End Suffering by Changing This One Thing | Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle shares what may be the most counterintuitive truth about human suffering: the pain you feel is almost never caused by your circumstances - it comes from the mental narrative you attach to them. So many people carry a heavy identity built from past wounds, failures, and stories they've been repeating for years, never realizing they are not the story. Eckhart walks through why the ego is so deeply ingrained that even enormous suffering isn't always enough to break its hold - and why the present moment is the only place where that grip can finally loosen. He breaks down the law of attraction with unusual clarity, showing why manifesting from neediness pushes what you want further away, and why true abundance starts with appreciating what already exists around you. By the end, you'll understand why the journey itself - not the destination - is where life actually happens, and how shifting your state of consciousness right now changes everything that comes next. Eckhart’s books: The Power of Now Practicing the Power of Now Stillness Speaks A New Earth In this episode you will: Discover why your psychological suffering is almost always caused by mental narratives, not by your actual circumstances, and how to separate the two in real time. Learn a simple practice for experiencing the present moment without the weight of interpretation, so you can find peace even in frustrating situations. Understand why the ego can never be satisfied by achievement or money, and what actually creates lasting fulfillment. Recognize the difference between manifesting from lack versus manifesting from fullness - and how one quietly destroys what you're trying to create. Explore what it means to know yourself beyond your personal story, so you can access the deeper dimension of consciousness that is already whole and complete. For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1897 For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960 More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Lewis Howes [SOLO] Katherine Woodward Thomas Tony Robbins Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Eckhart Tolle?

  Millions of people in this world live with this heaviness and they don't realize this heaviness that they call my life is actually a narrative that they tell themselves. That mind-made sense of self is utterly fiction. Can you see how insane that is? You've been one of my great inspirations here on the planet.

• 0:20Lewis Howes?

  Guided millions and millions of people to an understanding of who they really are. Eckhart Tolle.

• 0:25Eckhart Tolle?

  Your relationship with the present moment is dysfunctional. Your entire life is dysfunctional. Make the present moment your friend, then your whole life begins to change.

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  If someone watching or listening is saying, "Well, my present is really challenging right now. How can I actually enjoy the present when I'm in breakdown everywhere?"

• 0:42Eckhart Tolle?

  The problem is, lives in the mind. To get out of that...

• 0:53Lewis Howes?

  I've got a number of topics today. One being about the law of attraction. I want to talk about stress and anxiety. I want to talk about why people suffer and how to get out of suffering. I want to talk about relationships and how to know when you're in a healthy dynamic in relationships. All these things I want to talk about today. But the first one, I felt like I was trapped in suffering for so many years and I didn't know how to get out of this suffering, anxious, stressful feeling that would come and go, that would ruminate at night, that would keep me up at night, that would make me anxious in social settings, that would make me feel like I wasn't good enough.

• 1:33Lewis Howes?

  And I know people feel a sense of suffering, anxiety, overwhelm and stress today, which seems like more than ever. I'm curious, with all of your wisdom and experience, how can we overcome or eliminate stress and suffering and anxiety in our lives when it seems to be crippling us?

• 2:02Eckhart Tolle?

  Not conscious of how your mind operates, and many people still are not conscious of how their mind operates. They locate all the source of their troubles outside themselves. So they perceive the, whatever their life situation is. And every life situation is to some extent problematic. There's no life situation that is totally perfect, where everything is going well. No matter how much you practice positive thinking, which is of course a wonderful thing to do.

• 2:44Eckhart Tolle?

  Nevertheless, there will always be things that are problematic in every life situation. So life always challenges you, no matter, no matter what stage you're at in your life. You get new challenges, even if you are highly conscious or, and let's say enlightened. Even the enlightened person still gets challenged by life situations, and that's a good thing. We may come back to that a little bit later.

• 3:14Eckhart Tolle?

  The beginning of an awakening for people out of their, this, their suffering is the realization that most of the psychological suffering, because this is what we're talking about. We're not talking about toothache or anything like that. We're talking about psychological suffering. The psychological suffering arises from stories that you tell yourself in your mind about situations, about your life or your life situation. As a practical exercise or to introduce this teaching to people, I sometimes recommend this.

• 3:57Eckhart Tolle?

  Next time you find yourself in a situation that...

• 4:03Eckhart Tolle?

  In which suffering arises and suffering, of course, is a generic term. It can come in many forms. Uh, on one end of the spectrum, suffering is just feeling irritated or upset about something. It might be a minor thing, but you feel irritated. The other end of the spectrum, there's deep despair, deep depressive and sadness. Uh, or extreme forms of anxiety, panic and all that. So we have the two and in between, there's a wide range of different forms of suffering that arise. And very often, they are not recognized as suffering by people. If you are, if you are not conscious of how your mind operates, you don't even know that you're suffering.

