Like any other talk of Eckhart Tolle, this too begins with silence. The audience must have been waiting to hear what he has to say, but he is simply adjusting the mike or looking at the audience. Eckhart doesn’t straight get to the point by doling out steps to meditation or define what meditation is.
This talk by Eckhart Tolle starts in a humourous vein, wherein he pleasantly says that to meditate successfully, the idea that you are doing meditation can be quite an obstacle. He immediately launches off saying that he used the term “guided meditation” as the theme of his talk, because he needed some word to get them to come to the talk. The audience breaks into peals of laughter along with Eckhart.
Eckhart Tolle says “True meditation has not got nothing to do with doing, but the realisation that YOU ARE or BEING. Meditation is prior to all doing. The realisation is simply expressed in the words “ I AM”. The realisation that you are, not as a concept but life itself.
According to Eckhart, the entry point into realisation, is the present moment and thinking is not required to being present. On the contrary, thinking a hindrance. Meditation is being completely present here and now with the totality of Being. He refers to this state as conscious presence.
He adds that Consciousness is born into a thought form. To him, the dance of forms is an amazing spectacle, but adds that when we know only the world of form, and never know ourselves as the consciousness behind the form, then the dance of forms no longer is fun and it becomes serious.
He advises us that theimportant thing we should understand is to participate in the world of things, through alert awareness and not judging and reacting to things and events. Once we become aware, the doing or the words that come will come from a field that is the source of all power, and then the action or words will be much more relevant, powerful and intelligent than that which emanates from the conditioned reactive mind. Then the quality of doing will be completely enhanced once we are connected to BEING.
To him the greatest delusion lies in our thinking that the present moment is a hindrance or an obstacle to realisation. When we use the present moment as a means to an end and the end is the next moment or moments( which is a mere thought in our heads), then we completely miss the point or purpose of our life. The key is to treat the present moment as a friend and stop treating it as an enemy. He states that the secret of life is to be internally aligned with the form that this present moment takes instead of rejecting or mentally demeaning the form that the present moment takes.
The only way to go beyond the form to the timeless dimension or Being, is to honour the form that this moment takes. If we react against the form that this moment takes, then the “LITTLE ME” gets stronger and it becomes difficult to go beyond the form. The form that this moment looks like a limitation on our freedom, and that will keep us trapped. Only if we unconditionally say “Yes” to the form that this moment takes, will we be able to go beyond the mind. If we do this then the dimension of space within ourselves or Being opens itself. This is because we have not strengthened the “I” by resisting the present moment. We cannot find the dimension of the Formless, if we keep resisting the form that this moment takes. This is easy, and he says that is the great deception that most of us are subject to.
This is truly beautifully and enlightening - The future peace or liberation is “hidden” behind the “seemingly unsatisfactory form" that the present moment takes, whereas we keep searching for liberation as something to be attained in the future. Allowing the moment creates spaciousness in our consciousness. Out of this spaciousness, words, actions or simply spaciousness will arise, which will have much greater impact.
To him, the present moment is so precious because it is Life itself and is inseparable from the very BEING that we are. We are not what happens to us or what we do. We are Being.
Overall, a wonderful talk by Eckhart.
No comments:
Post a Comment