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The School of Greatness
End Suffering by Changing This One Thing | Eckhart Tolle
01:35:20
Most of your suffering isn't coming from your life situation - it's coming from the story your mind tells you about it. In this conversation with spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, you'll discover how to stop arguing with reality and find genuine peace by learning to live fully in the present moment.
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- [00:01]
Lewis Howes
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- [01:52]
Eckhart Tolle
Millions of people in this world live with this heaviness and they don't realize this heaviness that they called my life is actually a narrative that they tell themselves. That mind made sense of self is ultimately fiction. And you see how insane that is. You've been one of my great inspirations here on the planet, guided millions and
- [02:13]
Lewis Howes
millions of people to an understanding of
- [02:16]
Interviewer
who they really are.
- [02:17]
Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart Tolle, your relationship with the present world is dysfunctional. Your entire life is dysfunctional. Make the present moment your friend. Then your whole life begins to change.
- [02:27]
Interviewer
If someone watching or listening is saying, well, my present is really challenging right now. How can I actually enjoy the present when I'm in breakdown everywhere?
- [02:35]
Eckhart Tolle
The problem is lives in the mind. To get out of that,
- [02:45]
Interviewer
I've got a number of topics today. One being about The Law of Attraction. I want to talk about stress and anxiety. I want to talk about why people suffer and how to get out of suffering. I want to talk about relationships and how to know when you're in a healthy dynamic in relationships. All these things I want to talk about today. But the first one, I felt like I was trapped in suffering for so many years, and I didn't know how to get out of this suffering. Anxious, stressful feeling that would come and go, that would ruminate at night, that would keep me up at night, that would make me anxious in social settings, that would make me feel like I wasn't good enough. And I know people feel a sense of suffering, anxiety, overwhelm and stress today, which seems like more than ever. I'm curious, with all of your wisdom and experience, how can we overcome or eliminate stress and suffering and anxiety in our lives when it seems to be crippling us?
- [03:49]
Eckhart Tolle
Usually, if you are not conscious of how your mind operates, and many people still are not conscious of how their mind operates, they locate all the source of their troubles outside themselves. So they perceive the whatever their life situation is. And every life situation is to some extent problematic. There's no life situation that is totally perfect where everything is going well, no matter how much you practice positive thinking, which is of course a wonderful thing to do. Nevertheless, there will always be things that are problematic in every life situation. So life always challenges you. No matter what stage you're at in your life, you get new challenges. Even if you are highly conscious or, let's say, enlightened. Even the enlightened person still gets challenged by life situations. And that's a good thing. We may come back to that a little bit later. The beginning of an awakening for people out of their suffering is the realization that most of the psychological suffering. Because this is what we're talking about. We're not talking about toothache or anything like that. We're talking about psychological suffering. The psychological suffering arises from stories that you tell yourself in your mind about situations about your life or your life situation. As a practical exercise to introduce this teaching to people, I sometimes recommend this next time you find yourself in a situation in which suffering arises. And suffering, of course, is a generic term. It can come in many forms. On one end of the spectrum, suffering is just feeling irritated or upset about something. It might be a minor thing, but feel irritated. The other end of the spectrum, there's deep despair, deep depression and sadness, or extreme forms of anxiety, panic, and all that. So you have the two, and in between there's a wide range of different forms of suffering that arise. And very often they are not recognized as suffering by people. If you're not conscious of how your mind operates, you don't even know that you are suffering. You don't even know that there is another way, that there would be another way in which you could experience this particular situation. So I recommend next time you find you become upset about something or irritated, which is a form of, minor form of suffering experiment, I say, let's imagine a situation that these things happen quite often to people. You're in a lineup. Let's say it's at the airport. Airport is a source where often people experience psychological suffering because things don't go the way they expect them to go.
- [07:15]
Interviewer
Yes, especially these days.
- [07:18]
Eckhart Tolle
So you're in a lineup, it's not moving, you're getting more and more irritated and upset. Or it could be anywhere. You're waiting, but it's not happening. You're waiting there or in a traffic time where on the telephone nobody's answering, just to get automated message that says your call is important to us and the approximate waiting time is 45 minutes or whatever. And you feel more and more. You get angry and irritated. Now I recommend the following practice. Because you're standing there or waiting there, you might as well practice ask yourself, how would I experience this situation if I did not add any interpretation or any thought to it? How would I experience this moment if I didn't add any thought to it, if I did not interpret it in any way, if I just allowed this to be as it is without burdening it with this baggage of thought? So, okay, let's say you're standing in this lineup and it's. You're very irritated. So how would I experience this if I did not? In other words, if I did not in my mind say this is bad and all the other thoughts that come after that? Because when you say this is bad, then the next thought comes, my life is bad. And you get a whole string of associated thoughts that are negative. How would I experience this moment without adding any thought to it? Okay, so there you stand. And this would bring your attention into the present moment. And so your attention moves into the present moment. And in this present moment, you're standing there and feel you're breathing, you're looking around, people moving, whatever the role is you find yourself in, you're breathing, you're perceiving things, people. And suddenly you may find that this moment is actually free of suffering. The suffering did not arise, was not caused by the External circumstance. It was caused by the narrative in your mind about this circumstance. That's a huge distinction. And this is you begin to live consciously when you realize this. Until you realize that you live unconsciously, which means in spiritual terms, to live unconsciously is to be totally identified with whatever your mind is saying. I should call it the voice in the head, the narrative in your mind that tells you about how good, how bad things are, how they should be. They are, but they shouldn't be. They should be different, but they are as they are always in this moment. You can't change this moment, so you become aware. This was discovered, by the way, 2,000 years ago by not very well known ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus. And he said, the most of your suffering is derived from what your mind is telling you about the situation, but not from the situation itself. And that's an enormous realization. And that can be the beginning of an awakening to see that the narrative in your mind is mostly what causes the suffering. It is possible, of course, that an external situation may cause physical discomfort. Obviously, that's possible. Your legs are hurting or back is hurting, or it's too cold or too hot. Physical discomfort, of course that's possible. But that is not suffering in sense in which we use this term right here. Now, the psychological suffering. Unhappiness is another word you could use. It's a generic term for any form of negativity inside yourself. Unhappiness, suffering. So you begin to realize that most of that arises from a mental narrative about a situation or about your circumstances, but not from the circumstances themselves. And then you can begin to practice. Every time you feel upset is arising, some form of anger is arising, some form of negativity. Blaming people in situations and saying, this shouldn't be happening, or something is not happening, but it should be happening, or they should do this or they shouldn't do it. All kinds of narratives in your mind. So your spiritual awakening is you're beginning to be aware of what your mind is saying. The stories that you're telling yourself about situations, but also the stories you're telling yourself about what you call your life. Because there's millions of people in this world who live with a very painful sense of identity. They perceive their life as a burden. So they live with this heaviness, and they don't realize this heaviness that they call my life is actually a narrative that they tell themselves. And they say, that's me. All the things that have happened to me, the dreadful things in the past that people did to me. Or circumstances did to me, or maybe even the bad things that I did. So you get a very heavy identity built up and that becomes your sense of self. And people don't realize it's a story you're continuously telling yourself in your mind, but you are so identified with the story that you don't exist. You're outside of the story. So that is what in some spiritual traditions is called the self. The Buddha called it the self, which is the mind made sense of self, which the Buddha said, ultimately you recognize that that mind made sense of self is ultimately a kind of fiction that you live through. So now when you realize that this is the case, this means that at this point of realization, another dimension of consciousness has arisen in you, which is not your mind. We could call it awareness, or we could call it presence. So when you realize what your mind is doing, that is not part of the conceptual mind that works through stories and words and concepts. It is a deeper, or you could say deeper or higher dimension of consciousness that suddenly has arisen. I often call it presence. But another good word for it is awareness. So awareness is the ability to know what your mind is doing. And then the wonderful thing is at first it's just glimpses. When you detach from the mind, you say, oh, wow. And then you have moments when you're not suffering because you allow this moment to be as it is.
