Eckhart Tolle distinguishes the dimension of doing — which requires time — from the dimension of being, which does not, and argues that meditation framed as a practice toward a future state actually obstructs awakening. The instruction is to become present while meditating, not afterward.
Transcript
The being dimension is you by overlooked by most humans. They are lost in their human nature. They are completely unaware of the transcendent dimension of consciousness that actually is the essential reality to to who or what they are. Meditation if it works as it should ultimately the purpose is the aim is to be present while you meditate not to seek some future condition. This is a fundamental mistake that meditators make is they imagine a future condition that they want to arrive at or achieve and they think if if I just just practice more and harder, I will eventually achieve that awakened state. And that belief is actually a hindrance. So because then you are doing a meditation and if you're doing a meditation, you miss the one thing that is the awakened state. And we could call that being the realization of being. There needs to be a sensation of doing, an end of doing in order to realize being. You have the two dimensions in your life. Doing it requires time and being that requires no time. Now most humans are unaware of being. They are lost in doing. Oh, and the primordial doing is thinking. And then you miss the now which is inseparable from being. So I invite you as we speak or I speak all the speaking happens. I don't know who is speaking something is speaking and invite you here and now to become aware of being here and now. Now how does some of you may just as I say these words which are only pointers like signposts as I say these words some of you may be able to sense their own beingness. You sense that you are And if you cannot if you have no idea what I'm talking about yet, you're still trying to understand it mentally. Let me take you then gradually into the being. Let's become aware of this moment. And the first thing you become aware of in this moment is sense perceptions, visual, auditory. And then some some of the others do tactile and so on. But the most predominant the predominant sense perceptions are the visual and the auditory. You hear and you see. So this is the you're becoming aware of the present moment which taken the form of sensory perception here now and you look around the room or you see this person so-called person sitting on a chair and you can take in the totality of the All question that arises is are you able to take in the totality of your sense perceptions at this moment without any mental commentary? Just be like a maybe like a a one-year-old child hasn't learned language yet and just looks in wonder and amazement at the world. You don't have to look like that. I'm just proving. So you look around at the innocent perception without is it possible for you? Only you can answer that for yourself but don't not through words through just knowing. Are you able to be here in this moment? Allow your sense perceptions to be there. Being aware of all these things without without commenting mentally, without interpretation, just let it be. Like the Beatle song, let it be. No, that's there's a shift in consciousness that's already happened because when you interpret your sense perceptions, that's the conditioning of your mind. It's a person perceiving things. But when you don't interpret, there's still a knowing there, but not conceptual. There's a deeper knowing, but the person isn't there really at that moment when you're not commenting, not interpreting, not imposing some kind of interpretation on the world. uh then the person that was there before when you were commenting has been replaced by awareness or presence. So there was a person but then the person comes to an end temporarily and they simply who or what is perceiving this room when you are not not commenting according to the conditioning of your past who or what is perceiving this awareness itself. So something has something has receded the person and something else has arisen to replace it so to speak awareness. That awareness is very still. Stillness is a sometimes what spirit in spiritual discourse stillness is another important term. It's just another pointer. It's stillness. So, and that stillness is not a sleepy stillness. It's an alert stillness. And so, a shift has taken place from being a conditioned entity conditioned by the past and now the shift has happened and suddenly just you are that space of awareness. And so the next step in presence, you're not just, yes, you are aware of your sense perceptions and you're not labeling, but you're also aware of the awareness itself through which you are able to to be aware of sense perceptions. You're aware of of your let's say words are very limited but we have to use them. You're aware of the being of yourself. The presence that makes sense perceptions possible. The presence of consciousness that makes sense perceptions possible. And you can sense that not as a subject object relationship although when we talk about it it sounds like a subject object relationship because language operates in that way. Language has a subject and an object. So in as you use language you say I am aware of awareness that creates a duality that's not really there. When you talk about it there's an I that is aware of awareness. So there's two of you but there isn't. It's only when you start talking about it. It's you become aware of yourself as awareness itself. Awareness becomes the self-aware whatever you want to call it. But that is an amazing thing that you are able to enter the even if it's just for brief moments for brief moments you can become free of the person. Oh my god, that heaviness, that burden that people carry around that they are so identified with that they they they are that that heaviness and and that's why many many persons uh their identity is intimately are bound up with their this burden of problems. s that they have to