Eckhart Tolle Magnum Opus Transcript (March 2025)
John Parker interview with Eckhart Tolle (year 2000)
Eckhart Tolle
Iwas first introduced to Eckhart Toile at the “Gathering 2000” a two-day event in San Diego hosted by Inner Directions. A num¬ ber of spiritual teachers were invited to make presentations: Ram
Das, Lama Surya Das, Adyashanti, Rabbi Shapiro, Byron Katie, Krishna Das, Robin Rabbin, Eckhart Toile, and others. Five hundred people attended, and everyone seemed to enjoy the event immensely. Itturnedouttobearelativelylightaffairsprinkledwithlotsofhumor and laughter which blended beautifully with the weighty topics of enlightenment and liberation.
Eckhart Toile was scheduled to do his presentation close to the end of the second day. On the stage were two chairs. One chair was over-sized, stuffed and inviting. All of the previous presenters used it.
The other chair was a plain, straight-backed wooden model posi¬ tioned for guests. Eckhart came out and sat in the wooden chair.
Eckhart’s presentation lasted for approximately ninety minutes. His delivery was soft and clear. He adeptly articulated main points about “The Presence,” the “Pain Body” and other terms referred to in his book, The Power ofNow. He has an English/German accent and possesses a delightfully droll sense of humor. Eckhart was incredibly insightful as he took us through the mechanism of the mind and pre¬ sented “the Now” in such a way that it became self-evident. When he finished speaking, the audience literally leapt out of their seats and applauded wildly. The audience’s response seemed to arise not from what he said, but from his simple presence of Being. He was clearly an example of someone living in “The Now” and people immediately recognized it. It seemed as if the entire Gathering met in “The Now,” and it was awesome. Afterward, Eckhart went outside the meeting hall and autographed his book. Long lines of attendees made their way toward him. He hugged them all. Many had tears of joy in their eyes.
When I arrived at the Gathering I wasn’t sure who I wanted to interview. I had heard others ecstatically talk about Eckhart and his teachings, so I made arrangements to interview him the day after his presentation. After hearing him speak, I immediately bought his book, returned to my room and started formulating questions.
The hotel I was staying in was very close to where Eckhart had rented a room. I found myself at his hotel a bit early so I strolled along the shimmering shoreline for a few minutes reflecting on what he shared with us the day before. The simplicity and profundity of “The Now” was still lively in my awareness.
I interviewed Eckhart for nearly two hours. When we finished, I knew I had found someone who was exactly the kind of spiritual teacher I wanted to share with you. He is not well-known, yet exudes a tangible spiritual presence that is genuine, powerful and easily rec¬ ognizable by many people. I must have said, “Wow!” to myself a dozen times a day for weeks after the interview when I put my attention on Eckhart and his teaching. Please welcome Eckhart into your life and through the Eckhart Tolle “Power of Now” tap directly into your own essence.

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Practising The Power Of Now, Stillness Speaks and The Power of Now 3 Eckhart Tolle Books Collection Box set

Hodder and Stoughton Ltd/Yellow Kite

Hermod/Almqvist & Wiksell

Utbildningsförlaget

Liber ekonomi

Sweden, Sweden

2021

PS

Eckhart Tolle Magnum Opus Transcript
Eckhart Tolle
Iwas first introduced to Eckhart Toile at the “Gathering 2000” a two-day event in San Diego hosted by Inner Directions. A num¬ ber of spiritual teachers were invited to make presentations: Ram
Das, Lama Surya Das, Adyashanti, Rabbi Shapiro, Byron Katie, Krishna Das, Robin Rabbin, Eckhart Toile, and others. Five hundred people attended, and everyone seemed to enjoy the event immensely. Itturnedouttobearelativelylightaffairsprinkledwithlotsofhumor and laughter which blended beautifully with the weighty topics of enlightenment and liberation.
Eckhart Toile was scheduled to do his presentation close to the end of the second day. On the stage were two chairs. One chair was over-sized, stuffed and inviting. All of the previous presenters used it.