- [15:01]
Interviewer
But who are we when we detach from our own mind?
- [15:04]
Eckhart Tolle
Very good question. Yes. So at first you were identified with the conceptual mind, the story making mind. And your sense of identity was the
- [15:19]
Interviewer
story of me, my past, my memories, my beliefs, my.
- [15:24]
Eckhart Tolle
That's right.
- [15:25]
Interviewer
All these thoughts that are. That are accumulated in my. The bank of my mind from the past that I've told myself, this happened to me. This is what's wrong with me. This is why I'm not good enough, or this person did this or whatever.
- [15:37]
Eckhart Tolle
Exactly, exactly. Now, when the awareness arises, your sense of who you are, your sense of identity begins to shift from being lodged in the conceptual mind, the voice in the head, it goes to a deeper place and you realize who you are in your essence is actually the awareness itself. And that is an amazing realization. In other words, this is a dimension of consciousness that is. I call it beyond thought. Senching is a. Is a wonderful thing. Thinking is a very powerful tool for creating. However, if thinking is all we have and we look for our identity in the mind, then that is very limiting. If thinking is used as a tool, it's very powerful and empowering and can Be very creative. But if thinking becomes self serving, in other words, you're completely identified with this stream of thinking that never, for most people, never stops. All through the day, they're talking to themselves. There's a voice in the head, sometimes they talk, they say, I. Sometimes they talk to themselves. And you, you shouldn't have done that. You're not really.
- [17:19]
Interviewer
Yeah, all these things.
- [17:22]
Eckhart Tolle
So this is the most important thing in a person's life, and this is why we're here, is to experience this shift in consciousness so that increasingly in glimpses at first, but then increasingly your sense of who you are is the space of awareness, the presence of.
- [17:48]
Interviewer
Does that mean there's two of us?
- [17:50]
Eckhart Tolle
One could say that there is. On the one hand, I sometimes call it, on the one hand, you have your form identity. Your form is the most physical body, which is the first thing people identify with. But really it's not the physical body, it's the mental image of my body, which they may be happy about. Or either the body can be a source of pride or it can be a source of shame, or anything in between. And so people identify with my body. That's the first form identification. And the next is the psychological form of me. All the things that I identify with in my past, the past makes up who I think I am. All the past conditioning, starting in childhood, the way the culture in which you grow up, the family in which you grow up, all those things become part of your identity. So you have form, I call it form identity on the one hand. And everybody obviously has one. No matter how conscious you are, you continue to have a physical body until you don't. And you have a form identity, a psychological form. But there is a deeper identity also that. And this is spiritual awakening. That is, I call it essence identity. Your essence. And your essence is. If we want to put. We use the term awareness and we use the term presence. But another term we can use, what that really is is consciousness. The essence of who you are is consciousness, the light of consciousness itself. And this is something to be experienced. You cannot understand conceptually what it is that I'm talking about unless you experience in this moment, perhaps, well, it's the only moment there is. Unless you experience what that means that you are, in essence, you are consciousness, the space or the light of consciousness. Between two thoughts, for example, sometimes there's a thought that comes to an end, another thought hasn't arisen yet. You have a gap of 5 seconds or 10 seconds. And this is an experiential thing to realize. Yourself as consciousness. It implies that at first, for very brief instances, the mind becomes still. It subsides, but you are still there. So when you are not, let's say, let's assume that you let go of any memory of your past because you don't need it right now. You don't remember your past at all, or your name or anything. And you're not thinking about future. In fact, you're not thinking at all. But you are aware. You're aware of your sense perceptions, but you're not interpreting sense perceptions. You're allowing sense perceptions to be now, who or what are you? When you're not telling yourself who or what you are, who or what are you without the story? And some people are afraid of that. They're so attached to the story, they can't let go. But it's a wonderful practice for some people. They only let go when the story that they have their, that they call their life becomes so painful that they can't stand it anymore. And then sometimes they experience a breakthrough.
- [21:54]
Lewis Howes
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Interviewer
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- [21:59]
Lewis Howes
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- [24:04]
Interviewer
Why do so many people hold on to their. Their pain identity, their past story for decades sometimes? Why do they hold onto it so long when you might see their friends and family, seeing that they're suffering and struggling, but they're unwilling to break free of this old identity or current identity they've been holding onto for so long? Sometimes, like you said, people will finally get so bad, they finally let that identity go. But why does it take an extreme, horrible breakdown or pain for people to finally say, you know, this old story of mine, this old identity doesn't work for me anymore. I want to let it go and step into a new identity. Why is that so challenging for people?
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Eckhart Tolle
Well, it's. We all inherit. It goes back thousands of years in a collective consciousness or unconscious, humanity will all inherit this kind of dysfunction. Of course, another word for that is the ego. It is the human ego. Ego. Sometimes when people use the term ego, they interpret it in different ways. The ego that's used by Freud, the Freudian ego, and other egos. But when I use the term ego or when it's used in a spiritual context, ego simply means complete identification with your mind, with the thinking, the mental, emotional makeup of you. That's ego's complete identification with that. And so that's so deeply ingrained. Every human being inherits that kind of dysfunction. And so it's so hard to let go because it's so deeply ingrained by the conditioning of your mind. And so some people need an enormous amount of suffering. And even with that Some people don't awaken even then. They become unhappy until they die, or they die even at an early age because the body can't stand the unhappiness anymore. It isn't functioning properly anymore because the mental state interferes with the otherwise harmonious functioning of the body. So they make themselves ill through stress.
- [26:26]
Interviewer
Right.
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Eckhart Tolle
So we are faced with. It's an enormous. It's also very. It's a challenging and wonderful thing to realize that your purpose here, beyond any purpose that you might have on a personal level, which also has a function, but your deeper purpose is to evolve as a conscious being and to go beyond the ego here so that consciousness evolves because you are only. You are an expression of universal consciousness. And universal consciousness throughout the universe is awakening. We live in an awakening universe. So gradually life forms, in our case the human life form, begins to awaken into a higher level of consciousness.
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Interviewer
Yes.
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Eckhart Tolle
So. The essence here is realizing the possibility of living in this different state of consciousness where you're not necessarily always immediately thinking and interpreting things.
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Interviewer
And if there's someone, if there's someone watching or listening that is thinking themselves. You know what? I'm just feeling pain psychologically, kind of off and on consistently. And I haven't been able to figure out how to break free and feel a sense of true harmony internally, true peace. Yes, of course there's challenges that are going to come our way as human beings, you know, as we continue to grow, but as a baseline peace and harmony, and they just can't figure out how to get there. What type of application or what do people need to be aware of and then take action on in order to start working towards inner peace and harmony.
