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Each of the 10 Oprah Winfrey talks with Eckhart Tolle about Eckhart Tolle's book
"A New Earth" are divided into sections of approximately 12 minutes each.
The following table provides links to the transcripts of the Chapters
and to the Sections of these Chapters.
Each Section starts with a link to the audio-recording of the Section.
For example the link "Listen to Section 1.1" is a link to the audio-recording of Section 1.1.
By opening two different browser windows you will be able to:
listen to a particular Section and at the same time read the transcription of the very same Section.
| Top | Listen to Section 1.1 |
Copyright 2008 Harpo Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Prepared by PeopleSupport which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research. User may not reproduce any printed copy of the material except for the user's personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon Harpo Productions, Inc.'s copyright or proprietary interests in the material. Excerpts from A NEW EARTH are used by permission of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Copyright 2005 by Eckhart Tolle.
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): A World Wide Web event.
ANNOUNCER: Brought to you by Chevy; technologies that go from gas friendly to gas free. Sponsored in part by Post-it Flags; find out what matters fast. Sponsored in part by Skype; bringing people closer with video calling.
Oprah: Welcome to our very first live world wide interactive event. We are here tonight breaking new ground. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before. Right now you all are online with me from every corner on our planet.
Oprah: Places like Albania, Bolivia, Cambodia, Ecuador, Finland, Hong Kong, China, India, Zimbabwe, Australia, Canada, the U.K., and the rest of Europe. Along with, of course, all 50 states here in our United States of America. Over 139 countries are represented in our class tonight. Welcome to you all.
Oprah: So I want to get started. This is the most exciting thing I've ever done. I've done a lot of things in my life, but I am most proud of the fact that all of you have joined us in this global community to talk about what I believe is one of the most important subjects and -- presented by one of the most books of our time; "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose."
Oprah: I don't think there's anything more important than awakening and also knowing what your purpose is. And for the next ten weeks, author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and I will be here in our virtual classroom here on Oprah.com every Monday; 8:00 p.m. Be on time for class. 8:00 p.m. Central.
Oprah: We're gonna be answering your e-mails. We're gonna be having a conversation about each chapter and taking your calls from around the world and your emails from around the world, and seeing some of you around the world through our Skype phones. I'm sure you've already noticed that you can type in your questions on the right side of your screen and send that to us instantly.
Oprah: And we will, you know, we have a whole team of people here who are ready, waiting, standing by to take your calls and e-mails. And of course I'm honored to introduce the author of this great book, "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose;" Eckhart Tolle.
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR): Thank you.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: Good to be here.
Oprah: How exciting this is.
Eckhart: Yeah.
Oprah: It's very good. Okay. So let's get class started. The way we're going to work the class is that we will have a conversation and take your calls and your questions whenever we feel appropriate. First of all, I wanted to just talk to you about how this book came to you. I was introduced to this book several months ago when I was interviewing Eckhart Tolle on XM Radio. I have a show on XM Radio.
Oprah: Not many people know about it, but it's called, "The Soul Series." And on that show I get to talk to anybody I choose, and I choose to speak to people who represent this kind of thinking, this genre of spirituality. And we talk about the soul. So I was interviewing Eckhart Tolle several months ago about his book, "The Power of Now," because that's really all I knew about Eckhart Tolle, was "The Power of Now."
Oprah: I call you "the father of now;" "The Power of Now," which that book was a life-changing book for me. Given to me many years ago, about eight years ago by Meg Ryan who was on the show. And the producer, Corny came in and said, well, as I was preparing, she said there's this other book he's written called "A New Earth."
Oprah: And I just had time to thumb through "A New Earth," and not really give it its due, because I was focused on reading "The Power of Now" and talking to you about that. And after our interview, started to read this book, and it was absolutely, I felt the shift that you talk about that you say on page seven that this will be meaningless to you or you will feel the shift. I started to feel the shift.
Oprah: And one of the things that really occurred to me as I was going through various chapters and having ah-hah, ah-hah, ah-hah moment after another, is what a clear - how clear this message is. What a clear channel it seemed to come through for you. It was like I'd never, you know, didn't know you or hadn't met you in person, even through the radio, we weren't sitting in the same studio.
Oprah: How did this come to be? How did this come through you - to you?
Eckhart: Well, it comes out of the space of stillness and that's where all creative endeavor is born. So it's getting in touch with the stillness within, where there's no mental noise, and out of that stillness, when the time is right, sometimes an impulse comes. Something - a feeling, a strong sense that something wants to be born into this world.
Eckhart: I had the same strong sense before writing "The Power of Now." That was 13 years ago when I started writing it. I had left England. I was living in England, and I had this strong impulse one morning, and I was in England still, knowing I had to move to the west coast of North America without knowing why.
Oprah: This was just a feeling you had.
Eckhart: Yes, a strong knowing. So it's not through a decision-making process, just the realization, I have to move there. I don't know why, but I have to go. It was such a total - no, absolutely no doubt about it. So I moved to Vancouver and then I took a Greyhound bus to California, knew only one or two people, and I said, "Why am I here?"
Eckhart: Three weeks passed, somebody put me up in a room near San Francisco, and suddenly this came. I bought a notepad and suddenly the strong stream came through and I wrote, "What is Enlightenment?" The beginning of "The Power of Now." The moment I wrote that, I knew this is the book that wants to be born. So rather than me wanting to write a book, there was a book that wanted to be written. And I ...
Oprah: It's like Michelangelo says the angel's in the marble and he just cuts away the marble.
Eckhart: Yes. So and I find, I'll come back to that in a second, for most people that is the approach to what is my purpose, to look at what the greater purpose is, what does the greater purpose want from me? What does life or god want from me? Rather than, what do I want from life?
Eckhart: So that's the starting point. I know that sometimes in New Age you have the question, well what do you want? It's fine to ask that question, but a more powerful question is, what does life want from me? How do I fit into the - what is the totality? What is my place within the whole?
Eckhart: So this is how it started, as knowing that this is what life wants from me. The book wants to be born and the same thing happened later with the new earth, again, a similar sense of oh, there's another book that wants to come. I didn't know why because everybody told me, well, you've said it all in "The Power of Now," why write another book?
Eckhart: And I, intellectually I couldn't have answered, why am I writing another book? And it happened.
Oprah: And it happened. Were you asking life, universal energy? I don't know. What do you call that? As a word do you - I call it "God." What do you, what word do you use for that?
Eckhart: Consciousness ...
Oprah: Were you asking consciousness, were you saying, what do you want from me?
Eckhart: Yes. There was a time for quite a few years, I lived in England and I just did some spiritual teaching on a very small scale, sometimes little workshops and so on.
Oprah: I read in the paper today, in the USA Today where you said you started out with 10 or 12 people in people's homes.
Eckhart: Yes, for quite a while I would teach in people's living rooms, invited a group of friends, and this was the beginning of informal spiritual teaching. And as I said to the person who interviewed me, this is coming full circle now because now I'm back in people's living rooms; just more of them.
Oprah: Just more of them. I think we have more than 10 or 12 joining us this evening. And so the book, would you sit and, you know, passages would come to you? Would you, you know, actively get up at a certain time and say I'm going to write today? Or know what you were going to write before it was written?
Eckhart: No, not knowing it beforehand, but every day there was a space for writing. Every morning and until 2:00 in the afternoon or so, the space was set aside for writing. That was the writing space. And there were days when the flow was not very strong so maybe only a few lines got written or even none at all.
Eckhart: Nevertheless, I always honored that space of, I'm ready for the writing to happen. I'm not saying that the writing happened automatically. My mind was involved. It wasn't a channeled book as such. It was inspired, but not channeled, so it involved my thinking processes too.
Eckhart: But the thinking process had to be inspired from something deeper. You can't rely on your thinking processes only to - and produce something that is powerful and original.
Oprah: So already you've shared with us that in order to awaken to your life's purpose, one of the key things we must do is not try to tell life what our purpose is, not go around even, I don't know, trying to define for ourselves. Because a lot of people say many times, I've done, you know, seminars across the country, and they'll say, I don't know what my purpose is. You're saying you must ask life what purpose does it have for you.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: Yes. And the answer may not immediately come, very important part of asking life so that you can be ready to receive the answer, is to practice inviting moments of stillness into your life so that you're not continuously absorbed in the incessant mental noise that we call thinking; most of which is unnecessary and repetitive.
Eckhart: So to find spaces of stillness is vital if you want to get to the place where the answers are potentially. So for quite a few years when I lived in England and did spiritual teaching on a small scale, sometimes I would say okay, they could do much more. There's much more that I could do, I said, to life, I'm ready.
Eckhart: And but life just waited and waited and the answer didn't come for several years until that morning when he said, "Move."
Oprah: Move. Move. Move to Vancouver.
Eckhart: Yes, and why did I have to move to write it there? I didn't realize that, that every place, Vancouver and California, that's where "The Power of Now" was written, I was moving back and forth. I didn't have a home as such. I stayed with friends moving back and forth.
| Top | Listen to Section 1.2 |
Eckhart: And so only later I realized I had to move because the energy field on the west coast, this is what I needed for the book to be born. The energy field in England, although I love England, I have a deep inner connection with England. The energy I felt there was not right for - in my personal case, for this book to have come out.
Oprah: Wow.
Eckhart: So I only realized that after I had to go back to England and then I stayed in a community because I didn't have a home of my own anymore, and I wanted to continue writing but I couldn't do very much there because why can't I continue to - the stream stopped. I could only do editing and correction that was necessary too.
Eckhart: But only when I went back to the west coast, my visa had expired, I had to go to England. When I went back, immediately the flow came back. And I said, oh, now I know why I had to move. So it's often trusting life when a very strong impulse comes. But you may have to wait. It doesn't mean that you necessarily immediately obey every impulse. Because impulses can also come from more superficial levels within yourself, and ...
Oprah: But you were wise enough to know the difference; you had discernment.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yes, to know the difference.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Well, it's so interesting because you, in the beginning of "A New Earth," start out talking about a flower. And I've heard many people who've, because I go on the message boards every day. I'm loving you on the message boards, everybody. And many people are saying that they look at flowers differently now.
Oprah: I can certainly say that I do. And one of the things that you said that struck me when you said that they are representatives of the spiritual realm, and that when you are still, allow yourself to be still with a flower, or a crystal, or a bird, or really anything of nature.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: But you used a flower specifically because ...
Eckhart: Yes. Because a flower is - nature on the whole is a beautiful access point into inner stillness, if you can be there fully present. But a flower is even, everything ...
Oprah: You say "messengers from another realm."
Eckhart: Yes, like messengers. A flower is very much more fragile than a plant. It is more fleeting; ethereal, I think is the word; more ethereal. So it has less density to it than most other things. And because of the lack of density, it's almost as if spirit could flow through it more freely.
Eckhart: So when you contemplate a flower without too much interference of the thinking mind; to actually truly look. This is what Jesus said, by the way. I mean in churches you'll hear; will hear Jesus saying, "Look at the lilies of the field."
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: And so when he said that, he wasn't just saying, "Look at the lilies of the field." He said, "look."
Oprah: Aren't they pretty? Yes.
Eckhart: He said, look, you really have to look because there is something that they embody something that you also have. But because of all your anxiety about tomorrow and you're thinking, I'm translating very freely now, what Jesus said.