• 4:46Eckhart Tolle?

  You don't even know that there is another way, that there would be another way in which you could experience this particular situation. So I recommend, next time you find you, you become upset about something or irritated, which is a form of suffering, minor form of suffering, experiment, I say, let's, let's imagine a situation that these things happen quite often to people. You're in a lineup, let's say it's at the airport. Airport is a source where often people experience uh psychological suffering because things don't, don't, don't go the way they expect them to go.

• 5:23Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 5:23Eckhart Tolle?

  Especially these days. Uh, so you're in a lineup, they uh, it's not moving, you're, you're getting more and more irritated and upset. It could be anywhere, you're waiting, but it's not happening. You're waiting there or in a traffic jam or on the telephone, nobody's answering, just you get automated message that says, your call is important to us and the crockwood waiting time is forty five minutes. So they say, and you feel more and when you get angry and irritated. Now, I recommend the following practice because you're standing there or waiting there, you might as well practice.

• 6:00Eckhart Tolle?

  Ask yourself, how would I experience this situation if I did not add any interpretation or any thought to it? How would I experience this moment if I didn't add any thought to it? If I did not interpret it in any way? If I just allowed this to be as it is without uh um burdening it with this baggage of thought? So, okay, let's say you're standing in this lineup and it's you're very irritated. So, how would I experience this if I did not? In other words, if I did not in my mind say this is bad?

• 6:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 6:40Eckhart Tolle?

  Or and and all the other thought that come after that? Then, because when you say this is bad, then the next thought comes, my life is bad. And and you get a whole string of associated thoughts that are negative. How would I experience this moment without adding any thought to it? Okay, so there you stand. And this would bring your attention into the present moment. And so your attention moves into the present moment. And in this present moment, you're standing there and you're breathing, you're looking around, people moving, the the whatever the room is you find yourself in.

• 7:18Eckhart Tolle?

  You're breathing, you're perceiving things, people, and suddenly you may find that this moment is actually free of suffering. The suffering did not arise, was not caused by by the external circumstance, it was caused by the narrative in your mind about this circumstance. That's a huge distinction. And this is begin to live consciously when you realize this. Until you realize that you live unconsciously, which means in spiritual terms,

• 7:57Eckhart Tolle?

  to live unconsciously is to be totally identified with whatever your mind is saying, the, the, the, I call it the voice in the head, the narrative in your mind that tells you about how good, how bad things are, or how they should be, they, they are, but they shouldn't be, they should be different. But they are, as they are always in this moment, you can't change this moment. Uh, so you become aware. This was discovered, by the way, uh, two thousand years ago by a, a not very well-known ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus.

• 8:36Eckhart Tolle?

  And he said, uh, the, the, the, most of your suffering is derived from what your mind is telling you about a situation, but not from the situation itself. Uh, yeah. And that's an enormous realization. And that can be the beginning of an awakening, to see that the narrative in your mind is mostly what causes the suffering. Of, it is possible, of course, that an external situation may cause physical discomfort, obviously. Yes. That's possible. Yes. Your legs are hurting, or back is hurting, or it's too cold or too hot. With physical discomfort, of course, that's possible. But that is not suffering in the sense in which we use this term right here. Uh, yeah.

• 9:21Eckhart Tolle?

  No. The psychological suffering, unhappiness is another word you could use. It's a generic term for any form of negativity inside yourself. Unhappiness, suffering. When, so you begin to realize that most of that arises from a mental narrative about a situation or about your circumstances, but not from the circumstances themselves. Uh. And then you can begin to practice. Every time you feel. Upset is arising, some form of anger is arising, some form of negativity, uh blaming people and situations and saying this shouldn't be happening

• 10:06Eckhart Tolle?

  or something is not happening but it should be happening or they should do this or they shouldn't do it. All kinds of narratives in your mind. So your spiritual awakening is you're beginning to be aware of what your mind is saying. Uh the the stories that you're telling yourself about situations, but also the stories you're telling yourself about what you call your life. So because people, there are millions of people in this world who were lived with a very painful sense of identity. Uh they they perceive their life as a burden. So they live with this heaviness and they don't realize

• 10:52Eckhart Tolle?

  what they, this heaviness that they call my life is actually a narrative that they tell themselves. And they say, that's me, all the things that have happened to me, the dreadful things in the past that pe- people did to me or circumstances did to me or maybe even the bad things that I did. So you get a very heavy identity built up and that becomes your sense of self. And people don't realize it's a, it's a story you're continuously telling yourself in your mind. But you are so identified with the story that you don't exist, you're outside of the story. Uh so that's, uh, that is what, uh,

• 11:36Eckhart Tolle?

  this, what in, in, in some spiritual traditions is called the self. The Buddha called it the self, which is the, the mind-made sense of self, which the Buddha said, which ultimately he recognized that that that mind-made sense of self is ultimately a kind of fiction that you, that you, that you live through. Uh, so now when you realize that this is the case.

