Eckhart Tolle
Appearances
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
But there are some people, the most successful people, they look at the obstacle instead of reacting against it. They immediately see what it is that can be done to either circumvent the obstacle or transform it into something positive. You direct attention to the situation. I call that responding rather than reacting. Yes, yeah.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
I don't feel the suffering anymore at all. It's like evaporated. I remember it. I remember, for example, In my childhood, I was mostly unhappy because of an unstable family background. I didn't have a happy childhood. I remember that. But on a feeling level, I don't revive it. It's not there anymore. It exhausted itself. It evaporated or it got burned up by the presence.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
I don't know exactly how to put it. But the unhappiness has not survived in me, except as a memory, but not on an emotional level. So it's gone, which is good.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And so to know your own ego is already an awakening. How to stay in the present moment. The beginning of present moment awareness is to be aware of your sensory perceptions.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Unhappiness for many people becomes an intrinsic part of their sense of identity.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And so that also explains why many people have a resistance. As every therapist knows, many people have a resistance towards letting go of their unhappiness. So the therapist tries to... Because that has become their identity. That's their story. They think they lose themselves if they let go of their unhappiness.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Thank you. I have a comment on that. When life gets challenging, a human being can go two ways. And very often when life gets difficult, some loss, obstacles, many ways challenge can present itself. You can either become more identified with the ego and you become more unhappy. You become a very unhappy human being. reactive, angry, resentful, despondent.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Many, many, many negative states can arise when you're being challenged. That's one way you can go. Or the other way you can go, and that usually happens if there's already a certain amount of presence in you, you've already...
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
practiced or you've had glimpses of presence or even more than glimpses of presence, when then a challenge comes, it can easily happen that the challenge, one could almost say forces you into becoming more present. It then deepens your presence. So an example, even from my life, there's always a presence in my life. There's always a presence.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Sometimes when I talk now, there's a presence in the background. I can sense the stillness behind the words. And one could say the words come out of the stillness. And that's even when I go about my daily business, there's always two ordinary things. There is that sense of peace. You are aware of the awareness. I'm aware of the awareness.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And then two and a half years ago, I went to the doctor, another doctor story, you had one, now I have one. I had certain symptoms, intestinal symptoms, finally had to have a colonoscopy. After the colonoscopy, the doctor said, you have cancer. Oh. And when you hear that, usually, I mean, it could mean, yes, you could have a few more years. It could also mean you only have six months or 12 months.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
When you hear that, that's, so I was a little shocked. The person was shocked. And immediately, I noticed an enormous intensification of presence, shh. as if somebody had turned up the dimmer switch. And on a practical level, 10 days after the diagnosis, I had an operation. But in those 10 days, I spent hours and hours in intense presence, usually presence in the background.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And this presence came into the foreground, so I would sit in my room, just no thought in my head at all, just an enormous amount of awareness, just filled with awareness. I could feel the cells of the body filling with awareness. And I believe that was a kind of self-healing also. And I had the operation and they took a section out of my colon.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And then after the operation, another scan and said, fine, it hasn't spread anywhere. And I continued with the wonderful presence practice because presence is also extremely healing. So I gave that as an example for when you're really challenged, and you're already familiar what presence is, then you will find that you become, through the challenge, you become more present.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
So it deepens you at any challenge, then deepens you to, rather than a challenge making you more unconscious.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
not losing oneself in this thought stream, even when one speaks. You can often see when you observe people having a conversation or discussion, they easily lose themselves in their thought stream. The emotion comes in. The moment you identify with the thought very quickly, an emotion will come in also. And then you start arguing when you have conversations with your family.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Do you lose yourself in your mental positions? then the other mental position becomes to you an enemy. So it's very important to practice presence when you meet your family members. And they may have different opinions on your different mental positions. Can you allow them their mental position? And don't equate their mental position with who who or what they truly are.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
There's a being underneath their mental position. They are not their mental position. That's just the ego. So then sometimes you can be compassionate towards their mental position and allow them to have this. You don't need to put them right and say, no, you're wrong. The moment you get into right and wrong argument, your ego is back. The ego loves proving other people wrong.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And so, of course, you need to be right. Being right is one of the great things that the ego strives for.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Yes, yes. Even if, I mean, sometimes you do know that you're right because there are certain facts, some facts you cannot... You know you're right. And some people may deny certain facts and you know very well that you are right and they are not. And yet you can state your belief or your position. You can say, well, let's say, how long does it take for the light from the moon to reach the Earth?
