Why trying to love people doesn't work, and what does | Eckhart Tolle — Transcript

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1. 0:00One could almost say there are two
2. 0:01halves to your to who you are.
3. 0:05And most humans only know one half,
4. 0:08which is the form, the physical form and
5. 0:10the psychological form, the ideas they
6. 0:13have about themselves, the stories and
7. 0:15so on. That's the one half is your form
8. 0:17identity. The other half, which most
9. 0:20humans don't know
10. 0:22themselves as, is the
11. 0:26>> [bell]
12. 0:29>> There's the story that you may have
13. 0:31heard. There's a man sitting
14. 0:34in a in a small town in a cafe and an
15. 0:38old man
16. 0:39and a a man approaches him and says,
17. 0:42"Oh, are you a native here? You live
18. 0:44here?" Yes, and the man says, "I'm
19. 0:46thinking of moving here. Do you think
20. 0:49it's a good place to live? And what are
21. 0:52the people like here?" Uh and the old
22. 0:55man says, "Well,
23. 0:57what were the people like where you used
24. 0:59to live?" And the man says, "Well,
25. 1:02oh, they were dreadful. They were They
26. 1:04are dishonest, deceitful,
27. 1:08full of envy and malice. I can't just
28. 1:10can't stand that place anymore. I have
29. 1:12to get out."
30. 1:13Okay. Then the old man says, "It's very
31. 1:17much the same here."
32. 1:20>> [laughter]
33. 1:22>> And the next day, the old man sits again
34. 1:25in the cafe and somebody else turns up
35. 1:28by coincidence and says,
36. 1:31"My wife and I are thinking of moving
37. 1:33here
38. 1:34because we like this town. What's What
39. 1:36are the people like?" And the man says,
40. 1:38"Well, what were the people like where
41. 1:40you come from?" And he says, "Oh,
42. 1:42they're great. They're very They're
43. 1:44helpful, kind, couldn't be nicer
44. 1:46people."
45. 1:48And the old man says, "It's very much
46. 1:49the same here."
47. 1:54And of course the old man is right.
48. 1:57You
49. 1:58create
50. 2:01according to your conditioning. Your
51. 2:03conditioning to a large extent
52. 2:04determines the way in which you
53. 2:07experience
54. 2:09other people and reality.
55. 2:14And when you go beyond your
56. 2:17conditioning,
57. 2:19you reach a place
58. 2:21where
59. 2:24you give the greatest gift to other
60. 2:26humans that you can give,
61. 2:29and that is the gift of your pure
62. 2:31attention.
63. 2:33When you look at somebody and you give
64. 2:35them attention,
65. 2:37that is a there's a an outflow of energy
66. 2:40towards them. Just look. And attention
67. 2:43means you're you're not pure attention
68. 2:45is you're not labeling anymore. It's not
69. 2:49you're
70. 2:50just looking,
71. 2:51perceiving, and there's an outflow
72. 2:53perhaps they are talking to you.
73. 2:56There's an outflow. Attention is energy.
74. 2:59Or you give attention to a child through
75. 3:02it. Many parents can't do that because
76. 3:04they they're continuously
77. 3:06saying to the child, "Do this. Don't do
78. 3:09that. Now we must do that. Get ready for
79. 3:11this." There's always something. There's
80. 3:12never a pure attention or rarely.
81. 3:15There's always something to sort out and
82. 3:17to make better. Of course, those things
83. 3:19have their place. Brush your teeth. Of
84. 3:22course, they need to brush their teeth,
85. 3:23but if that's the only reality of do
86. 3:25this, do that, come to
87. 3:27There's never that spaciousness which is
88. 3:29attention, giving it to the other.
89. 3:32And the child can feel that. If you give
90. 3:35a child, you just look at the child and
91. 3:37you listen to the child or look.
92. 3:42It's a beautiful thing. There's a flow.
93. 3:45And then something comes back to you
94. 3:46from the other
95. 3:48because it ultimately attention is a
96. 3:50form we could almost say a form of love.
97. 3:53In a deeper sense, it's there's a
98. 3:56there's a giving and outflow. Of course,
99. 3:58it's not your personal. It's it's not
100. 4:00something
101. 4:02of your personal belonging that you
102. 4:04give. Attention comes through you. It
103. 4:07doesn't come from you. It comes through
104. 4:10you from the
105. 4:13the divine called the one consciousness.
106. 4:17And you become a an opening for that.
107. 4:20And then the way in which you experience
108. 4:24reality changes dramatically. So, a
109. 4:28wonderful shift happens.
110. 4:30Situations
111. 4:32are no longer
112. 4:34the life in general is no longer
113. 4:37perceived as hostile. It becomes
114. 4:39helpful. So, that. And this And again,
115. 4:44when you look at a tree or you listen to
116. 4:46the sounds, that's the outflow of
117. 4:48attention. And that's attention of what
118. 4:51is just a word. It's a mysterious,
119. 4:54ultimately unnameable
120. 4:57energy that is
121. 5:00goes.
122. 5:01It has no form.
123. 5:05And you
124. 5:07you can become an an opening for that.
125. 5:10And then it begins to live through you,
126. 5:14that essence,
127. 5:15and express itself
128. 5:18through you.
129. 5:20In what form it expresses itself varies
130. 5:23from person to person.
