Eckhart Tolle argues that life's primary purpose is to embody consciousness, the timeless "I Am" presence beneath your temporary personality. He describes a simple practice: sit quietly, let thoughts subside, and access the spacious, still dimension that underlies all form. Most people live unconscious of this presence, but recognizing it aligns you with an evolutionary awakening that gives true purpose.
That is the purpose of your life. Whatever form it takes varies from person to person, but the primary purpose is consciousness, to embody consciousness. Sitting quietly in a room, breathing, Allowing what is to be there, here and now, not needing to interpret it, not thinking about my life, because your life is now. It's inseparable from the consciousness that you are. That is your life. The rest is your— I wrote that somewhere— the rest is your life situation. Stuff that happens in time, that has happened and probably will happen until all the that's all the happening stops when the body goes on this level stops. So. Sitting quietly in this room, not needing to work anything out mentally, but not falling below thought, being alert, awake. At first, it's like there's nothing, nothing much, nothing really there. There's an It looks like an absence of someone, but presence— presence is— there is a presence there that has no form. A beingness. You know that you are, but not what you are. You know that you are, the being of you. And that you can gradually, you sense it more powerfully that there is a transcendent being behind the personality that has given rise to the personality in the same way that that lake or the ocean creates waves and surface on waves and the ripples on the surface. So the being of you has given rise to a temporary phenomenon that we call the person, the ripple on the surface, or maybe it's a somewhat bigger wave, but still a ripple, no matter whether— You are a penniless person somewhere, or a nameless Jeff Bezos, or whatever his name is, slightly bigger wave on the surface, but it'll subside also and disappear very quickly, like everything on the surface. But behind it, there's the being of you. Now, this is not just something we talk about or to believe in. Can you sense here now that there's not just you, this physical body, and the psychological body, the psychological entity with its memories and narratives? When the narratives stop and the thinking subsides for a moment, The possibility arises of experiencing the transcendent, what we could call the transcendent dimension to who or what you are. And that is the being. And it is still. It has no content as such. It is a vast space or spaciousness. It is intensely alive. It is still, but intensely alive. And there's vast power there. All power arises from there. Then it takes on form. It can take on the form of a thought. When you connect with it consciously, because you can't get away from it, it's always there, it's the being. But most humans are unconscious of that transcendent So they exist as if this dimension— they live as if this dimension didn't exist at all. But of course they are sustained by it, but not consciously. So they are like a beggar not knowing that he or she has vast wealth, sitting on vast wealth. I think I wrote that somewhere. He's sitting on a box filled with gold, but has never looked inside. Please give me a penny. But don't you know that you are incredibly— you have everything, you're incredibly blessed? No, I haven't looked. I haven't looked inside. There's nothing there, I'm sure. There's nothing there. The being, to be, that is the essence of the universe. Is being. The rest is existence. Being is prior to and gives rise to exist— by existence, I mean anything that happens in the phenomenal realm, whether as a thought or as an emotion in the invisible phenomenal realm. Mm-hmm. Or in the visible phenomenal realm as trees and people and animals and stars and galaxies and so on. They all exist. Deeper than that, there is an intelligence that pervades and underlies all existence and creates and manifests these forms, these temporary forms that are evolving for some reason. It's going somewhere. Don't ask me where. Sometimes I have intuitive insight. Yes, I can sense where it's going, but I can't express it. It's impossible to understand conceptually. It's a vast, a vast evolutionary process of this universe. But I know I am part of it. You are part of it. And so that gives true purpose to your life, that to know that you are an essential, vital, inseparable part of this vast evolutionary process of awakening. The mind asks, well, where is it all going to end? You cannot possibly understand. How can a mosquito understand the theory of relativity or something, whatever? Right. And even that's not an adequate example. Oh, vast. But you don't need to understand it conceptually, but you can align yourself with that evolutionary process. And that gives true purpose to your life, which is to live consciously, to bring as much consciousness into your daily life and into every action. That is the purpose of your life. Whatever form it takes varies from person to person, but the primary purpose is consciousness, to embody consciousness. In your relationships, in your dealings with situations and events in this world. Bring conscious— that you're not an unconscious entity that's simply reacting out of its conditioning. So here we are. Let's go— always go back to sitting quietly in a room. Here we are, sitting quietly in a room, being aware of not only sense perceptions, but also, let's say, the presence that pervades the body but is beyond the body, the beingness of you. You know that you are. I am is the That's in the— perhaps the greatest word, sentence in the Bible is God's definition of him, her, itself. When the prophet asks, meets God on the top of the mountain and asks, what's your name? And God says, I am. I am the I am. Oh, that's weird. The prophet— well, that's not in the Bible. I said that. That's weird. I Am. And then God says, yes, so go down to your people and tell them that I Am spoke to you. Whoa. I'm not sure if anybody at that time understood the deeper meaning. Maybe the person who wrote it. It's so— there's a very deep meaning in that. I Am spoke to you, and that was God. And Jesus said in the Gospel of John, before Abraham was, I Am. Oh. Not before Abraham was, I was already. Obviously not. Before Abraham existed, before it was, I am the timeless, eternal beingness of you. And this is not— the wonderful thing is it's not just— it's not a belief. It's something that can be realized immediately, here and now. All that is required is a temporary cessation of the stream of thinking. And something else opens up, which at first looks like nothing. But it's only nothing in the sense that it is not a thing, no thing. Ultimately, one could say it is everything prior to manifestation. That's the I Am. And this pure beingness can be easily sensed at any moment, and it can become the backdrop or the background to the rest of your life so that you always have a little bit of— in the background, you never lose connectedness with that sense of being, even while you're engaged in the things of this world. Even while you're engaged in thinking again, you're not completely lost in the movement of thinking. There is conscious connection remains with the sense of I am. I sometimes call that the deep I.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