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: Why are you - these flowers are not anxious, they have no - they are not concerned about tomorrow and see how beautiful they are. How god clothes them in such beauty. And you can live like that also. So he used this natural realm and flowers to get people in touch with the dimension of depth within men.
Oprah: Well what's very interesting to me about all of this is that when I read that the first time, I thought it was, you know, a beautiful passage. And then I read it a second time, and awakened a little bit more, and started to look at nature differently. You know, I have, you know, live in a lovely space where I'm surrounded by flowers, not in a Chicago.
Oprah: But in California, and you know, always just appreciated the garden. Aren't they lovely in all the different colors, and the roses, and all that? And then I decided to move into the garden without naming it. What if I were like a babe?
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: What if I were a babe, you know, learning what a flower was for the first time? What if I went out under the oaks that I love so much but I didn't know it was an oak, I didn't know what to call it. And I shared this at one of our after shows. That for the first time, and I've loved trees all of my life, and the sense of power and stillness they represent. But by not naming those things in nature, that I felt a magical presence. I felt a sense of majesty, and power, and strength, and connection that I'd never felt before.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Because I didn't give it a name.
Eckhart: Yes, that's the key.
Oprah: Yes. I didn't give a name or have a reference for everything that a tree has meant in my life.
Eckhart: That's right.
Oprah: Isn't it?
Eckhart: That's right. So being present with the perception. And this theme runs, it's perhaps the main theme running through the whole book, is that state where the compulsive naming of things ...
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: And you start with nature because that's easier to let go of the naming. Later, we'll be talking about that in some ...
Oprah: Yeah. Stop labeling people and situations.
Eckhart: Yes, that's more difficult because people invite the labels because there's so much mind in everybody. And they label you and you label them. So, but with nature, this is the starting point to find a different relationship to nature. It doesn't mean that you need to forget what you have learned about trees or about flowers. When it's necessary, you can get that knowledge and you'd use it.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: But not to be totally in the grip of what you have learned of mental labels, of interpreting mentally, but being able to perceive. One could call it, "perceive the flower." See it through a background of just stillness.
Oprah: Just stillness.
Eckhart: Which is really consciousness.
Oprah: Well I will tell you, it's an amazing, for all of - those you've who tried this and I know some of you have because you've e-mailed us and said so. But when you start to walk through a park and, or walk in your backyard, or begin to - and you're right, it's easier with nature than with people.
Oprah: And pretend that you don't know or just let yourself be in the space without labeling the things, it's just, everything's vibrating and it's like, you know, scintillating, and ...
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Everything's exciting.
Eckhart: Yes. And that's ...
Oprah: Everything's exciting.
Eckhart: Yes, and then you ...
Oprah: A walk through the park ...
Eckhart: That's right.
Oprah: ...becomes exciting and it's the same path you've always taken.
Eckhart: Yes. And before when you were involved in your mind ...
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: Perhaps you didn't even see it.
Oprah: Never saw it, yeah.
Eckhart: And so many people are so trapped in this continuous mental noise that absorbs their whole attention all the time. Every thought absorbs the stream of thinking, absorbs their attention, they don't see that the world around them is vitally alive.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: So you become gradually, as you - people then grow older, the world around them becomes more and more lifeless and dead.
Oprah: Right. Right.
Eckhart: And that happens to them also.
Oprah: And why is that? Because?
Eckhart: That's just because you are run by mental abstraction. All the concepts and the thoughts on that are abstractions, it's not alive.
Oprah: So you can't take in the information that's there to be received all around you because you're so - you're in your head.
Eckhart: You're in your head. You're not present.
Oprah: All right.
Eckhart: So you're lost in thought. One could say that's the human condition, is being lost in thought. And people don't - because it's the famous, what we call, the voice in the head.
Oprah: A voice in that head.
Eckhart: That some people have been asking about.
Oprah: Which we'll be talking a lot about the voice in the head.
Eckhart: So some people say what voice in the head? It's that one.
Oprah: It's that one. All right, so Kelly from Alton, Illinois joins us via Skype. Kelly? Hi.
Kelly (Illinois): Hi Oprah. Hi Eckhart.
Eckhart: Hello.
Oprah: Hi, what's your question?
Kelly (Illinois): Thank you for having me.
Oprah: Well, good. Where are you? Home?
Kelly (Illinois): I'm at home.
Oprah: Okay, good. This is the coolest thing. Isn't this cool?
Kelly (Illinois): It is crazy.
Oprah: Oh it's crazy. That's what I think. It's crazy that we're like out here wherever this is talking to each other. Okay, what's your question?
Kelly (Illinois): Well, my question is regarding religion and spirituality.
Oprah: Big one.
Kelly (Illinois): I had a Catholic upbringing, I married a Catholic, and we're raising our children this way. In reading books such as Tolle's, I've really, it's really opened my eyes up to a new way of thinking; a new form of spirituality that doesn't always align with the teachings of Christianity. So my question is to you, Oprah, how have you reconciled these spiritual teachings with your Christian beliefs?
Oprah: Oh, the question's to me. I was resting knowing it was going to about - I've reconciled it because I was able to open my mind about the absolute indescribable hugeness of that which we call "God." I took God out of the box because I grew up in the Baptist church and there were, you know, rules and, you know, belief systems indoctrined.
Oprah: And I happened to be sitting in church in my late 20's and I was going to this church where you had to get there at 8:00 in the morning or you couldn't get a seat. And a very charismatic minister, and everybody was just, you know, into the sermon. And this great minister was preaching about how great God was and how omniscient and omnipresent, and God is everything.
Oprah: And then he said, and the lord thy god is a jealous god. And I was, you know, caught up in the rapture of that moment until he said "jealous." And something struck me. And I was like, I think about 27 or 28. I was thinking God is all, God is omnipresent, God is - and God's also jealous? God is jealous of me?
Oprah: And something about that didn't feel right in my spirit because I believe that god is love and that god is in all things. And so that's when the search for something more than doctrine started to stir within me. And I love this quote that Eckhart has, this is one of my favorite quotes in chapter one where he says, "Man made god in his own image, the eternal, the infinite, and unnamable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as my god or our god."
Oprah: Now I think that's very eloquently put by Eckhart Tolle in chapter one. But that is exactly what I was feeling when I was, you know, sitting in church that Sunday listening to the preacher. And you know, it's been a journey to get to the place where I understand, as I said on the pre-show here, that what I believe is that Jesus came to show us Christ consciousness.
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Oprah: That Jesus came to show us the way of the heart and that what Jesus was saying that to show us the higher consciousness that we're all talking about here. Jesus came to say, "Look I'm going to live in the body, in the human body and I'm going to show you how it's done." These are some principles and some laws that you can use to live by to know that way. And when I started to recognize that, that Jesus didn't come in my belief, even as a Christian, I don't believe that Jesus came to start Christianity.
Oprah: So that was also very helpful to me. And as I said earlier in the preshow here, there is a wonderful book called, "Discover the Power Within You" by Eric Butterworth, which helped me reconcile the two. So that might be really good for those of you who are Christian and trying to balance the two. What would you say?
Oprah: Because one of the things that Eckhart says in the beginning of this book on page six is this book's main purpose is not to add information or beliefs to your mind, or to try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in consciousness. That is to say, to awaken. He says that on page six. And one of the reasons why I appreciate him so much is because he truly isn't out to become your next guru. He doesn't want, you know, all of you who are online with us tonight and those millions who will now hear about this book, he's not interested in being your guru, correct?
Eckhart: Yes, correct.
Oprah: Yeah. How would you respond to that? That's one of the biggest questions that we have coming into our message boards about the same thing that Kelly is addressing here from Alton about spirituality and religion. This is not trying to tell you how to believe. And how do you advise people to reconcile this with their religious beliefs?
Eckhart: Well, religion can be an open doorway into spirituality and religion can be a closed door. It prevents you from going deeper. So that I love reading the New Testament and I also read the old Testament. Sometimes there's some incredible jewels in there. And when I went through this inner transformation and for the first time accidentally I picked up a copy of the New Testament at my mother's place.
Eckhart: And I started reading and I immediately recognized the deep truths that is there and I realized the truth that is deeper, that is expressed in what Jesus said is much deeper than what you, how the church interprets it. There's a depth to it. And it reflects your own depth when you read it. So there's no conflict between this teaching, which is purely spiritual, and any religion.
Eckhart: Because if you go deep enough in your religion, then you all get to the same place. It's a question of going deeper so there's no conflict here. The important thing is that religion doesn't become an ideology, so I believe this. And the moment you say "only my belief" or "our belief" is true, and you deny other people's beliefs, then you've adopted an ideology. And then religion becomes a closed door. But potentially religion can also be an open door.
Oprah: Well, let me share this with you too, Kelly. There's another book by a woman named Elizabeth Lesser, it's called, "The Seeker's Guide," where she talks about the new spirituality versus the old. So I just wanted to -- this is on page 51 and 52 of Elizabeth Lesser's book called "The Seeker's Guide."
Oprah: And she talks about old spirituality versus the new spirituality and she says the old was - the old way is the hierarchy has the authority. Church authorities tell you how to worship in church and how to behave outside of church. The new spirituality is that you are your own best authority as you work to know and love yourself, you discover how to live a more spiritual life.
Oprah: The old is God and the path to worship him have already been defined and all you need to do is follow the directions. The new is being able to listen within for your own definition of spirituality, your deeper longings are under search. And the old says exact here what Eckhart was saying. That there's only one path it's the right way and all other ways are wrong. And the spirituality says that many paths lead to spiritual freedom and peace.
Oprah: You have a rich array of gems from which to draw illumination. The world's religious traditional, mythology, psychology, healing methods, scientific wisdom, your own experience and that you can begin to string a necklace all your own. Then she lists, you know, other old and new. And so it's really a question of what you were saying to us earlier that this material strikes a chord within you.
Oprah: Something in you opens up and wants, you know, feels alive and is awakened to that. And yet there is the ideology that says what to you? What is the conflict for you?
Kelly (Illinois): Just thoughts on the afterlife, things like that. You know, you - in a lot of books such as Tolle's, we get teachings from Buddhism or Hinduism, and those thoughts don't go along with, you know, what I was raised to believe as a Christian. So that's been the biggest thing that I've struggled with, I think, so...
Oprah: Well, I am a Christian who believes that there are certainly many more paths to God other than Christianity.
Kelly (Illinois): All right.
Oprah: I'm a free-thinking Christian who believes that, who believes in my way, but I don't believe that it's the only way, with six billion people here on the planet.
Kelly (Illinois): Right.
Eckhart: Another also who uses, who might appeal to you, who uses Christian terminology but goes very very deep, using Christian language and Christian teachings; Joel Goldsmith.
Oprah: yes.
Eckhart: So any ...
Oprah: Joel Goldstein?
Eckhart: Goldsmith.
Oprah: Oh, Goldsmith.
Eckhart: Joel Goldsmith. Any book by Joel Goldsmith that you would try that, and you can see how deep the Christian teaching can be.
Oprah: Okay?
Kelly (Illinois): Well, thank you very much.
Oprah: Thanks, Kelly. You're our first Skyper.
Kelly (Illinois): Great. I'm honored.
Oprah: I didn't even know what Skype was until this. Now we're Skyping all over. We have a Chicago study group watching our webcast together at Border's, hello. Border's flagship store right there on Michigan Avenue. Hi, everybody.
Eckhart: Hello.
CROWD: Hi.