The other chair was a plain, straight-backed wooden model posi¬ tioned for guests. Eckhart came out and sat in the wooden chair.
Eckhart’s presentation lasted for approximately ninety minutes. His delivery was soft and clear. He adeptly articulated main points about “The Presence,” the “Pain Body” and other terms referred to in his book, The Power ofNow. He has an English/German accent and possesses a delightfully droll sense of humor. Eckhart was incredibly insightful as he took us through the mechanism of the mind and pre¬ sented “the Now” in such a way that it became self-evident. When he finished speaking, the audience literally leapt out of their seats and applauded wildly. The audience’s response seemed to arise not from what he said, but from his simple presence of Being. He was clearly an example of someone living in “The Now” and people immediately recognized it. It seemed as if the entire Gathering met in “The Now,” and it was awesome. Afterward, Eckhart went outside the meeting hall and autographed his book. Long lines of attendees made their way toward him. He hugged them all. Many had tears of joy in their eyes.
When I arrived at the Gathering I wasn’t sure who I wanted to interview. I had heard others ecstatically talk about Eckhart and his teachings, so I made arrangements to interview him the day after his presentation. After hearing him speak, I immediately bought his book, returned to my room and started formulating questions.
The hotel I was staying in was very close to where Eckhart had rented a room. I found myself at his hotel a bit early so I strolled along the shimmering shoreline for a few minutes reflecting on what he shared with us the day before. The simplicity and profundity of “The Now” was still lively in my awareness.
I interviewed Eckhart for nearly two hours. When we finished, I knew I had found someone who was exactly the kind of spiritual teacher I wanted to share with you. He is not well-known, yet exudes a tangible spiritual presence that is genuine, powerful and easily rec¬ ognizable by many people. I must have said, “Wow!” to myself a dozen times a day for weeks after the interview when I put my attention on Eckhart and his teaching. Please welcome Eckhart into your life and through the “Power of Now” tap directly into your own essence.
This morning we are speaking with Eckhart Toile. As a note of intro¬ duction, can you share with us where you grew up and how it impacted
your outlook on life?
Yes. I was born in Germany, where I lived for the first thirteen
years of my life. At age thirteen I moved to Spain to live with my father, who had gone to live there, and I spent the rest of my teenage years in Spain. So that became the second culture in which I lived. The second language for me became Spanish. At nineteen I moved to Eng¬ land. For most of my adult life until about five or six years ago, I lived in England. So the fact of having lived in two or three different cul¬ tural environments perhaps was important because I was not condi¬ tioned by just one particular culture. People who have lived exclusively in one culture, part of their mental conditioning is the cul¬ tural collective conditioning of that country. It probably helped to live in more than one country, so that the conditioning was not so deep. One became more aware of the surrounding culture without being totally identified with it.
Another interesting fact is that at the age of thirteen I refused to go to school any longer. It was an inner impossibility for me to go to school. I was not a rebellious child at all, but I simply refused to go to school. The environment was so hostile. I simply refused, and so between thirteen and twenty-two or twenty-three I had no formal education. When I went to live with my father in Spain—my father was a very unconventional person, which is wonderful—he asked me, “Do you want to go to school here?” I was thirteen. I said, of course, “No, I dont.” And he said, “O.K. then don’t go to school. Do what you like;read,studylanguages,youcangotolanguageclasses.”Andthat’s what I did. I pursued my own particular interests. I read some litera¬ ture. I was very interested in astronomy. 1read books that I wanted to read. Of course I learned Spanish fairly quickly. I went to English lan¬ guage classes. I liked languages and studied some French. And I spent a lot of time just being with myself, free of the external pressures of theenvironmentortheculture.Sothatwasveryimportant.
It was only later in England at age twenty-two or twenty-three that I became interested in intellectual matters. My mind became more and more active. I was seeking some kind of answer through the intellect, through philosophy, psychology, and literature. And I believed that the answer was to be found in the intellect and philosophy.
