You Already Are Who You Want to Become

You already are who you want to become. In this episode, Eckhart talks with a live audience in Greece. He cautions participants against the belief that enlightenment is somewhere out there or something to be achieved in the distant future. He says we don't have to go through a long process of becoming to find liberation. He explains the irony is that when we look to the future we miss the opportunity to find freedom right here in the present moment. He urges all of us to wake up and to realize we already are who we want to become. Some spiritual seekers seek with great intensity. It's their life purpose and that's a great thing. Instead of seeking wealth or recognition or worldly success, what they seek is whatever they call it, liberation, enlightenment, becoming enlightened, liberated. Okay, now the danger is to look to the future for us that you project a state that you want to achieve, which is in the future. And the frustrating thing is you don't achieve it but you want to get there and that is a movement of becoming. You want to become something or someone that you are not yet. And so this prevents you from realizing that you are already what you want to become. And wanting to become it is the obstacle that prevents you from realizing that what you're looking for you are already. So some teachings will tell you that in order to awaken spiritually you need great intensity, the same intensity that a drowning man has for air. And that's very intense. If you're about to drown, you really want air. And so some teachers will tell you you need. If you don't have, if you do not look for spiritual realization with the same intensity of a drowning man or woman looking for air, you won't get there. That's one teaching. The others say, and this sounds a bit like more what I'm least between saying, there's nothing you can do about it. It comes when it wants to come. So just relax. Let go. Don't look for anything. Just okay. So, and then so you want me to just watch TV or. [laughter] Become a couch potato and watch TV. Just it might come or it might not come. [laughter] It's unlikely that it'll come. However, if you bring the two together, the two approaches which seem totally contradictory, of wanting to awaken with that enormous intensity and just being totally okay in this moment is just fine. There's nothing to look for. This is fine. The intensity that created the projection of future, that intensity, needs to move into the present moment. So instead of the intensity of, I need to get there. There's a longing getting there. And of course, you're almost looking for it. This is the Enlightened Me, over there somewhere in the future. Or maybe it's maybe I need to move to India, maybe then I'll find myself. And of course, you might, or you might not, bring that intensity into the present moment. And in the present moment, you are just being intensely present. You don't want anything. Be intensely present. There's nothing to want anymore. If you're intensely present, it is a very deeply fulfilling state of being, intense presence. Are you still looking for yourself? No, there's nothing to look for. That presence is it. No, you might lose it the next moment. But right now, you are present. You are the presence. And sometimes you don't get the intensity unless you're being extremely challenged by life. Some people don't get it until really you need to get to the limit of endurance. And let's say you lose everything. There you are on a park bench. Lost all status, relationships, possessions, everything gone, taken away from me. And instead of developing a victim identity, what life has done to me. Oh my God, this is where I've ended up on the park bench. It's all been in vain. All the stuff that I've been involved in. And all my spirit looked such way that it's had gotten me here. The park bench, it's all completely pointless. The story can see the story, how it creates unhappiness and an unhappy identity. And then you can't stand suffering anymore and perhaps a moment arises when you completely surrender to this moment as it is. And this is really like an awakening. You suddenly awaken into this present moment. And from before, before you were in your thoughts with an mind made identity and a very unhappy identity. And suddenly you go, oh, there's no opinion anymore about who you are because you know that you are that deep presence. And then you notice whenever you move away from it, you begin to suffer. So that keeps you on the narrow paths that leads to life, that is life. Then somebody talked about that. The narrow road, the narrow paths that leads to life. And not many people have chosen it. I think somebody said that. And what is this narrow path? It's the path of presence, very narrow. And that is exactly what all the great Zen teachers taught to be absolutely here in the now. And you burn off past and future. You can still manipulate past and future for practical purposes, but it no longer has anything to do with your sense of identity. Your personal past, you remember it, yes. But it no longer has anything to do with who you are. You are the deep eye. So that is something that you can, this is no opportunity here. And especially if your life situation is very unpleasant at the moment, at home, go into intense, very intense presence, voluntarily