- [28:31]
Eckhart Tolle
Right? Yes, good question. Well, a good entry point is the present moment that. See, the present moment is the. I sometimes call it the portal into that state of consciousness that we call presence, awareness. Now, the, the. The egoic mind, as I call it, the egoic mind is not really interested in the present moment, and it usually tries to obscure the present moment. It's interested in some other imagined moment, but not past.
- [29:11]
Interviewer
The future.
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Eckhart Tolle
Worried.
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Interviewer
Yeah.
- [29:14]
Eckhart Tolle
Yes. It ignores the present moment. But the, the first realization is the absolute importance of the present moment in your life. It's a foundation for everything. And your relationship to the present moment determines how the future evolves. What we call future, which by the way, never arrives because when it arrives, it's again the present moment.
- [29:45]
Interviewer
Yes.
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Eckhart Tolle
So the realization that all you ever have, all that you can ever experience is intrinsically linked with the present moment. It's inseparable from the present moment. Your entire life unfolds in and as the present moment that all there ever is. When the past happened, it was the present moment. It couldn't happen anywhere else. And when you remember the past, you remember it in the present moment. The future, when the future comes, when tomorrow comes, it won't be tomorrow anymore. It will be the now. There was a, a British pub in London that had. I lived in London for many years. They had a sign on the bar that says free beer tomorrow. And of course tomorrow never comes. So the sign is always true.
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Interviewer
That's funny.
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Eckhart Tolle
You go the next day. No, tomorrow, tomorrow.
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Interviewer
Wow, that's funny.
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Eckhart Tolle
So tomorrow actually never comes. Of course we need to make plans. On a practical level, the future is indispensable. We needed future for us to get together here to talk stipulate day and time for connecting. So on a practical level, we cannot do without future. But on a deeper level, on a deeper psychological level, it's important to realize that the future as such does not actually exist because all you can ever experience or have is the present moment. Yes. So that's the starting point. Begins with the realization of the absolute primary importance of the present moment. This is all you ever have. So you might as well have a good relationship with the present moment. Because if your relationship with the present moment is dysfunctional, your entire life is dysfunctional. Right.
- [32:01]
Interviewer
So how do we. So how do. If someone watching or listening is saying, well, my present is really challenging right now. Yes, I'm, I'm, I've got a lot of debt. You know, I feel I've got some sickness in my body and my health is not there. My, you know, I'm going through a divorce or breakup. The career is not as good as I want it to be. There's some type of pain in the present.
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Eckhart Tolle
Yeah.
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Interviewer
How can I actually enjoy the present when I'm in breakdown everywhere? Yeah.
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Eckhart Tolle
Let's leave aside for a moment. Physical pain, it's another story. But the psychological pain that's there is again associated with certain situations. It's associated with your life situation, which may be problematic on some level. Whether it's financial or relationship or work situation or living situation or health situation. It's very likely that at any given time your life situation will be problematic on at least one of these levels. And sometimes it's not one, it's two or three or four becomes really problematic. You lose all your money, you lose your job, your wife leaves you or you lose your home. These things can do Sometimes happen. So you have that. And again, that's usually these life challenges, situational challenges are usually perceived as being part of the present moment, but they're not really the present moment. They are what is called, what I call your life situation. But other than your life situation, you have something that I call your life. Life situation exists in time. Life is now and never not now. And since your life is now, you have to ask yourself, yes, I have all these problems. I'm not know how I'm going to pay the rent maybe, or my relationship is problem. I have to, I'm in the middle of divorce proceedings. All these things that happen to people, or I've just been let go, my company has collapsed or whatever, or it might collapse, maybe it's doing well, but it may not do well next year. All kinds of things are perceived as problematic, which sometimes are real and sometimes are just imagination. That again, we need to differentiate between when people say they're having big problems, sometimes they are just in the mind because they think of things that might go wrong. And other times there are actually real challenges happening around you. But here, again, it's to single out the present moment, not to ignore action that you might take or have to take in order to change certain situations. Is there any action that I can take? That's a secondary question. It's important, but it's secondary. Primary question. I often ask people, what problem do you have at this moment? And then they usually start by saying, well, I'm running out of money, or I'm living in this unpleasant this place, whatever, and say, no, no running out of money. It's not this, just this moment right here and now. What problem do you have here and now in this moment? And then you look around, maybe you become aware of that you're breathing and you look around. And then reluctantly, sometimes people have to admit, well, okay, I'm ready to admit that at just this moment there isn't actually a problem. The next one there might be, but the next one is again, of course, at this moment you may have a challenge that you immediately need to deal with. If you're going for a walk and you encounter a wild animal coming towards you, you don't say, I don't have any problems at this moment. That's a challenge that you need to deal with. But we wouldn't call it a problem. I mean, I sometimes go for walks in the forest. Occasionally there are bears here. So if you encounter a bear, that is not a problem, it's a challenge and you deal with it. Either you run away or you don't. Whatever you do, deal with it. The problem is lives in the mind. So to get out of that is to give much more attention to the present moment and realize that in the present moment the problem cannot survive.
- [37:10]
Interviewer
Say that one more time in the present moment.
- [37:12]
Eckhart Tolle
The problem, any problem you have cannot survive in the present moment. Because problem is a burden that you carry in your mind, your mental, emotional field. That's what a problem is. The rest is situations and circumstances. Either you leave them alone if there's nothing you can do, or you take some action, but they're not a problem. Either you act or you don't act. And if you don't act, you take your attention into the present moment and see that it's actually okay. And I've had often get correspondence from people in prison. They're in prison. And through my foundation, we are sending thousands of thousands of books to prisons. And so. And for prisoners to read. I often get communication. People realize that in their prison cell. They realize that we're actually. I have no problem. In other words, they come to a complete alignment with the present moment. There's no longer an entity that says this should not be happening because that's where the suffering arises. And of course, prison is a situation where you probably can't take much action, where you can try to escape, but you probably won't succeed.
- [38:34]
Interviewer
Right? Right.
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Eckhart Tolle
Right.
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Interviewer
You've got to accept and surrender.
- [38:37]
Eckhart Tolle
Yes. So there's always the action may need to be taken. But if no action is possible, then you come to place of surrender. But it's positive surrender, not negative surrender. Positive surrender is an uncompromising yes to the present moment. An uncompromising yes to what is. That is a place of great inner power that arises with yes, this is what is. That's the starting point. So you're not arguing with the isness of things, because that's insane. You cannot argue with what is. And this constant arguing with what is, this actually amplifies the ego, the egoic consciousness. The ego loves to argue with what is. It needs to. It loves enemies. And the ego makes the present moment into an enemy. Can you see how insane that is? You make the present moment into your enemy because that's all you ever have. That means you make your whole life into an enemy because your whole life is the present moment, right?
- [39:55]
Lewis Howes
Right.