• 12:08Eckhart Tolle?

  This means that at this point of realization, another dimension of consciousness has arisen in you, which is not your mind. We could call it awareness, or we could call it presence. So when you realize what your mind is doing, that is not part of the conceptual mind that works through stories and words and concepts. It is a deeper, or you could say deeper or higher, dimension of consciousness that suddenly has arisen. I often call it presence, but another good word for it is awareness. So awareness is the ability to know what your mind is doing.

• 12:53Eckhart Tolle?

  And then, the wonderful thing is,

• 12:58Eckhart Tolle?

  at first it's just glimpses. When you detach from the mind, you say, oh, wow. And then you have moments when you're not suffering, because you allow this moment to be as it is.

• 13:08Lewis Howes?

  Who, but who are we when we detach from our own mind?

• 13:11Eckhart Tolle?

  Very good question. Yes. So, at first you were identified with the the conceptual mind, the story-making mind. And your sense of identity was the story of me.

• 13:28Lewis Howes?

  My past, my memories, my beliefs, my

• 13:32Eckhart Tolle?

  That's right.

• 13:32Lewis Howes?

  All these thoughts that are accumulated in the bank of my mind from the past that I've told myself, this happened to me, this is what's wrong with me, this is why I'm not good enough, or this person did this, or whatever.

• 13:44Eckhart Tolle?

  Exactly, exactly. Now, when the awareness arises,

• 13:51Eckhart Tolle?

  your sense of who you are, your sense of identity, begins to shift from being lodged in the conceptual mind, the voice in the head. It goes to a deeper place, and you realize who you are in your essence is actually the awareness itself. And that is an amazing realization. The, in other words, this is a dimension of consciousness that is, I call it, beyond thought.

• 14:34Eckhart Tolle?

  Thinking is a, is a wonderful thing. Thinking is a very powerful tool for creating. However, if thinking is all we have and we look for our identity in, in the mind, then that is very limiting. If, if thinking is used as a tool, it's very powerful and empowering and can be very creative. But if thinking becomes self-serving, in other words, you're completely identified with this stream of thinking that never, for most people, never stops.

• 15:15Eckhart Tolle?

  All for the day, they're talking to themselves. There's a voice in the head. Sometimes they talk, they say, "I", sometimes they talk to themselves and, "You, you have done that. You're not good enough." Yeah, all these things. So, this, this is the most, the most important thing in a person's life. And this is why we're here, is to experience this shift in consciousness, so that increasingly, in glimpses at first, but then increasingly, your sense of who you are is the space of awareness, the presence. Does that, does that mean there's two of us?

• 15:57Eckhart Tolle?

  One could say that. There is, on the one hand, I sometimes call it, on the one hand, you have your form, identity. Your form is the most of physical body, which is the first thing people identify with. But really, it's not the physical body, it's the mental image of my body, which they may be happy about, or either it can, the body can be a source of pride, which can be a source of shame, or anything in between. And so, people identify with my body, that's the first identity, form identification.

• 16:35Eckhart Tolle?

  And the next is the psychological form of me, all the things that I identify with in my past. The past makes up who I think I am, all the past conditioning, starting in childhood. The way, the culture in which you grow up, the family in which you grow up. All those things become part of your identity. So you have form, I call it form identity, or the one that, and everybody obviously has one. No matter how conscious you are, you continue to have a physical body until you don't. And you have a form identity, a psychological form. But there is a deeper identity also that, and this is spiritual awakening.

• 17:21Eckhart Tolle?

  That is, I call it essence identity, your essence. And your essence is, if we want to put a, we use the term awareness and we use the term presence. But another term we can use, what that really is, is consciousness. The essence of who you are is consciousness, the light of consciousness itself. And this is not, this is something to be experienced. You cannot understand conceptually what it is that I'm talking about. Unless you experience, in this moment perhaps, what's the only moment there is.

• 18:07Eckhart Tolle?

