"Nu ţie îţi e frică de LINIŞTE şi tăcere, ci egoului tău. Egoul apare din zgomotul neîncetat al minţii." - ECKHART TOLLE

For two years, a small man sits quietly on a park bench. People walk by, lost in their thoughts. One day someone asks him a question. In the weeks that follow there are more people and more questions. Word spreads that the man is a "mystic," and has discovered something that brings peace and meaning into our lives. It sounds like fiction, but today that man, Eckhart Tolle, is known worldwide for his teachings on spiritual enlightenment through the power of the present moment. His first book, The Power of Now, is an international bestseller, and has been translated into 17 languages. More than 20 years have passed since Eckhart Tolle answered his first question on that park bench. While his audience has grown, his message remains the same: that it is possible to stop struggling in your life, and find joy and fulfillment in this moment, and no other.

Sounds True: Can you describe to us your own experience of spiritual awakening (and of course, can you define spiritual awakening as well)? Was there a singular event that occurred or has it been a gradual process?

Eckhart Tolle: Since ancient times the term awakening has been used as a kind of metaphor that points to the transformation of human consciousness. There are parables in the New Testament that speak of the importance of being awake, of not falling back to sleep. The word Buddha comes from the Sanskrit word Budh, meaning, "to be awake." So Buddha is not a name and ultimately not a person, but a state of consciousness. All this implies that humans are potentially capable of living in a state of consciousness compared to which normal wakefulness is like sleeping or dreaming. This is why some spiritual teachings use terms like "shared hallucination" or "universal hypnotism" to describe normal human existence. Pick up any history book, and I suggest you begin with studying the 20th century, and you will find that a large part of the history of our species has all the characteristics we would normally associate with a nightmare or an insane hallucination.

The nature of spiritual awakening is frequently misunderstood. The adoption of spiritual beliefs, seeing visions of God or celestial beings, the ability to channel, to heal, to foretell the future, or other paranormal powers – all such phenomena are of value and are not to be dismissed, but none of them is in itself indicative of spiritual awakening in a person who experiences them. They may occur in a person who has not awakened spiritually and they may or may not accompany the awakened state.

Every morning we awaken from sleep and from our dreams and enter the state we call wakefulness. A continuous stream of thoughts, most of them repetitive, characterizes the normal wakeful state. So what is it that we awaken from when spiritual awakening occurs? We awaken from identification with our thoughts. Everybody who is not awake spiritually is totally identified with and run by their thinking mind – the incessant voice in the head. Thinking is compulsive: you can’t stop, or so it seems. It is also addictive: you don’t even want to stop, at least not until the suffering generated by the continuous mental noise becomes unbearable. In the unawakened state you don’t use thought, but thought uses you. You are, one could almost say, possessed by thought, which is the collective conditioning of the human mind that goes back many thousands of years. You don’t see anything as it is, but distorted and reduced by mental labels, concepts, judgments, opinions and reactive patterns. Your sense of identity, of self, is reduced to a story you keep telling yourself in your head. "Me and my story": this what your life is reduced to in the unawakened state. And when your life is thus reduced, you can never be happy for long, because you are not yourself.

Does that mean you don’t think anymore when you awaken spiritually? No, of course not. In fact, you can use thought much more effectively than before, but you realize there is a depth to your Being, a vibrantly alive stillness that is much vaster than thought. It is consciousness itself, of which the thinking mind is only a tiny aspect. For many people, the first indication of a spiritual awakening is that they suddenly become aware of their thoughts. They become a witness to their thoughts, so to speak. They are not completely identified with their mind anymore and so they begin to sense that there is a depth to them that they had never known before.

For most people, spiritual awakening is a gradual process. Rarely does it happen all at once. When it does, though, it is usually brought about by intense suffering. That was certainly true in my case. For years my life alternated between depression and acute anxiety. One night I woke up in a state of dread and intense fear, more intense than I had ever experienced before. Life seemed meaningless, barren, hostile. It became so unbearable that suddenly the thought came into my mind, "I cannot live with myself any longer." The thought kept repeating itself several times. Suddenly, I stepped back from the thought, and looked at it, as it were, and I became aware of the strangeness of that thought: "If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me – the I and the self that I cannot live with." And the question arose, "Who is the ‘I’ and who is the self that I cannot live with?" There was no answer to that question, and all thinking stopped. For a moment, there was complete inner silence. Suddenly I felt myself drawn into a whirlpool or a vortex of energy. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words, "Resist nothing," as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. Suddenly, all fear disappeared, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that.

The next morning I awoke as if I had just been born into this world. Everything seemed fresh and pristine and intensely alive. A vibrant stillness filled my entire being. As I walked around the city that day, the world looked as if it had just come into existence, completely devoid of the past. I was in a state of amazement at the peace I felt within and the beauty I saw without, even in the midst of the traffic. I was no longer labeling and interpreting my sense perceptions – an almost complete absence of mental commentary. To this day, I perceive and interact with the world in this way: through stillness, not through mental noise. The peace that I felt that day, more than 20 years ago, has never left me, although it has varying degrees of intensity.

At the time, I had no conceptual framework to help me understand what had happened to me. Years later, I realized that the acute suffering I felt that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from identification with the unhappy self, the suffering "little me," which is ultimately a fiction of the mind. This withdrawal must have been so complete that the suffering self collapsed as if the plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left was my true nature as the ever present "I AM": consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. You may also call it pure awareness or presence.

ST: In your own life story there seems to have been a relationship between intense personal suffering and a breakthrough spiritual experience. Do you believe that for all people there is some connection between personal suffering and the intensity that is needed for a spiritual breakthrough?

ET: Yes, that seems to be true in most cases. When you are trapped in a nightmare, your motivation to awaken will be so much greater than that of someone caught up in a relatively pleasant dream. On all levels, evolution occurs in response to a crisis situation, not infrequently a life-threatening one, when the old structures, inner or outer, are breaking down or are not working anymore. On a personal level, this often means the experience of loss of one kind or another: the death of a loved one, the end of a close relationship, loss of possessions, your home, status, or a breakdown of the external structures of your life that provided a sense of security. For many people, illness – loss of health – represents the crisis situation that triggers an awakening. With serious illness comes awareness of your own mortality, the greatest loss of all.

For many people alive at this time, loss is experienced as loss of meaning. In other words, life seems to lack purpose and doesn’t make sense anymore. Loss of meaning is often part of the suffering that comes with physical loss, but it can also happen to people who have gained everything the world has to offer – who have "made it" in the eyes of the world – and suddenly find that their success or possessions are empty and unfulfilling. What the world and the surrounding culture tells them is important and of value turns out to be empty and this leaves a kind of painful inner void, often accompanied by great mental confusion.

Now the question arises: What exactly is the connection between suffering and spiritual awakening? How does one lead to the other? When you look closely at the nature of human suffering you will find that an essential ingredient in most kinds of suffering is a diminishment of one’s sense of self. Take illness, for example. Illness makes you feel smaller, no longer in control, helpless. You seem to loose your autonomy, perhaps become dependent on others. You become reduced in size, figuratively speaking. Any major loss has a similar effect: some form that was an important part of your sense of who you are – a person, a possession, a social role – dissolves or leaves you and you suffer because you had become identified with it and it seems you are losing yourself or a part of yourself. In reality, of course, what feels like a diminishment or loss of your sense of self is the crumbling of an image of who you are held in the mind. What dissolves is identification with thought forms that had given you your sense of self. But that sense of self is ultimately false, is ultimately a mental fiction. It is the egoic mind or the "little me" as I sometimes call it. To be identified with a mental image of who you are is to be unconscious, to be unawakened spiritually. This unawakened state creates suffering, but suffering creates the possibility of awakening. When you no longer resist the diminishment of self that comes with suffering, all role-playing, which is normal in the unawakened state, comes to an end. You become humble, simple, real. And, paradoxically, when you say “yes” to that death, because that’s what it is, you realize that the mind-made sense of self had obscured the truth of who you are – not as defined by your past, but timelessly. And when who you think you are dissolves, you connect with a vast power which is the essence of your very being. Jesus called it: "eternal life." In Buddhism, it is sometimes called the "deathless realm."

Now, does this mean that if you haven’t experienced intense suffering in your life, there is no possibility of awakening? Firstly, the fact that you are drawn to a spiritual teaching or teacher means you must have had your share of suffering already, and the awakening process has probably already begun. A teacher or teaching is not even essential for spiritual awakening, but they save time. Secondly, humanity as a whole has already gone through unimaginable suffering, mostly self-inflicted, the culmination of which was the 20th century with its unspeakable horrors. This collective suffering has brought upon a readiness in many human beings for the evolutionary leap that is spiritual awakening. For many individuals alive now, this means: they have suffered enough. No further suffering is necessary. The end of suffering: that is also the essence of every true spiritual teaching. Be grateful that your suffering has taken you to this realization: I don’t need to suffer anymore.

ST: Your teaching about "the power of now" seems so simple. Is that really our primary spiritual task – to fully engage the present moment?

ET: Identification with thoughts and the emotions that go with those thoughts creates a false mind-made sense of self, conditioned by the past: the "little me" and its story. This false self is never happy or fulfilled for long. Its normal state is one of unease, fear, insufficiency, and nonfulfillment. It says it looks for happiness, and yet it continuously creates conflict and unhappiness. In fact, it needs conflict and "enemies" to sustain the sense of separateness that ensures its continued survival. Look at all the conflict between tribes, nations, and religions. They need their enemies, because they provide the sense of separateness on which their collective egoic identity depends. The false self lives mainly through memory and anticipation. Past and future are its main preoccupation. The present moment, at best, is a means to an end, a stepping stone to the future, because the future promises fulfillment, the future promises salvation in one form or another. The only problem is the future never comes. Life is always now. Whatever happens, whatever you experience, feel, think, do - it’s always now. It’s all there is. And if you continuously miss the now – resist it, dislike it, try to get away from it, reduce it to a means to an end, then you miss the essence of your life, and you are stuck in a dream world of images, concepts, labels, interpretations, judgments – the conditioned content of your mind that you take to be "yourself." And so you are disconnected from the fullness of life that is the “suchness” of this moment. When you are out of alignment with what is, you are out of alignment with life. You are struggling to reach a point in the future where there is greater security, aliveness, abundance, love, joy ... unaware that those things make up the essence of who you are already. All that is required of you to have access to that essence is to make the present moment into your friend. And you may realize that most of your life you made the present moment into an enemy. You didn’t say “yes” to it, didn’t embrace it. You were out of alignment with the now, and so life became a struggle. It seemed so normal, because everyone around you lived in the same way. The amazing thing is: Life, the great intelligence that pervades the entire cosmos, becomes supportive when you say “yes” to it. Where is life? Here. Now. The “isness” of this moment. The now seems so small at first, a little segment between past and future, and yet all of life’s power is concealed within it. When there is spiritual awakening, you awaken into the fullness, the aliveness, and also the sacredness of now. You were absent, asleep, and now you are present, awake. The secret of awakening is to unconditionally accept this moment as it is. Some people do it because they can no longer stand the suffering that comes with nonacceptance of the isness of this moment. They are almost forced into awakening. Others have suffered enough and are ready to voluntarily embrace the now. When you become present in this way, the judgments, labels, and concepts of your mind are no longer all that important, as a greater intelligence is now operating in and through you. And yet the mind can then be used very effectively and creatively when needed.

Now the question may arise: Would there be anything left to strive for when you are so present in the now? Wouldn’t you become passive in that state? Many meaningless activities may fall away, but the state of presence is the only state in which creative energy is available to you. When your fulfillment and sense of self are no longer dependent on the future outcome, joy flows into whatever you do. You do what you do because the action itself is fulfilling. Whatever you do or create in that state is of high quality. This is because it is not a means to and end, and so a loving care flows into your doing.

ST: Being "in the present" sounds so obvious, and yet is quite hard to sustain. Do you have any practical tips for people for maintaining awareness of the present moment?

ET: Although the old consciousness or rather unconsciousness still has considerable momentum and to a large extent still runs this world, the new awakened consciousness – presence – has already began to emerge in many human beings. In my book The Power of Now, I mention ways in which you can maintain present moment awareness, but the main thing is to allow this new state of consciousness to emerge rather then believe that you have to try hard to make it happen. How do you allow it to emerge? Simply by allowing this moment to be as it is. This means to relinquish inner resistance to what is – the suchness of now. This allows life to unfold beautifully. There is no greater spiritual practice than this.

ST: On your video The Flowering of Human Consciousness, you talk about a "new" consciousness that is emerging in our time. What do you mean? Hasn’t the present moment always been available to genuine seekers? What’s new about our current time in history? Are you pointing to a certain evolutionary process – an acceleration in human spiritual development?

ET: Yes, the present moment has always been available to spiritual seekers, but as long as you are seeking you are not available to the present moment. "Seeking" implies that you are looking to the future for some answer, or for some achievement, spiritual or otherwise. Everybody is in the seeking mode, seeking to add something to who they are, whether it be money, relationships, possessions, knowledge, status – or spiritual attainment. "Seeking" means you need more time, more future, more of this or that. And there is nothing wrong with it. All that has its place in this world. To make money, to gather knowledge, to learn a new skill, to explore new territory, even to get from A to B – for all these things you need time. For almost everything you need time, except for one thing: to embrace the present moment. You need no time to open yourself to the power of now and so awaken to who you are beyond name and form and realize that in the depth of your being, you are already complete, whole, one with the timeless essence of all life. For that you not only need no time, but time is the obstacle to that realization, seeking is the obstacle, needing to add something to who you are is the obstacle. The story of your life, how it all unfolds, whether you succeed or fail in this world...Yes, it matters, yes, it’s important – relatively, not absolutely. Only one thing is of absolute importance and this is it. If you miss it, you miss the deeper purpose of your life, which I call the flowering of human consciousness. And ultimately nothing else will satisfy you.

Some of the first human beings in whom the new consciousness emerged fully became the great teachers of humanity, such as Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Jesus, although their teachings were greatly misunderstood, especially when they turned into organized religion. They were the first manifestations of the flowering of human consciousness. Later others appeared, some of whom became famous and respected teachers, whereas others probably remained relatively unknown or perhaps even completely unrecognized. On the periphery of the established religions, from time to time certain movements appeared through which the new consciousness manifested. This enabled a number of individuals within those movements to awaken spiritually. Such movements, in Christianity, were Gnosticism and medieval mysticism; in Buddhism, Zen; in Islam, the Sufi movement; in Hinduism, the teachings called Advaita Vedanta.

But those men and women who awakened fully were always few and far between – rare flowerings of consciousness. Until fairly recently, there was not yet a need for large numbers of human beings to awaken. For the first time in human history, a large-scale transformation of consciousness has now become a necessity if humanity is to survive. Science and technology have amplified the effects of the dysfunction of the human mind in its unawakened state to such a degree that humanity, and probably the planet, would not survive for another hundred years if human consciousness remains unchanged. As I said earlier, evolution usually occurs in response to a crisis situation, and we now are faced with such a crisis situation. This is why there is indeed an enormous acceleration in the awakening process of our species.

This new large-scale spiritual awakening is occurring primarily not within the confines of the established religions, but outside of those structures. Some of it, however, is also happening within the existing churches and religious institutions wherever the members of those congregations do not identify with rigid and exclusive belief systems whose unconscious purpose is to foster a sense of separation on which the egoic mind structures depend for their survival.

ST: How much time and effort is required to realize "the power of now?" Can this really occur in an instant or is this the work of a lifetime?

ET: The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you’re trying hard to get somewhere, and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.

Whereas it requires no time to awaken – you can only awaken now – it does take time before you can stay awake in all situations. Often you may find yourself being pulled back into old conditioned reactive patterns, particularly when faced with the challenges of daily living and of relationships. You lose the witnessing presence and become identified again with the "voice in the head," the continuous stream of thoughts, with its labels, judgments and opinions. You no longer know that they are only labels, judgments, and mental positions (opinions) – but completely believe in them. And so you create conflict. And then you suffer. And that suffering wakes you up again. Until presence becomes your predominant state, you may find yourself moving back and forth for a while between the old consciousness and the new, between mind identification and presence. "How long is it going to take?" is not a good question to ask. It makes you lose the now.