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And this person says, oh, it takes 10 minutes. And you say, no, I know it takes... One and a half seconds. Okay, you happen to be right. But then allow that person to have their opinion instead of beginning to argue.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Yes, the question is, how do you recognize the ego in you when it arises? It's usually, it's not a pleasant place to be. The ego is usually recognized as ultimately dysfunctional in yourself. So any negative emotion that arises, tends to be a part of the ego. It starts with irritation. It's a relatively minor negative emotion, can easily become amplified and evolve into something bigger.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
But let's start with simple irritation. If you're able to observe an irritation in yourself, you can observe how does it arise. And you may find, in this investigation, how does it arise already requires some awareness. And then you might notice that the irritation arises because there's a thought in your head that says something about whatever it is that you're irritated about.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
You were sitting in the waiting room in the doctor's office, so most probably your mind was beginning to speak to you saying, this is awful, they're totally ignoring me, don't they know who I am? And then if awareness comes in at that moment, you can observe that what your mind is saying creates the irritation. What your mind is saying is creating the invitation, not the situation. Right.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And if you can discover that, that's an enormous discovery. And I sometimes recommend you should ask yourself, how would I experience this situation if I did not add any thought to it, if I just accepted it for what it is, the bare is-ness of this. And then you're sitting in the waiting room, to go back to the example, and you're just looking around, breathing. Enjoying the people. Observing.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
What are you reading? Okay, good. Yes. So the discovery that... Same thing with sitting in traffic.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Yes. How would I experience this moment if I didn't add any thought to it? They're just presence. You're present with what is. And that's also, that is how the ego shrinks and shrinks and shrinks as you practice that.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Oh, yes, definitely. Yay! Thank you. Pretty good idea.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
It's fantastic. One of the most important teachings from ancient Greece is the dictum, know thyself, from ancient Greece. That was inscribed in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, the famous place carved into the walls of the temple. know thyself. And it doesn't mean at the deepest level, it's not knowing about yourself, the stories of your life, the story of your life. There's a place for that too.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
If you go to a psychoanalyst, psychoanalyst will bring up all kinds of hidden memories and so that might have limited usefulness, but eventually you have to go beyond that and go to deeper. Yourself is the awareness. Your true self is not whatever arises in the awareness. Your true self is the awareness itself. And the recognition of that in yourself is also stillness.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
The recognition of the awareness in yourself is also stillness. And whenever you accept this moment as it is, that portal opens up because that acceptance of what it is brings you to the state of inner peace. That's how it works. So the practice then should be this continuous endeavoring to work with the present moment. Sometimes I say yes to the present moment.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
say yes to your experience of this moment, whatever it is you're experiencing this moment, accept it because it already is. If action is called for, that's fine. Then the acceptance becomes the basis for action. So that is to find yourself, you need to let go of the that continuous resistance that is inseparable from the ego. When you let go of resistance, the ego begins to shrink.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
The ego needs fighting. The ego needs enemies. Enemies not necessarily, but also in the form of other people. Enemies in the form of other groups of people, political groups or whatever it may be. But it also leads enemies in the form of even situations in which you can find yourself and you don't like the situation. So you make the situation into an enemy or something that you have to do.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
You're doing it, but you don't really want to be doing it. You're doing it reluctantly. So you make the doing also into a kind of enemy. So whenever you're doing something also to give your fullest attention and not doing with some... hidden resentment that's also a very dysfunctional state. And that also strengthens the ego. These are all aspects of ego. So it requires a lot of inner vigilance.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Your main purpose in life is to have that inner vigilance. Is to have inner peace.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
That's a wonderful question. But at other times, the ego can also arise so suddenly and spontaneously that you don't have time to ask yourself, why is this suddenly there? And then you can recognize in that moment or just after that moment, ah, there it is. There it is. Yeah.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Yes, wonderful question and a wonderful insight you had. It's just amazing. Really good. So yes, protecting it because this world will always challenge you with continuous noise, continuous mental clutter, especially since we have invented all these devices that can amplify the mental clutter that was already there. Before I go more deeply into your question,
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
The little thing, you know, people always send text messages and then you have to look and so the message comes in, what's going on. I sometimes send, I haven't done it in a while, but I'll do it again soon. I sometimes send people a space message. I send them its brackets, an empty space and another bracket. And so they get a message of one bracket. Another bracket, no words.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And people, they know that if they get that from me, they know, ah, it's a space, inner space. Okay, E.T., go ahead. I'll send you one soon.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
But you're fine, you don't need it. So that space is extremely important. So how do you protect it? You protect it by, as much as possible, being aware of that space. To be aware of that space, a little help, something you can do is don't underestimate the importance of
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
breathing, conscious breathing, not necessarily as a structured practice, but simply no matter where you find yourself, there isn't anything in particular to do, maybe you're waiting for something or whatever, be aware of your breathing, take attention, observe the breath as it flows in and out of the body.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
The moment you start observing the breath, the mental clutter stops and there's a spaciousness there. It creates spaciousness. It takes attention away from the stream of thinking because you cannot both think and be aware of your breath. So even now you can verify that in your own experience. Be aware of the breath as you're breathing now.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And while you're aware of the breath going in and out, in that moment you're not thinking. There's an inner spaciousness that arises. The breath is always there, but we're not conscious of it mostly. And then the breath also puts you in touch with what I call the inner body feeling, to feel the energy in your body, especially if you feel into the abdomen.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