figure out how to solve my life problems. So for for many people the identity is I am a problem to be solved that seeking a solution and then you go to therapist. However, if the if it's the therapist is present that makes a huge difference. But I don't know. I'm sure there are some therapists here and some of you are probably doing fantastic work because you are able to even though the your so client or patient is talking perhaps you are able to be present while you listen instead of interpreting everything but be the consciousness. Huh. And then perhaps some awakening can happen if you embody presence. So you so the the little the big secret it's not a secret but it seems to be a secret to be aware that you're conscious to be aware of yourself as consciousness as awareness as presence to sense the beingness of you which is not the you the limited you it's actually the beingness of the universe in you. That's an amazing the awakening of this transcendent dimension to who you are. So in English we don't have a word that is applies to both men and women. I don't know if in Swedish in German you have the word men's which means could it's man and woman. Uh, but the English language doesn't have that. So, you have to say human being. Human being. And that's great. I like that because I realized that that points to the two dimensions that constitute your reality. You are a human undoubtedly which means you have a past. You have mental emotional conditioning that makes up the person or the the ego, the personality. You have a life situation. Just you are a human and you have your desires as a human. You have your goals and so on. All the things that you experience as a human, right? Okay. But what about being the being dimension is you by overlooked by most humans. They are lost in their human nature. They are completely unaware of the transcendent dimension of consciousness that actually is the essential reality to to who or what they are. I sometimes call it your essence identity. The essence, your essence identity is the being of you. And the being is timeless. The being is consciousness itself. And then there's the human and the two are together. And if you can awaken to the beingness of you, then of course you continue to be a human until you are no longer until the body dissolves. But in the meantime, your task, your mission, your purpose is to as a human to also embody the being. Then you have both dimensions in your life. The limited dimension of here that is temporal, inseparable from time and you have the transcendent dimension to who you are in the timeless realm of consciousness itself. And that is a continuous realization. At first it may only come to you as glimpses in brief moments and and you feel suddenly a sense of lightness and and in very peaceful but very intensely alive and you go. And you may realize you're not thinking in those moments. Thinking has subsided but you haven't fallen asleep. You're awake. And then you may remember those moments. This was so wonderful. Sometimes it happens when you go into nature. If you can really be there, nature can help you in your awakening. If you can really be there with all the senses and be aware of the awareness itself when you're out there in nature. And sometimes it can happen to some humans almost accidentally. They're out in they're climbing a mountain or they're swimming or in somewhere in nature and and suddenly the person subsides and and just an awareness arises and they go, "Wow." And they think it's been caused by the beauty that they see. But it's not really that. It's been caused by the sessation of thinking. And you can have that in the middle of a city. And that's a this is your continuous practice is are you able to as much as possible let go of habitual especially habitual useless selfserving thinking. thinking that only feeds the fictitious self, the ego, the entity that loves actually loves its problems. Whether it's it says it's no, I don't love my problems. Yes, you do because you talk and think about them continuously. In fact, you create them through unconscious thinking. You create them. No, no, I don't. Yes, you do. It's all to and that this entity then becomes as you at first you have glimpses sometimes accidental. They may only be a few seconds and then perhaps a little bit longer. And then the two are gradually the being and the and the human kind of merge. the being uh seeps into the human and so the human the conditioned entity the human becomes less and less obnoxious and less and less dysfunctional and less and less creating completely unnecessary and absurd suffering for yourself and others. completely unnecessary and absurd suffering created unconsciously by the ego. This entity in its attempt to strengthen itself, it loves its problems and its enemies. Oh, I feel much bigger. Anger is great. Can really and you can revive talk about it all the time. This is completely asleep. Completely asleep. And so as the awakening happens, presence begins to sometimes completely replace the person. And at other times it kind of shines through the person in the same way that a light shines through the lampshade. The light shines through the lampshade and the person still yes the person still has its conditioning to some extent and can never be totally free of the conditioning. There's always certain ways in which you behave. That's part to do with the how you were brought up, your environment, all the conditioning, the country, even the language that you speak is the form of mental conditioning. All those things they are still there. But the most dysfunctional and unhappiness creating patterns they subside more and more. Certain patterns remain as long as you are a person, a human. Certain patterns remain but not the heavy unhapp deeply unhappy and obnoxious and patterns. They gradually dissolve and all is left with certain idiosyncrasies in your personality and so on. That's okay. Uh so that all the person remains but it undergoes a substantial transformation. Uh it no longer creates suffering.