Oprah: I know. Listen, we just, listen, I know it's my ego but I can't stop saying how cool this is. I hear that's Ryan, you're Ryan?
Ryan: Yes, I'm Ryan.
Oprah: Okay, Ryan.
Ryan: Hello Oprah.
Oprah: Hi. Got a question?
Ryan: Hello, Mr. Tolle.
Eckhart: Hi.
Ryan: I do, I have a question for, actually, either of you, and it relates to the spiritual awakening that you speak of in chapter one. It seems to me that if you look at human history in the past 100 years and very poignantly in the past ten years, that there has been this intensity and speed at which people are becoming more aware of the Christ consciousness. Why do you think that's happening now? Why is this happening now?
Eckhart: It's happening now because we're reaching a crises point. Very essential things don't happen until there's an absolute need for them to happen. So you can say in the past this awakening has been a luxury and only a few individuals here and there through all the ages were able to be awakened. And they tried to each others, but to a large extent their teachings became misinterpreted. So we are awakening now.
Oprah: That Jesus was a revolutionary who got misinterpreted a lot.
Eckhart: Yes. Yes. Yes. We are awakening now because we have to awaken of you humanity is to make it to the evolutionary level, we need to awaken because the egoiic consciousness will become so, it's already been, it already become very distractive. It's become and become destructive. We will destroy ourselves and the planet if we do not step out of the egoiic consciousness; the collective ego.
Eckhart If you look at the history of the 20th century that gives you a taste of what it will be if there is no major shift. I wrote in the "Power of Now" that 100 million human beings were killed by other humans during the 20th century through warfare and so on. And I recently read in the history book by a Harvard professor that my figure was much too low. It's as much as 160 to 180 million human beings were murdered through warfare and concentration camps and prison camps, and starvation, manufactured starvation because -- China, Russia, and so on. It's unbelievable insanity when you look at that history. And so if there's no shift in consciousness, we will go downhill very quickly because we're already in the process of destroying the planet. But there will also be continuous conflict, collective conflict, and eventually then humanity would collapse.
Oprah: So you think we're at a crisis point now.
Eckhart: Crises point, yes.
Oprah: Well Ryan, don't you think so too? I mean when you're with your friends, you know, obviously you're gathered here at Border's tonight because you are interested in this kind of, this way of thinking. But we all talk about it in some form or another of how bad things are. How, you know, the media, everybody complains about the media and the movies. I mean if you just look at the Academy Awards this year and the kinds of movies that were made this year, and it's all the reflection of who we are. And you say in the book how we're the species that will go and watch other people on film be maimed and killed and murdered for our entertainment.
Eckhart: Yes, yes, yes, it's amazing.
Ryan: And it's noise, it's the mind, it's all of that. And my friends and I talk about it and it's things where we want to push that out and say well, we choose not to look at those things. We choose not to surround ourselves with that type of energy.
Oprah: But I just got it. I just had an epiphany, an ah-hah, as Eckhart was talking here. I mean, and I'd read this several times in the book too; the number of people murdered, maimed, destroyed by other human beings during the 20th century, but the ahhah for me was yes, look at what we did in the 20th century. Look at the surge that we've had in our technological abilities. Look at you right now. We're Skyping each other. The advancement in our abilities to create new bombs, no ways of killing each other so that in the 21st century, if there isn't a shift, if you had 100, over 100 million people killed in the 20th century, God only knows. And I do mean god only knows what will happen to us unless we start to change this.
Eckhart: Yes. Yes, because technology amplifies the egoiic dysfunction in human beings. So before the dysfunction was the same 2000 years ago but we couldn't do much harm because the technology wasn't there. The very same dysfunction still operates and becomes magnified through science and technology.
Oprah: Does that answer your question, Ryan?
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Ryan: It does and I just, it just makes me think of what could we do if we just focused that same energy on the positive and helping other people. And I feel that that's where we're going.
Oprah: It's also not just the positive, one of the things I think we all learn from reading "A New Earth," that it's not just about being positive, it's about putting our own egos in check because as we begin to move forward in our studies the next ten weeks, you'll see that first you have to see, you know, see the voice in your head, see how you're contributing to it because I think, you know, for years we've all heard that we're all, if you're not a part of the problem, you're a part of the solution. I think most of us don't understand, and I did understand to an extent, but got it even more clearly ever reading "A New Earth," understand how we're contributing to the problem. And the way we're all contributing to the problem is ...Eckhart?
Eckhart: Well, you need to look at your own mind. So it's everybody's responsibility to become aware of their conditioned mental processes. How you react in every day situations. What kind of thoughts go through your head. It's good to not amplify the negativity that you see around you in the world by reacting to it. You have to be very much aware, of course, of what your mind is doing. So observe your own mind. Be there as the witness of your mind so that the witnessing dimension, which is awareness or presence grows. You are not your thought processes. The thought processes are conditioned through thousands and thousands of years of conditioning. And there is dysfunction built into the very structure of our thought processes. This is how the ego arises. We'll talk about that in more detail.
Oprah: That's right.
Eckhart: But to recognize in one self, there is, you may not contribute to the murder and so on out there in the world. But it's everybody's responsibility to discover their dysfunction within them.
Oprah: Yeah, so you get that right, Ryan? What he's saying is is that there is a collective consciousness that he talks about, pages 11 and 12. "The dysfunction of the egoiic human mind has created the situation in the world today," he says in "A New Earth." And what I hear you saying, Eckhart, is that our individual fears, doubts, angers, jealousies, resentments all contribute to the collective.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: And so in order to begin to change the collective, each one of us has a responsibility to sort of mind that within ourselves.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: 'Cause that's how we're contributing to the collective.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah, and it's not just the road ragers, it's however you're holding resentment and anger and jealousy and fear in your own life. That's what you're saying.
Eckhart: Yes. Yes. What is it that you're putting out into the world? Is there negativity mental, emotional.
Oprah: In you.
Eckhart: In you.
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: 'Cause that contributes to the collective energy fields. So you can only go - so it's up to the individual to go, to step out of the egoiic consciousness.
Oprah: Yeah. You got that, right, Ryan?
Ryan: That makes a lot of sense.
Oprah: Yeah, it does make a lot of sense. Thank you.
Ryan: Thank you.
Oprah: Well, thank you. Thank you Border's.
Eckhart: Thank you.
Oprah: We've got Erica who lives on Landsthule, Germany.
Eckhart: Oh, you are in the middle of the night.
Oprah: In the middle of the night.
Erica: Yes. Yes.
Oprah: Hi.
Erica: Morning.
Oprah: Morning.
Eckhart: Morning, yes.
Oprah: Hi Erica.
Erica: Hi Oprah. Thank you so much. This has been crazy as you said.
Oprah: Crazy fun.
Erica: Yes.
Oprah: Landstuhl, Germany. Never heard of it, but glad to have you from there. Hello.
Erica: Thank you. Glad, thank god for Skype.
Oprah: Thank god for Skype. Okay, what is your question or comment to us?
Erica: Well my question is for Mr. Tolle. I too grew up in the Baptist church just like Oprah and so many others. And you talk about the voice in my head and I had a situation where I no longer attend that church because the behavior didn't line up with the teaching. But on Sundays when I'm at home with my family and we're enjoying a nice day and we decided not to go to church, that voice in my head says things like you didn't go to church today, that's not how you were raised. When your mom calls, what are you going to say? Can you help me with that on explaining why we have the voice in the head that says things like that?
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yes, he can help you, Erica.
Eckhart: Now the voice of course is the conditioned thinking. The voice, what the voice says is conditioned by your past, by your childhood, by your upbringing, by the surrounding culture. All those things condition your thought processes. And when you - sometimes it happens when you awaken, maybe not completely, but when the awakening process begins, a lot of the old voices in the head, the old thoughts still come up. They still come up and the essential thing is to recognize them as conditioned thought processes. And to see, because the fact that you're asking the question means there's already an awareness there that these are the voices in your head so you're not totally identified. Because if you were total identified with the voice, you would say, I feel so terrible, I really think I should be doing this. But you realize it's the voice in the head that's doing it. And then you can't allow it and say okay, there's an old thought and allow it to be there and be the awareness behind the thought. And anybody, this is not just in this particular, your particular case. There are many other instances where people have the movement of thought, telling them this or that, interpreting events or people according to the old conditioning. When you meet people, telling you immediately judging somebody according to your old conditioning, with prejudices, with all the old conditioning. So it's -- the only way you can gradually go beyond the conditioned thought processes is simply to be there as the witness. You don't need to act on it or say, go away, I don't want to be thinking this. That doesn't work.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: It would many give it more energy.
Oprah: That's right.
Eckhart: So again, a vital thing, and this will be going throughout the book and the teaching is as much as possible, be aware of what your mind is saying and realize that only a small part of the consciousness, the totality of consciousness that you are, many people don't know that yet. They're totally one with the voice. They are the voice. They are so identified with every thought that comes, there's no space between them and the thought. So the essential thing is there's - realize there's thought processes, and here I am at this space for the thought. It's the awareness or the space for the thought.
Oprah: And that the thought is only a part of ...
Eckhart: ...a small part, it's the conditioned part of who you are. A more time bound, it's conditioned by the past. There's a more essential part of who you are and that is the awareness that knows that there's a ...
Oprah: The awareness of the thought.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Which we're going to get into in further detail. But also, Erica, let me share this with you. Part of what you and I, our first caller from Alton, Illinois was also talking about, is trying to reconcile the two. The reason why the voice keeps repeating is because of course of what Eckhart is saying; it's conditioned thinking. But also the guilt is you haven't made a decision for yourself about what is real or true for you. So you're still being led by the conditioned thinking, and haven't made a decision. And for me that came when I was able to do exactly what Eckhart said earlier. I didn't phrase it the way he did. I asked god to use me. That has been my prayer for many years, you know. Eckhart says ask life what is its purpose for you. But I would pray on my knees to god and ask to be used and to be a servant and to allow his spirit to work through me and to not to just be on television but to be able to use television for a purpose that was greater than my own personality and to collect shoes in my closet. It didn't mean I wanted to give up the shoes, but I would if I had to. So when I started to ask that question of god, how can I be used? God, how do you want me to live? How would you have me be? I left go of the guilt of did I make it to church or didn't I make it to church. Because the majesty and power and omniscience of this force that we call "God" cannot be contained in a church.
Erica: You're right.
Oprah: cannot be contained in a church. And does not just in a church. But if church allows you to feel like you are being of service, then use it that way. But the bigness is what Eckhart was saying in that quote in the book, "Man made God in his image; the eternal, the infinite and unnamable force that is god, that is all consciousness, that is universal energy. I don't believe wishes to be served on Sunday 11:00 service. That's what you're trying to reconcile with yourself. The voice in your head versus what you really should be doing.
Erica: That's it.
Oprah: Yeah.
Erica: Thank you, that's it.
Oprah: You need to make that decision for yourself.
Erica: Thank you.
Oprah: And start asking that question of god.
Erica: Okay.
Oprah: All right?
Erica: I will do that. Thank you.
Oprah: Thank you, Erica, from Landstuhl; Landstuhl, Germany. We have Adam from Redmond, Washington on the phone with a question.
Adam: Yes, hello?
Oprah: Oh, on the phone phone. Hi.
Adam: Hi there.
Oprah: Hi Adam.
Adam: Hi, thank you so much, both of you.
Oprah: I feel a little like Larry King. Is the caller there? A little like Larry King, okay. Go ahead.
