In this lecture Eckhart Tolle explains that the fundamental sign of an unawakened mind is the complete loss of inner spaciousness, which leads to identification with the incessant stream of thoughts and the emotions that accompany them – what he calls the ego. He distinguishes between neutral events, which are simply facts, and the narratives we construct around them, noting that without spaciousness we mistake these stories for reality and react emotionally. Tolle emphasizes that true spiritual teaching is a transmission of the teacher’s state of consciousness, not an identification with the role of "teacher"; the teacher is a temporary function that ceases when the teaching ends. He urges listeners to become receptive to the undercurrent of spaciousness that arises when they are aware of it, and he warns of common obstacles such as the ego’s tendency to sabotage emerging presence and the danger of being hypnotized again by conceptual thinking.
Chapters
Complete loss of spaciousness, inner spaciousness, is the unawakened state. Complete loss of inner spaciousness, there's no awareness of anything in you except just complete identification with the stream of thinking that is mistaken for who you are, and that's the ego. To mistake who you are, to confuse who you are with the incessant stream of thinking plus the emotions that accompany the incessant stream of thinking, that is what we call unconscious living, and that is what we call the ego. The ego being a sense of self, a sense of identity that is based on concepts, that is based on Concepts are thoughts and thinking, and that kind of unconscious thinking is amplified by the emotions that are created by that unconscious thinking. So you believe in every thought that comes into your head, and the body reacts as if every thought were actually reality. Not— doesn't realize that it's just a thought. 'He betrayed me.' Oh! Thought comes in. You don't realize— if there's no spaciousness, you don't realize that that little phrase is a story. And you choose to completely believe in it. And it's not a pleasant story— something bad has happened to you is implied in it. And then you experience the emotion that is generated by the body when something bad has happened to you. So there are events and there are narratives. The events are neutral. The narrative is the interpretation. So as I speak, be aware that there is an undercurrent of spaciousness. And the moment you become aware of it, that spaciousness is not just in me, the moment you become aware of it, it's also in you. It opens up in you. And that's how true spiritual teaching happens, in which all conceptual explanations are secondary, and the primary spiritual teaching is: you become receptive to the state of consciousness of the teacher. And the teacher is just— doesn't have an identity that is teacher, The teacher is a temporary function. I am a teacher at this moment, spiritual teacher, but that's not my identity. It's just— if I believe that I am actually, that my true identity is a spiritual teacher, I would be lost. I would be lost in ego. I would be lost in a conceptual sense of self. It's only a function. So when I say, be receptive and open to the— one could almost say transmission— that comes when you listen to a spiritual teacher. And spiritual teacher is a function, not an identity. It's only a function while the teaching happens. When I walk away from here, I'm no longer a spiritual teacher, because the function has come to an end. So the, the essential teaching is the teaching of the transcendent state of consciousness, which is a state of inner stillness or spaciousness, and I will be reminding you frequently of this, even while I speak about certain things such as the obstacles that can arise as you begin to awaken, the ego's tendency to want to sabotage the arising presence. These things can be very helpful to know. They— in fact, it's important to know these things so that you don't get deceived and hypnotized again by the conceptual mind.