ST: How would you recommend that people listen and watch "The Power of Now" teaching series in order to get the most out of the teachings? In your opinion, why are audio and video teaching tapes such a powerful way for people to learn?

ET: If at all possible, you should not be engaged in other activity while you are listening or watching so that you can give your complete attention not only to the words but also to the silent spaces between the words. You will most likely learn many helpful facts about the emerging state of presence as well as the obstacles you are most likely to encounter. But this is only the secondary function of these tapes. Their primary purpose is not to convey information, but to help you access the state of presence as you listen. As in all true spiritual teachings, the significance of the words that are being spoken goes far beyond their informational content. Words that arise spontaneously out of the state of presence are charged with spiritual power: the power to awaken. All that is required of you is to be in a state of attentive listening. Don’t just listen with the head. Listen with your entire body, so to speak. Feel the aliveness, the animating presence, throughout the body as you listen.

I recommend that you listen and/or watch these tapes over and over. Each time you listen, it will feel as if you were listening for the first time. Each time you listen, you will grow in presence. But do not listen compulsively. Allow a gap of at least two or three days, and ideally more, before you listen to the same tape again. Each time after you finish listening, just sit in silence for a few minutes.

Enjoy the greatest adventure a human being can be engaged in: to be part of the emergence of a new consciousness.

Eckhart Tolle was a research scholar at Cambridge University, when at age 29, a spiritual transformation changed the course of his life, marking the start of an intense inward journey that led him first to become a counselor and spiritual teacher and, later, the author of a remarkable book, "The Power of Now" . In a world that desperately needs freedom from suffering and violence, Eckhart Tolle has brought forth a powerful, healing message: Accept the now moment fully. Herein lies the path to peace.

Science of Mind: A deep yearning is felt for that which is true, enduring, and trustworthy. Is it discoverable?

Eckhart Tolle: It’s perhaps more attainable now than at any other time in the history of humanity. Transformational consciousness until recently has been a luxury on the planet. A few individuals here and there underwent transformation but never on a large scale. It wasn’t necessary for the planet. Neither the survival of humanity nor of the planet was threatened before now, although there already existed the madness or insanity inherent in the human mind—by which I mean the thinking mind, not the deeper consciousness. This madness has been going on for a long time, but it has never threatened the survival of humanity. It’s only when science and technology arrived that this threat began. The tools of science and technology amplified the effects of the madness of the egoic mind. So the survival of the planet began to be threatened, and with it the survival of humanity. The planet will not survive another hundred years of the same state of consciousness that produced the external effects of recent history. Imagine the twenty-first century being a continuation of the destruction and violence we’ve seen. It’s no longer a question of the luxury of a few individuals here and there becoming liberated. It has become a necessity. Humanity as a species must change dramatically and radically or our survival is at stake.

SM: Are you hopeful about an awakening of consciousness?

ET: Things are both getting better and getting worse. The madness is accelerating but an acceleration of the new consciousness is also coming in. However, this latter development is less apparent when you listen to the media. The media still mostly reflects what is happening in the sphere of the old consciousness.

SM: In your book you suggest that despair and the intensification of suffering can sometimes catalyze enlightenment.

ET: Many people know this from their own lives, especially if they have gone through intense suffering or great loss, or faced death in one way or another— either their own physical death, a psychological death, or the death of somebody very close to them. Some form of suffering often brings about a readiness. One can say it cracks open the shell of the egoic mind with which many people identify as “me.” Life cracks open that shell, and once that crack is there, then we are reached more easily by spiritual teaching. We’re suddenly open to it, because it reaches the deeper levels of our being. Something from within—not from our conditioned mind but from the deeper level of unconditioned consciousness—responds immediately. Often all that is needed to evoke this response is to listen to one statement of Truth and immediately there’s a response. Because we all carry the Truth within us as our essence, we recognize it immediately.

SM: Do you see the recent events, as terrible as they’ve been, as having the potential of bringing greater enlightenment?

ET: Yes, I do. Especially for those of us living in the Western culture, death to a large extent is still a taboo subject. It’s considered something dreadful that shouldn’t be happening. It’s usually denied. The fact of death is not faced. What we don’t realize in Western culture is that death has a redemptive dimension. There is another side to death. Whether death happens through an act of violence to a large number of people or to an individual, whether death comes prematurely through illness or accident, or whether death comes through old age, death is always an opening. So a great opportunity comes whenever we face death.

SM: Why is death an opportunity?

ET: Death means that a form of life dissolves or that the imminent possibility of dissolution exists, whether through our own death or through illness or old age. When someone dies to old ideas, there’s a psychological death. Thought-forms with which one had identified as “me”—an egoic identity—suddenly collapse. In the face of death, especially violent death, things don’t make sense anymore. So death is the dissolution of either physical form or psychological form. And when a form dissolves, always something shines through that had been obscured by the form. This is the formless One Life, the formless One Consciousness. Death is the moment of form dissolving. When that dissolving is not resisted, an opening appears into the dimension of the sacred, into the One formless, unmanifested Life. This is why death is such an incredible opportunity. There is no transformation of human consciousness without the dissolving that death brings.

SM: How did your own experience of death happen?

ET: I was deeply identified with a very unhappy, egoic entity I believed was “me.” For years I lived in depression and continuous anxiety. One night I couldn’t stand it anymore. The thought came into my mind, “I cannot live with myself any longer.” Then I saw that my thought contained a subject and an object: I and myself. I stood back from the thought and asked, “Who is the self that I cannot live with? There must be two here. Who am I, and who is the self that is impossible to live with?” In that moment, that mind-based sense of self collapsed. What remained was I—not the form “I,” not the story-based “I,” the mental story of me—but a deeper sense of being, of presence. I died that night psychologically. The mind-made entity died. I knew myself as pure consciousness, prior to form before it becomes something, before it becomes a thought, before it becomes a life-form: the One Life, the One Consciousness that is prior to egoic identity. Then came enormous peace. This is the redemptive nature of death. Through death you find yourself, because you no longer identify with form. You realize you are not the form with which you had identified—neither the physical nor the psychological form of “me.” That form goes. It dissolves and who you are beyond form emerges through the opening where that form was. One could almost say that every form of life obscures God.

SM: How is it possible to have an awareness of pure essence while still in physical form?

ET: You do so by relating to outer forms no longer through the labeling mind but through an inner sense of stillness. Your sense perceptions happen within that field of stillness, which is pure consciousness. Suddenly the whole world is perceived as very peaceful, because when you perceive other life forms from that deeper level—when they’re not being immediately labeled by the mind—then you see shining through each life form the formless essence. It’s a wonderful thing to perceive the world and to interact with it and with other people and nature from that deep place of utter stillness, where the compulsion to immediately label and interpret whatever arises around you is no longer there. You can relate on a much deeper level to presence. You look on each form with the recognition that its essence is one with your essence. The form is seen but also you look through that and what you find at the core of each form, whether it’s a flower or a human being, is the One Life essence, the One Consciousness, the Self. That is the deeper meaning of love. It’s the recognition of all forms that you meet as yourself, and that liberates you from being trapped in illusory identity with some form.

SM: If this perception becomes possible only after the death of the form, how is that death accomplished?

ET: There are two ways. One way is through suffering. Suffering arises through resistance to the "suchness" of what is. That is the core of human suffering—to resist internally the "isness" of this moment. Loss comes into your life—a loss that involves death in one form or another. Someone close to you dies, or illness occurs and you don’t have long to live, or you’re part of some collective disaster. You lose your home, your sense of belonging and identity. Loss in some form comes into your life, and you resist what is because your situation seems unacceptable. That increases the suffering, which then becomes so acute that you can’t stand it. Then something happens within you. Suddenly inner resistance to what is, is relinquished. We’ve had accounts of people in the worst possible situations—concentration camps, prison camps, waiting for execution, or fatal illness with only a few more days to live. In the face of such enormous suffering, suddenly all resistance to the suchness of this moment was relinquished, and with it, the egoic identity, which lives in and through resistance. Suddenly reactivity is relinquished. You don’t react; you accept. You surrender. Through suffering life drives you to a point of surrender, and when surrender happens, it brings the psychological death of the “me,” which cannot live in surrender. The “me” depends for its survival on nonsurrender. So life pushes you into surrender through suffering, through facing death in one form or another, and with surrender comes a deep inner peace. That happened to me, and I’ve read and heard many accounts from other people for whom a similar shift occurred. Suffering, especially acute suffering, is always a great opportunity. It contains the potential for liberation.

SM: What is the other way?

ET: Many humans now are choosing nonresistance to what is rather than being pushed into it by life. These people are often receptive to spiritual teaching—not that they need a lot. They only need to hear the statement “Say yes to whatever arises in the field of now,” and they recognize its truth right away. They see the wisdom of welcoming whatever arises in this world instead of internally resisting or denying it. Most humans live in the mindset that this moment is only important because it’s getting them to the next one. They are missing the fullness of life, which can only be now, because that’s all there is. But the way of nonresistance is coming in more now because humanity has been through enormous suffering already, most of it produced through the madness of the egoic mind evident in the twentieth-century history—and recent events are just another chapter in that insane history. So there are two ways to surrender. One is to be entirely driven to surrender through extreme suffering, and the other is to choose surrender rather than having to be pushed into surrender through dreadful suffering.

SM: Do you believe then that suffering can be eliminated?

ET: The message of all spiritual teaching is you don’t need to suffer anymore. You’ve suffered enough to take you to this point where you hear the words, “You don’t need to suffer anymore,” and you understand them. You recognize their truth and you then see that you do have a choice—that you can surrender to the suchness of now, which means every moment to relinquish resistance and if it still arises, to recognize it. The recognition is already the beginning of freedom. When you recognize the “no” to what is and the emotional or physical contraction that goes with that “no” and you observe the mental judgments that are part of the “no,” then you’re free to say “yes” to what is. People believe that when they say “yes” to this moment, things won’t change anymore. They’re afraid that if they accept what is, whatever form this moment takes, they’re going to be stuck forever in this moment that they don’t like: this job or relationship or whatever situation they’re in that they don’t like. But this is not true. It’s resistance that keeps you stuck. Surrender immediately opens you to the greater intelligence that is vaster than the human mind, and it can then express itself through you. So through surrender often you find circumstances changing.

SM: Does surrender include forgiveness of actions that have hurt others?

ET: Yes. You may have done things to someone in the past that today you wouldn’t do, because there’s greater consciousness today in you than there was then. As you grow in consciousness you grow out of unconscious conditioning and identification with the conditioned mind, which is human unconsciousness. You can then see how much suffering has been inflicted by humans on other humans because they were run by the egoic identity. To make an identity for yourself out of having caused suffering is another attempt by the ego to hang on to a sense of self. The ego doesn’t mind whether its sense of self is pleasant or unpleasant as long as it has a sense of self. So guilt is a favorite thing for the ego to hang on to. What guilt says is “I did bad—that was me, my mistake.” The truth is, it was a manifestation of human unconsciousness. To make a self out of that manifestation of human unconsciousness is the ego, and is also unconsciousness. Once you’ve made a self for others you’ve trapped yourself again. This idea is contained in the words of Jesus, beautifully, on the Cross when he said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” They are only manifestations of human unconsciousness. They haven’t woken up yet. But they will suffer. Because they are manifestations of human unconsciousness, those entities will suffer.

SM: Is healing the past needed in order to awaken?

ET: The only thing that can free you from the past is "presence". If you carry, as every human does, conditioning from the past, either personal or collective, as more presence arises, you’re able to observe what your mind is doing. You’re able to observe and witness your reactions in various situations. These reactions are the past in you. As you continue to stay in the present moment and witness your reactions, the challenges become easier. They resolve very quickly. They don’t turn into problems. For it’s when you do not face something fully and completely in the now that a challenge turns into a problem. The ego needs enemies, and the favorite enemy of the egoic entity is the present moment.

During my travels, one of the most frequently asked question is "What is it like to be in relationship with an enlightened being?" Why this question? Perhaps they have the idea or image of an ideal relationship, and want to know more about it. Perhaps their mind wants to project itself to a future time when they, too, will be in an ideal relationship and find themselves through it.

What is it like to be in relationship with an enlightened being?

As long as I have the idea in my head "I have a relationship" or "I am in a relationship," no matter with whom, I suffer. This I have learnt.

With the concept of "relationship" come expectations, memories of past relationships, and further personally and culturally conditioned mental concepts of what a "relationship" should be like. Then I would try to make reality conform to these concepts. And it never does. And again I suffer. The fact of the matter is: there are no relationships. There is only the present moment, and in the moment there is only relating.

How we relate, or rather how well we love, depends on how empty we are of ideas, concepts, expectations.

Recently, I asked Eckhart to say a few words on the ego's search for "love relationships." Our conversation quickly went deeper to touch upon some of the most profound aspects of human existence. Here's what he said:

ET: What is conventionally called "love" is an ego strategy to avoid surrender. You are looking to someone to give you that which can only come to you in the state of surrender. The ego uses that person as a substitute to avoid having to surrender. The Spanish language is the most honest in this respect. It uses the same verb, te quiero, for "I love you" and "I want you." To the ego, loving and wanting are the same, whereas true love has no wanting in it, no desire to possess or for your partner to change. The ego singles someone out and makes them special. It uses that person to cover up the constant underlying feeling of discontent, of "not enough," of anger and hate, which are closely related. These are facets of an underlying deep seated feeling in human beings that is inseparable from the egoic state.

When the ego singles something out and says "I love" this or that, it's an unconscious attempt to cover up or remove the deep-seated feelings that always accompany the ego: the discontent, the unhappiness, the sense of insufficiency that is so familiar. For a little while, the illusion actually works. Then inevitably, at some point, the person you singled out, or made special in your eyes, fails to function as a cover up for your pain, hate, discontent or unhappiness which all have their origin in that sense of insufficiency and incompleteness. Then, out comes the feeling that was covered up, and it gets projected onto the person that had been singled out and made special - who you thought would ultimately "save you." Suddenly love turns to hate. The ego doesn't realize that the hatred is a projection of the universal pain that you feel inside. The ego believes that this person is causing the pain. It doesn't realize that the pain is the universal feeling of not being connected with the deeper level of your being - not being at one with yourself.

The object of love is interchangeable, as interchangeable as the object of egoic wanting. Some people go through many relationships. They fall in love and out of love many times. They love a person for a while until it doesn't work anymore, because no person can permanently cover up that pain.

Only surrender can give you what you were looking for in the object of your love. The ego says surrender is not necessary because I love this person. It's an unconscious process of course. The moment you accept completely what is, something inside you emerges that had been covered up by egoic wanting. It is an innate, indwelling peace, stillness, aliveness. It is the unconditioned, who you are in your essence. It is what you had been looking for in the love object. It is yourself. When that happens, a completely different kind of love is present which is not subject to love / hate. It doesn't single out one thing or person as special. It's absurd to even use the same word for it. Now it can happen that even in a normal love / hate relationship, occasionally, you enter the state of surrender. Temporarily, briefly, it happens: you experience a deeper universal love and a complete acceptance that can sometimes shine through, even in an otherwise egoic relationship. If surrender is not sustained, however, it gets covered up again with the old egoic patterns. So, I'm not saying that the deeper, true love cannot be present occasionally, even in a normal love / hate relationship. But it is rare and usually short-lived.

Whenever you accept what is, something deeper emerges then what is. So, you can be trapped in the most painful dilemma, external or internal, the most painful feelings or situation, and the moment you accept what is, you go beyond it, you transcend it. Even if you feel hatred, the moment you accept that this is what you feel, you transcend it. It may still be there, but suddenly you are at a deeper place where it doesn't matter that much anymore.

The entire phenomenal universe exists because of the tension between the opposites. Hot and cold, growth and decay, gain and loss, success and failure, the polarities that are part of existence, and of course part of every relationship.

