eckhart Tolle

become familiar and comfortable with that state of not knowing, which is there the moment you step out of the thinking mind with its continuous interpretations and judgments. Then you are in a state of not knowing. Socrates, Greek philosopher, who never wrote anything, He just talked. And Plato, who was one of his disciples, wrote about what Socrates said. We never know how much of this is Plato and how much of it is Socrates. But one certain thing is definitely Socrates, and one of his most famous sayings, of course, is— well, when he was asked, 'Why does the Oracle of Delphi call you the wisest of all men?' He said, 'The reason why I'm the wisest of all men is that I'm the only one who knows that he knows nothing.' Not many people actually have understood over the centuries what I see as the deeper meaning of those words. Mostly it's interpreted as pretending not to know, feigning modesty, which is a disguised form of ego. It's like saying, 'I'm the most egoless person of all.' I am the most egoless person of all. Nobody is more egoless than me, that's for sure. I'm the only one who knows that he knows nothing. So it's not— I suggest it's not feigned modesty. There's a deeper meaning, and the deeper meaning is that all his extremely creative teachings, they all— you might know that the teachings all are— he used to teach in the form of dialogues with people. So they would ask him questions, and he would ask them questions, and finally the teaching emerged out of the dialogue. Often he showed that the original premise that somebody started with is erroneous, but it gradually emerges. So 'I'm the only one who knows that he knows nothing' means, as I see it, that he started every talk in stillness, He did not begin his teachings with accumulated knowledge in his mind which he then regurgitated. He was able to be so creative in his thinking, very creative thinking. In fact, many people say that, that We learned, Western civilization at least, learned how to think through the ancient Greek philosophers and especially Socrates. He taught us how to think. So he was thinking, able to think creatively, use of his mind, he had access to the creativity within him. And the only way you can do that is by not starting from knowledge but starting from ignorance. Now, the ignorance, the way I use the term, is not the conventional meaning of ignorance. It's to step out of the thinking mind into just aware stillness. And in that moment, you don't know anything. That's how I start every talk. It always starts with thoughtless awareness. In other words, I have no idea what I'm going to say. That's another way of putting it. Thoughtless awareness sounds better, but the truth is I have no idea what I'm going to say before I start. Occasionally, earlier I came in with a newspaper, of course I had some idea then I was going to show you the newspaper and the article, so it does happen occasionally. And that is not only when you are about to give talks, that is the most vital state for you to become familiar and comfortable with, that state of not knowing, which is there the moment you step out of the thinking mind with its continuous interpretations and judgments, then you are in a state of not knowing. When you look at the sky or tree or another person and there's just a background of awareness to your sense perception, at that moment you don't know anything, not conceptually, you know nothing. Because without thought you don't know anything, there's no knowledge. And that is something that could hold you back because the ego is afraid of that state. It feels, I become as nothing, I become stupid, I no longer— I'm at the mercy of other people if I can't judge them anymore, and all kinds of things. That are obstacles that can arise unconsciously, and they very quickly take you out again of that state of aware, spacious presence. So it's good to look out for that. There is something in you that's not comfortable with it, is even afraid of it. Feels diminished by it, and that's the ego.