Adam: Oh gosh, yeah well, I used your online study group to create a couple groups out here, which I've called "Embracing Silence." Sort of the purpose of joining together for meditation and study and discussion and to create a field of presence and share with others in that. And I'm curious, what role do you see community or joining with others with the intention of sharing this consciousness, playing in the flowering of human consciousness.
Oprah: Good. Good question.
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Eckhart: Yes. It's very important, and of course what's happening here tonight is part of that also because it is a joining on a level that we haven't seen before. It's the arising presence, you can access it much more easily as part of a larger community or group of people. So to have a, in your home, to have a group of people who practice being present, perhaps listen to a spiritual talk or have a little reading, enter stillness, be present is extremely helpful because an energy field is generated when people come together and enter the state of presence together. So, and this is happening here also, although people are not physically together, and yet there is a energy field now that is generated all over the planet of presence; a different level of consciousness being generated. So it's helpful to join with others. Also, it needs to be said, not to become dependent on any group. It is still your responsibility to bring this new consciousness into everyday life and where you go about your business and your family.
Oprah: Once you become dependent upon the group, then you've now...
Eckhart: Then you always need to go back to the group, and you cannot live presence in your daily life. So the important thing, yes, go to the group to generate more presence, and then your responsibility is to live it in your everyday life where most of the time, perhaps, you will not yet be surrounded by people who are present. You will be surrounded by the old egoiic consciousness. So there, that is, and this is the challenge for everybody now who is awakening that, yes, more and more people are beginning to awaken and yet there are still vast numbers of people on the planet who are not.
Oprah: Who are not. But I was going to say that when Ryan from Border's was speaking to us and was saying, you know, the need to be more positive when there's all this energy in the world. Look, we have 700 and some thousand of us all gathered here this evening, which is a huge positive force.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: In creating the shift.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: And it's a different kind of community.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Like we've never seen or experienced before.
Eckhart: That's right. Yes. And then of course the other -- another kind of community is generated through the internet now and all these things that I don't know much about, but it's happening. So how people communicate with each other. Again, there's a, people are being linked in different ways with each other.
Oprah: This is a rising of a new consciousness that he speaks about, Adam.
Adam: Well, it certainly is and it's, you know, it's very pleasurable to spend time with others in sharing this consciousness, you know, like you said. When you're under the tree and you felt the, you felt that oneness and that majesty. Well, imagine if you had someone sitting there next to you to share that experience with. I think it makes it even that much more sacred.
Oprah: I did have my two dogs, Luke and Leila were there.
Adam: Ah, wonderful. Wonderful.
Oprah: Thanks, Adam.
Adam: Little secret moment. Yes, thank you.
Oprah: Thank you, Adam. That's Adam from Redmond, Washington. Let's see some of the questions that you're sending us now, oh, this is cool, on e-mail. Okay, we're gonna check the computer screen here. Caught up. Questions are, nothing's there. Nothing's there. So I'll keep talking. One of the things that really struck us so was so many people responded to this; page 13. "You don't become good by trying to be good." "You don't become good by trying to be good.
Eckhart: And carry on.
Oprah: Okay.
Eckhart: There's more to that sentence.
Oprah: Yes there is. Let's go to page 13 to find it. You don't become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that's already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge, but it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.
Eckhart: Yes. So what that means, if nothing changes in your state of consciousness, the ego has many ideas. It says I want to be a spiritual person. I want to be recognized as a spiritual person. I want to be more spiritual than all these people. And I'm definitely more spiritual than you. So the ego has all kinds of ideas of what it wants to be. It might even say yes, I want to be good. Because it wants to have a better image of itself. But on that level, the essential dysfunction of the ego is still operating. So this is why we have the phrase "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Because no matter how good your intentions are, when you're still trapped in the ego, it will always take you into conflict eventually. So there are people ...
Oprah: That's why I was saying to Ryan, you can't just think positively.
Eckhart: No.
Oprah: If there's such thing.
Eckhart: It's no enough. You have to go deeper.
Oprah: I mean you can think positively but it is not enough because eventually something negative will come along to challenge the positive.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: So you must ...
Eckhart: It's the realm of opposites.
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: So you have go deeper beyond the realm of opposites where there's food and bang. And for each a place within yourself that is unconditioned, that is what I sometimes call the formless consciousness, spirit expressed beautifully in the Old Testament in the little saying, be still and know that I am god. That is, and that's in the Old Testament. It contains the entire wisdom of religion in those few words. Be still, meaning go to that place where the mind is no longer operating. You are just conscious without thinking. And that is the level where the eternal resides. So the eternal, the formless, the spirit is the essence of every human being. No matter how insane or conflict ridden it may seem to appear on the surface, within every human being, that remains untouched. There's nothing that anybody could have done to you or nothing that you could have done to others to destroy that.
Oprah: It's always there. Eckhart It's always there, and that is the grace of being here, and no matter how much madness there has been in your life, that remains untouched. So it's getting in touch with that deepest place within. And you can only do that by becoming still.
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: Now becoming still does not mean you have to go to sleep. It means you're actually more alert than when you are thinking. You have to invite the stillness into your life as much as possible.
Oprah: That's why I loved your book, "Stillness Speaks." It's only that small but every page is a gem.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: And also it's what I was saying earlier, that in order to feel that the way you feel that for everybody who is listening to us now, the way to begin to feel that is to look at nature. If you were to go out and just be with a tree, and I don't mean hug a tree, we're not talking about now you got to go hug a tree and eat granola, but if you were just to be with anything in nature. I like trees because they're so majestic, they're so powerful and visual. And if you're with it for a time, you start to sense the presence of it, the stillness of it and begin to recognize that stillness within yourself.
Eckhart: Yes. So what you sense in the tree is also in you.
Oprah: And it's always in the tree.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Even when the wind is blowing and there's a storm.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: Yes. And that's, that is also a sacredness that is there in the tree. And now our world doesn't know much that's sacred. It has become an abstract concept, nobody seems to know what sacredness is until you can feel it.
Oprah: Until you can feel it.
Eckhart: When you feel, then you don't need a definition. People ask, please define what sacred is, you don't need a definition of what sacred is because sacred is the essence of who you are. So it's sensing that and you can sense it when you're still enough. You sense it in the tree.
Oprah: Now isn't it interesting that you first came to recognize this when you were about to kill yourself?
Eckhart: Yes. Yes. Sometimes you have to reach a limit, humans have to reach a limit. Human species as a whole is reaching that limit but also on a personal level sometimes people have to be pushed to the limit. My ego was so obstinate and my pain body was so strong, I had to be pushed to the limit before it cracked open.
Oprah: Well, before we go into any further, share that moment that you talk about in the beginning of the power of now where you're about to kill yourself.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Feeling so much pain.
Eckhart: Dreadful suffering at night. I would often wake up in extreme feeling of dread and fear; consumed by dread and fear. The whole world seemed alien. I saw the thought one night, I woke up again and the thought came, I can't live with myself any longer. I just can't live with myself any longer, it's so painful. And that thought repeated itself a few times. And then suddenly, something happened inside me and I looked at the thought. That was of course awareness. I didn't know at that time what it was. I became aware of the thought and I said, I cannot live with myself. That's strange, so there must be I and there must be myself. Am I one or two? I seem to be two. Because if I can't live with myself, there must be two of me here.
Oprah: Well, and everybody has felt that. Not to kill themselves, but everybody has felt or heard you say to yourself, I said to myself.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: I said to myself.
Eckhart: Yes. And of course the entire, what we call the voice in the head, we could also call it "self talk." Where you talk to yourself and most people address themselves as "you." So the voice is, "You shouldn't have done that." Or "You should ..."
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: So there's -- constantly there's a separation inside human beings which is the essence of ego.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: That there's a, here's an image of who I think I am and then there's a me. They get mixed up together.
Oprah: Okay. I'm sorry I interrupted you, that thought, though. You're getting ready to kill yourself, said, "I can't live with myself any longer."
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Said that several times in your mind.
Eckhart: And then I, I became aware of the structure of the sentence. And said if that's the case, then who is the self that I cannot live with? And who am I?
Oprah: Wow.
Eckhart: and that moment of separation happened completely between the essential eye, which is the essential consciousness that I am, beyond past and future; the eternal stillness.
Oprah: Stillness. Stillness.
Eckhart: But awake stillness. And all my thought processes which were ego would be - all my thought process, well that created the dreadful suffering. The mind created entity; the unhappy me was continuously fed by my thinking. It consisted of thinking; a stream of thinking.
Oprah: So did you just decide that night? I guess I'll wait to see if I will kill myself?
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Eckhart: No. The, kind of, it was a kind of spiritual suicide, so the ego died instead of me having to jump off a bridge, fortunately, the ego died. The ego dissolved as the unobserved mind dissolved.
Oprah: The ego.
Eckhart: The full self, the me, the unhappy story.
Oprah: Oh, got it.
Eckhart: Me as the unhappy, my identity as me and my unhappy story ...
Oprah: Died. Died, dissolved. Because the I behind it suddenly woke up and said, "who is that self that I can't live with?" And when you fully look at that self, it actually dissolves because it cannot survive in the light of intense consciousness.
Oprah: Wow.
Eckhart: And so the next morning I woke up and I didn't know what day it was. It was strange, what happened.
Oprah: Eckhart, were you drinking?
Eckhart: No drinking, no drugs.
Oprah: did you have a couple sips of something?
Eckhart: Nothing. It just happened and I felt like being drawn into a kind of vortex and then I went to sleep. And the last thing I felt, there was still some fear. The voice said don't resist or resist nothing. Don't resist, resist nothing. And so I must have gone to sleep then.
Oprah: You had your first good nights sleep in god knows when.
Eckhart: Yes. And the next morning I woke up and looked around and looked, everything looked so fresh. All the old furniture, the pencil. Everything looked fresh and alive. As I caught a bird song outside as if I'd never heard it before. Because the mind had become still and there was simply the beautiful perception of everything. The sunlight coming through the curtains. Incredible. I've never seen that before.
Oprah: Sounds like a drug trip.
Eckhart: Well, later on, people tell me, they ask me is that like acid. Because some people take acid and they say oh we experienced that when we took acid, they told me many times. Until finally, I'll tell you in confidence, finally I tried acid just for once.
Oprah: You're telling me in confidence here?
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Okay, good.
Eckhart: I tried it just once just to see ...
Oprah: If it was the same thing?
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah?
Eckhart: It's not quite the same thing because what I experienced was much more subtle and beautiful. The acid I experienced has almost a violent thing where violently the perceptions, sense perceptions become so magnified that there was no room for thinking anymore. But I could see why people say, for some people it's a glimpse of what it means to perceive the world without this continuous interference of mental noise.
Oprah: Yeah, but your trip without acid was better.
Eckhart: Much better.
Oprah: Yeah. Well, I, part of what you're describing is what I came close to that when I decided to go outside without naming things or labeling things is what I was describing earlier. Walking through the park, walking around, you know, my house, which is like a park. Everything was like vibrating and it was the colors and everything. The sense perception was very different because I wasn't in my mind thinking about it. I was just there to experience it.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: That's how you get to that place.
Eckhart: That's right. So when you are no longer there when you walk through your garden or wherever.
Oprah: And you're not naming every flower.
Eckhart: You're not naming, and also you're not carrying the burden of a heavy me, a personality, a person with its problems, with its past, with its future.