KE: Then it's correct to say, we can never get rid of the polarities?

ET: We cannot get rid of polarities on the level of form. However, you can transcend the polarities through surrender. You are then in touch with a deeper place within yourself where, as it were, the polarities no longer exist. They continue to exist on the outer level. However, even there, something changes in the way in which the polarities manifest in your life when you are in a state of acceptance or surrender. The polarities manifest in a more benign and gentle way.

The more unconscious you are, the more you are identified with form. The essence of unconsciousness is this: identification with form, whether it is an external form (a situation, place, event or experience), a thought form or an emotion. The more attached to form, the more unsurrendered you are, and the more extreme, violent or harsh your experience of the polarities becomes. There are people on this planet who live virtually in hell and on the same planet there are others who live a relatively peaceful life. The ones who are at peace inside will still experience the polarities, but in a much more benign way, not the extreme way in which many humans still experience them. So, the way in which the polarities are experienced does change. The polarities themselves cannot be removed, but one could say, the whole universe becomes somewhat more benevolent. It's no longer so threatening. The world is no longer perceived as hostile, which is how the ego perceives it.

KE: If awakening or living a life in an awakened state does not change the natural order of things, duality, the tension between the opposites, what does living a life in the awakened state do? Does it affect the world, or only one's subjective experience of the world?

ET: When you live in surrender, something comes through you into the world of duality that is not of this world.

KE: Does that actually change the outer world?

ET: Internal and external are ultimately one. When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently. Love and compassion arise, and they affect the world. Even if you find yourself in a conflict situation, there is an outflow of peace into the polarities. So then, something does change. There are some teachers or teachings that say, nothing changes. That is not the case. Something very important does change. That which is beyond form shines through the form, the eternal shines through the form into this world of form.

KE: Is it right to say that it is your lack of "reaction against," your acceptance of the opposites of this world, that brings about changes in the way the opposites manifest?

ET: Yes. The opposites continue to happen, but they are not fueled by you anymore. What you said is a very important point: the "lack of reaction" means that the polarities are not fueled. This means, you often experience a collapse of the polarities, such as in conflict situations. No person, no situation is made into an "enemy."

KE: So, the opposites, instead of becoming strengthened, become weakened. And perhaps this is how they begin to dissolve.

ET: That's right. Living in that way is the beginning of the end of the world.

Modern Dog Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Connie Wilson recently sat down with Eckhart Tolle, number one New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Widely recognized as one of the most influential spiritual books of our time, The Power of Now has been translated into over 30 languages and has helped countless people around the globe awaken to the spiritual dimension in their lives, find inner peace, increased joy, and more harmonious relationships.

It was seven years ago that I first encountered the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. I was at a crossroads in my life, unemployed and searching for the next path I should take. I decided to enroll in an entrepreneurial course and it was there, sitting in that classroom, that I first heard a passage from The Power of Now. I’ll never forget the words, as I knew without a doubt that something very significant had happened to me. I went out and bought The Power of Now, followed by several of Tolle’s other books. I keep them close at hand and frequently refer to them. I never put one down without having gained deeper insight into myself, my relationships, and the world around me.

When I recently learned that, like me, Tolle has a dog that figures prominently in his life, I felt compelled to contact him to see if he would grant me an interview for Modern Dog. It’s through this dog connection that I got the opportunity to meet this remarkable human being and his Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Maya, in their peaceful home on the edge of Pacific Spirit Park in Vancouver, British Columbia. I hope you find as much inspiration in his thoughts and teachings as I have.

CW: Just looking at Maya right now…she’s sitting and playing with her toy. I guess that’s a perfect example of being “in the Now”—in the present moment. Can you give us any other examples that are dog-related?

ET: To simply watch a dog without any kind of mental commentary, just tune in…there’s a link. Something else that’s very important for many people is they realize, consciously or unconsciously, that their dog is not judging them. For some people, it’s the only relationship that they have where there’s no fear and where they realize they are being accepted and not judged. For many people it’s the only relationship they have with another being. That’s a pity, because really they should have deep relationships with humans also, but that’s difficult because every human being has a mind and every human being judges and so people become afraid, they withdraw, they put up barriers. I believe that dogs are keeping millions of people sane who would otherwise become deeply neurotic in our alienated world. So, the dog keeps you in touch with Being—beyond mind—Being, the innermost core. You can look into the eyes of the dog and see that innermost core. There are teachings that say every being is a spark of the divine or God. You can see it sometimes more clearly [in dogs] than in a human being because the human being has the veil of mind, negative emotions, and ego, and plays a role. I believe that dogs fill a vital function in the collective consciousness of humanity. I would call them “the Guardians of Being.” They show us what we have lost and, once we realize that, they can help us in our shift into a deeper state of consciousness. Of course, we don’t want to be confined to only deep relationships with dogs, but they can teach us how to relate deeply to another being and then we can learn to relate deeply to humans also. That has to be the next step.

CW: I think that’s very well said. In your book, you say we operate in a “fear-based society” and I think that has a lot to do with whether or not you want to show somebody how you honestly feel about them—you really love them but maybe they’re not going to give you that love back, so you’re afraid to demonstrate love and you close yourself off.

ET: Yes, it’s wonderful to see, when I walk with Maya, people come and immediately their hearts open…they may not even look at me, they look at Maya; they pat her. They wouldn’t dare do that to me though it would be quite nice. (laughs)

CW: You’ve had Maya for three years. How has she affected your life and your teachings?

ET: Before Maya came, I didn’t go out in the forest here, which is right next to the building. Now I go for a walk in the forest every day, and I know it’s good for my body, it’s good for the soul.

CW: That’s quite a gift in itself. Is Maya your first dog ever?

ET: Yes.

CW: To what do you attribute the increasing popularity of dogs?

ET: It’s the alienation of modern society and the human need to relate deeply to another being, which they are unable to do with humans. I hope this is changing, but in the meantime, dogs offer the opportunity to relate to and to have an open heart towards another being. To be able to show love to another being which is always [reciprocated]. That’s why I think dogs have a function that is absolutely vital, to keep humanity sane in this transitional period between two states of consciousness.

CW: You could speak firsthand of the thousands and thousands of people in whose lives you’ve made a difference. It must feel absolutely incredible.

ET: Yes, it’s wonderful.

CW: Did you have an idea that you would have this opportunity to do this and become so well recognized as a result?

ET: No. When I was writing The Power of Now, I realized that [the book was] important [but] I thought it would reach only relatively few people. It would transform people, but I didn’t realize that so many people would be open to it. I thought only people that were deeply spiritual might recognize the truths. It helped those people but, for many people, The Power of Now was the first spiritual book they had read and it was deeply meaningful and transformed them. That was a surprise and it surprised us how quickly it grew because it was published on a very small scale at first in 1998; 3,000 copies were printed and that first year it just sold through word of mouth. Then it grew and grew and magazines wrote about it and ultimately it reached Oprah.

CW: You start The Power of Now with a caption, “You are here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. That is how important you are.” Do you think that dogs are here for that purpose as well or are they here to act as muses to help assist us on that journey?

ET: Right now, part of the dog’s divine purpose is to assist humans. That’s why they have chosen to be with humans. They have been with humans for thousands of years and now there is a link between dogs and humans, much closer than it has ever been. So part of their divine purpose is to help us. But it always goes both ways. Because by living with humans, dogs also grow in consciousness… it is reciprocal. They are helping us; we are also helping the collective, one could say, the “dog consciousness.” The two species are part of the evolution of consciousness itself. They are different expressions of the evolution of consciousness, which is the purpose of the universe.

They Show us what we have lost that, once we realize that, they can help us in our shift into a deeper state of consciousness.

CW: As you’ve become more recognized and, well, famous, there are lots of demands on your time. Do you find it’s hard to adhere to your principles, such as being in the Now?

ET: If I were not careful and alert it would be quite easy for things to take over my life and I would get lost in innumerable things I have to do—respond to people, answer thousands of emails. But I don’t. There are many things that I don’t do. I even have to say no to many interview requests. Occasionally, I have an inner voice saying “yes.” When your request came, for some reason it came from within and I said “yes.” I always trust this inner response. I don’t have an outer thing that says “Oh, I must do this or I should do that.” There are many things that I simply don’t do. And a few things, when the answer comes from within, when the positive response comes, then I do it.

Lessons to be Learned from Your Dog - Eckhart Tolle on Being in the Now

There are various portals that you can use to enter the Now. One portal is to become aware of the energy field of your body as you sit there. To feel that you are actually alive in your hands and your arms and your legs, throughout your body. There is an aliveness that most people cannot feel because they are only in their heads, thinking. All their attention is absorbed by thinking and they are not present where they are. So you can use this portal, the aliveness of your inner body. You can use sense perceptions…watch nature—trees or animals or your dog. Just be alert as you watch a dog, playing, resting; play with a dog…you can learn being present from an animal. Your dog can teach you to be present because the dog is ready to enjoy, celebrate life any moment…the Now. The dog is in the Now so it can teach you or remind you. When you become burdened with problems, look at your dog and see how the dog is always ready to celebrate life. Another opening is to ask yourself whether you are friendly with the present moment or whether you are making the present moment into an obstacle or enemy. If you are against it or want to run away from it, you create stress, you create anxiety, you create past guilt or resentment…all these things that people carry around, they are in the past, and then you have the burden of the future which you can’t control, so to come to the present moment is actually a transformation of consciousness. That’s why The Power of Now has had such an impact because it has told people that they didn’t realize they could be present and they could simplify and deepen their lives tremendously and make it more joyful. They show us what we have lost and, once we realize that, they can help us in our shift into a deeper state of consciousness.

RIPPLES ON THE SURFACE OF BEING
an interview with Eckhart Tolle by Andrew Cohen
Reprinted from:
What Is Enlightenment? Magazine 
(issue 18 - Fall/Winter 2000)  HYPERLINK
www.wie.org