- [39:55]
Eckhart Tolle
So I sometimes make the present moment your friend, not your enemy. Make the present moment your friend. Then your whole life begins to change. Because what we call future is just an extension of Your state of consciousness in the present moment. So if your state of consciousness is negative, it is very likely that you will experience much more negativity in the so called future. If you're in the present moment, you're in a place of acceptance, of positive acceptance, then it's very likely that the present so called future, I always say so called future, because the future as such doesn't exist. It's always when it comes, it's a now. So the so called future reflects your state of consciousness in the present moment. So that's really a very important realization. So that is the absolute importance of your state of consciousness here and now. What is your state of consciousness now? Rather than thinking that something else is more important than my state of consciousness. So in any situation you're faced with, any situation, what is the state of consciousness with which you face the situation? Are you in a state of resistance or negativity towards the situation? Because in any endeavor that you undertake, inevitably obstacles will arise. In anything. You want to create something new obstacle. But obstacles come in many forms, sometimes in the following human beings who don't like you to do what you're doing. Or it can come in the form of other structures that are in society, the rigid structures. And you get all kinds of bureaucratic obstacles or whatever the obstacles are. So how do you face an obstacle? What is your state of consciousness when an obstacle arises? Do you immediately become angry? Do you become or despondent? Or do you start complaining in your mind of people and talking about others, how awful this situation is and complaining? Or are you able to just immediately say this is what is. So you face the obstacle. Not in a state of resistance, come from a state of power. This is what is. And then when you are in that state of presence, very often the right action arises spontaneously. Then you do you find yourself doing the right thing? Because you're not making the situation into an enemy. And this is very important if you want to achieve great things. A huge obstacle for people is to start complaining and building up stress when things go wrong. In other words, things shouldn't be happening. So they become negative, they become unpleasant. They become unpleasant to people, colleagues and people they work with. And a lot of negative energy can build up in a company and so on. And that is not some of the most effective people in this world. There are perhaps a few. They don't work with negativity, they work immediately with a positive attitude. They don't make the present moment into an enemy. They might never have heard any spiritual teaching. So perhaps that is some kind of innate wisdom that they have. Or maybe they've learned this lesson in the past lifetime. Who knows? So the important is always start with the present moment. And again, what problem do I have now? Is there a problem here and now, just this moment? Well, actually, no, not really. The problem isn't here. The problem is in the mind, but it's not here. That's a place of power. And then, then you become aligned with the power of now, the power of the present moment, which is the power of consciousness itself. Beyond the ego, far powerful. The ego is only the reflected light. The moon reflects the light of the sun, and the ego reflects the light of consciousness. It's only. It's not power. There's no power in ego itself. In the same way there's no light in the moon, it's just reflected light. Wow.
- [44:55]
Interviewer
Yeah, that's powerful.
- [44:59]
Lewis Howes
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- [46:41]
Interviewer
been fascinating so far. I'm sure we could talk about, you know, consciousness and suffering for hours. But I want to get to a few other concepts here. One of them being about the law of attraction because you mentioned kind of synchronicities and serendipities and kind of this idea of when we align ourselves to consciousness and to more harmony thoughts, to more peaceful thoughts. In my experience, things just come, you know, the right things that I'm intending. It's. They happen very quickly and unexpectedly. I would love to hear your thoughts on your definition of the law of attraction, but also maybe the three habits that you see people doing the most that hurt them from attracting effortlessly using the law of attraction.
- [47:37]
Eckhart Tolle
Right? Well, the main mistake perhaps that people make is not coming from a place of fullness, but coming from a place of neediness and putting too much attention on what is the undesirable conditions that they want to get rid of. But, but, but mentally almost continuously focusing on the undesirable condition, like not enough money, for example, which is a problem for many people.
- [48:14]
Interviewer
So, so let's use, let's use money for the example then. The law of attraction. With money, how could we attract more wealth or financial abundance in our life Using the Law of Attraction?
- [48:27]
Eckhart Tolle
Yeah. Well, first of all is the acknowledgment of abundance that is already here and now. And not focusing on the lack of abundance that is here now, which you could find by thinking about it, but to actually focus on where is the abundance that I can find here now? And that is all around you. It is in nature. When you look at the abundance of nature, the multiplicity of life forms, the wonder of nature, the abundance of even, or let's say you're in a city, you can look at appreciate all the things that you see around you. You don't need to necessarily own it or buy it, just appreciate it. And so this first, the appreciation of the goodness of life that is always all around you. Even if you have no money, there's still the goodness of life is all around you. You see it all around you. The sunshine, I mean the sun is the ultimate symbol of abundance because it gives energy of itself almost eternal I mean, eventually the sun will die, but as far as we are concerned, it's virtually eternal. It pours out energy continuously. And at some point we will realize that even on the level of energy, the universe is infinitely abundant. So we no longer need things that we're using now, fossil fuels and those things, we have access to other forms of energy that are more helpful. But the abundance is all around you. Let's say you walk your past in the city. You're walking past a flower shop. You look at, wow, such beauty, appreciation, even to seeing a beautiful man or woman or nice or. Or even a beautiful car. Oh, I love that. Not, why don't I have that car? Why does he have that car? It's all egoic much narratives that make you unhappy. To appreciate nature, of course, is very powerful. And then you do appreciate the aliveness in your body that you're breathing. And you can actually feel that the body. Many people can't feel that. I call it the inner body awareness. You feel that every cell of your body is pervaded with a sense of aliveness, energy. And you can feel that. That is abundance. So there's abundance of life all around you. You can feel the life within you also. And so we could. Some people call that gratitude. I call it more appreciation. The appreciation of the abundance of life that is always around you. That's a wonderful starting point. Okay, so you're not focusing on lack, you're focusing on abundance.
- [51:42]
Interviewer
And even, even when you don't have any, if you feel like you don't have anything, you can find abundance around you.
- [51:48]
Eckhart Tolle
Yes, acknowledge it. The good things of life, acknowledge. But even the seemingly insignificant things, like when I look out of the window, I sometimes this tree is out here right now. I can look out this. I can see there's a slight breeze and the branches are swaying slightly in the wind. It's beautiful. And there's the tree in all its majesty and stillness. It's been there for 100 years, and that's wonderful. I don't need to own that tree. I mean, owning in that sense is ultimately a bit meaningless anyway. Yes, I own this house where I'm right now, but at some point I'll be gone. And so what does it mean the house somebody else will own the house? Owners are secondary. I'm not saying to let go of ownership sometimes can give stability to your life on the practical level, but there's something more important. So this appreciation, if you want to call it gratitude, some people recommend, I think Oprah said that she has had for many, many years a notebook or journal where she writes down every day things that she's grateful for. And these are usually seemingly insignificant things, but it's important not to overlook that. And I don't think she's writing down, I'm grateful that I have a private debt, or I'm grateful that I have $2.5 billion in the bank. She writes down the small things that
- [53:33]
Interviewer
every day I'm grateful for my garden. I'm grateful I get to plant a flower today. I'm grateful that I get to go on a walk with my friends. I'm grateful that I woke up today.