You breathe into the belly region and then you feel that there's an energy here, which the Japanese in Zen called hara, which is the energy that is here. And you feel an energy that lives in you that's the animating presence, the intelligence that inhabits the body. And then if you feel it here, you can also feel it spread out into the other part, into your legs and arms.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And then you begin to be aware of the animating presence in your body. And that is spacious. It takes you out of the mental clutter.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
So breathing, breath awareness, and leading to inner body awareness. And then you can be somewhere, you're in traffic for a moment before you were irritated and suddenly you remember spaciousness. Breathing, inner body awareness.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Well, another comment on this, one can easily inherit a painful sense of identity. Every human is born into a particular situation, the environment, parental environment, cultural environment, and humans can easily be born into an environment that gives them a painful sense of identity. It can be individual identity, as in your case.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
It can also be a painful collective identity if you're born into a group of people that... Were enslaved. Yes, for example. And then you're born with a painful sense of identity. And again, it's important The ego does not want to free itself from that because that is its identity. The ego loves that, and the pain body really loves it. And that becomes a danger for... Consider yourself as a victim.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
There's no denying that there were and are people who are victims of other people. There's no denying that. However, the danger is... When you recognize that you were a victim or even your ancestors were victims, you can inherit that. The important thing is to go beyond having a victim identity, which means you seek your sense of self in having been a victim. The ego loves that too.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
The ego will cling to that because then the ego seeks always superiority. Now, you might want to ask, well, how is the ego superior if it has a victim identity? Well, the reason it is superior when it has a victim identity, the implication is that other people who do not have the victim identity are morally superior to those who are not victims or who are regarded as perpetrators.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Immediately, to be a victim puts you into an imagined moral superiority. The ego loves that, obviously. So there are needs to differentiate between recognizing certain facts that happened.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Yes, normally. Better than they are.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
It will seek some way of doing it. Yes. If you can't be the great victor, then you can be a great victim.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Well, first, the general context is that humanity or human beings are not a finished product. They are evolving and evolving. The broader context for it is the evolution of consciousness in human beings. And we are all part of that evolution of consciousness. And so the subtitle is Awakening to Your Life Purpose. And life purpose is twofold.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
One is the personal purpose, whatever you are called upon to do in this lifetime, outer activities, your job, whatever it is you do, that is your outer purpose. there is a more important underlying deeper purpose that needs to flow into whatever you do in your outer life.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And that deeper purpose is to become a more conscious human being, to embody the evolution of consciousness, the flowering of consciousness. And that's to do with diminishment of the ego, to discover within yourself that which continuously prevents you from evolving.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
So did you discover the ego in the moment that you were speaking or just afterwards?
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
But that's a good sign because to discover the ego in the moment it arises requires a fairly high degree of presence. Many people would only discover the ego... Hours later or the next day and then think back about, oh, that was the ego. If you notice the ego in the moment it arises, it means you're really quite present. And to notice the ego in oneself the moment it arises is...
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Gain in consciousness, it doesn't mean that you failed. It's not a defeat. It doesn't mean, oh, there's the ego gain. Why am I still stuck in the ego? No, because presence is there at the same time.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Yes, the awareness frees you from ego. The first thing that awareness does, it breaks the identification with the ego. So people who are ego-possessed, they don't know they have an ego because they are so identified with the ego, it becomes them, it is the person. And so to know your own ego is already an awakening. So what is it that awakens? The awareness.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
So awareness is consciousness and normally Consciousness is always absorbed by the mind and that becomes the ego.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Yes. Also, you don't need to wait for the challenge to come into your life. Also, discover that at any moment, even at this moment as you're sitting here, there is your experience of this moment, sensory experience, visual, auditory, that's part of the present moment.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
And if you want to go deeper into the present moment, that's already a wonderful thing to become aware of your surroundings rather than being totally absorbed into the stream of mostly useless thinking. Right. So you become more acutely aware of your surroundings. And often you find there's an aliveness around there no matter where you are in this room.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
So I call it sometimes the beginning of present moment awareness is to be aware of your sensory perceptions. Oh. And for some people that's like waking up out of some kind of dream, because they were always immersed in thinking about past and future, only peripherally aware of the present moment.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Yes, that's also the basis for intelligent action or wise action. I think the key word is wise, where there's wisdom and there's intelligence. Yes. An intelligent person can easily have a huge ego, so you cannot equate the ego and intelligence. They often come together easily. Wisdom is something different. Wisdom arises out of the awareness. Out of the awareness.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
So to make wise decisions, the basis for wise decision is first an acceptance of what is right now, rather than a reaction against what is, an emotional reaction against it. that prevents you from arriving at a wise decision of what to do.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
Even one conscious breath. is a mini meditation. I believe Eckhart's work has never been more relevant or deeded as it is today. Deep within you, there is a silent power.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
But if you can accept this moment as it is, and then one could say a higher intelligence begins to operate, and that is wisdom, that higher intelligence is wisdom.
The Oprah Podcast
Eckhart Tolle: “A New Earth” | Oprah’s Book Club
I also notice or sometimes observe people who run a business. And, of course, if you run a business, continuously obstacles arise. It's normal. Right. Some kind of obstacle arises. And people are egoically possessed. they become angry and reactive and they immediately have an angry reaction when an obstacle arises.