Q: How are things for you these days? Are you very busy? How are you handling all the attention that’s coming your way?
   Well, the book came out two and a half years ago now and certainly my external life has changed dramatically with a lot of travelling and talking. I used to live a very sheltered life and now it seems to be the opposite of that. I’m out there in the world all the time. I’m actually quite enjoying it, but I am perhaps at heart a hermit so I love to take time off where I don’t travel or see people and I’m just alone in stillness.
   I’m amazed how many people responded to the book. I never expected that many people to respond to it. I knew the book would be around for a long time. I thought it might grow very slowly but it’s growing very quickly now.
Q: What people reading this might be most interested in is what is the teaching that you describe in the book and in your talks?
   The essence, the very foundation, of the teaching is that a different state of consciousness is possible for humans. The state of consciousness that is considered normal and that has been running human history for thousands of years is not the only possible state of consciousness. It’s also not the most advanced state possible for humans.
   It’s nothing new. All the great teachings and teachers have pointed to the fact, since the normal state of consciousness is a state that is extremely deficient, a state that in the ancient teachings has been called suffering. The Buddha called it suffering, Jesus called it a state of sin and illusion, and the Hindus call it a state of illusion.
   So, all ancient teachings agree that the normal human state of consciousness is, as I call it, a state of insanity. Anybody can verify this for themselves if they look at human history, 90 percent of which—really, if you look at it objectively—would be called the history of collective insanity, with the enormous amount of suffering inflicted by humans on other humans and on themselves and other species.
   The second part of the teaching is that it’s possible to enter that state now. Not only is it possible to enter it now, but the only time when you can enter that state of consciousness is in the Now; not needing the future in order to arrive at a projected state of consciousness, but realizing that new state of consciousness one that is free of time.
   The main characteristic of the old state of consciousness is that it is dominated by past and future, in other words by time. If you observe the workings of your mind you will see that you’re almost never in the present moment. The mind is always engaged in projecting a future, thinking about the future, trying to get to the future or reviving the past.
Q: All ancient teachings agree that the normal human state of consciousness is, as I call it, a state of insanity.
   The old state of consciousness is also a state of identification with thought processes. Now what does that mean? To be identified means to derive your sense of self, of who you are from thought movements, to be completely trapped in the mental noise, to have your identity in the mental noise.
   Then your whole sense of self is derived from thought, which means an image forms in the head of "who I am," of "that’s me," and that image is always ill at ease, even in the people who look very confident. The self image of the Little Me as I call it, a mind-made sense of self or ego, is always ill at ease. This sense of self needs conflict in order to feel that it exists. It cannot tolerate a prolonged period of non-conflict because the Little Me depends for its continuous existence on the feeling of separateness.
   It defines itself as "me" and "other," which is not me. So, the more I can be in conflict with the not me the stronger my—ultimately illusory—sense of self becomes. The ego tells you continuously that it wants to get out of conflict. It’s looking for happiness, but the ego is constructed in such a way that the state of happiness it says it looks for it cannot afford to find when its very survival depends on conflict.
Q: So one could come right to the edge of, say, moving into a selfless, non-egoic state and then pull back. You could get very far and then the ego just marshals all its forces. How does one get through that?
   First of all, it’s true that you can get to the edge and then pull back because peace is too threatening for the mind-made ego self. The first thing is to realize that unhappiness, dissatisfaction and discontent always seem to be caused by external factors but that’s an illusion. They are built into the very structure of the egoic mind and that is the essence of the old consciousness.
  It is an amazing realization that no matter where you go those structures will go with you. You could go into the most paradisiacal island or to a planet that is heaven, but you would still be carrying with you the structures of the egoic mind and it will transform heaven into hell. It’s an enormous step forward to realize for oneself that all the unhappiness, discontent and conflict in most people’s lives originate within the structures of our minds rather than being externally caused.
   When you see very clearly what the origin of the state of non-freedom is, that is the beginning of liberation. It’s actually already the beginning of the new state of consciousness. One could say that as soon as you begin to be able to witness the workings of your mind instead of being totally identified with them (and I include emotions in that because they are the reflections in the body of what the mind is doing), this is already the arising of the new state of consciousness.
   Then you watch how discontent arises, how unhappiness arises and then you look more deeply and you see the very root cause: It denies or resists or fights against the present moment. The very root cause which keeps the structures of unhappiness going is the refusal to accept life totally and say "yes" to this moment.
   The moment you say yes to what is, you’re no longer resisting life, because life is always now. The non-acceptance of what is lies at the basis of the egoic sense of self because it grows stronger through fighting and resisting and saying, "No, no, no." Then the illusory sense of who I am get stronger. So, the illusion gets stronger, the ego gets stronger, the suffering gets stronger. They all go together. The ego loves that.
   So, it’s not surprising that if you look at human history you see how mad it is and you can see that it all originates in the structures of the human mind. It created that hell on a planet that is basically paradise.
Q: In order to feel the present moment, I have to find a way to feel what I haven’t been feeling. I have to get beyond the pretense or the shield that’s over my heart, to somehow get through that to even get to the place of thinking about it.
   Yes. Very often there is denial of what is happening in the present moment, not wanting it to happen, which includes what’s happening inside you at that moment, to completely say "yes" to whatever emotion may be there or whatever your inner state may be at this moment or to completely say "yes" to whatever the external situation may be at this moment. It’s too late to fight it because it is. You can’t fight what is.
   You can take action on the basis of your acceptance of what is. Action that arises out of that acceptance is very empowered. Action that arises out of a negative state of resistance and denial and saying ‘no.’ can also sometimes contain a lot of energy, but it is contaminated with heavy negativity. It comes out of the saying ‘no’ and it’s there to strengthen or defend the egoic sense of self. So, whatever action arises out of that would, in Eastern terms, be called "karmic" which produces further karma and further suffering.
Q: The moment you say yes to what is, you’re no longer resisting life, because life is always now.
   A very radical shift in human consciousness is possible, but when I say that, the egoic mind will immediately come in and say, "Okay, just tell me how to get there and I will draw up a plan and we’ll get there at some point in the future." The ego will project a state of perfection that "I can reach at some future time" and it will strive towards that. That means it has taken the message of liberation and incorporated it into its old structures of "at some point in the future I will be okay and complete and fulfilled and whole. I just need to get there. In the meantime, I’m unhappy because I’m not there yet."
Q: So, how can one drop into the Now?
   Very good question. Whenever you are observing what your mind emotions are doing, witnessing what is going on inside you, the state of presence is already arising. You can watch all of this, how noisy your mind is. When you’re suddenly aware of it, that ability to watch means you’ve dropped out of the time-bound state. Something has arisen that is very different. I call it the state of presence.
   So, again, one could almost say there is no how. That state of consciousness, which I call the state of presence, being fully present in the Now, is the state of high alertness. Some people have experienced it in certain situations of great danger accidentally. That can be good if one remembers being in a state of intense aliveness where there was also absence of thinking and of mental noise, just a state of intense alert presence.
   People who climb mountains or engage in other dangerous activities love that state. It’s the only time when they can be in that state. If they were in past or future climbing a steep wall they wouldn’t survive for very long. So, in some situations you’re forced into a state of presence and it’s so alive and fulfilling that the old state becomes very unsatisfying.
Q: People keep wanting to go back and have more experiences so they can be in that state.
   Yes, but it’s very limiting if the only place where you can be in that state is where you engage in dangerous activities. Ultimately the risk is very high that something will happen and you will drop off the mountain.
   That state of consciousness that I call presence, the good news is that state is actually arising now almost by itself in many humans. So it’s not so much that we need to bring it about, "How can I make it happen?" We can’t. Rather it’s being open for it so it can happen with greater ease.
Q: So hardly any of us are going to have some flashing moment of realization.
   Some do, but that’s not necessary. Gradually a state arising that is inner stillness rather than noise, a state when mind activity becomes secondary. All the mental noise no longer has the power to grab you and to draw your attention in so completely that you’re totally identified with it. You begin to be able to see thinking as just thinking, not such a big deal, and you realize that all the problems that you and most humans are burdened with are mental noise.
   There’s no reality to any problem. I’m not saying that challenges don’t exist in life. Challenges come, but the only way they can exist is in the Now and that’s the only place where you can face the challenge by taking action in the Now or surrendering to what is. In either case it’s not a problem.
   You can verify this for yourself by asking, "What problem do I have at this moment?" When you ask that question the mind becomes still and you realize this moment is actually fine, because most moments are fine. Even when they don’t look fine on the surface, if you become still enough the present moment always has a deep goodness to it underneath the external appearance of what’s happening in it because the very power of your being is inseparable from what I call the Now.
   Ultimately the Now is the power of your consciousness prior to thought, prior to forms arising out of it.
Q: What you’re saying would sound quite familiar to someone studying Buddhist Vippasana meditation techniques, using the practice of watching the breath and just noticing what arises. Are you bringing a message that’s akin to that or is it different from what one would experience in practicing that technique?
   The essence of the Buddha’s message was that, also. Meditation methods are aimed also at bringing about the state of presence, although he never used those words. The drawback with any technique, although they may work occasionally but only ultimately when you drop the technique, is that it gives you time.
   There’s a chapter in the book that is called The Inner Body. Some people say it’s a wonderful technique, but what I call the inner body is to feel all the time the energy field that permeates the physical body. The invisible energy field, the animating presence, is in every cell of the body. To consciously be in and inhabit the body, even when engaged in activities or talking or listening, is to have some attention in the inner energy field of the body.
   I wouldn’t call it a technique because it’s too simple. The oak tree when it feels its roots deep in the earth isn’t practising any technique. It’s a state of being. And not to be drawn back continuously into identification with the mental noise is simply to have attention in the inner energy field of the body.
   To sense, to feel the body from within keeps you present. That keeps you present and it’s really all you need. If you want to call it a technique that’s fine, but it’s so simple there isn’t much to it. If you inhabit the body, you’re open to the state of presence and it becomes a whole body state.
   You become present with every cell of the body. You feel that state of alert and alive presence in your feet, your arms, your chest, your head. It’s an entire body state. There you are in the Now in that state of still alertness and whatever needs to happen comes out of that state. In other words, the higher consciousness is already operating, no longer the limited conditioned noisy human mind but a far greater intelligence. The intelligence that runs the body is far greater than that of the conscious mind. So you connect with that.
Q: The whole of nature, the beauty of the flower, unfolds in complete silence.
   Then your whole life can be an expression of no longer being Little Me trying to make it, trying to survive or succeed, always trying, trying, trying. Instead you become an expression of that consciousness, the very intelligence that runs the universe, realizing that you’re far greater than you could every have imagined coming from the Little Me trying to become a Big Me.
   That’s the state of just inhabiting the body. That becomes an anchor for staying present. It’s also the entry point into that state of beautiful inner stillness where the mental noise subsides and you’re then highly consciouswithout noise. The amazing thing then is that intelligence operates noiselessly.
   Humans think that intelligence is associated with thinking. Thinking is just a tiny aspect of intelligence, but most intelligence, the whole of nature, the trees, grow in complete silence. The embryo in the womb grows silently. It doesn’t make a noise. The whole of nature, the beauty of the flower, unfolds in complete silence.
   The galaxies exist in total silence and stillness and yet there’s incredible activity there, so they’re all expressions of intelligence that is at work silently. It’s only in humans that intelligence, in its limited expression as the human mind, is very noisy. The far greater intelligence that is at work within yourself operates in silence. That is the state of presence which is inseparable from inner stillness.
   That becomes your dwelling place, your home. You can still think when it’s needed. Thought will arise, but it will be in the service of that deeper field of stillness, of being, no longer self-serving thought. There’s no effort, no trying to make it happen. That would be the opposite of it. It’s simply being open for it to happen because it wants to happen.
   Some people read the book and it happens. They experience inner transformation because there’s an energy that comes with the words that triggers the state. It’s like saying, "Don’t you remember?" Or people read the book and realize it’s already arisen in them before but they didn’t have a name for it.
Q: Some people also come to your lectures and experience or hope to experience it.
   Yes. It can be very helpful to be in the energy field of presence in a group. It’s not the words. Some people come to all my talks. They must have listened many times. I basically always talk about the same things. So, after a while they don’t come for the information or the words any more. They come for the energy field of presence and may hardly listen to the words.
Q: Is that something you see as coming from you?
   It depends what you mean by "you." It doesn’t come from me. It comes through me. It’s deeper. It’s a movement of consciousness. I mean that the form that I am is like the window frame for it and then the light comes through the window.
   Some people arrive for talks an hour early because they want to sit close to me, not to be near the form of me but to be with the light. It has nothing much to do with the window.
   One way of putting it is that it’s not me and that it happens through me. But, it would be more true to say that the consciousness which operates through me is ultimately who I am, not the me that is the physical form that people see. That consciousness is also who you are. So, when people come, sometimes from halfway around the world, to a talk they don’t really come to see or hear me. They come to be with themselves, for the first time to be completely themselves, getting out of the conditioning and the identification with mental noise and emotions and simply be who you are.
Q: If I forget that ultimately I’m nobody, then that would be the return of the ego.
   It’s strange that they need to travel a long way to be with themselves, but it works. Then, after a while, you don’t need to travel anymore to be with yourself.
Q: So, you’re hoping that people don’t feel they have to come and sit with you to get this experience
   No. For a while it’s useful, but after that it needs to happen from within. It’s fine as long as they feel it’s helpful to have the external reflection of it, but not become dependent on it. I occasionally tell people to go away for a while so they don’t become dependent. Now, with the talks getting bigger I can’t do that so I must just trust that it will be fine and people won’t become dependent.
   Words are useful here, because I do point out that this needs to be lived rather than coming once a month or every two weeks to a talk. That state of consciousness needs to arise every moment, no matter what activities you’re engaged in and particularly when life challenges you. That’s always the test of where you’re at as far as your state of consciousness is concerned. How you deal with the challenges and whether the old reactive mind comes in or whether the challenge makes you more present.
   More and more people are able to become more present with every challenge. In other words, something happens that the mind would in the past have judged as bad or negative and want to get away from or become angry about and resist and fight and deny, suddenly the same challenge brings about a state of greater inner stillness and alertness. Then action arises that is just right for that moment and that situation, no longer the reactive mind operating out of its old conditioning.
   Challenges are wonderful things. With everything challenge comes the opportunity of being intensely present and then action happens if it’s needed.
Q: You see teachers struggling with how to handle the adulation and appreciation that comes to them without getting bound up into it or torn apart by it.
   That’s a challenge every spiritual teacher will be faced with at some point. In some the ego comes back because they’re bombarded with projections of specialness. The ego always thinks of itself as special either in greatness or misery. My problems, my achievements, my failures, my sufferings are special. The danger is that at some point he or she begins to believe that the form, me, is special. Of course, that’s the beginning of the end of the spiritual teacher.
   So, I led a very secluded existence for many years being nobody in the eyes of the world. A few people came, sometimes for spiritual teaching, but not many. I was happy being nobody and I’m still nobody, but in the eyes of the world now I’m somebody. If I forget that ultimately I’m nobody then that would be the return of the ego.
   It’s a challenge, but so far it seems to be fine. I don’t believe that now I have become somebody. The power that comes through can sometimes be very intense and wonderful. That’s fine if there’s no me that identifies with it as my power. It’s beautiful.
Q: So that’s your job. To be nobody.
   Yes, that’s right.
Q: That’s a lovely paradox.
   Yes. I don’t feel any different inside from the way I felt a few years ago when I was a hermit. It still feels exactly the same inside. And, I don’t have a mental image of myself as a spiritual teacher. When people go and I’m alone there really isn’t anybody there. It’s just a state of stillness. I don’t carry around inside me the image of me as a spiritual teacher. That would be the beginning of suffering.

Interview from The Awakening West: Conversations with Today's New Western Spiritual Leaders