Oprah: You're not thinking.
Eckhart: No.
Oprah: About anything.
Eckhart: So you are, basically you'll become a conscious presence perceiving the beauty around you.
Oprah: Yeah, it's fascinating. Well, okay, we do have an e-mail now from Kathy, Delta, Colorado. Is that where you're well, no, she can't talk, it's e-mail. "How do I shed the years, or rather, decades of conditioning and distractions, sickness, relationships, work, in order to hear and feel the moments of stillness? Which is what we were just talking about.
Eckhart: Yes. The good thing is you don't need years and years to undo years and years of conditioning because ...
Oprah: Good in an instant.
Eckhart: Yes. Only now. Oprah only now.
Eckhart: So it's the access point is the present moment. The present moment is the point of power to enter the state of consciousness. So we need to lean how to find in our daily life as often as possible, this point of power of the present moment. Because if we don't, we get continuously dragged along by the old conditioning of the mind, all the old thought processes, all the old reactions, and so on. So there are many little things you can do to access the power of the present moment. For example, very simple thing. Ask yourself, am I still breathing? Now what does that mean? To find out if you're still breathing, your attention needs to move from the thinking into here. And you suddenly feel the air flowing into your body and out of your body. Mm-mm, yes, I'm breathing. And at that moment, you've entered the stage of presence. Even if it's only five seconds, you've entered that, you've become present.
Oprah: In the moment.
Eckhart: In the moment. Another thing I suggest is when you do habitual every day motions like washing your hands or walking across the room or walking down the stairs or the slightest thing, taking a cup out of the cupboard, do it consciously, do it being present of every, the feel, for example, when you wash your hands, feel the water, smell the soap.
Oprah: We have this in one of the workbook exercises online.
Eckhart: Yes. Sense perceptions, becoming acutely conscious of sense perceptions, which means looking, hearing, touching -- brings you to the present moment.
Oprah: How is that going to help me because I started doing that going up the stairs. I was going one foot on the stairs. There's another foot on the stairs. There's another foot. Okay I'm at the top of the stairs now. I was present walking up the stairs. What does that do for me Eckhart?
Eckhart: Were you present?
Oprah: I think I was. There's a foot, there's a foot, there's a foot on the stairs. I'm just there, the movement. The feeling, feeling the motion of my body and how many parts of the feeling, feeling the motion of my body and how many parts of my body have to move to get me up the stairs. I used my thigh muscle there. I used the back of the leg or my ankle -
Eckhart: Nature's presence. I wasn't sure upon the way you say it, I thought you were repeating mentally here's one step and here's another step, but you were not.
Oprah: No I was not. I was feeling every part of what it took to get me up the stairs.
Eckhart: Yes. So now the mind says what's the point in that?
Oprah: The mind then said, now you were present getting up the stairs, now what?
Eckhart: And at the bottom says "I've got more important things to think about.
Oprah: Yes it did. Mine said now what did that do you?
Eckhart: Now, to the mind, that kind of thing's completely meaningless because you're inviting a different state of consciousness into your life which the mind cannot understand. But this is how you bring in awareness. This is the end of the old conditioning.
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: And you bring in a consciousness that is totally fresh and new that comes out of the present moment. And the more you bring those moments of presence into your life, the more your old conditioning becomes eroded gradually.
Oprah: I see. So learning to do it with washing your hands. I just got this.
Eckhart: Simple things.
Oprah: This is good. This class is good for me. I don't know about the rest of you all, but I got it now. Just learning to do the simple things begins to retrain your mind.
Eckhart: Yes. And another thing is, most simple things that you do which actually fill up most person's everyday life because the whole day consists of simple things that you have to do.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: They're all relatively simple.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: And the way most people live is that everything you do is a means to an end. And the end is where you want to get to, the next moment.
Oprah: Right. So you're never thinking about the moment.
Eckhart: No, because you want to get to the next one. You're washing your hand in order to already do that. Or you're making - while you're making a cup of coffee, you really want to be drinking it.
Oprah: John Kabat Zinn says in his book, "Coming to our Senses," that most people every morning, people take a shower, or they bathe or something, but most people are in the shower but they never actually get to experience a shower because they're thinking they're already in the office.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: They're already in the office.
Eckhart: And then everything you do is a means to the end. The end is always the next moment in the future, which never arrives because all you ever have in life is the present moment.
Oprah: Present moment. So you're constantly frustrated, creating anxiety for yourself and stress.
Eckhart: Stress.
Oprah: Because you can't just be present now.
Eckhart: Present now. And the power can only flow into your life when you are present completely totally with what you're doing now. And this is why most people's lives do not have this power because they're always living for the next thing so they devalue the present moment.
Oprah: Got it. That's why walking up the stairs being with the stairs teaches you how to be present with other things.
Eckhart: Yes. And then gradually you can be present with when you are with other human beings. You can be totally present in whatever work you do so that the work is not a means to an end, but you are totally there with what you do. Your attention.
Oprah: Well I see Senda from Oregon has been waiting to talk to us. Senda, hi, from Oregon what is your question?
Senda: Hello Oprah, hello Eckhart.
Oprah: Hi.
Eckhart: Hi.
Senda: Hi, hey I am so grateful for this opportunity to have Eckhart answer my question. Thank you for having me participate in this. And Eckhart, I need you to know that I am grateful that when you tried acid, that you preferred enlightenment more than that because my children are upstairs listening in on this.
Oprah: 'Cause he was gonna say and interrupted him, you were saying I don't recommend it.
Eckhart: (AUTHOR): No I don't.
Oprah: Why?
Eckhart: Because it's, you will always fall back. It's not, you always fall back to the old state of consciousness and it's almost, I experienced as almost a violent thing being done to me.
Oprah: Okay, good. I wanted to say that for the children upstairs, Senda. Senda: Yeah, thank you Oprah.
Oprah: Thank you, your question.
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Senda: First of all, I also want to tell Eckhart that his words in his book have moved me to my core. And I am a new person because of it. Not only because of my internal changes but the way that I am in the world that I live. And I am so grateful for that. Thank you Eckhart. I want to ask a question, it's something that we've already talked about a little bit tonight but I feel it's important enough to bring up again. And I believe that the way that Eckhart answers this question might just be the catalyst to change that we need in order to save our planet and ourselves. On pages 20 and 21 in the book, you talk about in an ever changing world or an ever changing environment, a species needs to either adapt or they will die out. And then you go on to say, and I quote, "that humanity is now faced with a dark choice, evolve or die." My question to you is this. When you say evolve or die, do you mean that literally, and it sounds like you might, or do you mean that metaphorically, which I hope?
Eckhart: Evolve or die refers to humanity as a whole, whether humanity survives as a species. Even if humanity did not survive as a species, no gain in consciousness is ever lost within the totality of consciousness. So the fact that we are here and consciousness, which is really all that exists, we are only forms that come out of consciousness and consciousness is the evolutionary process of the universe. And we are here together as part of this evolution of consciousness, which comes through the human form. Consciousness can use and does use millions and billions of other forms and evolves through that out of the unmanifested. In the unmanifested, consciousness is already perfect or god, you could say. Timeless perfect, eternal, no change. And then you have this so-called manifested dimension, which some ancient teachers have described as a kind of dream, which is what it is. But for some reason consciousness wants to come into this world of form. And in this world of form, it evolves. So one could say that gradually, more and more god, which is another world for consciousness, god comes into this world and a form gradually emerges. God comes there you, god comes through me, god comes through you. Gradually more and more. The density of form lessens. And this is what's happening. So even if humanity didn't make it, consciousness, the gain in consciousness that has already been achieved by those human beings that have become conscious, may conscious -- express itself much more - at least in some other form because ultimately, we are not the form, we are not the body that we see. You are not the form that is sitting there. In essence you beyond, you are the formulas, consciousness itself.
Oprah: You're the stillness.
Eckhart: Temporarily assuming this particular form. And of course the form eventually is going to dissolve anyway because then consciousness moves on. Consciousness is continuous evolution. Continuous metamorphosis, it's a wonderful process. So there's nothing to be scared of because ultimately when I say evolve or die, I'm only speaking humanity as a species. But ultimately, nothing dies it's only a transformation of consciousness; a transformation of form.
Oprah: A transformation of form, yeah.
Eckhart: Of form so there is no death ultimlatey.
Oprah: But you do mean the end of our human species as we know it.
Eckhart: Yes, that is a possibility. But the fact that we are here tonight should give us hope and confidence that humanity is going to make it because this is growing and not just this teaching, the other spiritual alive spiritual teachings. There is an enormous awakening happening on the planet. So nobody knows, nobody knows, I don't know the answer whether humanity is going to make it. But I do feel confident now more so perhaps than before that we are going to make it.
Oprah: Well, yes because that's one of my favorite quotes, too, Senda, that we are a significant portion of the earth's population will soon recognize, if they haven't already done so, that humanity is now faced with the stark choice, evolve or die. Thank you for raising that question in such a beautiful way, Senda.
Senda: Thank you Oprah, thank you Eckhart.
Oprah: Thanks for joining us. Casey in Ashville, North Carolina is on Skype and has a question also for Eckhart about the secret. Casey?
Casey: Hi, Oprah. Hi, Mr. Tolle. I was debating about whether to read this book because it looked very deep to me, to be honest, and I have a one-year-old and I hang out with her all day and I didn't know if I was ready for it. But Oprah, when I saw your show on the Secret and the bubble man and all that good stuff, I thought I have got to read that book because you talked about it -- in that show. So my question is this. When I put out into the universe, when I ask god for things, for hopes, and dreams, and material things, and a lot of times I get it. Those material things, I think they may be coming from the ego and I just wonder, Mr. Tolle, is that wrong?
Eckhart: Okay, well it's not wrong. You can always easily recognize that something is coming from ego because when you get it, it doesn't satisfy you. That's always a sign that it's coming from ego. It may satisfy you for a little while and then - oh, I need more, I need something else. So that's a good learning process. You can manifest things and if you see oh, these not satisfying, it must have been the ego. So there's nothing wrong with manifesting things. The only illusion would be to expect things to provide some ultimate satisfaction in your life. Things can't do that. The world of form can't ultimately satisfy you. You can enjoy the world of form but the true satisfaction doesn't come from there. The world can't do that. The world can't make you happy. Things cannot give you happiness.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: Because happiness comes from a deeper place within you that you can only access in the present moment. So it's fine. We live in the world of things. Why not manifest things as part of the game of, in this life, the game of form. But if you expect some kind of satisfaction, then you will always be frustrated.
Oprah: Which is going to be, I think we get into that a lot in chapter 3 and chapter 2 and chapter 3. Not allowing yourself.
Casey: Oh I loved chapter two.
Oprah: Loved chapter two.
Casey: So good.
Oprah: Not allowing yourself to be defined by the things. not allowing yourself to be defined by the things. To be in the world and not of it is how I describe it. To have things. I have lots of beautiful things and I love beautiful things. And later on, in one of the chapters, he talks about when you say that you're not defined by things, what happens to you if you were to lose any of those things. The depth of your, you know, grieving or sorrow or, you know, so-called suffering determines how attached you were to those things.
Eckhart: Yes, and for many people ...
Oprah: You can say it doesn't matter to me until somebody steals your car.