  Unless you experience what that means that you are, in essence. You are consciousness, the space or the light of consciousness. Between two thoughts, for example, sometimes there's a thought that comes to an end, another thought hasn't arisen yet, you have a gap of five seconds or ten seconds, and

• 18:35Eckhart Tolle?

  This is, this is an experiential thing. To realize yourself as consciousness is, it implies that for, at first, for very brief instances, the mind becomes still, it subsides. But you are still there. So when you are not, let's say, uh, let's assume that you, you let go of any memory of your past. Uh, because you don't need it right now. That you don't remember your past at all. Uh, or your name or anything.

• 19:15Eckhart Tolle?

  Uh, and you're not thinking about future. In fact, you're not thinking at all. But you are aware. You're aware of your sense perceptions. But you're not interpreting sense perceptions. You're allowing sense perceptions to be. Now, who or what are you when you're not telling yourself who or what you are? What are you without the story? And some, some people are afraid of that. They, they're so attached to the story, they can't let go. But it's a wonderful practice for some people. They only let go when the story that they have, that they call their life becomes so painful that they can't stand it anymore. And then sometimes they experience a breakthrough.

• 20:01Lewis Howes?

  Why do so many people hold on to their, their pain identity, their past story? For decades sometimes, why do they hold on to it so long when you might see their friends and family seeing that they're suffering and struggling, but they're unwilling to break free of this old identity or current identity they've been holding on to for so long? Sometimes, like you said, people will finally get so bad, they finally let that identity go. But why does it take an extreme? Horrible breakdown or pain for people to finally say, you know, this old story of mine, this old identity doesn't work for me anymore. I want to let it go and step into a new identity. Why is that so challenging for people?

• 20:43Eckhart Tolle?

  Well, it's we all inherit. It goes back thousands of years in a collective consciousness or unconscious humanity. We all inherit this kind of dysfunction, a mental. Of course, another word for that is the ego. It is the human ego. Ego, sometimes when people use the term ego, they

• 21:08Eckhart Tolle?

  interpret it in different ways than they see the egos that used by Freud, the Freudian ego and other egos. But when I use the term ego or when it's used in a spiritual context, ego simply means complete identification with your mind, with the thinking, the mental emotional makeup of you. That's ego is complete identification with that. And so that's so deeply ingrained, every human being inherits that kind of dysfunction. And so it's so hard to let go because it's so deeply ingrained in every by the conditioning of your mind.

• 21:50Eckhart Tolle?

  And so some people meet an enormous amount of suffering. And even with that, some people don't awaken, even then they they be unhappy until they die. Or they die even at an early age because the body can't stand the unhappiness anymore. It isn't functioning properly anymore because the their mental state interferes with the otherwise harmonious functioning of the body. So they make themselves ill through stress.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:24Eckhart Tolle?

  It's a, so we are faced with, it's an enormous. It's also very, it's a challenging and wonderful thing to realize that your, your purpose here beyond any purpose that you might have on a personal level, which also has a function. But your deeper purpose is to evolve as a conscious being and to go beyond the ego here. So that consciousness evolves, because you're only, you're an expression of the universal consciousness.

• 22:57Eckhart Tolle?

  In universal consciousness throughout the universe is awakening. We live in an awakening universe. And so gradually, life forms, in our case, the human life form, becomes begins to awaken into a higher level of consciousness.

• 23:20Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 23:21Eckhart Tolle?

  So the this, so the the essence here is realizing this the possibility of delivering in this a different state of consciousness, where you're not necessarily always immediately thinking and interpreting things.

• 23:44Lewis Howes?

  And if there's someone, if there's someone watching or listening that is thinking themselves, you know what? I'm just feeling pain psychologically, kind of off and on consistently, and I haven't been able to figure out how to break free and feel a sense of true harmony internally, true peace. Yes, of course, there's challenges that are going to come our way as human beings, you know, as we continue to grow. But as a baseline, peace and harmony, and they just can't figure out how to get there. What type of application or what do people need to be aware of and then take action on? In order to start working towards inner peace and harmony?

• 24:28Eckhart Tolle?

  Right, yes, good question. Um. Well, a good entry point is the present moment. That's the the present moment is the, I sort of sometimes call it the portal into that state of consciousness that we call presence or awareness. Uh, now, the the the egoic mind, as I call it, the egoic mind is not really interested in the present moment, and it usually tries to obscure the present moment. It's interested in some other imagined moment, but not

• 25:08Lewis Howes?

  Past, the future, worried doubt, yeah.

• 25:11Eckhart Tolle?

  Yes, it ignores the present moment, but the the first realization is

• 25:19Eckhart Tolle?