The manuscript for this book was completed when we learned about Eckhart Tolle through his book, The Power of Now, A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. We both agreed that his book would have a profound impact on many people. John is a prolific reader who has averaged about a book a week his whole adult life, and yet he found The Power of Now to be the most important book he had ever read. Eckhart's simple, clear expression of the problem of the human condition and its solution is so accessible and free of jargon and dogma that it can be related to by anyone with or without a spiritual or religious background.
After reading his book, we wished he had been included in ours. Then we heard Eckhart speak at a conference, and we knew for sure that he had to be included in this book. The power of his presence is such that it draws everyone into the Now. When listening to Eckhart, you are not just hearing words, you are experiencing what he is speaking about.
We found Eckhart to be sweet and timid in personality. He is soft-spoken and gentle. Written words do not convey the playfulness of his presence and the delightful humor that is expressed through his gestures and in his descriptions of the " little me. " He is a rare, precious and pure being whom we are grateful to share with you here.
Eckhart Tolle was born in Germany. He later lived in England where he was a research scholar at Cambridge University. His spiritual awakening occurred at the age of twenty-nine and changed the course of his life. For the past ten years he has been a spiritual teacher in Europe and North America. He now lives in Vancouver, Canada.
LML: In one of the talks you gave this weekend you distinguish between the "little me" and the stillness of the Now in which the "little me" and its world arises and disappears. You said that the Now is what we truly are. Could you say more about this -that we are the Now?
ECKHART: [Long pause of silence] Unfortunately this stillness doesn't look good on paper! [Laughter]I am the Now. ..that is a strange statement that came to me not long ago in a talk I gave; I never wrote it in the book that I am the Now. If you look at your life as constantly fluctuating and changing conditions, every moment seems different. Forms come and go; they appear and disappear. Yet, there is something that underlies all this, something that remains constant. That something is what spiritual seekers have been looking for for thousands of years. "Is there anything beyond the world of fluctuating forms? Is there anything beyond the fleeting existence of me as a form identity -psychological form, physical form?" If you look, the only thing that ever remains constant in your life is the fact that it's always this moment. One factor remains as your whole life unfolds within the Now. It's always Now. To say, "I am the Now," may seem to be a meaningless statement to the mind. When I say these words, they're not to be used as explanations, but as pointers. They point to an inner realization, rather than being an explanation. So when words are used spiritually, they are never an explanation because the words are never the Truth. They can only point; they can only be approximations to the Truth. So to say, "I am the Now" is a pointer to the Truth. And when you hear that statement, it's best to let it sink in for awhile. Become quiet and get a sense of what that means, a feeling of what that means... "I am the Now."
When one talks about the present moment, usually people think that the present moment is what appears. They think it is the external reality of this moment or the inner reality of thoughts and emotions that are occurring at this moment. Yet, that's not what the present moment is. Whatever happens in the present moment is the external appearance of the present moment. Something comes into the space of Now momentarily and then disappears. Then something else comes into the space of Now. What remains is an underlying field of stillness out of which everything comes and into which everything disappears. So, realize what the Now is -the field of pure consciousness that allows everything to be, that underlies everything, that enables everything to be. The Now is a vast field of stillness that enables the world to be.
An externalization of the Now would be the space that enables everything to be. Yet, what we perceive as external space and the Now have no concrete existence and cannot be grasped. We can only realize them as we enter the state of stillness. The realization of this comes when you become present to the Now. When your consciousness moves into the present moment, what arises is a state of great alertness and at the same time deep stillness. You could call this the unconditioned consciousness arising. Everything else is conditioned. All the baggage you carry in the mind, all the content of the mind, is the conditioned conscious- ness, and it takes on form as thought. Then consciousness takes on form as the universe. Prior to consciousness taking on form, consciousness is there in its undifferentiated or pure nonform, and that is who you are. That is the Now. That is the deepest meaning of what Now is.
So, in that still presence -from the point of view of mind and content of mind -you no longer know anything. People think self-realization or enlightenment is a state in which suddenly they know everything, or they know who they are. But in a way the opposite is true. In the state of self-realization, from the perspective of conceptual knowledge, that is relinquished. From the perspective of conceptual knowledge, you no longer know who you are, and you are happy with not knowing who you are. There is no longer a trying to interpret anything. Not only do you not know who you are, you no longer know who anybody or anything is. The world is no longer interpreted through the accumulated content in the mind. You no longer relate to the world through the conditioned consciousness that is the mind. So from the point of view of the mind, enlightenment is a state of ignorance or not knowing anything anymore.
JLW: Yet, it is so profoundly satisfying, both for the person experiencing it and for everyone around them.
ECKHART: Yes. The strange thing is that in that not knowing there is a deep knowing, but it's non-conceptual. And when you are the stillness, everything that you need to know at this moment comes out of the stillness. If there is anything vital that you need to know, then the knowledge is there suddenly. But it's only there when it is needed, and then it disappears. The wonderful thing is to relate to the world without the screen of conceptualization and interpretation. So, not relating to the world through mental noise, but through stillness.
JLW: Is this what awakening or enlightenment means to you?
ECKHART: Yes. Awakening is to know yourself to be the stillness, being the stillness. Then the world of forms including thoughts, the physical forms, galaxies, trees, blades of grass, no longer matters so much anymore. It doesn't have the heaviness about it and the seriousness about it that it does when it's the only world you know. When the world of form is the only world you know, then your mind is a serious matter, and the world is serious, and it's all there is. It holds great promise on one hand, because you believe it will take you to salvation some day; on the other hand, the world of form is continuously threatening. The psychological form of "me," which is a mental image of who I am, is in a constant state of fear and insecurity. And, of course, the physical form is short-lived and could disappear at any moment.
LML: There is a continuous feeling of needing to defend and protect the physical and psychological "me."
ECKHART: Yes. the "me” is a state of fearful, self-contraction.
For most humans, this is so normal they don't even know it. If they haven't known anything else ever, a fearful self-contraction is normal. The "me" exists in a continuous state of unease because basically the "me" is a story in the head. It is simply mental content and emotions associated with the story of "me. " The story of "me" up to this point is never quite satisfying. It hasn't reached a point of satisfaction or fullness. And so, the "me" is continuously looking to the future to fulfill itself. There is a deep longing for the fulfillment of being who you are. Even the bank robber is looking for that fulfillment. He believes that it will come through the money. In the state of the "little me," one is condemned to continuous seeking. A Course in Miracles says it beautifully, "The dictum of the ego is: seek but do not find. " The ego is seeking in the future what can only be found in the present moment, which it always ignores.
The amazing thing is that time is obviously needed for almost everything in life. You need time for everything except one thing. You need time to accomplish a task, to learn a new skill; time is needed for all that. The one and most vital thing there is, which is knowing yourself at the deepest level, for that you don't need time. Not only do you not need time, but time is the greatest obstacle to that!
It is only when attention is withdrawn from mental noise that a state of alert presence arises; which is very, very still yet, vibrantly alive.
LML: Eckhart, could you please tell us the story of how awakening occurred for you?
ECKHART: The story which I describe briefly in the introduction to the book is that for many years I lived in a state of great fear and continuous fluctuation between states of depression and high anxiety. This was to the point of becoming almost unbearable. One night I woke up in the middle of the night, as I had many times before, in a state of even more intense dread and fear. The mind had lots of reasons why I was feeling fearful, and yet that state was continuous no matter what my external situation was. It became so unbearable that suddenly the thought occurred to me, "I cannot live with myself any longer." That thought was the trigger for a transformation. The thought kept repeating itself many times in my head and then suddenly there was a stepping back from the thought and a looking at the thought. I asked, "Who is the 'I' and who is the self that I cannot live with?"
In Zen they have koans, and it's almost as if a koan spontaneously appeared in my mind. A koan's purpose is to destroy conceptual thinking because it has no answer on a conceptual level. So, I asked, "Who is the self that I cannot live with? Are there one or two? If I cannot live with myself, who is that self?" Then, beyond thought, there was a recognition of the "unhappy me," as I later called it, as being something completely non-substantial and fictional. Then consciousness withdrew completely from identification with that "unhappy me." At that moment the whole structure of the "unhappy me" and its pain collapsed because the withdrawal of identification was so complete. What was left was simply beingness or presence. There was still a moment of fear. It felt like being drawn into a hole within myself, a vast whirlpool, and a realization arose in my chest, "Resist nothing." That was the key. Then resistance was relinquished, and I don't know what happened after that.
All I do know is that the next morning I woke up and even before opening my eyes I heard the sounds of birds and it was so precious. Everything was so precious. Then I opened my eyes and everything was alive and new and fresh as if I had never seen it before. And I walked around and picked up things and looked at them. I was amazed at everything. There was no understanding of it. I was not even trying to understand anything. It was just so beautiful. Then I walked around the city in the same state, even in the midst of traffic. I was in a state of amazement and it was all so beautiful.
LML: Had you been seeking this?
ECKHART: I had been seeking, but I had been seeking to find an answer through the intellect. The more I was seeking through the level of intellect through philosophy and reading books, the deeper the unhappiness became. I only later realized what I didn't realize at that point -that after this transformation the mind activity had been reduced by eighty to ninety percent. I was actually walking around in stillness, but I wouldn't have called it stillness. I simply knew it as peace. I knew there was deep peace, but I didn't yet realize that my mind was not very active anymore. That went on with great intensity for several months. It never left me after that, but the intensity varies, even now. The stillness is always there. Sometimes it's in the background. And sometimes it fills everything. But it's always there, and I can see so clearly why some Indian sages said that the world is unreal. That statement doesn't really make much sense if one reads it in a book and makes it into a belief. But relative to the depths of stillness or beingness and aliveness that is there, the world of form seems very insubstantial. So, to me the whole world appears as though it is happening on the periphery of being, like ripples on the surface of being. There's the fullness of being, which is far greater than anything in the phenomenal world, and yet, the phenomenal world exists as part of that. The way I see it is like ripples, and no ripple actually exists as an independent entity. It's just a little wave movement.
JLW: Some people who are reading this will be longing for freedom from the tyranny mind and want to know how to do this. What would you say to them?
ECKHART: What I say is choose to step out of the mental noise. You can choose to be present. I wouldn't say this to anybody because it would not be true for everybody, but I am saying it to both of you. And anybody who reads your book will be able to choose to be present. To choose, to step out of mind, is simply to take attention away from mental noise and allow the alert stillness to arise. You will notice that the alert stillness affects the entire energy field of the body. It is not a head state. The alert stillness affects every cell of the body, and every cell of the body then partakes in the state of stillness.
So when I say you can choose, it is the truth, and yet the truth is beyond that. The question may arise, "Who is choosing?" The ultimate answer is, "Nobody is choosing to be present. " It is simply a helpful perspective. The deeper truth is that when you believe that you are choosing to be present, presence is choosing to manifest through you at that moment. But it is a more helpful statement to say that you can choose than to say that there is nothing you can do. Ultimately, presence emerges when it wants to emerge.
JLW: One of the things I enjoy about your teachings is how you include the physical body and the energy body. Can you talk about transformation through the body?
LML: ...And how putting attention on the body can help people to remain present. It seems to be one thing to have a glimpse of the Now and another thing to live in the Now.
ECKHART: The mind has such incredible momentum. It's been around for so many thousands of years, that even people who have a glimpse of Now, often cannot sustain it. The momentum of the mind is so powerful that the mental noise returns very quickly. So, it is helpful to have an anchor for staying present. The most powerful anchor for staying present is to inhabit the body. That means to have some of your attention in the inner energy field of the body -to sense, to feel the animating presence that gives life to the body, which ultimately is consciousness itself. The physical body is a temporary expression of that consciousness, but the essence of it is the consciousness itself. So to connect with the physical body, and even as you perceive the world and interact with the world, to have some attention in the inner energy field and to feel the aliveness that is there in every cell and every organ as a single feeling. You are then rooted in your body, which becomes the anchor for staying present and for staying out of the mental noise.
Then an amazing thing happens. You discover at first that when you enter the body and look around at the world, you perceive the world, and you are able to sustain perception without interpretation. That is the beginning of the state of freedom from the conditioned mind, freedom from the egoic "little me" entity.
When you perceive the world through the accumulated content in your mind and the egoic "little me," all you ever really encounter is the conditioning of your mind. The world will reflect back to you your mental content because that is the screen through which you interpret everything. So, wherever you go, you will only meet the conditioned "me." That's a dreadful state although it is normal. As you step out of that by taking attention into the body, you then realize for the first time that it is possible to perceive the world through stillness and not through the conditioned mind or through interpretations.
The stillness is highly conscious, and there is a knowing. You perceive everything, but there is no labeling. There is a deep knowing. You could call it unitive knowing, not a knowing that is conceptual, mental knowledge that separates you from that which is perceived. There's a knowing in which you know your oneness with that which is being perceived. But you know it beyond concepts. It starts with such a simple thing as sitting here, feeling the aliveness in your body, and then looking around the room. There's complete stillness and yet, you're highly awake.
JLW: It's not as if the labels for the things that are seen are not available; it's just that they're not first.
ECKHART: That's right. If a label should be needed, it will be there, but you will then not be lost in the labels. And you won't mistake the label for the thing itself. You could still say that you would be looking at what might be called a tree, but in the state of stillness, the depths of that which we call tree is so much more. To label something reduces it immediately -as if you knew what it is when you call it tree. You don't know anything; it's just a label. So, know that you don't know anything about it and stay with it. Then the essence of the tree reveals itself to you, which is one with your essence. You not only then relate to the tree through stillness, but love is also part of that because love is the recognition of the other as yourself. Then your very existence on the planet becomes a benediction. If a label should be needed, you still know that on a conceptual level it is called "tree," but the label won't obscure that beautiful field that we call tree. It won't obscure it anymore.
JLW: It seems to both of us that there is a rapid increase in the number of people who are living more and more in just this way. There seems to be a spreading enlightenment. What is your perception of this?
ECKHART: I happen to be at the epicenter of one particular wave of transformation of consciousness. So to me, it seems like everybody is going through that transformation, but that is not totally right. It simply means everybody that I meet is going through that transformation. Occasionally I switch on the TV and then realize, "Oh no, it's not yet happening to everybody! " But a collective transformation of consciousness is indeed happening. People sometimes ask, "Why is it happening now?" It's happening now because it has become a necessity for humans and the planet. The planet would not be able to sustain human life if human consciousness remained unchanged from the way it is now. Another hundred years of that would probably make it impossible for the planet to sustain human life. It's possible that the planet would eventually recover and perhaps produce a new expression of consciousness, but humans would probably disappear as an expression. It wouldn't matter ultimately, but there is a good chance that this won't happen. The transformation will occur because it is happening at this very moment, even as we sit here. In fact, this is part of it.
So, awakening has been a luxury for thousands of years, those few sages and teachers -Buddha, Jesus, and Lao Tzu and some we don't know about -they were rare flowerings of human consciousness here and there. I was told by someone who studied planetary evolution that the Earth was covered with plant life for millions of years before the first flower appeared. Then a day must have come when the first flower opened. Flowers could be seen as the enlightenment of plant life. The first flower opened, then probably thousands of years passed before another flower opened; then two or three. Then a day came when suddenly there was a profusion of flowers allover the planet. This is very similar to what I call the flowering of human consciousness now. Buddha, Jesus, and others were rare flowers, the first few flowers. And now we are about to experience a collective flowering of human consciousness.
Whether it will affect all humans on the planet, or only some humans, I don't know. Even to this day, plants exist that don't flower. That's okay too. But it does seem that this transformation of consciousness is so radical because it's not changing the content of our minds; it's going beyond all that. It's a completely new dimension of consciousness arising. It really is like the birth of a new species out of the old. And eventually, this will also transform the physical vehicle. But we don't need to speculate about that; the main thing is to be open to that transformation now.
LML: It is now the dawn of this transformation of consciousness.
ECKHART: Yes, yes, yes. And we don't need to make it happen, because it wants to happen; it is happening. Instead of believing that "I" need to do something about it, allow it to happen. Part of allowing it to happen is the simple thing that I call "allowing the present moment to be. " That means open yourself up to the transformation. Allow whatever this moment contains. No matter what event or happening or situation, say "yes" to it. Allow it to be.
That allowing, that "yes " is saying "yes " to life itself which is Now and always Now. It requires no effort. In fact, it requires no time. But the mind says, "Okay that's wonderful news that there's a transformation of consciousness happening, now tell me what I have to do to get there. " The mind is saying, "Tell me what to do and give me some time and I'll do it. "
Of course, this doesn't work because that is the old consciousness speaking. There is no time. You step out of time. How do you step out of time? By allowing this moment to be instead of resisting it or running away from it or denying it, or making it a means to an end. Embrace it. That means you embrace life. That opens the floodgates, and then the new consciousness can move through you, the unconditioned consciousness can emerge.
The very structure of the self or the "little me" entity, as I sometimes call it, is based on saying "no" to what is. It cannot allow this moment. It needs to be in a fighting mode with what is. It must have some enemy to sustain the sense of separateness on which its identity depends, whether the enemy is a person or a situation or a condition. It must be fighting something. The "me" is always fighting the Now. The Now is the archenemy of the "little me." By opening yourself to Now, those structures dissolve and cannot operate anymore. So, the greatest spiritual practice is to say "yes" to what is, completely, because it is.
In that saying "yes," immediately a stillness arises. When you relinquish resistance to what is in this moment, suddenly a stillness arises. That stillness is the essence of the Now. That stillness is the essence of who you are. Then what happens in the Now becomes very much secondary. It doesn't matter that much anymore because you've gone beyond the appearance of Now - which is sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes indifferent -the external appearance of Now fluctuates continuously. But if you go beyond that, and a stillness arises which is the Now, that is the essence beyond the appearance. You can then allow whatever external appearance that happens to manifest in the Now to be. It doesn't matter that much anymore.
LML: This allowing is bigger than what the mind can do. It's allowing the Now to be as it is regardless of the content. The mind can take this and think it means to accept the content or circumstances in the Now. The mind will say, "Okay, I need to accept this uncomfortable situation. " But you are not talking about saying "yes" to situations.
ECKHART: That's right. You focus away from the content to the underlying essence, the power that underlies all that -which is stillness, which is presence. It's simple, but words can only point to it. They can never contain that Truth.
LML: In your book, The Power of Now, you speak of what you call the painbody. We are both familiar with that personally and as psychotherapists. It is an enormous challenge for some people, particularly those who have had a difficult or traumatic childhood. Can you speak about how to become free of that?
ECKHART: The pain body is what I call the accumulated pain that people carry inside from the past. Because of the human condition, every human being inherits pain, which is passed on genetically and in other ways. Every human already comes into this world with a certain amount of pain. That is added to by absorbing the pain body of parents during childhood. This is something that can easily obscure presence.
To explain briefly how the pain body operates... it's not continuously active. It has a dormant state and an active state. It cannot remain dormant for too long because it needs to feed. When it becomes active, it's looking for something to feed on, to add energy to its energy field, which is an energy field of contraction of either heaviness or agitation or intense fear or anger. That is the vibrational frequency of the pain-body. It is residues of past emotional pain, which are still alive in the body.
I look at the pain-body as almost an entity that lives in you. When it needs to feed, it will move into your mind and feed on your thinking. It will try to control your thoughts, and usually, it succeeds. At that point you become the pain-body. The pain- body becomes transformed from simple pain to a "self," an "unhappy me. " Then it renews itself through one's thinking. Every negative thought feeds the pain-body -it loves that. This is one of the ways in which the pain-body feeds on you, on your thinking.
Another way the pain-body accumulates new energies is by provoking a reaction from somebody else. It says, "Please give me pain. " In relationships it often happens between partners. The pain-body awakens in one partner and buttons are pushed in the other in order to get some feedback of pain. Then ideally for the pain-body, the other person's pain-body awakens also, and they can feed on each other. That is called drama in relationships. Pain-bodies love the drama. Once the pain-body has absorbed enough nourishment in the form of more pain, it will return to the dormant state. Then you feel, "Oh, it's over now." But of course, the cycle will start again.
To break the cycle of the pain-body becoming you, identifying with that, and making it into an "unhappy me" and then acting out and feeding it with your thinking, you bring presence to it. You observe it. You recognize it for what it is as it arises and then you stay there as the watcher, which is presence. Presence implies that you accept it and allow it to be. There is a stillness that comes with presence despite the agitation. In the back- ground there is a silent watcher, a still presence. That frees you from identification with it. It doesn't become an "unhappy me."
That also cuts the link between the pain-body and your thinking. It is vital to cut the link between the pain-body and your thought processes. Then the pain-body cannot take in new energy. As you do this every time it arises, the pain-body will lose some of its energy charge.
In Eastern terms the pain-body is an important aspect of what they call karma. Karma is all the accumulated conditioning from the past that continuously renews itself and that you identify with as "me." That karma has no end until something arises that has nothing to do with that mental content -stillness, unconditioned consciousness, and presence.
As the unconditional consciousness arises, the ability to watch the mind increases, and you are no longer trapped in the con- tent. You observe the content in operation. You also observe the pain-body, the emotional field; you are no longer it. There's a witnessing presence, and it grows and you realize that the presence is far greater than anything it witnesses. You are the presence more than that which is being witnessed. Increasingly, that which is being witnessed is a peripheral event, whereas before it filled your entire being. Even the pain-body, while it's still active, can become a peripheral event. "There's pain here, and yet, there's presence. "
JLW: The presence just becomes a lot more interesting.
ECKHART: Yes, yes, and all the happenings of the world lose their fascinating attractiveness. You can enjoy the beauty in it, but it no longer draws you in. There is no self-seeking in those things anymore.
LML: Some people have bio-chemical imbalances that cause a lot of disturbance in the mind. Would you consider that part of the pain-body or a result of the pain-body?
ECKHART: It is a result of the pain-body. Whatever happens - any emotional state or mental state -will be reflected in some way in the physiology of the body. People found that out for the first time in the 18th or 19th century when a man had a bullet hole in his stomach that never healed. So the doctors looked inside and saw that the moment he got angry the stomach lining changed color. Whatever state you are in is immediately reflected in the physiology, but that's not the cause. It's the reflection of the pain-body in the body.
JLW: What do you see as the main obstacles to awakening for Westerners today?
ECKHART: Well, the main obstacle is the mind and the momentum that is there, the incredible momentum of the incessant, compulsive thinking. This noise in the head and the pain-body, which is part of that, are the primary obstacles. The noise in the head and the pain-body are related because the identification with thought, which became a "me" entity, has created the pain- body; I call it the body reflecting a thought.
The emphasis seems to be for women to work with their pain- body. I explain this briefly in the book. The emphasis for men is the mental noise. It doesn't mean that men don't have a pain- body and that women don't have mental noise, but the focal point for women is to work with their pain-body. Many women are doing this very successfully now. Menstruation often brings up the collective female pain-body, which I mention in the book. Many women are now becoming very alert during that time instead of losing consciousness, and that's wonderful. They are using that to bring presence into it and transmuting the pain-body during that time.
So, there's the momentum of the mind and the force of human pain that is in the pain-body. They seem to be the obstacles. And yet, the unhappiness that arises out of that is also the motivating factor that moves people to get out of the dream they have become. So what seems like an obstacle is also a positive factor at the same time. This is why people with very dense pain-bodies are often able to become free more
quickly than people with relatively light pain-bodies. The motivation to get out of a nightmare is greater than the motivation to get out of a dream that you can live with.
JLW: Eckhart, I'd like to say that the whole idea of our book is that there is an awakening occurring among us, and we want to make it known. Through that, we want to make it much more available to people. So, perhaps in light of that, is there anything else you would like to add before we finish?
ECKHART: Perhaps the most essential fact is that for the trans- formation to happen, you don't need time. Because time is part of the old consciousness. So many spiritual people are getting lost again in time; they are seeking for an answer in time. They are seeking for a method or a technique, "Tell me how to do it," which implies, "Please give me more time. " The realization is that you do not need time for this transformation to happen; in fact, time prevents it from happening. Once you realize that, it's there. That is the essence.
What is emerging is a timeless state of consciousness. Once it has emerged, past and future are extremely peripheral to your life. They are only used for practical matters -like I know that I have to catch a plane in a few hours. But otherwise, past and future are no longer needed to give a sense of identity to who you are. The deepest realization is that I don't need time anymore.
LML: The paradox is that it does not take time to be in the Now. It is immediately available. Yet it appears to take time to get to where you remain consciously in the Now.
ECKHART: That's the paradox. You get drawn back into time and mind, and then you step out into the Now.
JLW: Another piece is that the more we are in the Now, the more we stay in the Now. The longer the duration of times we stay, the more frequently we remember when we've become identified, "Oh, I've forgotten; I am here right now." Then we come back.
ECKHART: Also the qualitative difference between the timeless state compared to the dream state of time is so vast. ..
LML: So, the attention just becomes more drawn to the timeless state because it is more attractive, more deeply fulfilling.
ECKHART: Yes, and it's emerging. It occasionally becomes obscured, but that's alright too. It becomes obscured and then it emerges more fully.
LML: There seems to be another paradox in that there is nothing anyone can do, yet there is an intentionality that one can have that facilitates this.
ECKHART: Yes. It's doing it. It might look as if there is someone who is choosing to do it, and yet it's happening. It's part of the totality. When it looks like I am choosing to step out of mind, presence is choosing to emerge.
JLW: Thank you so much, Eckhart. It has been a great pleasure to be with you, to see the kind of impact you are having, and to share that with others.