So that is when I started getting qualifications in preparatory evening classes that I needed to get into the university in England. That was my free choice and there was no internal compulsion behind it, nor external compulsion.
Did you study philosophy then or... ?
As a subsidiary subject, but it was mostly literature and languages
that I later studied in the university. So the fact about my childhood is that schooling stopped at thirteen. There was this space of freedom between thirteen and the rest of my teen-age years. [Chuckle]
Interesting. Do you recall having any spiritual experiences as a child that created or brought about the ulonging,yto know yourself?
Well, my childhood was not a happy one. Spain perhaps was rel¬ atively more happy than Germany, the first thirteen years. There was a lot of conflict in my home environment, as many people find, of course. Even as a child I could already feel what later would become periods of intense depression—I could already feel the beginnings of that. That certainly was not a “spiritual experience” but somehow it can be a prelude to it. Even as a child I would sometimes think, “How can I eliminate myself from this world?” “How can I commit suicide?” and was working out possibilities of how to do it. [Laughter] School¬ ing was also so unpleasant for me. As a very young child I didn’t have the strength to say “No” to it. Basically life was not happy as a child. There was no “spiritual experience,” as such, except—yes, there was: although we lived in a fairly big city, I had a deep intimacy with nature. I remember getting on my bike and going beyond the outskirts of the city and looking around the world of nature, having just left behind the miserable world of school. And I remember the thought going through my head, “This will always be here, this will always be here.”Nothing—justthat—andlooking.[Chuckle]
Did you actually do any work after you had finished school?
Yes. My first job was at seventeen. I was a tourist guide. [Chuckle] We were living in Southern Spain where many tourists came. It hap¬
pened naturally. So that was my first job there. And later when I moved to England, somehow, although I did not have qualifications, I
was offered a job to teach German and Spanish in a language school which I did for over three years. [Chuckle]
One more event about “spiritual experiences.” When we were in Spain, I was about fifteen when a German woman came to visit us and then was going to return to Germany. She said, “Can I leave a few things with you?” She left some books with us. There were five books that were written by a German Mystic, early twentieth-century writer, not very well-known abroad. His spiritual name is Bo Yin Ra. I started reading these books. The text was written in almost Biblical style, pointing towards mystical experience. And I responded very deeply to those books. And I felt later that these books were left there for a pur¬ pose. I even copied parts of those books. They created an “opening” into that dimension. A year later she came back, and my father said to her,“Soyouleftsomebookswithus.”Andshesaid,“No,Ididn’tleave any books; I don’t remember.” She didn’t want him to remember that she had even left any books with us. [Laughter] So I still have some of these books at home, and I value them greatly.
Could you briefly share with us the main experiences you had that led you to become a spiritual teacher? You have a recently published book titled, The Power of Now: a Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. In your book,you mentioned a veryprofound experience, or a “shift” that
took place.
Yes. I was about twenty-nine, and had gone through years of
depression and anxiety. I had even achieved some successes, like grad¬ uating with the highest mark at London University. Then an offer came for a Cambridge scholarship to do research. But the whole moti¬ vating power behind my academic success was fear and unhappiness.
It all changed one night when I woke up in the middle of the night. The fear, anxiety and heaviness of depression were becoming so intense, it was almost unbearable. And it is hard to describe that “state” where the world is felt to be so alien, just looking at a physical environment like a room. Everything was totally alien and almost hos¬ tile. I later saw a book written by Jean-Paul Sartre called Nausea. That was the state that I was in, nausea of the world. [Chuckle] And the thought came into my head, “I can’t live with myself any longer.” That thought kept repeating itself again and again.
