Your Indestructible Essence with Eckhart Tolle

At the very beginning of the course in miracles, there are three. Two or three sentences that are supposed to summarize the whole course. Those brief sentences, if you understand those. And the course in miracle is the same length as the Bible. So it's a lot to read and a long, very long. If you understand those two or three sentences at the beginning, you don't need to read the rest. So that's good. And so the summary of the course in miracles according to that is as Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. Can you say that again? Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. I'm not going to explain it now. I'll let you to figure it out for yourself. You have enough wisdom. So that's a very deep statement. So ultimately, all the form. Oh, I'm beginning to explain it now. Okay. Since I've started, I might as well finish. Ultimately, all the forms of life that you see are only the forms of life, including your physical form and even your psychological form. There are forms of life, but not life itself. Life itself is indestructible. And life itself can be equated with consciousness itself. Consciousness itself, which is the essence of every life form and the essence of every life form, cannot be destroyed. Only the outer. What we perceive as the outer form, of course, is very fragile and is subject to impermanence. And its existence is very fleeting. So in those terms, then, the only absolutely real thing is that which gives life to everything and that cannot be destroyed. Which is not to say that we should disrespect the forms of life. It is very important that we come into a relationship of reverence and love with the natural world. Because after all, it's a. Another manifestation of who you are, who or what you are in your essence. So you always, when you recognize more deeply other life forms and you recognize, you sense the inherent aliveness in these life forms, that recognition is a form of love, real love. And that is of vital importance to come to that realization. But then, so what you love is. Well, there's a Christian expression which is a little. It's not an. It's not absolutely ideal expression. It's not absolutely right, but it's an approximation of the truth. So the Christian expression is what? You don't love the creature, you love the creator in the creature. So what you love in the creature is the creator of the creature. But it's not really the creator, it's the essence of the creature. So in ultimate terms, then if you want to use the istic language, what you love in the other is ultimately always God. So that is the. You don't love the. When you love a form of life, what you really love is God hiding, having taken on the temporary disguise of that particular form of life. God, or rather the emanation of God, which is consciousness. Consciousness is not the way. I don't know, I've spoken about it here before. The consciousness that you are, that you can sense at this very moment as the essence of your being, this consciousness, do we ask, is that God? Well, yes and no. It's in the. You can't ask the same question of whether the light of the sun is the sun or not. The light of the sun that hits your skin and we can feel its warmth and the life giving energy of the sun, that is the very warmth in your body is derived from calories, which is derived from sun energy. So we are here physically because of the sun. And the rays of the sun that reach us, are they the sun? Yes and no. Obviously they are connected to the sun. They come. There's a oneness, but in the same way as the consciousness that animates all life forms, including you, here is an emanation of that. One that is. Ancient cultures regarded the sun as God because it is a closest analogy you can have, except that God has no physical existence in space and time. It's the transcendent one of which we can say nothing, but we cannot imagine or visualize. It's the transcendent one that emanates consciousness, which is the light of God into this dimension. And in this dimension there is an evolutionary process, whereas God itself is beyond time. So when, if you say, is consciousness God? Well, yes and no. In the same way that you say is the light of the sun that I can feel, is that this. Am I feeling the sun now? In a way, yes. But there's still a huge difference between the actual the sun, which is of inconceivable energy, can't even imagine, and the sunlight that you feel. So yes and no. The consciousness then the closest I can get to it is to say it is an emanation of God, it is still one with God. So you are an emanation of the one that is. So what you can sense in yourself as consciousness is the light of God. And this is why Jesus said you are the light of the world, because you are consciousness. So that's the. That frees you from the absurd belief that all there is to you is this little Person, with its little problems and its short past and its short future. That's all that's me. And it's not very satisfying to me. I feel there's more to you than that. And there's a deeper dimension to who you are. You go, the dimension of this dimension of who you are is the consciousness of the universe. And this is. We think of ourselves as entities, but ultimately we are not entities. We are processes. That's why I believe it was. I quoted it maybe yesterday, Alan Watts, I think he was the person who said it. You are something that the universe is doing in the same way that the wave is something that the ocean is doing. So the wave, we say, oh, there's a wave. Language works like that. There isn't really a wave because there's just the ocean going. You see, when you look, the surf that comes in. People here, they go surfing, and it's wonderful. These gigantic waves come in and you can see. You can look and see. Sometimes come very slowly when they're very. Can be an interval of a minute before the next one comes. And you can watch it. And then you say, oh, there comes another one. It's coming. There it is. I can see it. It is there, but it isn't it at all. It's the ocean doing something. So it doesn't have a separate existence, actually. You can even give it a name. This one is John, the Way of John. And then, of course, John doesn't live for very long. And finally it breaks and say, oh, my John has died. Now, one could go so far as to say that all nouns that we use, like tree, table, flower, whatever, earth, all nouns are actually a misperception that they are separate entities. Whereas in reality, everything, there's a web of interconnectedness which is entire. The entire universe is one being in this web of interconnectedness. So ultimately, there are no things, nouns. Everything is a verb, everything happens, an event rather than a thing. And here these events unfold in what we call time. In this dimension, Sam.