Welcome to satsang.
Those of you listening to this topic today are very fortunate because you can apply what you are about to hear in every aspect of your life. The topic today is inner body awareness. This phrase was coined by Eckhart Tolle, who as you know, is the author of the bestseller “The Power of Now.” I would like to use that term because it is so complete.
In our journey throughout life, we strive to grow, to improve. In our youth, we strive for physical excellence, usually. As we grow a little older, we strive for mental excellence, maybe taking up psychology and philosophy. And as we mature even more and begin to question life, we go into spirituality. Initially in our spiritual journey, we become interested in many things. Angels, reincarnation, UFOs, parapsychology, psychic phenomena, the hereafter, etc. This is OK, this is fine, these are true; but they are not the Truth. What we do in satsang is take a short cut to the pinnacle, to the major truth, and there is only one Truth. We are all bound to arrive at that sooner or later, and when we do, we realize it’s the only way to peace, the only way to fulfillment. The question is, “Who am I?”
Who are you, really? You cannot really define who you are, but for the sake of the inner body experience today, we are going to call you the “here and now.” Now please listen to that. You are the here and now! How powerful that is! I am not saying that you are here and now. I am not saying that here and now is the truth. I am saying you are the here and now ITSELF.
Say a man visits you every fifteen years and says, “Who are you?” And pointing to your body, you say, “This is who I am.” Then he visits you after another fifteen years and he asks, “Who are you?” And you say, “This is me, this body.” And he visits you again, and you say the same thing. Well, after he has visited you five times, he says, “Which one are you, because each time I saw you, you were different! The body changes; everything changes.” So you say, “I guess I am the one who is observing all those changes. I am the here and now.”
Consciousness - you are consciousness; the truth is consciousness - is just like a circle. A circle has a circumference, and we live on that circumference. Now, when you visualize a circle, remember that there is no beginning and no end to it. Now picture that circle spinning. No matter how fast it spins, it is always here and now. It just goes round and round, no beginning and no end. If we watch our activities and look at what is happening, we find we are getting older, just like the tire of a wheel, wearing out through activity, but we are not going anyplace. We are just going round and round and round. It’s just like the earth rotating around the sun. When it faces the sun, we call it day; when it doesn’t face the sun, we call it night. But actually in truth, nothing is happening. It’s a movement. But within that movement, there is aging. There is deterioration because there is change, like all material things. But the one who is experiencing does not change. But we don’t know the experiencer until we move in a spiral from the circumference to the center. When we move to the center, what do we find? The hub of the wheel. But the hub of the wheel is a hole! It never moves, never changes, and through this hub the wheel is able to spin. When we find ourselves in the center, we say, “I’m home! I am in the center! I look at all this activity, all this change that is happening around me, but I am here, always here. I am here, always here.” It is the most frightening thing for the ego to experience.
One time Scott Morrison said something very beautiful. He said, “All my life I was trying to get from ‘here’ to ‘there.’ But I began to recognize that when I am ‘there’ it is always ‘here.’ Finally I realized that there’s only here and now and I became desperate because I was stuck with all my faults and misery. I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to achieve, it was all hopeless.” So we keep escaping it by seeking, by trying to get someplace, by trying to attain, accomplish, or achieve a goal. And this seeking, this desiring, is our pain, our suffering, our desperation. When people say, “I’m not awakened spiritually,” it’s because they don’t want to be, because it’s very simple. It’s that you’re escaping the moment you are seeking. Seeking enlightenment is another escape! Seeking to wake up is another escape from now. NOW is all you’ve got! Now is all that there is.
We talk about forgiveness, acceptance, growth in consciousness. What are these? They are realizing that you are not learning anything. They are the here and now itself. Forgiveness means you are forgiving yourself every time you are in pain, every time you seek something, every time you try to be other than what you are, which is right now. To forgive yourself is to realize that there’s nothing to forgive. That’s forgiveness.
Acceptance is when you realize there’s nothing to accept. That’s total acceptance. And it’s the same with growth. Growth is when you realize you’re not going anyplace. It’s vertical; it’s not horizontal. There’s no past and future. It’s vertical; it’s a deepening of here and now.
So, the inner body that we are going to explore and go into today, is to bring you to the beauty of here and now. You see, when we talk about here and now, we say, “That’s it?” Because we bring the past with it. We bring our ideas, our conditioning with it. But the here and now in its totality is everything we have ever wanted. Everything! Love, peace, joy, happiness, fulfillment are the now itself. But why are we afraid of the now? Because we have concepts about it. So what is desperation? Desperation is the thought, “I have nowhere to go. It’s hopeless. There’s nothing to do. I’m stuck.” That’s desperation. What is the truth? There’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing to accomplish. I am stuck. It’s hopeless. That is the truth. You see? But the ego gets frightened with that.
So what is the difference between desperation and truth? Truth is paradise, the kingdom of God, Christ, the Almighty, the Infinite, Bhagavan. What is the difference between totality and desperation? The difference is this - desperation is trying to get away from here and now. Awaking spiritually is simply realizing that there is no escape. You are here, always here. And here you are always pure, always guiltless, always perfect. But you can’t bring the past into it. The Now is hopeless; that is it’s beauty. Because as long as there is hope, you’re thinking about tomorrow, and it keeps you from now. The now is complete. Listen to that word, “complete.”
So it is the escape from here and now that makes all the difference between hell and heaven, between fear and love. Are you beginning to understand that if we do not escape, control, try to achieve, or get away from here, that by staying here with what is, we find paradise? All suffering is an illusion, an escape from here and now. But how can you escape from here and now? It’s crazy! And that is the insanity of the ego.
We make everything into a method. I remember 20 years ago when meditation became very popular. A lot of books were written about meditation, and it seemed that everybody was reading about meditation. People would say, “Oh, I meditate every day.” And we made it into a method. We forgot that meditation is not a method. Meditation is a means to experience going into the here and now. So we can say that inner body experience is the real meditation. But we make it into a system, a method.
We make inner body experience the same thing. The moment you make it into a method or you think it is a method, you’ve lost it. Because you have to first take it from the heart and then bring it to the mind. The heart is the center, the hub of the wheel. Remember, like we said, picture the wheel of a car that can go 200 miles an hour. It goes so fast! So many things are happening! But it’s always here and now. Wherever it goes, there it is. The tires wear out, everything wears out, but the center is always perfect.
Today we are using the term “inner body awareness.” I would like to quote here from Eckhart Tolle. He said, “The art of inner body awareness will develop into a completely new way of living, a state of permanent connectness with Being, and will add a depth to your life that you have never known before.” Because we are going to be looking at things that we never looked at! Did you know that if you had a feeling of desperation, and you were to stay with that feeling and locate it in your body and move right into it, you’ll find a joy you never thought you had? Yes - but that takes courage. And there are many things in the way. We are going to discuss what keeps you from inner body awareness.
One of the beautiful things about inner body awareness is that you awaken the inner guide. I call it the “Bhagavan” that talks to me. These scripts that you hear every week - I say Bhagavan gives them to me through inner body awareness. When you listen to the body and to inner knowing, and you are going to find out today how to do that, it’s just like a guide talking to you. You’ll be guided because you have your inner teacher which is, of course, yourself.
The Course in Miracles calls the inner body the Atonement, but the Atonement has been misunderstood for a long time. I have clients who say that they have been studying the Course for ten, fifteen years and they’re still not clear about what the Atonement means. So today that’s exactly what we’ll be talking about.
Inner body awareness is forgiveness. It is full acceptance. It is true healing. It is pure unconditional love. It is incredible honesty. It is supersentience. It is full awareness. It is clarity. It is beingness. It is freedom. It is the secret of allowing. It is surrender in spirit. It is inner guidance. It is the real meditation. It is listening to the inner voice of the holy spirit. Inner body awareness is all these things wrapped up into one.
When Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi introduced us to inquiry, he said that the fastest way to the realization of who you are is to ask, “Who am I?” Many people had difficulty with that. As a matter of fact, they made it into a method. [laughs] Sometimes Ramana Maharshi would hear his students repeating, “Who am I, who am I...” They made it into a mantra! [laughs again] We turn everything into a method.
“Who am I” is not a method. “Who am I” is inner body awareness. “Who am I?” Find out where the “I” is. Where does the “I” arise from? Who is “Jan,” who is “Burt,” who is “Larry?” Ask that of yourself, and you’ll find that you’re nowhere to be found. You’re just awareness - but that awareness is not you! You see? That body is covering it up, making it seem like you. It is infinite, that state of totality. But when we begin to listen, we begin to get in touch with that “I.” And that “I” will teach us everything. Everything that we’ve ever wanted for centuries will come to us because we have hit upon it.
So very few people were capable of inquiry such as what Ramana Maharshi advocated. Over the years I have realized how difficult it is for most people. When the Course in Miracles was introduced, it said that the Atonement is the one need in this world that is universal. Thousands of people started practicing the lessons, but very few grasped the real meaning of the Atonement. In fact, most people who grasped the basics of the Course still had difficulty with the Atonement principle.
The difficulty in comprehending something so simple is understandable because of the paradox of the human mind. The simpler something is, the more difficult for the mind to grasp. So, it needs step by step introduction.
About a week ago I started getting these questions from clients, letters and emails - people still not understanding what inquiry really is, what inner body awareness is, what the Atonement is. I went into a deep reflection and I’ve asked my inner guidance if there is a way to simplify it. These six steps came through, which we are going to discuss today; six steps to take you to this inner body awareness.
There is one problem with these six steps. We are going to want to turn them into a method, but they are not a method. They are ways to help you. Let me tell you what I mean by “helping you.” Suppose you are a person who has never seen the moon. So when we are outside (this is just hypothetical, OK?) I point to the moon. And I say, “There is the moon.” You look at my hand and say, “Where?” And I say, “Look at the end of my finger.” So you look at the end of my finger and say, “I still don’t see the moon,” because you are not looking at the moon, you are looking at my finger. You made the finger pointing at the moon into a thing, a method, instead of looking at the moon. So therefore I say to you, “OK, let’s make it simple, step by step. Move a little closer so you can see the finger better. Step two: move closer yet. And so on, until step six: be behind me and look straight at my arm, exactly where my finger is pointing.” And finally you see the moon. You had to do the six steps in order to see it. Once you have seen it, you don’t need the six steps any more. OK? They are not a method; they are ways to get you to listen to the body which is always talking to you.
There are two things which will keep you from listening to the body. Two things, very very strong and powerful, and this is where most people fail to listen: first, as we discussed last week, the willingness to listen, and second and most important, the primordial guilt. You really think you cannot hear, or you want to make something out of it, figure it out, or make it tangible. Listening to what is happening inside you is a silence. For example, say today you got upset. Stop and listen to that upsetness in your body. There is a part of you that says, “I am wrong; I shouldn’t be feeling this way; what’s wrong with me; he shouldn’t have done that;” and all this is called “guilt.”
But move beyond guilt. Go into that area of the body. As it relaxes and you start listening to that area, it might say, “OK, today there was a lot of anger. What was that anger about?” Listen. [pause] You see? That’s how you begin to listen and it becomes automatic. “Oh, I got upset because I didn’t get my way. How does that feel?” And you listen to that, and it leads you to the next level. As you learn to listen to the body, you’ll be amazed at how the silence leads you to the very essence.
But what’s important is not getting an answer. The important thing is that healing is taking place. You are healing the cellular memory in your mind-body mechanism. And you are healing it permanently. It is leading you deeper and deeper, and eventually that’s what inner guidance is.
The Course says this: “As long as you believe that guilt is justified in any way, in anyone, whatever he may do, you will not look within, where you would always find Atonement.” So inner body awareness is looking clearly into what is truly happening. This is difficult for most people because of their guilt. The following six steps, which we will take slowly, will help us to go beyond this.
What is the guilt that prevents inner body awareness? It is the constantly nagging ego asking, “How do I know I am being sincere? How do I know I am willing? What if I am not doing it right? Maybe I am playing a game?” These are the self-doubts with which the ego will confront you to keep you on the circumference of the circle.
And then of course you are very active! You become very, very active because you don’t want to move to the center, because the center is what you have been trying to get away from with all your goals and plans and seeking, you see? It takes courage to move to the center. But we are accepting the fact that you are willing, and we are discussing guilt now. This is the guilt that the Course refers to. The word “guilt” simply refers to that inner feeling that says, “I am not good enough.”
How do you overcome such doubts? Don’t even try. Don’t try to overcome doubts. You just observe them as part of the ego’s guilt that keeps you trapped on the surface, on the circumference. So whenever the ego doubts, you simply ask yourself, “Who is doubting?” Go to the core feeling of it. This is inner body awareness.
If we are going to look further at guilt, I would like first to say what inner body awareness is not. This is very important. Do not confuse inner body awareness with dwelling on something. We are talking about feeling, OK? And not feeling something, either. You are listening to that silence. There is an intuition that comes when you are listening to that silence.
Did you ever ask yourself, “Why was I angry?” You listen to that feeling of anger inside you with willingness; you don’t blame anyone, not even yourself. As you begin to be quiet and listen, the answer will come intuitively from that silence. That is called listening, OK? But you can expedite it and make it faster through these steps.
So inner body awareness is not dwelling on something, not thinking or interpreting or analyzing. It is simply listening to a feeling in the body. Now, when we talk about feeling through the body, it makes the body seem very solid and real. Remember that what keeps the heart beating, the blood circulating, and food digesting is not the body. It is consciousness that is doing it. So when we are listening to the inner body, we are not actually listening to the organs of the body; we are listening to the feelings of the body, which is consciousness itself. That’s why we call it “inner body.”
How a person looks on the outside is what the inner body is like. So if the inner body is full of self-doubts, then you can see it in the walk, in the eyes, in the manner of the person, in the confidence or lack of it. As you gain greater knowledge from that inner knowing, that inner knowing will change the outside. It will give you confidence, love, peace, and even innocence. It will give you here-now-ness. It will give you clarity.
So the whole premise of inner body awareness is not to figure out what you are feeling, it is to get a response from the inner body through its silence. It is not a process of talking to yourself. It is not an analytical process, not a bodily sensation. To repeat, it is listening to what the inner body is saying without mental interference. It’s going to take practice.
Another thing that we have to get in touch with is that when we go deep into our body, we also begin to hit upon the pain body. Today I am going to call it the rejected part of you, because through denial, resistance, and control, you have betrayed your inner innocence, and instead built a defense. You have built a wall of emotional feeling and pain without pure feeling. Most of the time, that place inside you feels rejected, betrayed, abandoned. How many times has it felt lonely, tight, contracted? The inner body has felt these things, and instead of being kind to it, you said, “What is wrong with me? I should be ashamed of myself for doing this.” On top of that, you are blaming it, punishing it. That is the rejected part of you. That is called the pain body.
So now when you try to listen, immediately you go into your story and you don’t even know it’s there. It almost triggers it immediately. So we have to discuss this in order to make you aware of any guilt that comes up. It comes up as resistance, as escape from the moment. “I can’t figure it out. I don’t understand.” You see? There is all this kefuffle around it, when it’s so simple. Just be silent. OK?
So what happens when you keep judging and resisting it? It is going to act up like a child. This inner body acts like a child. It is going to yell louder to get your attention, and create more and more noise until you listen. The noise comes in the form of ulcers, headaches, rage, violence, and all kinds of physiological and emotional symptoms. And when you finally take the time to listen and pay attention, these symptoms go away, along with the fears that go with them. Remember that every fear that goes away is replaced by a deeper love. You don’t develop love. Love is always there. But it’s been walled up by our need to run away, by our need to seek something outside. As long as you seek something other than here and now, you are building a wall against the very thing you want most.
This is the healing miracle that the Course refers to. What is necessary is to create a caring climate around your feelings. Some words came to me from Bhagavan and I’d like to share them with you, telling you how to care for your inner body when it is in pain. Say this to yourself: “I am not here to fix you. I am not here to make you invisible. I know that what I am feeling is nothing, but I don’t want to call you nothing now. I want to validate you until you show me that it’s not real. I am not here to fix you or make you invisible. I am here because I care enough about you to be with you for a time. If you want to tell me something, fine.” You are talking to your body, OK? [laughs] You can say, “If you don’t want to tell me something, that’s fine too. Either way I am here for you.” You are connecting with yourself! This is something that we never do. And this is why we suffer such pain. Because the part in us that is always here, we reject it, we run away from it. You see? And so we are separated! We betray ourselves. So we can call it the rejected part of you instead of the pain body.
You can ask the healing part in your body, right now, “How do you need me to be with you?” And then you listen. Believe me, you will get that intuition. It will come. That is a promise. The point is to create a kinship with the place inside yourself which you have alienated for so long. That is the key. Make friends with yourself. That is your deepest love - loving who you are. And that’s how you begin to move closer and closer to that center, to that self which you are, which we all are.
The one thing that is very hard to understand, because we are flesh and blood beings, is that we make the body so solid that it seems more real than our own spirit. Take the spirit, consciousness, away from the body and the body is nothing but dust. But we do not see the spirit, we do not see the consciousness when we look at a body. We see a solid form. We misjudge the whole thing and we become lost in our understanding.
The wonderful realization that awakens from inner body awareness is this, that the physical body is not as real as we thought. Yes it is real, it is tangible; you can touch and feel it, yes. But it is often sick, it ages, and it is going to die soon. You are not listening to the body; you are listening to the inner body, to that consciousness which sustains the body. Every emotion, every feeling, and all thinking is experienced in the inner body. Every perception you have is an inner body action. Every image you have of the world, of people, of circumstances, relates to the image you have of yourself. Everything that you feel in your inner body is only real to you, and it is your world. It has nothing to do with what is outside of you, except that you see it outside because the inner body reflects your world. You live in the world of your inner body.
This is all a function of the inner body. Once you get in touch with your inner body, you get in touch with reality. You begin to see in a new way. Remember, and this is important, that no matter how you act, no matter how you think, no matter what pain comes, do not try to fix it. There is nothing that is missing. Our whole social system is based on the concept that there is something wrong that we have to fix about ourselves and everybody else. Inner body awareness challenges this concept and brings out the beautiful spiritual essence that we are, automatically.
Let me give you an example, based on a true story. Mary, who was an overweight and lonely woman, looked disgustedly at herself in the mirror. Tears ran down her cheeks as she asked mournfully, “What am I to do?” She wanted to fix herself with more things to do. So she took up exercising, regulated her eating habits, and took some courses. This is normal and natural. But she also knew in her heart that she wasn’t really motivated to do those things and it would only be a short time before she was back to square one. Mary was desperate, like millions of other people. She didn’t realize it was how she felt about herself that needed to shift, not more things to do.
You are understanding this, right? It’s not the things you do, it’s how you feel about yourself that is important. Knowing that there is nothing to fix is threatening to the establishment. I have often heard statements from people who say, “What do you mean there’s nothing wrong with me, that it’s only fear!?” [laughs] “I want something to do!” OK?
And when people want something to do, of course, I give them something to do. But remember, when you get in touch with who you are, there’s nothing to do! The very clarity itself will bring healing and bring you back to who you are. Who you are is more wonderful than words can ever say. Whenever we are faced with a problem, financial difficulties, forced change of job or residence, loss of a friend, or a hundred other things, we get upset, frightened, and insecure. We go about desperately seeking answers by getting another job, apartment, or new relationship in a frenzy. Then when we finally find the answer we have been seeking, it is only a short time before the unresolved feelings create another situation or crisis. In our seeking, we never ask, “How am I feeling?” - only how to fix the situation at hand. The first thing you need to ask is, “How am I feeling?”
You know, if you want homework to do, from now on do this. Every hour ask, “How am I feeling now? Am I happy now?” If you say, “I don’t know,” then chances are you are happy. If you say, “I am not,” then you are not. What is important here to know is that if you are happy, chances are you don’t know you are. Because you are! But if you’re not happy, you know you are not, because unhappiness is something. Happiness is nothing. Peace is nothing. You see?
Right now you are listening. You are totally attentive. You are at peace right now, but you think it’s got to be something that you’re going to achieve! We lose it when we bring seeking into it. Right now you’re at peace! Right now you are relaxed, unless of course you happen to be thinking about something else. Right now you are complete. If you were to ask yourself, “Am I happy?” you might say, “I don’t know,” because you are. Because happiness is not something. It IS! This moment, itself. So remember, the unhappiness you are feeling over a setback is merely a trigger for your inner emptiness.
Two - The answer does not lie in achieving what you think you are missing. The answer lies is feeling good about yourself. That is the major force, to be in touch.
So these are the six steps of inner body awareness, a step by step guide. But please, do not make this into a method. This is only helpful as a guideline to help you go deeper. You use it only until you understand what inner body awareness is. The moment you have done it once or twice, you can discard it, because inner body awareness can be instant.
Let’s assume you have a problem. Let’s assume there are things happening inside you. The first step of body awareness is to ask, “What’s between me and feeling fine?” In other words, right now get in touch with all the things that are not making you feel fine. “I am not happy in my job.” “I am not making enough money.” “My children demand my time.” “My husband is not very understanding.” “I got into a fight with my neighbor.” And so on. Get in touch with all the things that impinge on your ability to be here now.
Two - Allow yourself to feel. Move into the worst problem that is bothering you. As you pick out a problem, stop for a moment and ask yourself, “What do I sense in my body when I recall this problem?”
Three - Begin to feel the quality of it. Now that you’ve gone into the body, ask yourself, “How would I phrase it to somebody else? How would I tell them how this feels?” Now you are not going to say, “I feel rejected,” as that is a story. OK? You’re not saying, “Well, I feel abandoned.” That’s a story. Just get in touch with that feeling - “It feels like a contraction,” or “It feels itchy,” or “It feels like a crawling thing,” or “It feels like I am small.” Get in touch with it and put a word to it.
Four - Clarify the feeling. Now take the word you used to describe how you felt. Put it with the feeling. Ask, “Did I use the right word? Does it go along with the feeling? Is it appropriate?” If it feels right, move to the next step.
Five - Ask, “What is it about this whole problem that makes me so angry? So frustrated? So violent? So - whatever?” Right? Whatever it is. Ask that question and listen to the body. Just listen. Listen to what comes up from that silence. Just keep listening. And then ask, “Well, what is so bad about it?” You see, the moment you say, “What is so bad about it?” the body memory will respond, “Because...” So get rid of the story and listen to the feeling. You’ll be amazed at how much you are starting to hear from that silence within you.
Finally, after you have done that, stop for a moment and relax completely. Say, “Thank you. Thank you for giving me the courage and the willingness to do this,” Then just go about your business. Aren’t these simple? Very simple. But the benefits that come from this!
Let me tell you a story I made up that illustrates how you would go about this. Peggy was a woman in her late twenties, married to her husband, John, who works in a bank. She worked in the junior high school as a part-time teacher. She was not doing what she really wanted to do, which is work full time in a more respectable position.
One evening, John came home in a jubilant mood, full of vim and vigor. He had gotten a promotion to an executive position at the bank. He was excited, and in his excitement, when he was telling Peggy his news, he knocked a dish off the kitchen table and broke it. It was a piece of her best china. Peggy flew into a sudden rage. She ran up the stairs in tears, slamming the door, refusing to cook dinner.
Now, provided that Peggy wants to go through the six steps, this is how she could get in touch with her violent reaction. Let’s assume that Peggy is here and we are guiding her.
1. Clear the space for inner listening. “Why don’t I feel terrific right now?” She recalls all her work that needs to be done; correcting homework sheets, cleaning the house, the broken dish, guilt over her reaction, cooking, shopping, preparing for friends who were to drop by that evening, and anger towards her husband.
2. Allowing herself to feel. Now she is relaxed enough to allow herself to feel. Next she is to choose one problem that merits the most attention. As soon as she listened, she knew the worst problem was her anger, her violence.
3. Feeling the quality of the problem. She is gently asked what the quality of the feeling is like. “I was so angry when he broke that dish.” And then she realized, “Anger over a broken dish? No - the dish had hardly anything to do with it. My anger was over his air of jubilation, the way he radiated confidence over his future.” Immediately she felt, “Aha!” happening inside her. She allowed herself to feel his jubilation and her inner reaction. She waited for a response from her inner body. She waited for a response silently and patiently. How long this takes will depend on how willing you are. “What does this feeling feel like?” And all of a sudden, it came to her, “I am being jealous!” So now there is a word, “Jealous.”
4. Clarifying the feeling. She took the word “jealous” and checked it against her body feeling. “Does this fit with how I felt when I broke into that anger, when my body reacted? Does it fit? Hmmm. Yes. It does, but all that anger, over something that minor?” She felt her response saying, “There is jealousy in there somewhere, but...” Then she moved into step five.
5. Inquiring into the body feeling. Now she asked her body, “What is this sort-of jealousy? What is the whole problem that makes me sort-of jealous?” She kept on listening, and the feeling came back, “This feels more like being left behind, abandoned. He’s been promoted, and I haven’t. He’s been better at his job than I.” Finally it dawned on her what was really happening. She moved to the sixth step.
6. Opening herself to receive. She said, “Thank you for clarifying this.” But what is so beautiful is that after she finished doing this, her anger and need for violence was gone. She forgave John because she forgave herself. The situation never repeated itself because she was able to move through it. So Peggy forgot about the dish, her anger was gone, her head was clear. She had moved one step closer to her core being.
Again, do not make these six steps into a method! They are merely helpful guides. You can jump around the steps as you want. This is just how they came to me. Please use them because they do work. If you can find a better way to use them, then do so. The point is, of course, to help you to get in touch with your inner core. Your inner essence has all the answers. Eventually it will happen just like that. [snaps fingers] You stop, get in touch with what is happening, and hear it. The answer is always there. The Course says that the Holy Spirit is the only answer. It is always silent, and it is that silence that holds all knowledge.
Are there any questions?
Q: You talked about the horizontal and vertical. The horizontal is the past and the future, right?
A: That’s right. It goes in a straight line.
Q: So basically, is that the line of compassion?
A: What we mean by horizontal is just a form to give you more understanding, a bigger picture. Say you were up where a bird flies, and you look down into the ocean and you see a ship moving from there to here. You see where it left behind and where it is going. It is a horizontal line. So we can say that this is the past, this is the present, and that is the future. That’s what we mean by horizontal line.
Now, the vertical line is the real line of compassion. The vertical line is the deepening of the here and now. As I begin to feel you as a part of me, I don’t even have to hug you or kiss you or anything; but the deepening of that understanding, that experience, becomes my love. So therefore, that deepening is not going to be tomorrow. It happens vertically, just like climbing a ladder. You start with the first step, and looking up you say, “Oh my goodness, I have a long way to go.” But the moment you are at the top, you’ll find that you never got anyplace; the ladder was always here and now, and you’ve achieved it. But of course, we never get to the top - it’s a constant deepening of awareness in the moment.
Q: With that consciousness, you can bring yourself to this moment, now. So by doing that, it can bring you to the feeling body quickly?
A: It happens very quickly when you’re totally willing, when you totally go beyond your guilt and your story. You feel the feeling as it is and there’s an immediate shift, because instead of fear now you are feeling love, and you feel that peace.
Q: Tell me more about the Atonement, please.
A: The Atonement is to be able to look at something so clearly that eventually you begin to see its nothingness, and then it shifts. If I am feeling fear at the moment, and what is fear - fear is a sense of loss, to lose something. You are attached to something, or you project a type of loss. Either you think you are not going to get something, or you are going to lose something. That’s what fear is. So when you begin to feel that sense of fear, and you get in touch with that fear, or in other words you feel that fear in your body and you quiet the body, you’ll find that fear was nothing more than a need for you to get away from this moment. All fear is an escape from here and now. Because I am projecting I am going to lose something, or I don’t have what I want. But in the now there is nothing that is missing. So when you stay with it, there comes a feeling that the fear itself was nothing more than a need for love. We can see it that way. As you allow that, it becomes love.
An example would be this: suppose you are feeling lonely, a perfect example. Most people feel lonely. Loneliness is a very common modern malady. What is loneliness? Loneliness is simply not loving yourself. In fact, when you are lonely, you begin to dream about someone loving you. You daydream, maybe about sex. You have all these images. But here is the snag - at that moment of loneliness, are you willing to love yourself? No. You want somebody to love you, but you are not willing to give that love to yourself. If you were willing to give that love to yourself, then where is the loneliness? But the reason you don’t want to give love to yourself is that by loving yourself the ego dies, and that’s frightening. So you want somebody to love you to replace the love for yourself. And that’s why we want somebody to love us, because by their loving us we can feel OK with ourselves without having to love who we are. Because loving yourself means going into the depth of your emptiness.
What is love? Love is not emotional, love is emptiness. Love is this moment. Love is nothingness. Love is spirit. Love IS. You are the same “I” that I am. And when I recognize that “I” is nothing more than infinite space, then I see you as myself. That is love. But that is not something, see? That IS. And the only way that I can experience that is by dealing with the fear, the fear of myself. And the fear will keep you trapped, keep you thinking you are going to lose something. And you become very attached to that something, and you try to hang on to that something. And then, of course, you are going to have a lot of pain in the future because every time you hang on to something or get attached to something, you are creating future pain. OK? Because the attachment is saying, “I need this to complete me.” You are betraying your very core, your very center, your very essence. You are complete here and now. It is the thought of losing something that is keeping you trapped.
Q: So would you say that the Atonement is self-forgiveness, self love?
A: Right!
Q: I went to a Catholic school years ago and they told me I had to atone for my sins. That’s a different atonement, isn’t it?
A: That’s the confusion that the word “atonement” brought about. See “Atonement” in the Course written this way: “At-one-ment,” or “Be-one-with.” I am very happy you got that.
Q: When you speak of the inner body, you speak of it as something which to me is the acting out of...
A: The inner body is a silence. It is really nothing. No. It is consciousness, pure consciousness that appears as something.
Q: It comes to that, does it, after you work through the energy that you need to learn from?
A: That’s right. So what you do, what the ego is doing all the time is making something out of nothing. “You hurt me.” So you make it into a mountain. You see? You are always making something out of nothing. Waking up spiritually is doing the reverse - making nothing out of something, bringing that something into its nothing state.
Q: Which would be the Atonement?
A: Which is the Atonement. And which is forgiveness. You cannot forgive as long as you think there is something to forgive. You’ve got to look at it as nothing to forgive. People do what they do because that’s what they do! That’s their consciousness. You see? And so everything is as it is. People do what they do because consciousness is doing it through them. OK?
Now, accepting that fully in the moment is forgiveness. So you don’t go through the process of saying, “I am going to forgive you.” That’s arrogant. Forgiveness is when you see there is nothing to forgive. There’s nothing to forgive. Forgiveness, love, peace, joy, God, Christ, they’re all silence! They are all the here and now.
Q: They are just words.
A: They are just words, just labels. They all mean, “You are not here now. You are THE here and now.” Please understand the difference. You are the here and now ITSELF. You are the very essence of nowness. You see? There is never a moment when we can say, “This,” and it’s not now. Just like Scott Morrison said, that all my life he wanted to go from here to there, until he began to recognize that there, when it arrived, was here, was now!
So therefore, eventually it came to him that there is nowhere to go but here. You are always here! And then the ego says, “Oh, I am stuck here,” and you become desperate. Now if you were to go into that desperation, which Scott did because he is an awakened soul, you would wake up spiritually. Desperation and truth are two sides of the same coin. Desperation is nothing more, the same qualities, as truth. The only difference is that you are trying to get away from the here and now with desperation. By staying in the here and now, because there is no escape, there is clarity.
Q: It’s so crazy. You can’t just be here, you want to be better.
A: That’s the insanity of the ego, and the only way to love yourself is simply to see that you’re always here and now. Nowhere to go, nothing to achieve, nothing to get, nothing to accomplish, nothing to forgive, nothing to accept; you are nothing! You are nothing! You know, the most beautiful thing you can experience is when you realize you don’t exist. Who is Burt? Burt is talking to you now but really - I’m very serious - I mean, you watch a body talking now, but really, who’s Burt? I have been given a name and a body, but really, who the hell is Burt? I don’t know! I really don’t know. And it’s wonderful because I am an experience, and whatever I experience, I experience. Whatever I go through , I go through.
Q: When I went to Ireland, and I was seeing a different culture completely than here, I was just looking through my eyes to see it, and observing this thing, this whole situation. It was like turning on a channel on TV, click. I knew where I was, but it was a different venue, that’s all it was. I was there, this thing was looking through my eyes, me.
A: So there was detached observation of what was going on.
Q: That’s exactly right.
A: That is the key. You stepped out of your ego. You know, for the ego to die is not a big thing. Incidentally, let me say that the ego being an illusion, it never dies anyway, as long as you have a body. We are not talking about Jnanis like Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi who had no ego; such a rare being. But as long as you have a body there is always the idea of who you think you are. There is always some ego there. So when we talk about killing the ego, it’s a very simple thing to do. Just be here. Accept everything as it is. That is constant forgiveness.
Q: I think a lot of it could be terminology, like I call it “the watcher,” and that works for me.
A: Then call it “the watcher.”
Q: I noticed that some call it the pain body, some addictions, and different words work for different people.
A: That’s right. Get to the core, the essence, of that word that combines all the others, because essentially they all mean the same thing.
Q: When we recognize that we’re caught and we’re not loving ourselves, we’re feeling guilt and we’re suffering, are we best served then by going through those six steps, and it should bring us back to a place of love, which is nothing?
A: Which is nothing, yes. And as you begin to do this process of asking these questions that are in the steps, what happens is that you are relaxing with yourself, you are loving yourself. Even going through the process means you are taking time to love you. You see what I mean? Loving you has nothing to do with the ego. Loving you is getting in touch with that Bhagavan inside you, with that essence that you are, with that being that you are. That’s what love is. There is no egoistic preoccupation here.
Q: Part of us does not want to know, does not want us to turn around and reflect...
A: It wants us to stay on the circumference of the circle. It wants to stay on the surface because the center is its own death. It’s just like when you look at the ocean. What is the first thing you see when you look at the ocean? The surface waves. But the surface waves are what we call the ego. And then we say, “Oh, that’s the ocean.” It’s not the ocean, it’s just the surface. And the waves are afraid of dying, because they find, “I’m just part of the ocean. I am not an individual wave.” But the truth is, you are the ocean. We are total, pure consciousness.
Q: So the wave breaking on the shore is just our body dying?
A: Yes, you can see it that way. The wave goes up, and the life span of the wave is a millisecond. It has a life span and dies. And our life span is maybe 80 years, but it’s a twinkling of an eye. It goes so fast! The consciousness is fast, just like a dream! Sometimes you might dream a whole lifetime in a dream, and it might last just five minutes. But while dreaming, it feels like it has been going on for a long time.
Q: So all ego is, is resistance?
A: All the ego is, is resistance. It is seeking, yes.
Q: I find the breath fascinating, because when you get in touch with the feeling body, and feel how your breath is contracted and that you are holding, you can just be aware of that.
A: The reason for the breathing is to relax you, to keep you here and now, because the breath is always here and now. But don’t get caught in your breathing, because then you lose... the breathing is so you don’t get caught in your story. That’s the point of breathing. The contraction, the fear, takes you back into guilt, into seeking a way out, a need to escape.
Q: So how might you treat control, that you know what the right outcome is?
A: Well, first of all, you can never know what the right outcome is. Only consciousness knows that. So we are not interested in what the outcome is going to be. When we live in the moment, we simply live in the moment. That means we trust whatever comes from that moment. So as you live each moment, then the next moment is the result of moment to moment living, and that becomes perfection itself. That brings the fulfillment.
Q: So is intuition a brief connection with consciousness?
A: That’s right. And that intuition keeps getting more and more refined. Intuition is really the surface of that inner body listening, inner body awareness. But it goes even beyond intuition. What is beyond intuition? I give it a word called “feeling-knowing.” Because you can think it is intuition but not be quite sure if it is or not. Feeling-knowing is a certainty. There is no doubt about it whatever. You just know. So we can say it’s a little deeper than intuition. It comes to a point when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt. There is no doubt whatsoever. You just know. And that knowing does not come in words. You cannot prove it. It’s a feeling.
Q: So how would you explain that from judgment?
A: Judgment is when you make somebody wrong.
Q: But could you not have an intuition that someone’s not right?
A: If you make somebody wrong, it’s a judgment, it’s not intuition. Intuition does not judge. Intuition sees clearly but it does not judge; for example, I see a person who is not very aware, and he’s doing acts that are not very aware. Now, that’s clarity. That’s seeing clearly. But you don’t hate them for it. You feel compassion for them. See, there’s a difference. But if you judge them as wrong and bad, it’s not intuition. That’s a judgment. The moment you make somebody wrong, you’ve immediately stepped out of line with yourself. You have betrayed yourself right at the moment, because that judgment is coming from you. And the moment you make somebody wrong, you are the one thinking in terms of “wrong.” That means you are in the consciousness of “wrong.” You are really judging yourself.
Q: But even just comparison is insanity.
A: Yes, even comparison. Yes. People do what they do because that’s where there consciousness is at. And what right have we got to change anything? See people as they are and accept them as they are. And when a person is willing, and they want guidance from you, beautiful! But when they don’t, let them be. We have all eternity! You see, people are going to make mistakes and you know they are going to get hurt. But you know also that they are not going to listen. Let them! They’ve got all eternity to learn what they need to learn.
Q: And they also need to get hurt to learn that lesson.
A: That’s right. Some people need to get hurt before they hear, before they listen.
Q: I was having a conversation with a friend about Timothy McVeigh, and we realized that he was choiceless. Given his background, his conditioning, and his thinking, he had to do what he did. So you can feel compassion rather than horror, even though the outcome was so devastating.
A: There is still a karmic predicament with his action. That’s all part of it. See, it’s true that consciousness does everything, but we do have a choice. One time somebody was asking about Al Capone, and they said that according to astrological readings, Al Capone was someone who was very good with a knife. He could have been a surgeon! You know what I mean? So what I am saying is a person can make a choice, whether to use the knife to kill people or heal people. So we have gifts; it is the choice that we make how to use them. We do have a choice. We have a certain destiny. The moment we are born, we have a destiny. The enneagram, the zodiac, the sex, introvert/extrovert, that’s all set the moment you are born. That’s your destiny. Certain things that you love to do, maybe music or art, that’s also part of your destiny, your expression. But what you do with how the energy moves is your choice. You make those choices.
Q: When you said that about choice, there was a friend of mine who was abused by his mother from the age of five to when he was a teen. I said, “How did you come out of it?” He said, “There comes a point when you have to cut the loop. Otherwise it goes from parent to child and child to parent, and it keeps on going. That’s when you have to choose, and you cut the loop and you say, ‘I choose not to do that anymore and you move on from there.’” It was like somebody switched a light on in my head. He said, “It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through. It’s what you choose to do from now on.”
A: That’s right. And when you learn from what is happening, then there is a choice. Our choice ultimately is between love and fear, all the time. Those are the only two emotions. All negativity is fear. All positivity is love.
Q: But being in personal contact with someone who has overcome their fear, who has faced it and seen it die, is an incredible force. It opens the door.
A: That’s right.