without life forcing you into it by putting you into a limit situation. Another one could be you go to the doctor and he says, "We've just been looking at your ex-rays and it doesn't look good." You have five months approximately. Now that's terrible news, especially if you're not that old yet, it could happen. So either this brings an enormous amount of suffering suddenly. Or it pushes you into absolute and complete presence. And this is, there's a phrase that the teacher, the chain smoking guru, who approached this wonderful book, Nisagadatta, described as this state. He described as in his habitual, very emphatic way of speaking. He said, "This is the radical refusal to harbor thoughts." And he would look at you like that. The radical refusal to harbor thoughts, that's how he spoke. "Oh, okay, I'm not harboring any thoughts." This is a very Yang approach to these Zen masters also a bit on the Yang side. More than I am. They look at you and they look really fierce with bulging eyes in the old drawings of Zen masters with bulging eyes and that's a teaching in itself. But in the good drawings of these ancient Zen masters you see when you look at the, you can, perhaps by great artist, you can see that yes there is that intensity that looks almost intimidating but looks intimidating but there's also hiding there behind it there is a gentleness, enter presence and compassion but yet it's not on the surface, it's hiding. The surface is very Yang and that's the same with Nisagadata, he's the same approach. It's very not many people yet are at, have arrived at the point where this statement by Nisagadata, the radical refusal to harbor thoughts, not, not many humans are yet ready for that or are able to live that but some are and there may be some here and if there are some here who are able to live this very radical approach to awakening, if there are some, you heal then it's probably because you are faced with a threatening life situation or something is very not going well in your life or something very bad has just happened on you in deep suffering. You're contemplating suicide, let's say you're contemplating suicide because you're telling yourself I can't take anymore, I just cannot take anymore and one can see why people think that life is just unbearable, I can't, I can fully understand that but I would suggest an alternative option to suicide to try something else first, you have nothing to lose anymore, absolutely nothing to lose, so try something else first and we could call it the radical refusal to harbor thoughts or we could call it unconditional and total acceptance of this moment as it is, let's another way of putting it, so as an alternative to suicide why not go there and what that is and this sounds a little frightening or extreme that has been described as an act of but in a positive sense, an act of self annihilation, self annihilation but it refers to the egoic self, so if you are faced with, or you're faced with imminent death maybe you're just old, well you have nothing to lose, why not go there now and once you know what it is that I'm talking about you've had glimpsies so it's not just mental abstractions, you'd know experientially at first hand what presence is because you have experienced your moments of presence and so then you go there and no more of that nonsense, no more drama, no more suffering just this moment as it is and in that you beautiful, suddenly there's a deepening and you go into the deep eye and you are the deep eye, how much longer you live suddenly isn't that important anymore because the fulfillment of your life is already here and if nothing could be greater then to realize the depths of your being and so if you're not ready for this very radical approach that's fine, the time may come when you are ready for it but you can also awaken more gradually and for most of you that applies rather than but if you're looking, if you're contemplating suicide please try the radical refusal to harbor thoughts when the unhappy entity that wanted to commit suicide, the unhappy entity that said I can't take anymore dissolves so the very entity that couldn't take anymore isn't there anymore, you withdraw consciousness from it, this kind of happened to me that night when I experienced that shift I can't live with myself anymore was a thought that came or does that mean I can't live with myself, who am I and who is a self, so there are two of me here very weird I can't live with myself, I can't stand myself, I am a burden to myself all that kind of thought what does that mean, it means there is a self that's very unhappy and there's an 'I' and they have come together but now if you separate the 'I' which is consciousness from the self, the self is no longer being sustained by consciousness and it evaporates and then you realize who you are beyond the conditioned self consciousness when that happened to me kind of spontaneously I could not have explained it in the way I explained it now I didn't understand it at all so there was no immediate understanding that came with it there was just a shift from being an unhappy person to being at peace in the same situation so this is very very important the separation of consciousness from the structure of thinking so that thinking does not continuously absorb all their consciousness and gobbels it up and devours