And then suddenly there was a “standing back” from the thought and looking at that thought, at the structure of that thought, “ If I can¬ not live with myself, who is that self that I cannot live with? Who am I? Am I one—or two?” And I saw that I was “two.” There was an “I,’ and there was a self. And the self was deeply unhappy, the miserable self. And the burden of that I could not live with. At that moment, a dis-identification happened. “I” consciousness withdrew from its identification with the self, the mind-made fictitious entity, the unhappy “little me” and its story. And the fictitious entity collapsed completely in that moment, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What remained was a single sense of presence or
“Beingness,” which is pure consciousness prior to identification with form—the eternal I AM. I didn’t know all of that at the time, of course. It just happened, and for a long time there was no under¬ standing of what had happened.
As the self collapsed, there was still a moment of intense fear— after all, it was the death of “me.” I felt like being sucked into a hole. But a voice from within said, “Resist nothing.” So I let go. It was almost like I was being sucked into a void, not an external void, but a void within. And then fear disappeared and there was nothing that I remember after that except waking up in the morning in a state of total and complete “newness.”
Iwokeupinastateofincredibleinnerpeace,blissinfact.With my eyes still closed, I heard the sound of a bird and realized how pre¬ cious that was. And then I opened my eyes and saw the sunlight com¬ ing through the curtains and felt: There is far more to that than we realize. It felt like love coming through the curtains. And then as I walked around the old familiar objects in the room I realized I had never really seen them before. It was as if I had just been born into this world; a state of wonder. And then I went for a walk in the city. I was still in London. Everything was miraculous, deeply peaceful. Even the traffic. [Chuckle]
I knew something incredible had happened, although I didn’t understand it. I even started writing down in a diary, “Something incredible has happened. I just want to write this down,” I said, “in case it leaves me again or I lose it.” And only later did I realize that my thought processes after waking up that morning had been reduced by
about eighty to ninety percent. So a lot of the time I was walking around in a state of inner stillness, and perceiving the world through inner stillness.
And that is the peace, the deep peace that comes when there is no longer anybody commenting on sense perceptions or anything that happens. No labeling, no need to interpret what is happening, it just is as it is and it is fine. [Laughter] There was no longer a “me” entity, a “little me” that lives in resistance to what is.
After that transformation happened, I could not have said any¬ thing about it. “Something happened. I am totally at peace. I don’t know what it means.” That is all I could have said. And it took years before there was some “understanding.” And it took more years before it evolved into a “spiritual teaching.” That took time. The basic state is the same as then, but the external manifestation of the state as a teach¬ ing and the power of a teaching, that took time. It had to mature. So when I talk about it now to some extent, I add something to it. When I talk about the “original experience” something is added to it that I didn’t know then.
You mentioned that after a profound realization had occurred you read spiritual texts and spent time with various teachers. Can you share what writings and teachers had the greatest effect on you in fur¬ therrealizingwhathadbeenrevealedtoyou?
Yes. The texts I came in contact with—first I picked up a copy of the New Testament almost by accident, maybe half a year, a year after it happened, and reading the words of Jesus and feeling the essence and power behind those words. And I immediately understood at a deeper level the meaning of those words. I knew intuitively with absolute certainty that certain statements attributed to Jesus were added later, because they did not “emanate” from that place, that state of consciousness, because I knew that place, I know that place. But when a statement emanates from that “place,” there is recognition. And when it does not, no matter how clever or intelligent it may sound, it lacks that essence and it does not have that power. In other words, it does not emanate from the stillness. So that was an incredi¬ ble realization, just reading and understanding “beyond mind” the deeper meaning of those words.
Then came the Bhagavad Gita. I also had an immediate, deep understanding of and an incredible love for such a divine work. The Tao Te Ching; also an immediate understanding. And often knowing, “Oh, that’s not a correct translation.” I knew the translator had mis¬ understood, and knew what the real meaning was although I do not know any Chinese. So I immediately had access to the essence of those texts. Then I also started reading on Buddhism and immediately understood the essence of Buddhism. I saw the simplicity of the orig¬ inal teaching of the Buddha compared to the complexity of subse¬ quent additions, philosophy, all the baggage that over the centuries accumulated around Buddhism, and saw the essence of the original teaching. I have a great love for the teaching of the Buddha, a teaching of such power and sublime simplicity. I even spent time in Buddhist monasteries. During my time in England there were already several Buddhist monasteries.