In the Gospel story of Mary and Martha, Jesus says to Martha, “You are anxious and troubled about many things, but only one thing is needful.” (Luke 10:41)
As I was writing A New Earth, people would sometimes ask me, “What is the new book about?” And invariably, my answer would be, “I only ever write or speak about one thing.”
What is that one thing?
Spiritual awakening.
Can a person be awakened spiritually by a book?
Yes, if three conditions are met:
Firstly, there must be a readiness on the part of the reader, an openness, a receptivity to spiritual truth, which is to say, a readiness to awaken. For the first time in the history of humanity, large numbers of people have reached that point of readiness, which explains why millions have responded so deeply to The Power of Now.
Secondly, the text must have transformative power. This means the words must have come out of the awakened consciousness rather than the accumulated knowledge of a person’s mind. Only then will a text be charged with that power, a power that goes far beyond the informational value of the words. That is why such a book can be read again and again and lose none of its aliveness.
Thirdly, the terminology used needs to be as neutral as possible so that it transcends the confines of any one culture, religion, or spiritual tradition. Only then will it be accessible to a broad range of readers world-wide, regardless of cultural background.
All these conditions were met in The Power of Now, which is why the book has had such an impact on the collective consciousness.
Why write another book?
Since the publication of The Power of Now, I have given hundreds of talks and teaching sessions all over the world, and in the course of those seven years, the teaching evolved. While the essence remained the same (The Truth is timeless.), new perspectives arose, new signposts, alternative approaches to the Truth, as well as an added sense of urgency. A New Earth reflects this evolution and this urgency.
If The Power of Now worked for you and changed your life – as it did for countless people all over the world – there is no need for you to read A New Earth (although you may enjoy reading it and may find some of it helpful in recognizing the ego and thus sustaining the state of Presence).
My feeling is that A New Earth will make the teaching (the one thing) accessible to an even wider audience, including people who perhaps would not have dreamt of reading a “spiritual” book but have within them a hitherto unrecognized longing for spiritual awakening.
A New Earth will also be extremely helpful for those who read The Power of Now, found it interesting, but somehow missed the essence of it. It presents them with new perspectives on the same truth, new signposts, pointers towards Presence. Different pointers work for different people.
Millions are now ready to awaken because spiritual awakening is not an option anymore, but a necessity if humanity and the planet are to survive. Everything is speeding up – the madness, the collective egoic dysfunction, as well as the arising of the new consciousness, the awakening.
We are running out of time. From the perspective of the ego, that’s bad news and will give rise to fear. From a higher perspective, the running out of time is exactly what is needed for the new consciousness to come into this world.