it continuously the mind is a huge addiction the greatest addiction is the addiction to thinking useless thinking not constructive thinking which means 95% of thinking is useless creates enormous amount of suffering so you take attention away from thinking and then separation happens between consciousness is realized in its pure form not in its incarnated form as thought consciousness is realized in its pure form so simple I know you are not waiting for me to continue speaking I may but you are not waiting because you are experiencing that beautiful state of being where you are not waiting for the next thing let's just go a little more deeply into that beautiful state of pure presence pure being I'll be shutting up for a little while probably who knows and as much as possible be here relinquishing thought you don't really need it right now what is there to think about right now it wouldn't add anything to the experience of this moment it would only detract from the experience of this moment if you find it difficult I'm talking again if you find it difficult to hold presence very simple thing is and that was already recommended by the Buddha to be aware of your breathing that means you can feel yourself breathing in the whole length of the in-breath and then there's a brief stop in your way of that also And then there's a whole length of the out-breath. And there's another brief stop. And then the in-breath starts again. So you're aware of these movements and the two stops. You don't need to actually do anything to your breathing because it's happening anyway, but you just didn't know it. So this is one way of for those who cannot do it directly and to directly enter the state of pure presence or awareness. This is a little help because, while you're aware of your breathing, you'll notice a weird thing. You cannot think at the same time. The moment you think you lost awareness of your breath. And this is why there's probably a legendary thing that the Buddha said. It probably didn't say it, but be aware of your breathing for one hour and you'll be totally enlightened. But if you miss one, you should start from the beginning. Now, you don't need to be aware of your breathing for one hour. Don't believe that. All you need to be aware of your breathing is the breaths you're taking at this moment. Not many breaths, only this one, because that's the only one there ever is. So those of you who cannot yet just simply step out of thought into presence, that's a help. Breath awareness. Closely associated with that is body awareness, the inner body, the aliveness that pervades the inner body to feel, that aliveness in every cell of the body, that's an anchor for presence also, takes you out of your thinking mind, diverts consciousness away from thought. It's helpful to be in this energy field of collective presence. At first, the cessation of thinking happens sporadically. You may notice it when it happens spontaneously, as it does for most of you. You notice, for example, when you first look at something, let's say, you step out of your room or you're at the house where you're staying, and you open the door, and then of course in the morning, for example, or during the day. And of course the first thing, you look what's there, you look. And if you're very alert, you'll notice that in the first two or three seconds of looking, you're not thinking, "There's just. " Now most people don't know that. But in the first moment, something new arises, it could also be listening. There's a sound. Maybe it's a bird, and you're listening. In the first two, three, four, five seconds of looking or listening, you're just aware there's the perception and there's the awareness. And then some kind of mental labeling comes in, and you start either thinking something about it, calling it something, or your mind moves away entirely from that into some other mental dream world, where you're thinking about the next thing you have to do, or whatever it is, or what happened just before, or yesterday. So it could be that you're looking at something from one moment and then completely absorbed in thinking again, or you're looking at something. There is that space of presence that arises spontaneously, whenever something new comes into your perceptual field. And if you can be aware of that, then a wonderful thing happens. Then that initial space becomes longer. If you acknowledge it, you don't have to do anything. Just become aware that whenever you first, there's the first perception of something, there's a moment when you need to see it, and there's an awareness, but the labeling hasn't started yet. And if you catch that first moment, it will deepen and it will become longer. And that means you become more spacious, more spacious, and you become, we could put it like that, a deeper human being, the being deepens, because the more space there is before the conceptual mind comes in, the deeper you are as a human being. In other words, the being dimension, which is the depths dimension within you, grows. It deepens, it intensifies. Now, this is a lovely practice where you don't really have to do anything, and it happens continuously. A human being too, you look at a human being, comes towards you, sitting at the table, and there's the first few seconds, you just look. And then something comes in. Some kind of mind