Eckhart: That's right. For many people that's a very important lesson when suddenly they do lose something. It can be a wonderful spiritual lesson and then you, perhaps you'd suffer and then your attachment gets broken and suddenly you go beyond the attachment. So there have been people who've lost everything, and suddenly become free of the ego because the ego had nothing left to identify with. So this can happen. And another important thing to mention with regard to manifestation is the basis for your life is the present moment. You need to first of all, the very basis for everything is to come to an acceptance of this moment as it is. Gratitude is part of that. Of course we'll be talking about that in more detail. So that there is neediness when you manifest. It's the neediness that's dissatisfaction, for example, in your life. If there's dissatisfaction, that is not a good place, not a good starting point for changing your life. The ego may tell you that but it isn't. You need to find a place of acceptance. Not ...
Oprah: Wow, that's powerful.
Eckhart: no matter where you are, come to terms and become friendly with the present moment. Because if you do not become friendly with the present moment, you're not friendly with life because life is only now. If you're not friendly with life, life cannot support you.
Oprah: But did you just say that being in a place of dissatisfaction -- being dissatisfied is not a good time or place to change?
Eckhart: It's first -- you can see the totality of the situation. Let's say I use the example in the Power of Now, you are stuck in the mud. You're walking somewhere and suddenly you get deep in the mud up to your knees. You wouldn't say okay I'm satisfied with this situation. You can't be satisfied with this situation, and you know that you need to get out. But you say okay. Here I am stuck in the mud and I need to get out. There's no -
Oprah: cursing the mud.
Eckhart: negative reaction; cursing.
Oprah: Damn this mud.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah. Eckhart or a struggle against. Because if you struggle against you get in deeper.
Oprah: You're going to get more mud on you.
Eckhart: Yes. Very important, perhaps one of the key things here in any spiritual teaching is the question that you need to ask yourself as much as possible. You can even put it on your bathroom mirror or some other places where you the question is what is my relationship with the present moment? To become very conscious of that and then you find out you become alert. What's my relationship with this moment? Is there negativity in which case I'm fighting, I'm making the present moment into an enemy.
Oprah: What you say is what you resist persists.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: So you must make peace with the moment.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Doesn't mean you have to approve the situation.
Eckhart: No.
Oprah: But you must make peace with the moment in order to get yourself out of it.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: 'Cause resisting is only going to cause more of it.
Eckhart: Yes. And that's absolutely vital. So ease with what is. The easeness of this moment is already as it already is as it is. The ego doesn't understand that but you can't really argue with what is because it already is.
Oprah: So you must accept whatever it is first before you begin to change it, that's what you're saying.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: There must be acceptance.
Eckhart: Acceptance of what is first. Then action comes out of the acceptance. It no longer comes out of resistance.
Oprah: Got it.
Eckhart: Which is a totally different energy flows into what you do when it comes out of an acceptance of this is what is and then action happens that is actually empowered by life itself.
Oprah: I think that explained it, Casey.
Casey: I think so too. Thank you so much, that was amazing.
Oprah: Thank you so much. I just wanted to go back to spirituality and religion for a few moments in the few moments we have remaining because I know that's still such a major issue with so many of you. And you say on page 17 that the more you make your thoughts or beliefs into your identity the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension from yourself. You also say on page 18 how spiritual you are has nothing to do with what you believe.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: But everything to do with your state of consciousness.
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Eckhart: Yes. How spiritual you are reads how present are you at this moment? Are you in your thoughts or are you there as the awareness behind your thoughts?
Oprah: Which is your spirit.
Eckhart: yes. Stillness. So the, often in the newspapers and the media, they always ask what do you believe in. That is not an important question what I believe in. It's the important question is are you present at this moment? Not what your belief structures are.
Oprah: I think people want to know what you believe so they can label it and decide whether they are going to like you accept you or not.
Eckhart: Yes. And they want to know, do you believe the same thing that I believe because if you don't, you're my enemy.
Oprah: Yeah. You're laughing at that, okay.
Eckhart: Well, it's mad, it's better to laugh at madness.
Oprah: Yes, yes. I just wanted to mention this person, Maria from Doha Qatar. Just want to say Doha Qatar.
Eckhart: In what country?
Oprah: Qatar.
Eckhart: Qatar, okay Qatar.
Oprah: She says, "do you think people are willing and ready to set aside a time required in each day, Is this possible in a global sense? Would anyone who thinks their life is fine be willing to waste time just sitting in order to raise their consciousness level?
Eckhart: Well, better I would change the question a little bit to make it more vital and more relevant just ask, am I ready? The only question you really need to answer is, am I ready to do this? You don't need to know whether other people are ready to do it. Only you can have the answer, am I ready to be still.
Oprah: Very good, Mr. Qatar. Am I ready?
Eckhart: See, that's the vital question and only you can answer that. I can't answer that. I can't answer that. Are you ready? Or are you so fascinated by the things of this world and your mind that perhaps you need to pursue those things for a few more years until you suffer a bit more and then you're ready.
Oprah: Well yes. When we were doing rehearsal for this yesterday, we were up on Skype and someone said "I'm 28 years old and I don't think need to be awakened so what can I get from this book?" I go, don't waste your time, go read another book.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah. If you don't think you need to be awakened then -
Eckhart: Yes?
Oprah: Yeah. If you don't think you need to be awakened, then....
Eckhart: No, that's right. So the time is not yet there for everybody and that's fine too.
Oprah: What about the people who are struggling, particularly in this first chapter with the book?
Eckhart: The first chapter is a little bit more conceptual than the other chapters and less practical. I wanted to give a general context for where the book fits into the general context of spirituality on the planet or transformation of consciousness on the planet. So just read through. There are already very important pointers in the first chapter if you can see them. We'll run through the whole book, presence and so on. Just carry on not only the first chapter, anywhere in the book. Don't expect to immediately understand everything that's not necessary. And besides understanding the book is not the essential thing, it's secondary. The first thing is to experience the truth of it rather than conceptual understanding, the essence of what's in the book but in any case can't be understood conceptually. For example presence. People say, can you explain to me what presence is? I've already given a few pointers. - to go beyond that and give further definitions. You can only know what presence is by being present. You must have at least a glimpse of presence which -- and this is why it's not understanding that's the essence, so when you don't understand just read on. Much it's a process, reading this book is a process.
Oprah: Yes. And this book as you say, again, as I said in the beginning, this isn't about creating more information for you to believe in.
Eckhart: No.
Oprah: And you don't want to be anybody's guru.
Eckhart: No, no, no. So it's only, it's not through your mind really that you can get. Anybody who finds this book meaningful, and this is the important thing, is already awakening. If you're not awakening already, this book will be completely meaningless or any other truly alive spiritual book will be meaningless. You won't understand it all, you'll say there's not much there, I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me. If it does make sense, especially if you feel something from within responding and just say wow, yeah.
Oprah: Well, I think also too for all of you who've joined us, there are a lot of people who are expressing, they're getting it, they're awakening, they're feeling more alive and excited. And then you want to go share it with somebody else who perhaps hasn't read the book, doesn't feel the same as you, and then they feel frustrated.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: And I guess you would say the same thing you say to the woman in Qatar, just worry about yourself.
Eckhart: Yes. And so if other ...
Oprah: Concern yourself with yourself.
Eckhart: That's right. And if friends or relatives say, doesn't make sense to me, that's fine. Perhaps in a few years time they will be ready, we don't know. So it's to accept that it's not yet for everybody.
Oprah: Accept it first.
Eckhart: Accept.
Oprah: Accept.
Eckhart: Accept. Don't demand or don't make it into an ideology and then try to convince people that they must be present.
Oprah: Right. I got it. Before we say goodbye, I want to thank you for being with me, all of you out there. This is just the most exciting thing I have ever done, being able to talk with you all and share this kind of information that allows all of us to get closer to who we really are so that we can do, honor our life's purpose and calling here while we're on earth. We'll be here next Monday again at 8:00 pm Central. If you want to experience this first class again or tell a friend who missed it, our webcast will be available on demand tomorrow for free here at Oprah.com. You will also be able to update your workbook and get started on chapter two. And if you want to download the podcast of this class, you can do that too at Oprah.com, and at iTunes. Next week, woo, moving out of the conceptual chapter one into the good stuff.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Moving on. The next week we'll be talking about the ego. Wow. We'll see you next Monday night. Thank you Eckhart.
Eckhart: Thank you. Thank you.
Oprah: And thank you so much to all of you around the world. Goodnight.
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OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Welcome to our second "New Earth" webcast. It is my greatest joys, to unite all of us around the world and share the possibilities of awakening together. Along with a multitude of North Americans, we also have students registered in this class from countries like Afghanistan, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Ireland, South Africa and even a few of you from Zanzibar, I hear. Thank you. Since last week, 1,860,000 of you have streamed or downloaded our first class. I just want you to know it's always available if this pioneering effort again tonight should break up and we have webcast problems, you can go to Oprah.com tomorrow or iTunes and begin streaming afternoon. Well, for the next nine weeks, author and spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle and I planned to be right here in our virtual classroom on Oprah.com Monday nights at 8:00 PM Central to discuss each chapter and talk with you about it. And you can type in your questions on the right side of your screen and send that to us instantly. And throughout this class, we're gonna also talk directly to students via Skype -- so cool -- free software that allows you to make Internet and video phone calls all over the world. Welcome again, Eckhart Tolle.
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR): Thank you. Thank you.
Oprah: Well, last week, you shared with us how there are tools that we can use to bring ourself into the present moment. And you were saying from that first chapter that -- and throughout this book -- that there is only the present moment. And you were saying that if we would allow ourselves to take ourselves out of our mind and just go to our breath that we could learn presence that way. That's how you begin to learn presence.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: Yes. And I suggest that we all do that right now, which is to say we are taking our attention right now away from where it usually dwells, which is in the head and in the thinking mind, and we direct our attention to our breath. And the simple question that one could ask is -- or you could ask yourself is, am I still breathing? Let's just check if I'm still breathing. Now, how do you find out whether you're still breathing? You have to take your attention away from the thinking mind ...
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: ...and sense yourself breathing right now.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: And as you are taking attention away from the thinking mind, which always works using past and future is strains itself by always generating past and future thinking ...
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: ...you also enter the present moment when you take attention away from thinking, direct attention to your breathing. You're always breathing, but usually you're not aware of it.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: And now, we are bringing awareness to it, which means we are taking attention away from thinking. So, we are not losing consciousness. We are very conscious, but thinking much less or perhaps not at all. So, let's do this now. This has never been done on television. It's unprecedented, but we can do it here.
Oprah: Yes. Yes. Silence is usually not good on TV.
Eckhart: No.
Oprah: But let's try it ...
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: ...for the next 10 seconds.
Eckhart: 10 seconds. Just be aware of yourself breathing.
Oprah: Right. I'm still alive.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: I just checked in.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: Perhaps even more alive when you're engaged in thinking. There is a deeper sense of aliveness there that you are just beginning to touch when you get in touch with that -- these inner processes.
Oprah: Yeah. I think that's pretty cool that all around the world and all of these different countries I just named that all us come together in silence for a moment just to give our minds a break.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah. Well, this is the most exciting chapter, until you get to the next chapter. I think chapter 2 is the most exciting chapter. As we said last week, chapter 1 is pretty conceptual, you would agree.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: You're the one who wrote it.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Pretty conceptual. But in chapter 2, title "Ego: The Current State of Humanity," we get into, I think, a way of understanding ourselves, that perhaps so many people were not aware of until beginning to read this. So, I would just like to just get right into this chapter. When you say when you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life. It was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought became possessed by thought. What do you know by that?