  Uh, the im- the uh, the absolute importance of the present moment in your life. It's the foundation for everything. And your relationship to the present moment determines how the future evolves, but what we call future, which by the way never arrives. As because when it arrives, it's again the present moment.

• 25:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:43Eckhart Tolle?

  So the, the realization that all you ever have or that you can ever experience is intrinsically linked with the present moment. It's inseparable from the present moment. Your entire life unfolds in and as the present moment. That all there ever is. The, the past, when the past happened, it was the present moment. It couldn't happen anywhere else. And when you remember the past, you remember it in the present moment.

• 26:23Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, right.

• 26:25Eckhart Tolle?

  The future, when the future comes, when tomorrow comes, it won't be tomorrow anymore. It will be the now. There was a, a, a British pub in London that had, I lived in London for many years. They had a sign on the bar that says, free beer tomorrow.

• 26:46Eckhart Tolle?

  And of course tomorrow never comes.

• 26:50Eckhart Tolle?

  So the sign is always true.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  That's funny.

• 26:53Eckhart Tolle?

  You go the next day, say, no, tomorrow.

• 26:56Lewis Howes?

  Tomorrow. Wow, that's funny.

• 26:58Eckhart Tolle?

  Yeah, so tomorrow actually never comes. Of course, we need to make plans on a practical level. The future is indispensable. We need, we, we needed future for us to get together here to talk. Just a day and time for connecting. So on a practical level, we cannot do without future. But on a deeper level, on a deeper such logical level, it's important to realize that the future as such does not actually exist because all you can ever experience or have is the present moment.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:36Eckhart Tolle?

  So that's the starting point. Begins with the realization of the absolute. Primary importance of the present moment. This is all you ever have. So you might as well have a good relationship with the present moment, because if your relationship with the present moment is dysfunctional, your entire life is dysfunctional.

• 27:58Lewis Howes?

  Right. So how do we, so how do we, if someone watching or listening is saying, well, my present is really challenging right now.

• 28:04Eckhart Tolle?

  Yes.

• 28:04Lewis Howes?

  I'm, I'm, I've got a lot of debt, you know, I feel I've got some sickness in my body and my health is not there. My, you know, I'm going through divorce or breakup. The career is not as good as I want it to be. There's some type of pain in the present.

• 28:20Eckhart Tolle?

  Yeah.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  How can I actually enjoy the present when I'm in breakdown everywhere?

• 28:23Eckhart Tolle?

  Yeah. Let's, let's leave aside for a moment, physical pain. It's, it's another story, but the, the, the, the psychological pain that's there is again associated with certain situations. It's associated with your life situation, which may be problematic, problematic, problematic on some level, whether it's financial or relationship or work situation or living situation. It's very, or, or health situation. It's very likely that at any given time, your life situation will be problematic, problematic on at least one of these levels.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:08Eckhart Tolle?

  And sometimes it's a lot, one is two or three or four, it becomes really problematic. You, you, you lose your, all your money, your, your, you lose your job, your wife leaves you, you, or you lose your home. These things can do sometimes happen.

• 29:25Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 29:25Eckhart Tolle?

  So you have that. Uh, and again, that's then, it's, that's usually the, these life challenges, situational challenges are usually perceived as being part of the present moment, but they're not really the present moment. They are what is called, what I call your life situation. But other than your life situation, you have something that I call your life. Life situation exists in time. Life is now. And never not now. And since your life is now, you have to ask yourself, yes, I have all these problems. I don't know how I'm going to pay the rent, maybe. Or my relationship is problem, I have to.

• 30:09Eckhart Tolle?

  I'm in the middle of divorce proceedings, all these things that happen to people. Uh, or I've just be been let go, my, my, or my company has collapsed or whatever. Or might collapse, maybe it's doing well, but it may not do well next year. All kinds of things are perceived as problematic, which sometimes are real. And sometimes are just imagination that again, we need to differentiate between when people say they're having big problems. Sometimes they are just in the mind because they they think of things that might go wrong. And other times they are actually. Real challenges happening around you. Right. But here again is for to single out the present moment.

• 30:53Eckhart Tolle?

  And not to ignore action that you might take or have to take in order to. Uh, change certain situations. Is, is there any action that I can take that? That's a secondary question, it's important, but it's secondary. Primary question, I often ask people. What problem do you have at this moment? And then they usually start by saying, well. Uh, I'm running out of money. Or this, I'm living in this unpleasant, this place, whatever. They said, no, no. Running out of money is not the, this, what, this, just this moment, right here and now. What problem do you have here and now? In this moment?

• 31:38Eckhart Tolle?

  And then you look, you look around.

• 31:42Eckhart Tolle?