movement will come in, or this person, you may then begin to interpret, or feel something about this person, "Oh, I'd like to have a date with this man or woman," or whatever, some kind of desire movement may come in, some opinion, or some dislike, or whatever it is, that's with humans. But always catching the first moment when you look at something, I mean, you can even do it anyway, look at something that you hadn't looked at before, just look at the ceiling, or whatever it is. And in the first few seconds, you'll notice, before the mind says, "Oh, there's so many lamps up there," before the mind says that, the mind doesn't say anything. You're just aware of what's. We're looking at, the interpretation hasn't happened yet. And then the mind says, "Oh, I wonder how many lamps are actually in that ceiling." Let's count them. That'll keep the mind busy. But in the first moment, catch always catching that, then it gets longer and it deepens. And that even this very simple thing, as you practice that, changes the entire way in which you perceive so-called reality. Just catch the initial moment and by catching it, it gets longer, and you become deeper. And the longer the gap before you express a thought, or whatever contribution you make, the deeper you are, and the deeper your perception is, any great artist, if let's say it's a painter who paints a landscape, or whatever it is, has to enter that state. I mean, the many artists these days who have no access to it, you'll realise that when you visit modern art galleries, but there are still some who do. And they, in the act of creation, there is that absolute ability to look and look and look, and be the awareness. And then out of that comes something beautiful. And when the painting is done of a landscape, for example, there is an added element in that painting that is the, how it gets in there, nobody knows, that is the consciousness of the artist in that moment of creation. The awareness, the consciousness has become part of the painting. So it is, this, the nature is there, but it's more than a photo, or the photos can be very beautiful too. It's more than just than a photo. There's something else that has come and that is the. This is why great works of art can help you enter if you really contemplate them. They can help you enter the state out of which they were created. So, that's a. Remember that practice of first perception. It could be auditory, too. That's a very beautiful thing. Let's see, there's a sound of a bird and it trusts you. And after three or four seconds, you may find the mind will want to interpret, but you can actually delay it and say, "Not ready to interpret." Just carry on. And then at some point the mind is, "Yes, but I really want to know what kind of a bird that is." No, and that's interesting because the mind says, "I really want to know." The mind wants to know. It wants to interpret. It does not want to be in the state of not knowing. However, the mind does not realize that there are two modalities of knowing and it regards the other modality of knowing that is non-conceptual as valueless and actually dangerous. And you have to know that. And then you can see in your life you need conceptual knowledge, but more importantly, you need more fundamentally, you need non-conceptual knowing. I give sometimes the example of going into a beautiful ancient cathedral, for example. So you enter that space and you begin to look. And then the. somebody offers you a recorded tool of it which you can hire. You put it in your ear and it guides you around the cathedral. It explains everything. And now you walk three more steps and you will see, "Let's start you." "By so and so, done there." And then you now you look up to the ceiling and it will explain. "Oh, so interesting." "Wow, yes, yes, great, after an hour you have learned everything, there's to know." "A lot about the cathedral, so you've known it conceptually and to the mind that's all there is." It doesn't realize there's another way of experiencing the cathedral which is totally non-conceptual and in order to do that you have to refuse the electronic guide and just walk in there and just look and be aware and spacious. And experience that space and what's in the space, the totality of the space. And you. a sense of "Oh, it's a funny English word." "Oh, it's all no matter poig." I believe that's the word which it kind of reproduces the sound that you make when you're in a state of "Oh, you see, oh." And that's the state when you look at something saying, "Wow, but there's no. you don't know anything conceptually, you don't know when it was built and who did this and with it or what these particular architectural things are called, you don't know anything." And you walk and you experience it's a deep experience. And then this means you're experiencing the other way of knowing which is totally neglected in our civilization but is vitally, vitally important. And so you neglected and all you know is conceptual knowledge. You need both. And the more fundamental one is the non-conceptual because that takes you deeper and connects you intimately with what it is that you're perceiving. So after a two-of-one hour of the cathedral you come out and a friend is waiting for you and says, "What have you learned?" Nothing. But you have experienced the cathedral and it's