- [53:42]
Eckhart Tolle
The next thing is. The second thing could say is giving, to give energy to other people. Appreciation itself is already a form of certain outflow of energy. When you appreciate this tree beauty, there is an energy connection with a tree. The consciousness connects you with a tree. And kindness is part of giving kindness to another person. Not because you want anything from that person, but because it feels so good to have this sense of. We could call it goodwill that flows out of you towards another person. Even if you just hold the door open for somebody, or it's a remark or little, lovely, I love your dress, or whatever you say, if it's genuine, or to say an encouraging word to somebody, or to whatever it may be, a smile or smile at somebody, even that is a form of giving. This connection with another. Kindness is a very powerful thing. So you are giving. You're not. You're not. The more you give that it's in the law of attraction or nature. As you give, it must come back to you in another form. But it doesn't work if you give out of an obligation that you feel you should be giving. Or it needs to be a genuine sense of wanting to give and feeling how good it feels to give. Not because mentally you feel you always need to help people, because otherwise you don't think of yourself as a good person or something. That's all mind stuff, but to experience how good it feels to give. So we have, on the one hand, appreciation. Gratitude and appreciation are kind of sailing, then giving every day in whatever form. And the next thing is that obviously Jesus already, in one sentence, one could say, told us the essence of manifesting and how it works. And he said, whenever you pray for something that you want, believe that you already have it and it will be given to you. Yes, there's the key. Now the important thing is it did not say, believe that you will have it. He said, believe that you already have it. Now this may not be immediately clear to people. How do I do that? How do I believe that I already have it when I know that I don't have it?
- [57:05]
Interviewer
Right, right, right. How do you get that belief of having it before knowing, feeling, tasting, smelling the thing that you want?
- [57:14]
Eckhart Tolle
Yes. So you feel the thing. It is already a mental reality in your mind. How do you feel now that you have it in your mind? How does it feel? And this feeling is really where the power of manifestation lies. But what is that feeling? Because that feeling of having it already and feeling, this deep sense of satisfaction is really connecting with the deeper power within yourself, which is the power where all sense of aliveness originates. There it's a deeper sense of aliveness that comes from consciousness itself. So it might differ from person to person. One person might think, okay, what I want is a. A big house with a. Overlooking the ocean, or whatever. And then you feel yourself, you're already there experiencing that. Another person might think, well, what I want is to have this great company that does good things in this world, and how does that feel? But you might find that the feeling is actually basically always the same. Whether your mind says, that's the house overlooking the ocean now why? Or the other person says, well, this is the company that I'm the head of that's doing great things in this world. The feeling is basically the same feeling. And the feeling is a feeling of fullness, of life, completeness. That is power. So when you feel this feeling of fullness and then you associate it with a mental image, that is the power of manifestation there. But the feeling itself is beyond the mental image and is beyond whatever form you are able to manifest in this world. Because that is the feeling of the inherent sense of aliveness that comes when you go deeper into yourself and experience the presence that you are. To know yourself as the presence is inherently joyful and powerful. To know yourself as so. And that is you manifest from a place of fullness, not from a place of lack. Fullness is already there. And that also means if for some reason it doesn't manifest, because not everybody's desires manifest. I mean, I don't know if it's still happening. La, for example, if you go to any good restaurant in la, it's more than likely that the waiter or waitress will be actors waiting for their big breakthrough. And it's just not possible for so many people to have the big breakthrough in LA as actors. Some may do, few may do, but most probably won't. But they probably have other breakthroughs that perhaps are Much more important than what their ego tells them is important.
- [60:40]
Interviewer
And to add to that, I love this, what you're sharing here, because I want people to really feel this and understand this and embrace it. Because when we try to manifest from lack of, it's going to be this needy energy, which was your first point that kind of kills the dream of the law of attraction. And when we manifest from a place of fullness like you spoke of, like feeling a feeling of fullness, wholeness, excitement, abundance, joy inside of us. And if it doesn't happen, if that dream doesn't come to us in the next year or five or 10 years, then we've lived a full, rich life. Every moment till that moment. Like we've, we've lived a full year of feeling excited and passionate and good about ourselves. And that energy is magnetic. You will draw in great people, partners, relationships, opportunities that maybe you couldn't have dreamed of. Because the energy you, you gave into the world like you talked about, and I think that's the, the big point for me is the dream and the idea you have. Maybe your ego wants, maybe you won't have it, but man, you'll live a great, beautiful, rich life in the process of pursuing it.
- [61:56]
Eckhart Tolle
Very good point. So in other words, the journey is what matters. The arriving at some destination is the end point, but it's secondary. It's a journey. It's always the journey, it's always now. That's what matters. And so sometimes what you wanted to manifest does not happen, but something else manifests that could be even better. In fact, in many cases is much better than what you have.
- [62:25]
Interviewer
Absolutely.
- [62:27]
Lewis Howes
Yeah.
- [62:27]
Interviewer
I always wanted to be a professional athlete, and I played professional football for about a year and a half before I got injured in the injury. I broke my wrist and I was wearing a cast and I had a surgery and I had a cast on for six months. And it took about a year and a half for me to use my, my wrists again from the injury. And during that time, I was in a state of extreme sadness and a loss and a grief of this identity that I once had and this dream that I once had that I was working so hard for my whole life to manifest, to create. And then all of a sudden, this injury broke the, my abilities to do that. And I remember thinking, what am I going to do with my life? Like, what's the point? 23, 24 years old, I'm like, what am I supposed to do now? And it led me into this journey that I'm on now of doing this interview series and podcast for the last 10 years that I much rather have this life than the life of a professional athlete. Now, like, and sometimes, like you said, going back to the beginning of this, if we can accept and surrender in the positive way to see what good can come, it may be challenging in a moment, but it's been a blessing since then.
- [63:40]
Eckhart Tolle
Yes. That's a lovely story. That's how it actually works. And another thing to mention is, let's say you do. Let's say you do manifest what it is you wanted to manifest when you come from this place of fullness you do not have. Yes, you have an appreciation of what you have achieved, but you don't have an excessive attachment to what you have achieved. So let's say you are able to manifest that you have a house overlooking the ocean and you manifest it. There you have it. And one day when you get home, you find your houses fallen into the ocean. It's gone.
- [64:29]
Interviewer
Right.
- [64:29]
Lewis Howes
Right.
- [64:30]
Eckhart Tolle
So the whole thing that you worked so hard for to achieve is suddenly gone. But this place of fullness that enabled you to manifest that is still there. It's beyond outer forms.
- [64:48]
Interviewer
Yeah. And you feel full in life. Maybe there's a moment of sadness during that. But if you're not attached to the physical things you've manifested. I'm sure if I lost my home, I feel like it's a sanctuary. It's a. It's a. It's a beautiful, peaceful space. But I've lived in two bedroom apartments for most of my life and I felt like those were peaceful places for me. And it's not like. I'm sure I'd be sad for a minute, but then I could also create the sense of fullness in the next space.
- [65:18]
Eckhart Tolle
Exactly. And I have this like. See, I. For a long time until, until my 32nd year, I. My main form of transportation was, except other than public transport was a bicycle.
- [65:37]
Interviewer
That's beautiful.
- [65:39]
Eckhart Tolle
So I got my driver's license when I was 30 and my first car when I was 32 and that was a very.
- [65:46]
Lewis Howes
What city were you in?
- [65:47]
Interviewer
What, what country city?