  You maybe you become aware of your that you're breathing. And you look around and then you reluctantly sometimes people have to admit, well, okay. I'm ready to admit that at just this moment, there isn't actually a problem. The next one there might be, but the next one is again this. It of course, the at this moment, you may have a challenge that you immediately need to deal with. If a if if you um if you're going for a walk and you encounter. A wild animal coming towards you, you you don't say, I don't have any problems at this moment.

• 32:23Eckhart Tolle?

  It's that's a challenge that you need to deal with, but we wouldn't call it a problem. I mean, if I sometimes go for walks in the forest and occasionally there are bears here. So if you encounter a bear, that is not a problem, it's a challenge. And you deal with it, either you run away or you don't, whatever you do, deal with it. The problem is it lives in the mind. The uh it so the the to get out of that is. To give much more attention to the present moment and realize that in the present moment, the problem cannot survive.

• 33:07Eckhart Tolle?

  Say that one more time in in the present moment? The problem, any problem you have cannot survive in the present moment. Because problem is a burden that you carry in your mind, your mental emotional field. That's what a problem is. The rest is situations and circumstances. Either you leave them alone if there's nothing you can do, or you take some action. But they they are not a problem, either you act or you don't act. And if you don't act, you take your attention into the present moment and see that it's actually okay. And I've had to I've had I often get correspondence from people in prison. They're in prison and they we are through my foundation, we are sending.

• 33:53Eckhart Tolle?

  Thousands of thousands of books to to prisons and so and for prisoners to read. I often get communication, people.

• 34:02Eckhart Tolle?

  Realize that in their prison cell, they realize that actually I have no problem. In other words, they come to a complete alignment with the present moment. There's no longer an entity that this should not be happening because that's where the suffering arises. Uh, and of course, prison is a situation where you can't, probably can't take much action. Well, you can try to escape, but you probably won't succeed. Right, right, right. You've got to accept and surrender. Uh, yes. So there's always the action uh may need to be taken. But if no action is possible, then you come to a place of surrender.

• 34:46Eckhart Tolle?

  But it's positive surrender, not negative surrender. Uh, positive surrender is an uncompromising yes to the present moment. An uncompromising yes to what is. That that is a place of great inner power that arises with, yes, this is what is. That's the starting point. So you're not arguing with the is-ness of things because that's insane. You cannot argue with what is and that the the this constant arguing with what is. This actually amplifies the ego, the egoic consciousness. The ego loves to argue with what is.

• 35:31Eckhart Tolle?

  It needs to, it loves enemies and the ego makes the present moment into an enemy. Right. And you see how insane that is? You make the present moment into your enemy because that's all you ever have. That means you make your whole life into an enemy because your whole life is the present moment. Right, right. So I sometimes it become, make the present moment your friend, not your enemy. Make the present moment your friend, then your whole life begins to change. Because what we call future is just an extension of your state of consciousness in the present moment. So if your state of consciousness is negative.

• 36:13Eckhart Tolle?

  It is very likely that you will experience much more negativity in the so-called future. If the present moment, if you're, if you're in the present moment, you're in a place of acceptance, of positive acceptance. Then, uh, it's very likely that the, the present, the so-called future, I thought, I always say so-called future because the future as such doesn't exist, it's always, when it comes, it's a no.

• 36:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 36:43Eckhart Tolle?

  So the so-called future reflects your state of consciousness in the present moment. So that's really a very important realization. So that is how the absolute importance of your state of consciousness here and now. What is your state of consciousness now? Rather than thinking that something else is more important than my state of consciousness. So in any situation, you're faced with any situation.

• 37:14Eckhart Tolle?

  What is the state of consciousness with which you face the situation? Is it, are you in a state of resistance or negativity towards the situation? Because when, in, in any endeavor that you undertake, inevitably obstacles will arise in anything.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 37:32Eckhart Tolle?

  You want to create something new, obstacle, or, or often come in many forms, sometimes in the form of human beings who don't like you to, to do what you're doing. Or it can come in the form of other structure, structures that are in society, the rigid structures. So, and you get all kinds of bureaucratic obstacles or whatever the obstacles are. So what, how do you, you face an obstacle, what is your state of consciousness when an obstacle arises? Do you immediately become angry? Do you become or despondent or do you start complaining in your mind? People and talking about others, how awful this situation is and complaining.

• 38:14Eckhart Tolle?

  Or are you able to just immediately say, this is what is? So you face the obstacle, not in a state of resistance, come from a state of power. This is what is, and then when you are in that state of presence, very often the right action arises spontaneously. Then you do, you find yourself doing the right thing because you're not making this situation into an enemy. And this is very important, and if you want to achieve great things. Uh, and a huge obstacle for people is to uh start complaining and building up stress.