I met and listened to some teachers that helped me understand my own state. In the beginning there was a Buddhist monk, Achan Sumedo, abbot of two or three monasteries in England. He’s a West¬ ern-born Buddhist.
And in London I spent some time with Barry Long. I also under¬ stood things more deeply, simply through listening and having some conversations with him. And there were other teachers who were just as meaningful whom I never met in person that I feel a very strong connection to. One is [J.] Krishnamurti, and another is Ramana Maharshi. I feel a deep link. And I feel actually that the work I do is a coming together of the teaching “stream,” if you want to call it that, of Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi. They seem very, very dissimilar, but I feel that in my teaching the two merge into one. It is the heart of Ramana Maharshi, and Krishnamurti’s ability to see the false, as such and point out how it works. So Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi, I love them deeply. I feel completely at One with them. And it is a con¬ tinuation of the teaching.
You mentioned that you have been a spiritual teacher for ten years now?
It is very hard to tell when I started to be a spiritual teacher. There was a time when occasionally somebody would come and ask me
questions. One could say at that point I became a spiritual teacher, although the term did not occur to me then.
For awhile I thought I was a “healer.” It was a few years after the transformation happened. Occasionally people would come to me. I was sitting with a woman one day and she was telling me her story and I was in a state of listening, a state of bliss as I was listening to the drama of her story, and suddenly she stopped talking and said, “Oh, you are doing healing.” She felt something and she called it “healing.” And so at that time I did not understand completely what was going
on, and thought, “Oh, so I am a healer.” For a while then, people called me a healer. [Laughter] And when I saw the limitations of that term, I dropped that. [Laughter] And later on, somebody called me a “spiritual teacher” once, and that must have been the beginning. [Laughter]
How long did it take after the “shift” to integrate what was revealed? Many years. About ten years. And “spiritual teacher” of course is not an identity. “Spiritual teacher” is a function. Somebody comes, the
teaching happens. Somebody leaves, there’s no spiritual teacher left. If I thought it was my identity to be a spiritual teacher, that would be a delusion. It’s not an identity. It’s simply a function in this world. I have been very happy being nobody for many years after the transition. And I was nobody even in the eyes of the world, really. I had not achieved any worldly success. Now, there is a book, and the groups are getting bigger and bigger. And people think I am “somebody.”
How do you deal with that?
Well, I smile. I still know I am “nobody.” [Laughter] Even though
all these “projections” come that I am “special.” And for many teach¬ ers that is a challenge, to be bombarded with projections of “special¬ ness.” And even teachers who have already gone very deeply sometimes fall back into illusion. The impact of projections that they receive from all their followers or disciples is so strong that after a while the delusion of “specialness” returns. And that is often the beginning of the end of the power of the teaching that comes through. They may then still teach from “memory,” but when the “specialness” returns, that is the end of spiritual power coming through. Any idea of “specialness.” And I have seen it with spiritual teachers.
Yes, many times it has happened. What have you recognized in indi¬ vidualswhohavecometoyou—andIdon’tknowifyouwouldreferto them as “students”—and in yourself that would lead you to believe that your realization is Utrue” and that it can be realized by others?
The certainty is complete. There is no need for confirmation from any external source. The realization of peace is so deep that even if I met the Buddha and the Buddha said you are wrong, I would say, “Oh, isn’t that interesting, even the Buddha can be wrong.” [Laughter] So there is just no question about it. And I have seen it in so many sit¬ uations when there would have been reaction in a “normal state of consciousness”—challengingsituations.Itnevergoesaway.It’salways there. The intensity of that peace or stillness, that can vary, but it’s always there.
It often becomes more intense when there is an external chal¬ lenge,ifsomethinggoeswrongorthereisagreatlossexternally.And then the stillness and peace becomes extremely intense and deepens. And that is the opposite of what usually would happen in the normal state of consciousness, when loss occurs or something goes wrong, so to speak. Agitation, upset, fear arises. Reactivity arises. “Little me” gets stronger. So this is the opposite.