been a wonderful experience. Now I recommend that if you have more time the next day you go back and then you hire this guide and walk around and learn about it. And on the third day you visit it again and you can be in both dimensions as you walk around. You can still experience it. You're not totally immersed in your conceptual knowledge but it's there but you have that spaces of pure awareness as you experience it. And this is an analogy almost how your whole life should be and can be. You move in the two dimensions and this is not only knowing a sacred building or something like that. It refers also to knowing yourself because most humans only know themselves conceptually. In other words they don't know themselves at all. They only know stuff about themselves but they don't know themselves. They're knowing and knowing about. There's a reason why in some languages such as French or Spanish they have two words for to know. Whereas English or German only have one. So in French you have Savoir and Connater and in Spanish you have Saber, you say, "Enconnocer." So it's two different ways. For example in Spanish if you say "I know who you are that's one way of knowing, say, Kien Eris." Or "I know you take on Moscow you use a different verb." So one is the conceptual knowing and one is a more direct knowing. Sometimes certain wisdom embodied in language. So here we, you need to know yourself not just as an object in your consciousness. In other words you know about yourself, you know things about yourself. You need to know yourself more intimately but this knowing is totally non-conceptual and from the conceptual point of view looks like not knowing anything at all. But it is a deep knowing beyond concepts where the knower and the known merge into one. So you are no longer in the, when you know yourself in the sense that the ancient Greek philosophers talked about, then you know yourself no longer, you're no longer an object to yourself. Object and subject merge into one and that is called but this is why we have the expression in some spiritual traditions, self-realisation, self-realisation. You're no longer an object to yourself. This is the healing of the ancient split that started in Greek mythology expressed as the myth of Narcissus. The man who saw an image of himself then began to live through a mental image and became very unhappy. That's the whole story of humanity, the development of the ego. And it is the healing of that split that occurred many thousands of years ago when humans split themselves in two and sometimes more than two. They split so they have self-image and you, that's so knowing yourself and this is fundamentally knowing yourself as subject object in one. And then you still have some things that you know about yourself and this applies then to other situations and other humans. Then you know every human being also on the two levels. You know them as humans which is the conditioned entity but you also know them in their being and that is the added dimension to every interaction so you're no longer related purely through a mental emotional field. There's something deeper that is present in the interaction. So that's the two modalities of knowing, conceptual and deeper knowing, non-conceptual knowing. And that's the state that Socrates referred to when he said I am the only one who knows that he knows nothing. He dwelled in that state, the deep state of non-conceptual knowing, but miraculously, out of the deep state of non-conceptual knowing, suddenly creative thinking arose from that. So he was one of the most creative, he taught humanity, or certainly the Western world, to think, to ask questions, to think. And he was a highly creative thinker. But he could only be a creative thinker because he had access to the non-conceptual dimension. And then out of that creative thinking rose and that became concepts. But he was never lost in concepts. And he never created a conceptual structure that was the ultimate explanation of reality and that this is how it is. No, it is a loose thing. He didn't read any dogma to believe in. So he continued to have access to the source of creativity, which is non-conceptual knowing. And then if that flows into your mind, and if your mind, of course your mind needs a certain preparation in order to give form to that, which arises from ultimately the formless dimension. So it helps if you have learned how to formulate words and sentences, then you can say something about it. And if you are an artist and you have, I can go within very deeply, but if you put me in front of a canvas, I'm not going to produce a great work of art because the vehicle is not prepared for that. But the vehicle is prepared for something else. And I'm not going to create a great work of music if you put me in front of a piano. I'm not going to suddenly produce a great symphony. Or come up with the completion of what Albert Einstein looked for, the unified field theory, whatever that is. I'm not going to come up with it. That's not the mind. It cannot be a vehicle for that, but it can be a vehicle for this. Thank you. I'm Oprah Winfrey and you've been listening to Eckhart Toley, Essential Teachings, the podcast. You can follow these essential teachings on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you haven't yet, go to Spotify and follow this podcast.