• 38:57Eckhart Tolle?

  When things go wrong with this, in other words, things shouldn't be happening. So they become negative, they become unpleasant. They become unpleasant to people, colleagues and people they work with. And a lot of negative energy can build up in a company and so on. So, uh, and that is not some of the most effective people in this world. There are perhaps a few, uh, they don't work with negativity. They, they work immediately with a positive attitude. They, they, they, they don't make the present moment into, into an enemy. They might never have heard any spiritual teaching.

• 39:42Eckhart Tolle?

  So perhaps that is some kind of innate wisdom that they have. Or maybe they've learned this lesson in past lifetime, who knows?

• 39:52Eckhart Tolle?

  So, but so the, so the important is always start with the present moment. And again, what is, what, what, what problem do I have now? And is there a problem here and now, just this moment? Well, actually, no, not, not really, not the problem isn't here. The problem is in the mind, but it's not here. That's a place of power. And then, then you, you become aligned with the, the power of now. The power of the present moment, so a, which is the power of consciousness itself beyond the ego. Far, far powerful, the ego is only like, it's like the reflected light.

• 40:36Eckhart Tolle?

  That like the moon reflects the light of the sun and the ego reflects the light of consciousness. It's only, it's not power, there's no power in ego itself. In the same way, there's no light in the moon, it's just reflected light.

• 40:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow, yeah, that's powerful.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  This has been fascinating so far. I'm sure we could talk about, you know, consciousness and suffering for hours, but I want to get to a few other concepts here. One of them being about the law of attraction, because you mentioned kind of synchronicities and serendipities and kind of this idea of when we align ourselves

• 41:18Lewis Howes?

  to consciousness and to more harmony thoughts, to more peaceful thoughts. In my experience, things just come, you know, the right things that I'm intending, it's they happen very quickly and unexpectedly. I would love to hear your thoughts on your definition of the law of attraction, but also maybe the three habits that you see people doing the most that hurt them from attracting effortlessly using the law of attraction.

• 41:52Eckhart Tolle?

  Right. Well, the main mistake perhaps that people make is

• 41:59Eckhart Tolle?

  not coming from a place of fullness, but coming from a place of neediness and putting too much attention on what is the undesirable condition so that they want to get rid of, but mentally almost continuously focusing on the undesirable condition, like not enough money, for example, which is a problem for many people. So...

• 42:30Lewis Howes?

  So let's use money for the example then, the law of attraction with money. How could we attract more wealth or financial abundance in our life using the law of attraction?

• 42:42Eckhart Tolle?

  Yeah. Well, first of all, is the acknowledgement of abundance that is already here and now.

• 42:51Eckhart Tolle?

  And not focusing on the lack of abundance that is here now, which you could find by thinking about it, but to actually focus on where is the abundance that I can find here now? And that is all around you. It is in nature. When you look at the abundance of nature, the abundance, the multiplicity of life forms, the wonder of nature, the abundance of evil, evil, or let's say you're in a city, you can look at, appreciate all the things that you see around you. You don't need to necessarily own it or buy it, just appreciate it. And

• 43:34Eckhart Tolle?

  so this first, the appreciation of the goodness of life, that is always all around you, even if you have no money, there's still the goodness of life is all around you. You see it all around you. The sunshine, I mean, the sun is the ultimate symbol of abundance because it gives energy of itself almost eternal. I mean, eventually the sun will die, but as far as we are concerned, it's virtually eternal. It pours out energy continuously. And this, at some point, we will realize that even on the level of energy, the universe

• 44:19Eckhart Tolle?

  is infinitely abundant. So we will no longer need things that we're using now, fossil fuels and those things. We have access to other forms of energy that are more helpful. But Right. The abundance, the abundance is all around you. Let's say you walk your past in the city, you're walking past a flower shop, and you look at, wow, such beauty, appreciation, even to seeing a beautiful man or woman, or nice, or even a beautiful car, I love it. But why don't I have that car? Why does he have that car? It's all egoic, much narratives

• 45:00Eckhart Tolle?

  that make you unhappy to appreciate. Nature, of course, is very powerful. And then you to appreciate.

• 45:09Eckhart Tolle?

  The aliveness in your body that you're breathing. And you can actually feel that the, the your body, but many people can't feel that. I call it the inner body awareness. You feel that your, that every cell of your body is pervaded with a sense of aliveness, energy. And you can feel that, that is abundance. So there's abundance of life all around you. There's a, there's, you can feel the life within you also. And so we could, some people call that gratitude. I call it more gra- appreciation. The appreciation of the abundance of life that is always around you. That's a wonderful starting point. Okay.