- [65:48]
Eckhart Tolle
London. London and Cambridge I lived at that time. And the. I loved my bicycle. I just wonder. I. I appreciated it. I loved something else. I was just looked at, it was standing there and I had a love. And then somebody gave me. I was poor at the time. Somebody gave me an older car and I loved that. And. And then I was able to. Got a little bit of money. I was able to buy the cheapest car I could find. It Was called Lada. It's a Russian lake. They still make them, but they're a bit better now than they used to be. And people would laugh at these cars because they were notorious for breaking down. But it was very, very cheap when I bought this and it never broke down. I loved that car. It never broke down, I must admit. Very embarrassing on hills because he could. You were holding everybody.
- [66:44]
Interviewer
You had to get out and push it.
- [66:45]
Eckhart Tolle
Yeah, yeah, I loved that car. And the. And then I. I eventually left England and I sold it. A friend of mine was interested. I sold it to him and two or three weeks after he bought it, it broke down and. And couldn't get repaired anymore. It was incredible. It's almost f is because I have this kind of relationship even with so called inanimate objects. I think that even there, there is a. There's a glimmer of consciousness in everything really. That's how I sense things. There's a glimmer of consciousness. So.
- [67:25]
Interviewer
And when you have an intention and an appreciation for the thing that you're with the bike, the. The cheap car, it tends to take care of you when you take care of it with your energy. Right.
- [67:40]
Lewis Howes
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Interviewer
on what matters Most.
- [68:02]
Lewis Howes
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- [69:16]
Interviewer
I moved to LA. I 1112 years ago. I didn't have a car in my 20s. I had like a $500 car that broke down after six months. And so I walked everywhere in Columbus, Ohio for about a year. And then I moved to New York City. I didn't need a car. And then I moved to LA and I bought a $4,000 car. It was like a 1997 year old car and it's probably one of the oldest cars on the road. I drove it every day. It was a $4,000 car. And for, for being in LA, you know, this world that's, that's kind of like looked down upon. It's like, oh, you don't have this nice new car. I drove it for five or six years. I loved it. It was like, it got me from place to place. It was comfortable, it was reliable and I was happy with it. So yeah, it took care of me and I took care of it.
- [70:05]
Eckhart Tolle
Yes. And that's, that's. I feel the same. And then later, then finally I had the money. I bought a, an expensive car which I still have bought it 16 years ago. It's now kind of classic and I love that as much as I love the bicycle years ago.
- [70:27]
Interviewer
Yeah, that's cool.
- [70:28]
Eckhart Tolle
It's the same. And many people of course have an egoic identification with their car. But what we are talking about is very different. It's not that it's not an egoic. If I had had an egoic identification with my seat Russell Carr, my ego would have felt diminished because often people laughed at it all. Look, this car. But I didn't mind. It was fine. I didn't have egoic identification and I don't have an egoic identification with this more expensive classic car that I have now that's 16 years old. But I still, I love it. I have a kind of relationship with it. If something happened to it that I would let go. It's fine.
- [71:13]
Interviewer
Right, right.
- [71:14]
Eckhart Tolle
Everything eventually leaves you and unless you leave it, it leads you.
- [71:20]
Interviewer
Yeah, that's interesting. That's beautiful. Was there anything else that you think hurts people from the law of attraction and manifesting what they want? We talked about the neediness and coming from a place of lack.
- [71:33]
Eckhart Tolle
Yeah, well, maybe one other thing. The sometimes whatever people want to manifest comes from an egoic place. The ego wants to by achieving this or that. The ego wants to feel more powerful than before. It wants to have an enhanced sense of identity through it. By showing to other people that you have more than others, it wants to show its superiority. The ego always looks for superiority. And so that could be. You may still get what you want, but your power will be greatly diminished if it's an egoic endeavor. But even with an ego Jerusalem, sometimes even that is, it could still work. With hard work and determination you might get it, but it won't make you happy. You, when you get it, you very quickly you will feel needy again.
- [72:43]
Interviewer
Interesting.
- [72:45]
Lewis Howes
Why is that?
- [72:46]
Interviewer
Why do you think?
- [72:47]
Eckhart Tolle
Why do.
- [72:48]
Interviewer
I'm sure you know a lot of very famous rich billionaires and people with lots of money who are still suffering and aren't happy inside once they got the thing they wanted. Why is it that people suffer and struggle when they have lots of money and have the big homes? Why this is still not enough?
- [73:07]
Eckhart Tolle
Yes. Well, to the ego it's never enough. To the ego, nothing. Because the ego is a sense of lack sense of not good enough, not enough yet. So it's never enough for the ego. And if you have everything that the world tells you, tells you you really should be happy now because you've got, and I've met people like that, they've got money, huge amounts of money, they've got fame and recognition and the private jet they've got can to do anything, go anywhere at any moment. And that can be particularly bad, counterproductive, because you cannot fool yourself, the ego cannot fool itself by saying, when I get this, I'll be happy, because then you can still postpone the ego and say once I achieve that I'll be happy. But the person who already has everything, he or she cannot say that anymore because you have no way, there's no excuse anymore because you have everything and you're not happy. So then, and this is very often people then start taking drugs or engage in other kinds of seeking sensory satisfaction through substances or going from one relationship into another, having sex or whatever they do, because they can buy anything they want and they get getting more and more unhappy because the ego was there. And the ego will never be satisfied, no matter what you achieve in the course in miracles. It says. I don't know if you've in that it says you will always know whether the ego was at work when once you achieved hasn't satisfied you. That was the ego. So there's another saying that goes, there are two Ways of being unhappy. One is not getting what you want and the other one is getting what you want. Wow, that refers to the ego. So some people are unhappy because they don't get what they want. And the others unhappy because they get everything they want. But it's still ego.
- [75:34]
Interviewer
What do you think? How do you. How does someone be happy while they're on the path of trying to manifest, you know, more in their life more a better relationship or better qualities that they have in their current relationship? More career, success, money, things like this. How can they be happy? No matter what happens, it comes to you or it doesn't.
- [75:55]
Eckhart Tolle
Happiness starts with the alignment with the present moment. It can only arise if you are aligned with the present moment. I sometimes call that the vertical dimension of life, which is now and then. There's a horizontal dimension of life is where it's past and future and you have a goal you're working towards. That's fine. You have the horizontal dimension. And the vertical dimension is the present moment. The horizontal dimension is the dimension of becoming. You become good at something or you acquire something, you become something. There's an evolutionary process at work and that obviously has its place. It's there. But if you're exclusively focused on becoming and achieving, entertaining and acquiring, you're trapped on the horizontal. And you can never really enjoy the present moment. Because the present moment, the vertical dimensions here, now inseparable from the now. The cross, the symbol of the cross one could interpret as, which is an ancient, even predates Christianity. The symbol of a cross can be interpreted as pointing to the intersection between the horizontal and vertical dimension of life. That is, The importance then is to discover the dimension, the vertical dimension, which is the power of the now, the present moment. And then the horizontal dimension actually works better. And you're not dependent on it for your ultimate satisfaction. You're not dependent on any kind of achievement, attainment or whatever it is that the horizontal dimension for your art, it may give you some kind of satisfaction, but not the deepest satisfaction. The deepest satisfaction is inseparable from going more deeply into the present moment. And discover the essence of who or what you are as consciousness itself, presence here and now. In other words, you could say you sense the beingness of you. You sense that you are. And there is an enormous power there that has no form. You can't interpret it. It's the power of aliveness itself here and now. It goes far beyond who or what you are as a person. The person exists on the horizontal dimension, but there is a deeper dimension to who you are that is only discovered in the vertical dimension. In the vertical dimension, you are already complete. There's nothing to achieve there. You're already full and complete.