Eckhart: Yes. Now, usually -- and everybody can verify this in their own experience -- we experience the phenomenal world, whatever we experience. We don't experience it directly. It is overlaid with self talk, which are the mental processes. So, as you go about your life, you encounter situations, you meet people, you do your work. And most of the time, there is a voice in the head, which is the can we call the self talk, it can be called the inner voice.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: But it is the conditioned thought processes, and they are commenting and interpreting and mentally labeling whatever it is you're perceiving or experiencing. So there's always a running commentary in people's heads.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: So they don't relate to the world directly and immediately, but through the veil of the self-talk.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: So when -- and this greatly decreases the sense of aliveness, the sense of how you relate to the ...
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: ...to the outer world, and especially to human being. For example, if every time I meet another human being, I immediately have certain thoughts and judgments in my head that come up the moment I meet a person. I'm already thinking something about this person.
Oprah: That's right. You've already labeled.
Eckhart: I'm already labeled, and so I'm no longer really in communication with that person. I'm in communication with my own labels.
Oprah: Yes. And what you said to us last week and you also say in this chapter, even a stone and more easily a flower or a bird could show you the way back to God and the source to yourself when you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word or mental label. And what you were saying last week is that if you can learn to do that in nature first, stop labeling things, just feel the essence and presence of things, it allows you then to be able to gradually move into doing that with people.
Eckhart: That's right.
Oprah: Because so often, we don't engage in presence with people, we've already labeled them and labeled the situation. And so we're reacting out of the situations and not out of what's actually happening.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: That's what you're saying.
Eckhart: Yes. We've already put people into mental boxes.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: And so, we no longer experience them as in their full aliveness. We have desensitized ourselves through this continuous mental conceptualization. We have desensitized ourselves to the aliveness of other human beings. Because the moment I put a label on another human being, I've already desensitized myself to their life.
Oprah: So you say the quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people -- or situations -- the more -- I'm on page 26, everybody at the bottom - - the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes and the more deadened you become to reality. The miracle of life that continuously unfolds within and around you.
Eckhart: Yes. I go for a walk every day in a little forest at home and, often, I encounter people who are jogging or friends going for a walk. And most people are -- some are listening to things in their headphones, whatever it is.
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: And they're talking to their friends.
Oprah: Uh-huh.
Eckhart: And very few people are actually truly present there as I walk through this beautiful forest.
Oprah: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Eckhart: And this is a spiritual practice, and I recommend that people, whenever they go out into nature, especially, practice being very alert ...
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: ...so that they can perceive the trees, the flowers, the plants, the sky ...
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: ...without too much mental interference.
Oprah: That's so interesting 'cause when I used to run all the time, I'd have all those people who would run with their headphones and they'd say, what are you listening to? And even now working out, I like just being and feeling the, you know, my feet on the pavement and, you know, taking it all in. I like just sort of being with myself. And I find that the headphones and all that is a distraction for me.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: Yes. So that's a great practice.
Oprah: It's a good practice.
Eckhart: But you can, even without leaving your home, you can practice even if you have a potted plants at home in your room. Look at the plant just for a few seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds and just bring your attention to the sense perception and truly look without eventually saying anything about it.
Oprah: Mm-hmm. Well, Heather from Vancouver Island, Canada is on Skype. Hello, Heather.
Heather (audience member): Hello, Oprah. I'm honored to be here speaking with you today.
Oprah: This is -- I think this is fun. Okay. Okay, go right ahead.
Heather (audience member): Mr. Tolle, I'd like to commend you on a spectacular book.
Eckhart: Oh.
Heather (audience member): I found of it thought-provoking and questions arose for me. For example, when we get free of the ego, where does that energy go?
Oprah: Ooh, good question.
Eckhart: Mm-hmm. Good question, yes, thank you. The energy that was used up by the ego. Now, what is the ego basically consists of compulsive conditioned thought processes. So that we are not aware of. So we identify so closely with our stream of thinking that we don't even know that we are thinking. So all this energy is used up in continuous, to a large extent, useless thinking. Even psychologists have found out that 90 -- even psychologists who were not interested in spiritual things, they looked at the nature of human thought and they discovered that 98 percent or 99 percent of our thoughts are quite useless and repetitive.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
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Eckhart: They're not really needed. So, where does that energy go? That energy that then becomes freed from thinking, it become presence, which is a new dimension -- well not entirely new because almost everybody has had glimpses of presence, but it is a dimension of consciousness that most people still don't know exists.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: And really, this is the essence of the whole teaching.
Oprah: And everybody's had glimpses of it. I'm sure you have too, Heather, and everybody whose listening to us. Everybody's had just that little moment where everything's okay, where you had just a moment of bliss, where there's nothing particularly going on that would cause you to feel that, but there is a sense of an awareness ...
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: ...that causes you to have, as you said, a glimpse of ...
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: ...something bigger than yourself.
Eckhart: Yes. It can come accidentally.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: Sometimes, it comes into people's lives accidentally and, suddenly, you feel a deep sense of inner peace and aliveness.
Oprah: And all rightness.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: And all rightness.
Eckhart: And not because something in particular has happened.
Oprah: Happened. Right.
Eckhart: So, it's -- there's no external cause for it. It's causeless joy, one could say.
Oprah: That's happened to you, Heather? Has that happened to you?
Heather (audience member): Occasionally.
Oprah: Yeah, occasionally, yeah. And then you wanna -- how did that happen, so I can make that happen again?
Eckhart: Yes.
Heather (audience member): Yeah.
Eckhart: It can also happen when you're engaged in very strenuous physical activity.
Oprah: Uh-huh.
Eckhart: And so that requires all your attention, like climbing a mountain.
Oprah: Right. Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: So you need to be -- when you're climbing a wall, you need to be totally present every moment.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: If you lose presence and start thinking about what you're going to do when you get down from the mountain, you'll probably have an accident. So certain activities, very strenuous activities require absolute presence. And some people become actually addicted to dangerous activities because they feel much more alive in those moments.
Oprah: Mm-hmm. 'Cause you need to be fully present.
Eckhart: Yes. The reason why they feel it's so much more alive is because they're thinking almost nothing at all.
Oprah: Because you have to be present ...
Eckhart: You're absolutely there.
Oprah: ...in order to climb a mountain or to do strenuous activities. Yeah.
Eckhart: Yes. Your attention is absolutely there.
Oprah: All right. All right, Heather, did that answer your question?
Heather (audience member): Yes, it did. Thank you.
Oprah: Well, thank you so much from Vancouver Island, Canada, Heather. Well, Heather introduces this whole idea of the illusory self that you talk about on page 27. You say the word I embodies the greatest error and the deepest truth depending upon how it is used. What do you mean by that?
Eckhart: Yes. Usually, when people say I, they're referring to what I call me and my story ...
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: ...which is your personal history that you identify with as yourself. So everybody has a story, of course, because everybody has a past. Now, most people are completely identified with the story that is their successes, their failures ...
Oprah: Right, right.
Eckhart: ...things that happened to them ...
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: ...things that they acquired. They see themselves as a victory. They see themselves as successful, whatever it is.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: There is a certain story that develops.
Oprah: Because when you ask me who am I, that's what I'm going to tell you, my story ...
Eckhart: That's right.
Oprah: ...my successes, my failures, where I was born, what I did, what my mother did or didn't do.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: That's who we think we are.
Eckhart: That's right. Now, what I'm saying is, and what all spiritual teachings point to is that that, that ultimately is not who you are in your essence. It is no more than a collection of memories, and of course memories are thoughts. It is no more than a bundle of thoughts that you identify with and that you believe to be who you are. So that becomes an entity almost, a mind made entity, a self - - sense of self ...
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: ...like a phantom entity that lives with you that you then refer to as myself. So you have me and myself. For example in Greek mythology, we have the interesting story of Narcissus.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: Narcissus was a gentleman who lived -- this how the story goes. Mythology, of course, always embodies some truths that goes beyond the person.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: Narcissus happened to be walking somewhere and he saw -- suddenly, he looked down and he saw his own image in a pool of water. At a time, of course, when they didn't have mirrors at the time, so it was a surprise for him to see himself reflected in a pool of water. And the story goes that he fell in love with himself.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: My view is that -- actually, a better translation is -- of the story is that he became obsessed with himself.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: And that to me signals the beginning of the human ego. It is to have a mental image in your head, ultimately, not out there, that's just the story. A mental image in your head of -- that you regard as yourself. And that mental image is the mind made me that consists of memories, things that happened to you, things -- failures and successes. Opinions, all kinds of things, I describe them in the book, together make up this I.
Oprah: Well, if I'm not the memories and I'm not the things that happened to me and I'm not my story, then who am I?
Eckhart: That's the question. And, in fact, who am I is actually a question that in some spiritual -- eastern spiritual teachings is used as a kind of mantra or pointer that you repeat to yourself in a meditation setting. So you sit down and you ask yourself, who am I? And you're not supposed to answer that question. You leave the blank after the question. In that blank, in that empty space, if it works, if this practice works as it should, you suddenly get a sense of your own presence ...
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: ...that has nothing to do with your thought processes. Your own sense of conscious presence, your being-ness, your presence, which part of which is actually also your physical presence, but it's a sense of aliveness.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: Every cell of the body becomes part of that sense of presence and aliveness. So, as we state here, we can (unintelligible) if we can get a little glimpse of that. A glimpse of our own presence, which again is nothing to do with thinking. It is deeper than thinking.
Oprah: How do we get a glimpse of it sitting here?
Eckhart: We get a glimpse of it. I recommend that see if you can feel the inner aliveness in your body. As (unintelligible), is there any sense in which you can feel that there is an aliveness in every cell of the body? Now, if people ...
Oprah: But isn't my mind thinking that?
Eckhart: Your mind may be thinking, yes, of course, I'm alive.
Oprah: Like in the book you say, feel the aliveness in your hands. Okay.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: When I go to feel the aliveness in my hand, I can't feel the aliveness in my hand unless I had a mind in which to feel that.
Eckhart: No. So, if you close your eyes and you hold out your hand like this ...
Oprah: Yes, yes.
Eckhart: ...and then you -- the question ...
Oprah: You feel this -- the vibrating sensation in your hand.
Eckhart: Yes. You ask yourself -- for example, I always have this exercise with people who have no idea what I'm talking about when I talk about inner body.
Oprah: Okay. Well, that would be a lot of people listening right now. Go ahead.
Eckhart: So you hold out your hand ...
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: ...and close your eyes and then ask yourself how -- without touching anything and without moving my hand, how can I know whether my hand is still here? How can I know that? Now, your mind might say, of course, I know it because I remember seeing it (unintelligible) a few seconds ago.
Oprah: Yeah. And I feel it right here.
Eckhart: That said, you need to -- you feel the inside is alive. A subtle sense of warmth or tingling is a subtle sense of aliveness.
Oprah: Right, right. Yes.
Eckhart: That is the beginning of getting in touch with your inner body, the energy field.
Oprah: But I need my brain to do that, though.
Eckhart: You need your conscious attention to do that ...
Oprah: Okay.
Eckhart: ...but not thinking.
Oprah: Not thinking.
Eckhart: No. That's the difference. You need attention, which is consciousness.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: Yes, you need consciousness to feel it, but the consciousness then moves from where it usually is, just as it did when we started today with becoming aware of our breathing.