Eckhart has said that “You need time, until you realize that you do not need time”, which loosely translated means that you “need a Spiritual Practice until you realize that you don’t.”
Practices need time - they are something done by someone to achieve a goal at some time in the future.
Seeing who you really are is not a Practice at all - it is pure seeing of itself by your own essential nature -
­and that occurs in the immediacy of the present moment where there is no past or future - only this instant.

So at a certain point you will need to discard all your Practices.
As Eckhart said “You need time, until you realize that you do not need time”

Context: Fully Being who you truly are is the most important thing in your life.
To put the place of Spiritual Practice in context, listen to or watch Eckhart Tolle's “Touching the Eternal: Renunciation of Thought”, part 1.
Everything in your life is a part of your Spiritual Practice – especially the things that go “wrong”- so gradually incorporate these Practices in what you “normally” do in your life, and see what happens.
Don’t let your mind organize, force, impose or evaluate your Spiritual Practice.
Hopefully, you will read what follows a few times, and then forget about them, only to discover at a later time that many of them are naturally occurring in your life without any determined effort to “apply” them.
Do all these in the Now, not as a means to an end.
Inner Body (Eckhart uses the term 'Inner Body' as a label for the energy field of the body, the feeling of being Alive, the manifestation of the aliveness that you are – which is your true nature)

1. •               Feel the Inner Body during the day. This means 10 - 15 - 20 times a day – even for 10 seconds or so is fine. At various times and when appropriate go deeper into the Inner Body and merge with it. And at other times go deeper still, as is possible
2. •               Feel the Inner Body for 15 minutes or so at night before sleep, as is possible. Go to sleep from there.
3. •               Feel the Inner Body for a few minutes when you first wake up. If you have heavy feelings, a feeling of being “on edge” etc in the morning then surrender to it, observe the feeling fully. Let it be as it is. As you observe the feeling, Space will arise around it
4. •               Feel the Inner Body whilst observing Nature.
5. •               Whenever someone speaks to you – feel the Inner Body with a part of your attention

Retreats/Time Out

1. •               Take Time Outs from time to time - this means Retreats of some kind. Even Eckhart needs these and use them to full advantage. (Study Spiritual Teachings, connect with Nature, Noble Silence, etc. No Mind stuff. Taking long walks in Nature with an MP3 player full of Eckhart is a wonderful way to go.)
2. •               When you notice a contraction, tightness, an inner sense of irritation etc – take some time out to have a look at it. Say Yes. Let it Be. Accept it as it already IS. Let Space arise around it. This may only take a few minutes.
3. •               Occasionally have an evening or a morning in Noble Silence (defined as highly aware silence). No Mind stuff. No TV, No Papers, No Radio. No computers. No thought (well….. as little as possible… notice, as the alert observer, any thoughts that do occur)