Eckhart Tolle: The Most Important Skill to Improve Your Life

The important thing in any situation that you encounter in your life is the state of consciousness with which you meet that situation. What in what is the state of consciousness in which you face whatever situation arises in the present moment that determines and to be awake that's the most important uh thing that could happen to a human being here in fact it's the only thing of absolute importance in In your incarnation here, the only thing of absolute importance is the awake whether you represent or embody the awakening of consciousness. That is the evolution of consciousness on this planet through you and on a larger scale it is the evolution of consciousness throughout the universe. It is an awakening universe and you are an essential part of the awakening universe. In fact, you are inseparable from the awakening universe. You look like a person, but you are the universe in the process of awakening disguised temporarily as a little person with its problems and so much going on in my life. I don't know. I have no time for presence. Maybe when things are going better I'll be present but not now. Got too much on my plate as the expression goes English expression. I have a lot on my plate they say which means a lot of problems. Of course there's no end to the problems. But so there's only one thing of absolute importance and that is whether you embody the awakening of consciousness. All the rest is secondary. I call it it may be relatively important all the things that make up your life. What people call my life. This very problematic thing that you call my life that uh is all maybe important. Yes, there are things that are important. Your your health is important. your your uh relationships of course situation important. Your home situation, your professional work situation important. All those things whether you have money or not not enough money all these things are important relatively important but not absolutely important. So you have the two levels. I don't deny the relative importance of all these things that make up your so-called life. But what humans neglect and do not realize that there is a more there is a transcendent dimension to your life. And to encounter that to consciously awaken to the transcendent dimension of your life that is the only thing that is of absolute importance then everything else falls into place. It doesn't mean if you so if you focus on the awakening whether you are conscious at any moment the important thing in any situation that you encounter in your life is the state of consciousness with which you meet that situation. What what is the state of consciousness in which you face whatever situation arises in the present moment that determines the next thing how it's going to go go on in the next next moment in the next how do you and what is how do you perceive react to this whatever is arising in this moment. So whatever is arising in this moment the situation that arises they they come and go different situations arise is always maybe important but it of secondary importance more important is your state of consciousness. Now if you could remember only that and live that that's really all you need. So whenever you encounter any situation, realize what's my state of consciousness right now. And there's a situation that perhaps you need to deal with. Perhaps you need to take action right now. Perhaps you there's nothing you can do and you have to leave it alone. We don't know. But what is your state of consciousness in the present moment? The vital question. And in order to answer that question and it doesn't really have a conceptual answer because you immediately know whether you are present or not. That question can help you become present. What is my state of consciousness right now? Maybe are there certain thoughts that are happening that are telling you that something is very wrong? emotions that are telling you that something is wrong. There certain thoughts they're telling you you'd rather be somewhere else. It's a very common thing. It's so common people don't realize it. Some people live almost continuously as if they were longing to be somewhere else but not here and now. To get away from here now. This isn't right. There's something not right. Never. And occasionally it seems right. Ah, I have arrived. It's right. Whatever it is that makes it right for for a moment. It's an illusion. I'm in love. Wonder. This is the completion of my life. I've fallen in love. There's a person who's going to complete me. When you go to a restaurant and observe other people sitting at various tables, you can tell with their couples sitting at a table, you can tell whether they their their relationship is relatively recent. They haven't known each other for very long. They're in that state that they call falling in love. The way they interact is very different from those who have been in a relationship for longer or married. The ones that have just met, they have fallen in love. They are in a kind of state of delusion. You can see it in their eyes. Everybody's playing their part in it. It's a theatrical performance, but they don't know it. And that comes to an end at the latest when they start living together. So this then the essence of all this is awakening the awakened state of consciousness. And as I mentioned earlier, the not surprisingly this term awakening has been used over thousands of years since the time of the Buddha and before the essence of the teaching of the Buddha is to awaken. The the word Buddha itself means to be awake. The one who is awake. This is a Sanskrit root of the word is to be awake. Buddha is not a it's not a name of a person. It describes a state of consciousness. And then go to Jesus and there are quite a few parables that talk about not going to sleep about staying awake. Uh and these are not he's not these are parables. They're not to be taken literally. Obviously literally you cannot tell a person stay awake because eventually of course you'll go to sleep. So we are just using this this analogy of awake and asleep in order to point to something that most humans are not yet familiar with. to quote Jesus again from one of the gospels. He said, and this is quite a bit of what we read about Jesus teaching may not be quite what he said or distorted, but a few things uh I can sense are absolutely literally what he said. A few things here and there. For example, he said, "And what I say to you, I say to all. Stay awake." Well, is that was that the Buddha or Jesus? No, it was Jesus. Oh, no. He's not talking about the normal state of wakefulness. Nobody could stay awake for that long because there's something that pulls you into sleep. So we are not talking about that. We are using that as an analogy. Everybody knows what it means to awaken in the morning when you've been asleep which is a particular state of consciousness. You're asleep and in sleep you have dream state and you have dreamless sleep. You have those two and then you wake up. You awaken in the morning and there's a huge difference between the state of sleep and the state of being awake. Everybody experience that every morning and you go suddenly you open your eyes and go, "Oh, completely different world. You've just awakened. It's a different state of consciousness." And so this analogy is used because there is something in ordinary consciousness, normal human consciousness which really should be called unconsciousness. Normal human consciousness uh could also be described as a kind of sleep because it's totally conditioned by the past and the past makes up the content of your mind. The mental emotional field is determined by the conditioning from your past. And most humans are completely identified with that conditioned entity which is a mental emotional entity, an energy field. And so they are so identified that that's all they know. In other words the conditioned thought processes never stop. They go continuously. this voice talking to you or you're talking to yourself or you're having a monologue or you're having a dialogue. Some people argue with themselves. It's all the voice in the head. Never stops for most people. And that is spiritually speaking that is a state of unconsciousness completely identified with the conditioned mental emotional patterns which make up the so-called person personality the ego. Uh so if you are completely identified with it you every thought has you in its grasp. Every emotion that arises has you completely in his grasp and you and you're thinking. You think you're thinking, but you're not thinking. Thinking happens to you. There's no there's no you don't have a choice. If you're unconscious, there's no choice. This all your thought processes happen to you. You're at the mercy of your thoughts, the conditioned thoughts in your head. and all the reactions that come with it. Every situation you encounter, there comes a conditioned reaction to the situation. It's the person or the personality that reacts. And you don't even have a choice. Why don't you have a choice? Because you're asleep. Spiritually speaking, this thing has taken you over. It's a it's a it's a dreamlike state also and you can see often people are completely up there in they never really they're not really here that you can see sometimes the complete absence in a person's eyes. They're not really here. They are asleep but they're thinking very hard. So they're And even at night when there's nobody around to talk to, you're still the voice is going on and it's telling you I have these problems. Oh, what's going to happen to next? Oh, awful sick. My god, I can't take any more of this. Oh, what's my life come to? I imagined something different when I was 20 years old. I imagine something really very different. How why did it all go so wrong? Well, that's a well many people actually have that feeling that something that has gone drastically wrong in my life. And with others, it's a mixed bag. Some things went okay and others didn't. It depends what their mind and your mind tends to focus more on the negative than the positive. much more memorable than negative. If