- [79:01]
Interviewer
That's so hard for people to. That's so hard for people to comprehend where they don't feel complete.
- [79:06]
Eckhart Tolle
On the horizontal, you're not complete and you'll never be complete.
- [79:09]
Interviewer
Gotcha.
- [79:11]
Eckhart Tolle
Because no matter what you achieve, if you become good at one thing, you lose something. There's always a world of polarities on the horizontal dimension that even I find that still you achieve great things. Before I used. I've been teaching spiritual awakening for many, many, many years. In the past, I had intimate groups of 10, 20 people. Now there's hundreds or thousands often come. Yeah, I don't have the close relationship with individuals anymore. It's just can't. I'm reaching many more people, but I've lost this closer connection with the people that I'm teaching. There's always a price to pay. On the other hand, I'm reaching far more people than before, but there's always a price to pay, even privacy. I'm not a great celebrity, but I do. Wherever I go, people say, oh my God. And the moment it happens, it's wonderful. I love the connection that I feel. But I do lose privacy because sometimes people watch. What's he eating? What's he doing? Why is he drinking coffee? Whatever.
- [80:27]
Interviewer
I thought he was spiritual. Yeah, yeah.
- [80:31]
Eckhart Tolle
So you lose something. The horizontal, there's like always gain and loss. The world of polarities and the. And the becoming. The becoming dimension you become again has a positive and a negative side. On the one hand, you can become stronger as you grow up, you become. You can become more knowledgeable, you become wealthier. But eventually the becoming becomes negative because then your body becomes weaker because you get old. Interesting. And maybe you lose something and then you become from the becoming. This, the polarities operate on the horizontal dimension, but it has. It's without the access to the vertical dimension. Thus it can satisfy you truly purely on the horizontal dimension. So the vertical dimension is present moment. To realize that the power of the present moment that is inseparable from who or what you are in your essence, the power of you. And that is not an egoic thing, because this you far transcends who or what you are as a person. It connects you with the identity of the universe itself. It's the I am without adding anything to it. In the Old Testament, prophet meets God and asks God, what is your name? And God says, I am the I am that is a very deep statement. That is the beingness itself. Beingness itself. And you can feel that. You can sense that here and now, when for a moment your mind subsides, you're not thinking anymore without making an effort. You're not thinking anymore. And who are you without any thought? You can't explain what it is, but you can sense that there is a light of consciousness. There is a presence, an inherent sense of aliveness. Sometimes people can feel it with their entire body. The entire body is pervaded by a sense of aliveness. You are all you. That's the ancient Greeks already said, know thyself as the most important thing in life. Know thyself. And that refers to the deepest knowing, knowing yourself as consciousness. And then the person still operates for a while. And it operates actually much better when you're connected to that which transcends the person. Right where in other. If you want, if you. For those people who are comfortable with theistic language, you could say that is. That connects you to God. That is a deeper connection to the source of all life. You're connected to that. I see the consciousness that you share with every human being. When you look at another human being, you interact with another human being. On the one level you have the personality horizontal dimension, the conditioning, mental emotional conditioning. You're interacting with that person, but you're also interacting with consciousness which is beyond the person. And when you can sense the consciousness that you are is also the consciousness that the other person is, you can sense the oneness of that consciousness. And that sensing of oneness is ultimately what deeper meaning of love. Love is to recognize the other as ultimately one with who or what you are one. The recognition. I would say love is the recognition of oneness. It's not the egoic love that says I need you. Don't you dare leave me, because if you do, I'll hate you. That's the egoic so called love. But the real love is to recognize yourself in the other. But in order to do that you need to first recognize yourself in yourself, beyond the person. So and. And that. That connects you with other humans in a very different way. This sense of connectedness that you then have. Yes, it's a one the word for it. What could you. There's a. A goodwill flows out from you towards others, even others that you might only meet casually for a few seconds. You can sense an outflow of goodwill and connectedness and feel so good to recognize there is a human being there. Or my interpretation of human being is the English language. Doesn't have a word that refers to both men and women. So you have to say human being. In German, you have a word, mensch, which is a human being. Could be either man or woman, but in English you have to say human being. And I love that. Because the human dimension is the person that lives on the horizontal dimension. The being is the essence of who you are. And it's our destiny to recognize our being, which is far beyond the person. And then you become this is the human, and this is the being. And then you are a true human being when you realize the being of yourself, because then you cleanse it in others too. And then you can love others. That's the beauty of it.
- [86:22]
Interviewer
You mentioned love just now. I'm curious about you. When do you feel the most loved? When you're going about your day? When do you feel the most loved? Personally,
- [86:36]
Eckhart Tolle
I don't differentiate between loving and being loved. It's all one. So I feel that the connection is there. The moment I interact with somebody, there is that connectedness. And sometimes people respond. Something within them responds back, and then you get the same energy back. They may not know why. For let's say you're. Let's say you're in a restaurant, and I'm in the restaurant and I'm ordering. The waiter, waitress comes. And so you have on the one hand, on the human level, you are the. The guest or the client in the restaurant. And this person is a server. That's on the human level. You have your identity. But is that all there is? No. The server is foiled. This is only a temporary function. It's not the real identity of this human being. And my identity is not to be a client or guest of this restaurant. It's a temporary thing. So am I able to recognize the being in this human? The human is the server. But behind that there's a being. And when I look at this person and I'm. There's a really. Let's see if I can describe it, how I experience it. While the person talks to me, there's a still presence. I listen through the still presence. In that still presence, I can sense beyond the human, the beingness of the other. Also, I can sense their beingness. And that is the connection. And then it sometimes happens that they can feel something. They feel acknowledged in their being, as they may not be able to interpret that or they may miss without you saying anything?
- [88:39]
Interviewer
Without you saying anything.
- [88:41]
Eckhart Tolle
Nothing to say. And so usually it means that they Often it means that they like you, they feel attracted to you, they love you as a person. They like to be in your presence. There's a positive response, and that is, one could say that is love coming back at you. So you send it out, and you don't always get it back. Sometimes the person may be so deeply trapped in their ego that. That nothing much gets through. And that's fine. That's where they're at at the moment. But it still feels good to feel this emanation. But very often when the emanation is reflected and then comes back and then you feel loved too. Of course, usually the other person doesn't understand it at deeper level, doesn't understand that what they love in you is not the person. It's something deeper and that connects both of you. So I feel it's always. The process is always mutual. I feel even when you love a flower, even the flower, there's a certain. This might sound a little mystical, but there's a certain response that you get of the way I support it sometimes when I recognize and appreciate the beauty of a tree or flower, this is similar because even the flower of the tree is a manifestation of consciousness at a different vibrational frequency from a human. So everything is a vibration of consciousness that has taken temporary form. So the flower, the tree are also a manifestation of consciousness. And when I recognize and appreciate the beauty of the flower or the tree, there is a sense of oneness. And at that moment, the tree can sense that it is being recognized, and it becomes aware of its own beauty through you. So you redeem nature. You give. You add something to nature by recognizing the sacredness and beauty of nature, you add something to nature. Wow. And then we can say nature loves you back too. You can say beautiful. So I sometimes recommend people should go. Go to a tree and allow the tree to teach you stillness, because the tree is there. It's deeply rooted in the earth and the. Its branches, and it's very still. It might have been there for 100 years, 200 years, very. It's still. You approach it and nature can teach you. Anything in nature can teach you that the stillness connect you with the dimension that's beyond egoic consciousness.