131. 5:26But it begins to It could just be that
132. 5:29you become more You stay where you are,
133. 5:31become more
134. 5:32more kind and loving. And not because
135. 5:36you're thinking, "I need to be kind and
136. 5:38loving."
137. 5:39Yeah, that doesn't work.
138. 5:41You can try very hard. Love your
139. 5:43neighbor as yourself.
140. 5:46Okay, I'll try.
141. 5:49>> [laughter]
142. 5:52>> Except that guy and that one.
143. 6:01When you feel that
144. 6:03you are something is living through you
145. 6:07without being obstructed anymore.
146. 6:11It was living through you before also,
147. 6:13but only a trickle. It's a little bit
148. 6:16like let's imagine you are
149. 6:19a ripple on the surface of the ocean.
150. 6:24And the ripple
151. 6:25for a moment, which is a lifetime for
152. 6:28the ripple,
153. 6:29forgets
154. 6:31that it is part of the ocean and it's
155. 6:34only an expression
156. 6:36a brief expression of the totality in
157. 6:38this particular form.
158. 6:41And the ripple thinks
159. 6:43I'm a ripple.
160. 6:46That's my life. That's my ripple life.
161. 6:49My
162. 6:50my life.
163. 6:53The ripple thinks that its life is its
164. 6:56own.
165. 6:57>> [laughter]
166. 6:58>> It doesn't know it is the ocean.
167. 7:01And then of course the this the ripple
168. 7:03becomes unhappy. The
169. 7:07>> [laughter]
170. 7:10>> It doesn't realize that it is the ocean.
171. 7:13>> [laughter]
172. 7:14>> But once the ripple realizes the ocean
173. 7:16then then and now we have to let go of
174. 7:19this analogy because then something
175. 7:21happens to the ripple that is
176. 7:24would not happen to a normal ripple.
177. 7:26That's why we're letting go of it.
178. 7:29It becomes a beautiful formation
179. 7:31suddenly.
180. 7:33Oh, and now the ocean is expressing
181. 7:36itself fully through that.
182. 7:54So use every moment here. And when I say
183. 7:57every moment
184. 7:59it's not entirely correct. There is not
185. 8:01no such thing as every moment. There's
186. 8:03only this moment.
187. 8:07Well, I have never met any other moment.
188. 8:09I can't find any other.
189. 8:11It's always been this moment. So,
190. 8:14could one in language one says
191. 8:17every moment or many moments, but
192. 8:20ultimately there's no such thing.
193. 8:23There's only the appearance of many
194. 8:25moments because
195. 8:27there's always something different that
196. 8:28arises,
197. 8:30that changes all the time in your
198. 8:33in the space of consciousness.
199. 8:36Things arise and subside and arise and
200. 8:39subside. Thoughts, emotions,
201. 8:41perceptions, experiences
202. 8:44come and go. And so, when you only see
203. 8:47the surface, then you think
204. 8:49everything that arises, this is one
205. 8:51moment that arises and one moment that
206. 8:53arises and the next moment that But of
207. 8:56course it's not really like that
208. 8:58because it all arises in the present
209. 9:00moment,
210. 9:02which is eternal.
211. 9:04And the present moment, the deeper
212. 9:05meaning of it,
213. 9:07of course is
214. 9:09that the present moment is
215. 9:12consciousness itself.
216. 9:14That's what the real meaning of the
217. 9:15power of now is. The the of the what the
218. 9:19now is.
219. 9:21It's not It's not what happens. The now
220. 9:24in its deeper sense
221. 9:27is not what happens.
222. 9:29It's the space
223. 9:31in which everything happens. And that
224. 9:33space is eternal. In other words,
225. 9:35timeless. And that space is you
226. 9:38in your essence.
227. 9:40>> [laughter]
228. 9:44>> Oh.
229. 9:46Uh but if this is not of course
230. 9:47something to believe in,
231. 9:50but to sense
232. 9:53that spaciousness in you
233. 9:56as that which underlies
234. 10:00all perceptions and all thinking.
235. 10:06So, the shift in consciousness or the
236. 10:09evolutionary leap in consciousness, is
237. 10:11from
238. 10:13being exclusively identified with form,
239. 10:17the me, the thought forms of me,
240. 10:21to
241. 10:26being rooted
242. 10:28in the dimension of the formless.
243. 10:32So, this is why I sometimes say,
244. 10:34although again, don't believe don't take
245. 10:37these words as absolutely true, they're
246. 10:39only temporary pointers.
247. 10:42One could almost say there are two
248. 10:44halves to your to who you are.
249. 10:47And most humans only know one half,
250. 10:50which is the form, the physical form and
251. 10:53the psychological form, the ideas they
252. 10:55have about themselves, the stories, and
253. 10:57so on. That's the one half is your form
254. 11:00identity. The other half, which most
255. 11:03humans don't know
256. 11:05themselves as, is the more essential the
257. 11:08essence of identity that is formless,
258. 11:12that you cannot know.
259. 11:14The other half you can know,
260. 11:16but the the formless essence identity,
261. 11:19you cannot know it because
262. 11:21it is the essence through which
263. 11:24everything is known.
264. 11:27This is why it's sometimes called the I,
265. 11:29the eternal I am.