I noticed it the first time I was watching a film not long after the transformation. It was a science-fiction film, and one scene showed the annihilationofJapan,thewholecountrygoingupinflames.AndIwas sitting in the cinema, feeling the bliss deepening and deepening, until therewasonlyThat.Thenthemindcameinandsaid,“Howstrange! How can you feel so blissful when you’re watching disaster?” And out of that, a realization developed into what would later become part of my teaching. That is, whenever a great loss of any kind occurs to any¬ body, loss of whatever kind, disaster, something goes drastically wrong, death, for some people that has been their spiritual breakthrough.
Loss is very painful, because any kind of loss leaves a hole in the fabric of one’s existence. A person dies, or something you had identi¬ fied with completely is gone. Your home goes up in flames. There is extreme pain at first. But whenever a form dissolves, which is called “death,” what remains is an opening into emptiness. Where the form once was, there’s a hole into emptiness. And if it’s not resisted, if you don’t turn away from it you’ll find that the formless—you could say God—shines through that hole where there was a form that died.
Maybe that is why the Buddhists spend so much time practicing in the graveyard?
Yes, that is right. I’m talking about this now in connection with my inner state, which is always the same although the intensity varies. And it intensifies through any loss or disaster. Has this knowledge become part of the teaching? Yes, because often people come to me because they are in great pain, because of some recent or imminent loss. They may be faced with death. They may have just lost a loved one, or lost their position. Its often at that point that life becomes too unbearable, and then there is “seeking,” “spiritual seeking.” So I point out that if you surrender into the loss, see what comes through that hole. It’s the winds of grace that blow through that hole.
It’s interesting. When I first read about your “awakening,” I was reminded of St. John of the Cross and the “Dark Night of the Soul.” It seems like you have gone through something very similar. But what I heard you say yesterday at the Gathering (2000) is that it really isn't necessary.
No.
The “Dark Night of the Soul” seems to be one way that some individ¬ uals have managed to have a “shift” in their consciousness. I hear you saying that there is another way. What I have experienced with other spiritual teachers is that almost to the person, they have gone through asimilarshift.Therehasbeena“darknightofthesoul”andthenthe
“shift” takes place. I have yet to find someone who has done it the other way, who has actually been able to have that realization and not go through “the abyss,” and has been able to help other individuals real¬ ize that it is not absolutely necessary.
Yes. One could say that everybody in this world has a spiritual teacher. For most people, their losses and disasters represent the teacher; their suffering is the teacher. And if they stay with that teacher long enough, eventually it will take them to freedom. Maybe not in this lifetime. So everybody has a spiritual teacher. But a “spiritual teaching” in the narrow sense of the word is there to save time and suf¬ fering.Withoutityouwouldgetthereanyway,butitsavestime.
And every spiritual teaching points to the possibility of the end of suffering—Now. It is true that most teachers have had to go through
the “Dark Night of the Soul,” although for one or two it was very, very quick. Ramana Maharshi had one brief death experience. For J. Krish- namurti, it happened when his brother died. He [Krishnamurti] was¬ n’t “free” yet when they discovered him. There was great potential in him. But he really became “free” after the death of his brother.
Humankind as a whole has been through such vast suffering that one could almost say that every human has suffered enough now. No further suffering is necessary. And it is now possible as spiritual teach¬ ings are coming through with greater intensity, perhaps greater than ever before, that many humans will be able to break through without any further need for suffering. Otherwise I would not be teaching. The very essence of the teaching is the message, “You have suffered enough.” The Buddha said it. “I teach suffering, and the end of suffer¬ ing,” which means, “I show you how suffering arises,” which is an important realization—I talked about that yesterday—and how you can be free of that. So that is the very purpose of spiritual teaching. Jesus says the same, “the Kingdom of Heaven is here, Now” accessible to you here and Now.
