The Resilient Mind - The Power of The Present Moment - Eckhart Tolle

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Eckhart Tolle, a renowned spiritual teacher, is celebrated globally for his inspiring vision. His bestselling books, including "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth," translated into 52 languages, have introduced millions to the joy of living in the present.Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download Now⁠⁠ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to The Power of the Present Moment with Eckhart Tolly. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. I had an encounter not long after I experienced the awakening. I was in a waiting room somewhere and this. huge guy came in. Compared to him, I'm just this puny little guy sitting there and he planted himself in front

of me and obviously enjoying his power. I don't remember what he wanted, he wanted something. And I could sense that sense of presence intensifying and I just look. and he said a few things, and suddenly he became extremely disconcerted because there was no attempt on my part to put up any kind of defense or compete in any way, and he got deflated like a balloon

and didn't know what he'd say or do anymore. That's an interesting phenomenon. on. So the important thing for you is in any situation, be in touch with that inherent power of presence. Because ultimately, that is the power of now. Ultimately, the now is the presence, and the presence is you. And ultimately, you are, in its deepest sense, you are the now because the now is the presence and this is why

I speak of the power of now the power of now is also the power of you and not the personal you but the you that remains and never was not connected and always is connected

and always is an intrinsic part of universal power itself universal consciousness itself of the one consciousness that underlies all phenomena, the one consciousness of which all phenomena are only a temporary expression. So there's enormous power there, whether how that manifests in this world is a secondary thing.

Perhaps it only manifests as an emanation that comes through you, or it flows into something that you do or create. And it's a great thing to feel that power, which is not comparative, because you know that everybody else is also a temporary expression of that inherent power, although most of people don't know it. It's the famous guy that I spoke of in the,

perhaps the power of now, he's sitting on, the beggar is sitting on his old box for his many years asking for a little, and then somebody says, what's inside that box? I've never looked. And it's filled with gold. And I gave that analogy or parable at the beginning of the power of now.

So that is discovering that power in you. And for most people, they're looking for little substitutes to give them a sense of who they are. And of course, this is the reason why it is not unusual for humans to awaken spiritually, to awaken to who they are in their essence when either one big thing or many things that they had derived their identity from,

good looks, physical strengths, possessions, abilities to do this, So that, recognition, status in society, those things, and suddenly they lose these things, or they lose one big thing that was the main, that gave them their sense of identity, the one main thing that gave them their sense of identity, and that's gone. And that's, of course, would be, as first is terrible suffering, and then it can force a human, to that deeper place because you've, out here, unless you quickly, the ego might make an attempt

to quickly rebuild some mind-made identity by courage in another narrative. That's possible too. Not every human who loses, who experience this great loss necessarily goes to that deeper place. But the potential is there. potential is there. So it could be a sports person who is great, who is great master of some sports, and then he or she has an accident, can never participate in that activity again.

And that gave him or her the sense of identity. It at first leads to terrible suffering. And then potentially there is a deepening there. And the essence, then you are forced into your essence. There's a medieval image of Fortuna. Fortuna is the goddess of good luck or fortune. It goes back to Roman times. That shows the fickleness of things,

the transient nature of all the things of this world, which are the things that people identify, that gives him their sense of identity, their self-esteem. And it has a Latin in speech. It has a Latin inscription on it. This is an image of the goddess and translated from Latin it says, this is supposed to be a king speaking,

or former king, which king stands for any ego. And it says, as these words in Latin, the first word is, I shall reign. The next word says, I reign. To reign, to reign a kingdom. I shall reign, I reign. I have reigned, I have lost the kingdom, the normal sequence of events.

Old age is a great opportunity for that, unfortunately missed in many, many cases, tragically missed the opportunity as old age comes, approaches, and then you enter old age, proximity of death, loss of physical abilities, of social status, retired, who am I when I no longer have that title, my work.

All these things are great opportunities for going deeper. And what we are attempting to do now is getting as many books and other material are to old people's homes everywhere and also hospices and homes. hospices and hospitals and so on, because those are great places where spiritual transformation could happen.

So the important thing then is sense your presence, the presence of you, which is not the person, something deeper. That is consciousness, being aware of itself. And then you do no longer, you no longer need a narrative. to tell you who you are, free of that conceptual sense of self. And this telling yourself a story in your mind about your life that also goes out of the window.

This is what it has come to. All those illusions that I had, all those wonderful ideas I had when I was 20, Oh. Now you may well still be at the peak of your success, worldly success, and that's why. Why not enjoy it? It's not who you are, so you better go into the presence because it doesn't last. With it also comes a wonderful ability to appreciate other human beings, what they can do, what they know, how they look without feeling diminished by appreciating the external things connected to another human being. The ego can't do that.

Because if the ego appreciates something, it might pretend because it wants something from you, but if the ego appreciates something, it feels diminished. If you meet somebody who obviously looks so much better than you, the ego feels diminished by that. So sometimes it tries to say something critical about that person in order to restore the injured sense of self.

It's absurd, but that's how it works. but that's how it works. But when you come from presence, you can look at a beautiful form of a human being and appreciate that and feel it's so beautiful. Or the achievements of another human being to appreciate their achievements, great, what wonderful things that this person can do.

It's so wonderful. I would never be able to do that. And yet the fact that you would never be able to do that because perhaps you're not strong enough or you're not inclined in that particular direction, does not diminish anything of you. So the appreciation of others then comes in, and it's a lovely thing.

I even appreciate when I occasionally see people getting into their Ferrari. And of course, usually their ego is walking with them because, and so the car, and usually it's in red color just to make sure that everybody notices. this. And I actually, I love that thing too. It's a beautiful thing that somebody built and okay, and this ego is enjoying himself. That's okay. And you may find that sometimes very creative people, there are some who have no ego about their creations. They do

not derive their identity from what they create. Others have fairly big egos, that happens too. I believe the greatest creators in this world don't have an ego about that. Maybe they have it somewhere else, but not around that. And that sometimes means that they continue to be creative. So sometimes you see this modesty,

which is lack of ego in people who have created something really great, composers, poets, even some scientists like Einstein never developed an ego around what he came up with, the incredible realization about space and time. But he never developed this ego as I created that. that you just, there was a relatively little conceptual self. And he found it absurd that he had become one of the most famous people on the planet even in his lifetime. He just couldn't, it's so weird. And he talked about the gap between what people think of me

and who I am is just incredible. And by the way, that's the last thing, That's also the place where you can manifest out of the power of presence. If you, if you're linked into that presence, see what the universe wants to, because that presence is the presence of consciousness. Does it want to create something through you? Perhaps it does. But in that presence, everything is already present

present in an undifferentiated state. So whatever it is that you create externally is like the diluted form of something that in its essence, its concentrated non-form is already there in you. So whatever you can possibly create is already present on some level, on a deeper level.

There have been composers who, created the most incredible pieces of music. And many of them said they listened as if it came out of that place of depths already fully created. And they just wrote it down. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.