Oprah: Our breathing.
Eckhart: Now, the consciousness moves into the hand. And if you can feel your hand, if you can feel one hand, you can also feel the other hand. If you can feel both hands at the same time, you can perhaps also feel your both arms.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: And if you can feel the arms, perhaps you can also feel your feet.
Oprah: Okay. And as I begin to feel that and everybody who's with us around the world feels that, then what?
Eckhart: This means, the inner body, we also could call this is, what we are doing is we are practicing embodiment.
Oprah: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: This keeps you in the present moment and keeps you present and keeps you out of your thought processes.
Oprah: Out of your thought (unintelligible) is thinking about what I need to do tomorrow.
Eckhart: Yes. And it takes you out of ego because the ego lives in your thought processes, consists of thought processes.
Oprah: Okay.
Eckhart: So the moment you enter the inner aliveness of the body, you sense - there is a sense of self that is deeper than thinking. You are that aliveness that you feel. You are that alive presence. And so -- and this applies whether your past or your personal history is a happy one or an unhappy one. For most people, it's a very mixed story.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: But no personal history's entirely happy.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: With very few examples. And then you just have to wait a little while until it becomes unhappy again.
Oprah: Even the people who say, I had a great childhood.
Eckhart: Yeah. No. Personal histories are all very problematic and it's not -- and people think, oh, it's only me. It's everybody. Everybody's personal history ...
Oprah: 'Cause that's what being a human is.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Okay.
Eckhart: So to be able to step out and find a dimension that has nothing to do with your past and your history or whether you are a miserable failure in the eyes of the world or your thought processes or (unintelligible), it has nothing to do with that.
Oprah: I love it when you say, what you usually refer to when you say I -- I'm on page 28 -- is not who you are. A monstrous act of reductionism ...
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: ...which is a great way of putting it. The infinite depth of who you are is confused with the sound produced by the vocal chords of the thought of I in your mind and whatever the I has identified with. So, what do the usual I and the related me, my or mine refer to? You talk about when a young child first learns to identify my toy.
Eckhart: Yes. That's the beginning of the ego, when the child starts to identify with an external object. And you can see when the toy is taken away from a child after this identification has happened, after it was -- the child thought of it as my toy, there's an enormous amount of pain in the child. The child will start screaming and saying, it's mine, it's mine. So the toy has been taken away. Why is it so painful for the child? Because it's the beginning of the ego. The ego has lost something that it had identified with.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: It's a misperception of who one is. And so it's very painful.
Oprah: The child thinks that the toy has something to do with them.
Eckhart: Who they are.
Oprah: It's who they are.
Eckhart: That's the identification.
Oprah: And that's why kids go into spasms ...
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: ...over a toy and you're going, it's just a toy.
Eckhart: Yes. And two days later, they lose interest in it.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: And so that's the beginning of it. And then ...
Oprah: And it's because they think the toy is them or a part of them or ...
Eckhart: They think it's ...
Oprah: ...it's a part of them?
Eckhart: It adds something to their sense of self ...
Oprah: That's right.
Eckhart: ...of who they are.
Oprah: And when you take it away, they think it is.
Eckhart: Then they'd be -- it's like losing a limb ...
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
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Eckhart: ...because it was became so much part of who they thought they were.
Oprah: Yeah. In the child's mind, that's a part of me.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: And then we grow up ...
Eckhart: And, of course, the process continues.
Oprah: When we grow up, our toys just get bigger.
Eckhart: They get bigger. And ...
Oprah: We cry because I lost my ...
Eckhart: Lost external possessions.
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: But, of course, possessions is an important part of all the things that people identify with that become part of their identity. But there are many other things apart from possessions.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: For example, social position, how others see you.
Oprah: 'Cause you say other things the I identifies with is nationality, race, religion, profession, mother, father, husband, wife, so on.
Eckhart: Roles they play.
Oprah: Roles they play.
Eckhart: Opinions they hold. You can see, for example, when ...
Oprah: But these are roles. They are actual roles, you know?
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: People are mothers and fathers and ...
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: ...you know?
Eckhart: Yes. And now, it's important, of course, to fulfill the functions that you have in this world and your mother and father are important functions (unintelligible).
Oprah: Yeah. And your nationality and your race, your religion.
Eckhart: That's -- it's fine.
Oprah: You identify with those things.
Eckhart: It's fine to honor all these things. But if that's all you have, then you are lost in a surface reality that you always turns into -- becomes painful and turns into conflict.
Oprah: Okay.
Eckhart: You can see, for example, people are discussing and if somebody questions somebody's opinion, very often, immediately they become defensive.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: Sometimes even aggressive or start shouting.
Oprah: Right.
Eckhart: And because opinions again is another thing that ...
Oprah: It was my beliefs.
Eckhart: Mine.
Eckhart: That they identify with a thought they hold. A mental position. And then anybody who questions that mental position, immediately becomes your enemy because you believe you're being attacked. You're not being attacked, but the image that you have of yourself, the opinion is part of that. The ego believes it's being attacked.
Oprah: So you're saying that whenever you can see that that's what you're thinking, when you can see the illusion of that, the moment you can see the illusion of it, these are thoughts in my head. This is something I've told myself I believe. This is something I've told myself that I identify with. That when you can see that, the seer or the observer is who you really are.
Eckhart: Yes. And the seer or observer is the presence of the awareness.
Oprah: So you're saying there's two of us at all times.
Eckhart: Yes. There is the formless awareness and there is the form that a thought becomes -- thought is an energy formation.
Oprah: Okay.
Eckhart: And so you've just mentioned the essence is to be there as the awareness when it happens.
Oprah: All right, I'm gonna go to Victoria. Victoria lives in Maui, joins us via Skype. Victoria, hello.
Victoria (audience member): Aloha.
Oprah: Aloha. Can't wait to get there.
Victoria (audience member): Thank you, Oprah and Mr. Tolle, for this awesome opportunity. I was diagnosed over 10 years ago with systemic lupus and RA. And I've been really active person. But two years ago, I gave up my business. My health deteriorated. And I got an aha moment in this book on page 51. I never realized that I had unconsciously clinged to my illness -- and I'm taking this the out of the book 'cause I put it to myself -- because it had actually become the most important part of who I perceived myself to be. How can I undo this identity? And how can I stay focused when I'm in excruciating pain from the illness to have the peace constantly and not just fleeing moments?
Oprah: That's real.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: That's real.
Eckhart: Yes. Now, the most important thing has already happened, which is you have become aware that up to now, you had been identified with the idea of I am sufferer of such and such an illness. So the illness had become thought forms in your head, and you had identified with these thought forms and took them to be who you are. And now, the most important thing, your question is still valid but realize that the most important thing has already happened, which is the awareness has arisen. So you have -- there's a space now between yourself and your thought processes and the image of yourself as a sick person. Now, another thing, of course, in addition you can do is, for example, no longer talk about your illness to other people except when you visit your doctor. That doesn't -- then otherwise, the more you talk about it to your friends, acquaintances, family members, the more you keep that process going.
Oprah: Empower it.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: She empowers the disease.
Eckhart: That's right.
Oprah: Yes.
Eckhart: So if you can't just (unintelligible) take the decision now that from now on, I'm not going to talk about it. And if people ask me about my illness, which they're going to do because they're used -- perhaps used to talking about it, you say, well, it's -- I'm doing all I can to find healing in this. And I'm making good progress. Go as far as that and don't encourage people to ask you questions and just say that's how it is. No more mentioning my illness. So you begin on the external level, not to talk about it anymore except when, of course, when you need to talk to doctors. And that will have also certain influence on your thought processes. And then you can gradually also refrain from thinking of yourself as a sick person, and perhaps give less thought to your illness and focus attention more on well-being. Now, you may ask, well, but if I don't feel good, if I feel it, how can I give attention to well-being? You can still do that. One way is to see well-being around you in nature because nature is just an embodiment of well-being.
Oprah: And you have a lot of opportunity to do that in Maui.
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: Yeah.
Eckhart: You're in the best place. And also there's wellbeing even if certain parts of your body feel unwell or painful. And again, we are coming back to the -- sensing the inner body. There are always parts of your body where you can still find well-being, in your hands, your arms, wherever. Take some attention into the body and see, where can I most strongly feel, get a sense of well-being in the body, and then take your attention there. So you choose to direct attention to well-being rather than dwelling on the idea of illness.
Oprah: That does not mean the pain is gonna go away 'cause she said she has physical pain.
Eckhart: The pain may still be there. That's -- but not as far as the pain is concerned. Pain unfortunately requires surrender. You need to see if the pain is there, so that you do not generate an additional level of psychological pain, which complains about being in physical pain because if the mind stops to complain about being in physical pain ...
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: You have two levels of pain. You have psychological pain and physical pain.
Oprah: Got it.
Eckhart: Leave physical pain -- with physical pain, you just -- right now, this is how it is. It's there.
Oprah: Don't resist it?
Eckhart: Don't resist it. Do what you can as far as treatment goes, of course. But don't resist it, don't create psychological pain on top of the physical pain.
Oprah: Are you following that, Victoria?
Victoria (audience member): Got it, yeah. Excellent.
Oprah: Got it. Got it. Makes sense to you?
Victoria (audience member): You know, it really does. It does, yes.
Oprah: Yeah.
Victoria (audience member): And I do have a little garden in the back that I go out to a lot.
Oprah: Hmm.
Eckhart: Yes, because there is well-being all around you and you can almost -- one could say you absorb it from -- if you don't -- if you can -- they contemplate all these plans and (unintelligible) intends aliveness around you, contemplate that.
Oprah: Well, e-mail us in the weeks to come ...
Eckhart: Yes.
Oprah: ...and let us know how this works for you, Victoria.
Victoria (audience member): I will. I will, Oprah.
Oprah: Thank you so much. Victoria from Maui.
Victoria (audience member): Thank you.
Oprah: We have Ann from Ireland on the phone with a question. Ann, hello.
Ann (audience member): Hi, Oprah. How are you?
Oprah: Hi. Middle of the night there?
Ann (audience member): It's 1:30 in the morning.
Oprah: Okay, thank you.
Ann (audience member): And hi, Eckhart.
Eckhart: Hello.
Ann (audience member): This book has been so inspirational. I have three young children, 5, 7 and 9 years old. And motherhood is one of the things that's motivated me to find ways to be happier with myself. 'Cause it's so evident that children are influenced by what they experience with you rather than what you actually tell them.
Eckhart: Yes.
Ann (audience member): And I see that the stress of my life is even had an impact on their health. And I found the ideas in a "New Earth" (unintelligible) this way because I'm practicing being present with them and really enjoying my time with them. Not thinking about work and thinking about the things I should be doing around the house, but just spending time with them and being with them. And I'm seeing that the individuals that they really are and who I am. Are there other ways to introduce these ideas to small children like that?
Eckhart: Yeah, that's a very good question. Though you've already mentioned the most important thing is your own state of consciousness at home because the children absorb from you, your predominant state of consciousness. And if you can be present with children at home, present means to give them full attention. When you are present, you don't want anything from them. You just give them attention, which could be listening. It could be watching them as they play. Now, many parents don't do that. They give them attention, but it's always wanting something. They say do this, don't do that. Now, this needs to get done. So that is -- I call that form-based attention.
Oprah: Mm-hmm.
Eckhart: That has its place, of course. Of cours