In your bookyyou mentioned that “enlightenment is simply our natu¬ ral state of “felt” oneness with Being and a state of “feeling-realiza¬ tion” Is enlightenment based on feeling rather than thinking? Help us understand who feels it and where it isfelt.
Yes, well it is certainly closer to feeling than thinking. There is no word to describe the state of connectedness with Being. I am putting together two words in the book: feeling and realization hyphenated. Because there is not a correct word that I can use. Language doesn’t have a word for that. So I can only use something that gets relatively close but that’s not it either. Realization sounds a little bit as if it were a “mental” thing. “Oh, I know.” Feeling sounds as if it were an “emo¬ tion.” But it is not an emotion. And it is not a mental recognition of anything. Perhaps the word that is closest to it is the realization of still¬ ness, which is when the mental noise that we call thinking, subsides. There is a gap in the stream of thought, but there is absolutely no loss of consciousness. In that “gap” there is full and intense consciousness, but it has not taken on form.
Every thought in consciousness has been born into form, a tem¬ porary form and then it dies and goes onto another form. You could say the whole world is consciousness having taken birth as form, man¬ ifesting as form temporarily, and then dying, which means dissolving as form. What always remains is the “essence” of all that exists—con¬ sciousness itself.
Now, when a form dies, I pointed out earlier it is an external loss; it’s a great opportunity for the formless, pure consciousness to be rec¬ ognized. The same happens when a thought-stream comes to an end. Thought dies. And suddenly that which is beyond thought—you may call it pure consciousness—is realized as deep stillness.
Now the question you may ask, and perhaps have asked, is, “Who realizes the stillness?” If there is no longer the personal entity there, who is it that becomes enlightened? [Laughter] One could say, of course, nobody becomes “enlightened,” because it is the dissolving of the illu¬ sion of a separate “me,” which is not anybody’s achievement, or any¬ body’s success. It looks as if there were a human being becoming enlightened, but that is an external appearance. What is really happen¬ ing is that consciousness has withdrawn from its identification with form, and realizes its own nature. It is a “Self-realization” of conscious¬ ness. Therefore it is a cosmic event. What looks like a human being, a person, becoming free of suffering and entering a state of deep peace— from an external viewpoint—in reality is a cosmic event. Please remem¬ ber that all language is limited, so these are just little “pointers.”
Consciousness is withdrawing from the game of form. For mil¬ lions of years, as long as the world has been in existence, conscious¬ ness has been engaged in the play of form, of becoming the “dance” of phenomenal universe, “Lila.” And then consciousness becomes tired of the game. [Chuckle]
It needs a rest.
Yes. But having lost itself, that was part of the game. Having lost
itself in form, after having lost itself in form, it knows itself fully for the first time. Don’t take anything I say too literally. They are just lit¬ tle pointers, because no one can explain the universe through making “sounds” or thoughts. So it is far too vast to be explained. I’m not explaining the universe. These are just tiny hints. It is beyond words, beyond thought. What I am saying could almost be treated as a poem, an approximation, just an approximation to the Truth.
What is “enlightenment” and why does there seem to be so much con¬ fusion about it in these times?
Well, the confusion arises because so many people write about it without knowing it directly. One can become an expert on it without knowing it directly. Because an expert means you know a lot “about” something, but you do not necessarily know “it.” Confusion arises there.
What is enlightenment? Again, it is so vast not any one definition would do it justice. It would be a tiny aspect of it. And you can look at it from so many perspectives, this one, that one, that one. And every time it looks as if it were different.
Anotherreasonwhyitcanbeconfusingisyoureachonepersons definition of enlightenment, he or she is looking from “this” perspec¬ tive.Andthenyoureadsomebodyelses,andtheyarelookingfrom that perspective. There’s the ancient old Indian story of blind men describing an elephant, one touching the trunk, another a leg, the tail, and so on. [Laughter]
The confusion arises in trying to understand through the mind what enlig

Practising The Power Of Now, Stillness Speaks and The Power of Now 3 Eckhart Tolle Books Collection Box set

2025-03-24