Eckhart Tolle reframes Socrates' "I know nothing" as a state of pure awareness — what he calls "no-mind" — from which all genuine creativity emerges. He warns that rigid conclusions about other people, especially whole groups, become self-built prisons that prevent any real meeting with reality.
Transcript
Let's say you have a relationship, a intimate relationship. Then he or she betrays you in the conventional narrative and then you immediately the mind jumps to this conclusion. I'm never going to trust any woman or man again. Never. That's a ter. You've just would have constructed a dreadful prison for yourself. Public speaking for many people is one of the most stressful things and that's because they can't go become comfortable with not knowing. The big difference is becoming comfortable with not knowing and feeling I don't know but I should know. That's very uncomfortable. Remember what the great philosopher Socrates said. They call me the wisest of all men for the reason that I'm the only one who knows that he knows nothing. Nobody really has truly understood what he meant. People thought he was just pretending not to know. But I am convinced that he was referring to the state of not knowing which is also of course the state of not thinking but awareness out of which is the whole philosophy emerged. The creative use of mind emerged out of the space of no mind. M if you have no access to the space of no mind then the your mind will not be creative in any way. In other words, it's just you can only have to rely on what you have acquired and you will be uh moving within the conditioned realm of the mind. Whatever the mind has been conditioned by, that's all you have. Then another way area where it's very helpful this not knowing is not to uh formulate uh conclusions uh on uh limited insufficient evidence to come to conclusion. usions that become uh rigid thoughts in your mind concerning for example other people or yourself or what you call your life such as for example let's say you have a relationship a intimate relationship then he or she betrays you in the conventional narrative and then you immediately the mind jumps to this conclusion. I'm never going to trust any woman or man again. Never. That's a ter. You've just would have constructed an dreadful present for yourself. So you you have a thought that suddenly dominates your mind in order to I'm not going to suffer again in that way. This is no more. These conclusions are can become self-made presence. And then you you walk in and you shut the door and you there you are stuck in that mind pattern. Never again being able to relate openly to a man or a woman. And then you've other weird weird conclusions that people arrive at. Some of them are so-called prejudices and so on. They're very rigid uh mental formations. that deprive you of openness towards reality. So it's good to be with relation to other people also frequently not to be very careful with formulating conclusions about other people, individuals or groups of people. uh remain as much as possible in the state of not knowing conceptually. And yet there is a deep knowing there but it's not a knowing that creates separation between you and the other. So it's easy to find uh um imperfections in people when you start working with them or living with them. And uh if you place excessive focus on the imperfection or areas of unconsciousness then that can obliterate the the totality of that person. For example, let's say somebody lies to you about something for whatever people lie for different reasons. Maybe even to not to hurt you or whatever. Who knows what the reason is. And then you find out and then you say, "Oh, he's a liar. I know what kind of a person that is now. He's a liar. He lied to me. to me. Of course, that makes it much worse as a me. And once you formulated an opinion or a judgment of that kind, you can no longer meet this person in a space of openness because immediately the judgment you formulated is there between you and and you relate. This is becomes part of the screen of conceptualization through which you then relate to that person. Now if you formulate a judgment about an entire group of people as political group of people, religious group of people, all whatever they are are like that or wrong. Then when you meet an individual representative of that group, you will no longer be able to meet him or her because you're meeting your mental image that you have created. So the true meeting is no longer possible. Very dangerous traps in your mind created by your mind by unconscious mental activity.