- [91:49]
Interviewer
Wow, this is beautiful. Eckhart is. Is there anything that you struggle with these days personally? Is there, you know, you've done this work and practiced it and taught it for so long. Is there anything you struggle or suffer with in your own life that is still a challenge?
- [92:06]
Eckhart Tolle
Oh, there's. Yeah, there are challenges. I'm not good at dealing with practical things so much anymore of life. Financial things and so on can feel as a bit of a burden sometimes. Yeah, the. The humans are. But otherwise, there's no suffering. I don't. I don't have periods of suffering at all. That's gone. The Yorns have. And just being and doing is another way of putting it. The being dimension is a vertical. The doing dimension is horizontal. The two are important. Some humans are more drawn towards doing, creating, manifesting.
- [93:01]
Interviewer
Yes.
- [93:01]
Eckhart Tolle
Others are more drawn towards being, appreciating what is and may not have. May not have many goals to achieve. They might be happy doing their gardening or whatever their field and want. And every human has to find a kind of balance between being and doing. Nobody probably is completely in the middle, or it's very hard to be completely in the middle. You're totally balanced between being and doing. I'm always more inclined to. I'm in the being dimension. And for a few years when I was younger, I experienced a kind of awakening. I was kind of so much in the being dimension that I lost interest in any kind of doing for a few years.
- [93:49]
Interviewer
Really.
- [93:50]
Eckhart Tolle
It was so. The present moment was so joyful and beautiful, and I had no money, nothing for a while. I had no home, but it was lovely, big, sitting on park benches. Present moment was so fulfilling. And then gradually I was able to start doing again, and now I am still. I love just be, just to be. To contemplate nature or even just to sit in a room and just be. But I'm able to do because I wrote the books, I do teachings, I travel, so I give talks and retreats. So I am doing, able to function on that level. But the irony is that all my doing is in the service of teaching being.
- [94:48]
Interviewer
That's great. So you'll do for a week, and then you're like, I'm gonna go be for a month. Yeah.
- [94:53]
Eckhart Tolle
Yeah.
- [94:55]
Interviewer
That's amazing. Eckhart, I want to be respectful of your time. I have two final questions, kind of quicker questions for you. But before I ask those, I want people to get your books again. The Power of Now is one that I read many years ago that I highly recommend to everyone. And also this book as well, which is. It's become, you know, more popular in the last few years. I feel like it's got this resurgence, even though I think it's 15 years. Fifteen years ago, you wrote it.
- [95:21]
Eckhart Tolle
I think, in fact, Oprah said. Oprah said, if you only read one book in your life, read A New Earth.
- [95:29]
Interviewer
A New Earth awakening to your life's purpose. So make sure you guys get both copies. Start in whichever one you want, but both of them are amazing. Also, if people want to connect with you, they can go to your website. We'll have everything linked up as well on here. And you're starting to get more content on social media, so make sure to follow ECKHART over on YouTube and all the different platforms that you're on. And I really want to acknowledge you before I ask these final two questions at guard for your level of service again, you could be 247 and sit in the woods and in the room and be a happy human being. Just being you've already done so much for humanity with your work, your message, workshops and everything you've done. So I acknowledge you for continuing to be of service, continuing to serve when you choose to, when you show up, when you deliver, when you're coming on here and doing this. I know this is going to reach millions of people over time and impact them profoundly. So I'm very appreciative and grateful to you for being a messenger of love, generosity of kindness, and teaching those who are struggling and suffering how to get back into alignment of who they truly are so they can be peaceful and in harmony in the now. So I really wanted to acknowledge you and appreciate you for taking the time these two final questions. First one is, is a hypothetical scenario, a question. I call this the three truths. So I'd like for you to imagine, even though you never imagined the future that much because you're always in the now. But I'd like for you to go there for a moment and imagine you get to live as long as you want to in this realm. But for whatever reason, it's the last day. And for whatever reason, in this hypothetical question, all your message is gone. It's got to go with you to the next place or it's just not in this world anymore. So your books, this interview, any workshop you've done online, it's. We don't have access to it, but you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three truths that you know are true for you. And this is all we would have to be reminded of your messages. What would be those three truths for you?
- [97:44]
Eckhart Tolle
Well, ultimately, the ultimate truth is one. And out of the one, you can extrapolate. And several other truths may arise out of one. The ultimate truth is realize who or what you are. Realize that you are in essence not a person. You are consciousness. You are manifestation of universal consciousness. You are the universe experiencing itself as a human. You are the consciousness of the universe experiencing itself briefly. But you are far beyond realize who or what you are beyond the person. So that's the ultimate truth. Then realize that you are not the ego, that is discovering who or what you are not, and realize the possibility of living without suffering, the suffering that's created by the human mind, the possibility of being free of suffering, free of unhappiness. And the way towards that is radical acceptance of the isness of the present moment, radical acceptance of the isness of now that will take you to a deep place of realization of who or what you are and you're not the ego. Realizing who you're not is important part of the kind of negative realization who you are not. Once you realize who or what you are ultimately not, then who or what you are emerges naturally.
- [99:42]
Interviewer
That's beautiful. Final question for you, Eckhart. What is your definition of greatness?
- [99:49]
Eckhart Tolle
Well, of course, as you know, one can give many, many definitions according to one's level of consciousness. But at the deepest level, greatness is Again, when you go to the deepest level, the answer is always the same. By the way, greatness is to live consciously, to embody consciousness in this lifetime, to embody the unconditioned consciousness in this lifetime, that is greatness. And then other things arise out of that. You affect the world in many different ways by living as consciousness and consciously rather than as an egoic entity. So then you, you begin to change the world. Even if you don't say I am going to change the world, it happens organically and naturally. And the way in which you experience the world is always a reflection of your state of consciousness. So you begin to experience a different world when you are aligned with the what I call the unconditioned consciousness, that is who or what you are in your essence, that is the greatness is to have fulfilled your purpose in this incarnation on this earth, and that is to be part of the evolving consciousness of the universe, that is greatness. To have fulfilled your purpose and all the outer conditions are secondary and you could theoretically you could have fulfilled your purpose even in the prison cell when you come to this realization.
- [101:45]
Lewis Howes
I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how
- [102:20]
Interviewer
we can support and serve you moving forward.
- [102:22]
Lewis Howes
And I want to remind you of no one is told told you lately
- [102:25]
Interviewer
that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
- [102:29]
Lewis Howes
And now it's time to go out
- [102:31]
Interviewer
there and do something great.
- [102:41]
Lewis Howes
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Eckhart Tolle
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Lewis Howes
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Eckhart Tolle
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Lewis Howes
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Eckhart Tolle
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Lewis Howes
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Eckhart Tolle
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Lewis Howes
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