• 45:52Eckhart Tolle?

  So you're not focusing on lack, you're focusing on abundance and. Even, even when you don't have any, if you feel like you don't have anything, you can find abundance around you. Yes, always acknowledge it, the good things of life, acknowledge. But even seemingly insignificant things like, uh. When I look out of the window, I sometimes, this tree is out here. I, right now I can look out this, I can see there's a slight breeze and the branches are swaying slightly in the wind. It's beautiful. And there's the tree in all its majesty and still as it's been there for a hundred years. And that's wonderful. I don't need to own that tree. I mean.

• 46:37Eckhart Tolle?

  Owning in that sense is ultimately a bit meaningless anyway. Yes. I own this house where I am right now, but at some point I'll, I'll be gone. And so what does it mean? The house will then, somebody else will own the house. Own is a secondary. I'm not saying it's a let go of ownership. Sometimes it can give stability to your life on a practical level. But there's something more important. So, uh, this appreciation or if you want to call it gratitude. Some people recommend, um, I think Oprah said that she has had for many, many years. Uh, a notebook or journal where she puts, writes down every day, things that she's grateful for.

• 47:24Eckhart Tolle?

  And um these are these are usually seemingly insignificant things. But it's important not to overlook that. And I don't think she's writing down. Uh, I'm grateful that I have a private jet. Or I'm grateful that I have a two point five billion dollars in the bank. That's

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:45Eckhart Tolle?

  She writes down the small things that

• 47:48Lewis Howes?

  I'm grateful for my garden. I'm grateful I get to plant a flower today. I'm grateful that I get to go on a walk with my friends. I'm grateful that I woke up today.

• 47:56Eckhart Tolle?

  Yes, yes. The next thing is, uh, the second thing, let's say, is uh, giving. To give of, to give energy to other people. Uh, appreciation itself is already a sort of certain outflow of energy. When you appreciate this tree beauty, there is an energy connection with the tree. There's a, the consciousness connects you with a tree. Uh, and kindness is part of giving, kindness to another person. Not because you want anything from that person, but because it feels so good

• 48:39Eckhart Tolle?

  to have this sense of, we could call it goodwill that flows out of you towards another person. Even if you just ho- ho- hold the door open for somebody. Or it's a remark or you that's a love, what's the lovely, I love your dress or whatever you say. If it's tenuous, uh, or uh, to say an encouraging word to somebody. Um, or to whatever it may be, a smile, a smile at somebody's. It's a, it's a, even that is a form of giving. This, this connection with another uh kindness is a very powerful thing. So you are giving, you're not, you're not

• 49:23Eckhart Tolle?

  at the more you give. That in it, it's in the law of attraction or nature is as you give, it must come back to you in another form. Um, but it doesn't work if you give out of obligation that you feel you should be giving, or it needs to be a genuine sense of wanting to give and feeling how how good it feels to give, not because mentally you're you're you've you've you feel you always need to, you always need to help people because otherwise uh you you don't you don't think of yourself as a good person or something, that's all mind stuff.

• 50:04Eckhart Tolle?

  But to experience how how how good it feels to be to give. So we we have on the one hand appreciation, gratitude and appreciation, I can't explain that giving every day of uh in whatever form. Uh, and the next thing is that's obviously Jesus already in in one sentence, one could say, uh, told us the the essence of manifesting and how it works.

• 50:41Eckhart Tolle?

  And he said, uh, whenever you uh pray for something that you want, uh, believe that you already have it and it will be given to you.

• 50:55Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 50:56Eckhart Tolle?

  There's the key. Now, the important thing is he did not say, believe that you will have it. He said, believe that you already have it. Now, this may not be immediately clear to people, how do I do that? Uh, how do I believe that I already have it when I know that I don't have it?

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right. How do you get that belief of having it before knowing, feeling, tasting, smelling the thing that you want?

• 51:28Eckhart Tolle?

  Yes. So you feel uh the thing.

• 51:35Eckhart Tolle?

  It is already a mental reality in your mind. How do you feel now that you have it in your mind? How do you, how do, how does it feel? And this feeling is really where the power of manifestation lies. But what is that feeling? Because that feeling of having it already and feeling this deep sense of satisfaction is really connecting with the deeper power within yourself. It's the power where all, all sense of aliveness originates there. It's the deeper sense of aliveness that comes from consciousness itself. Right. You know, you might believe, it might differ from person to person.

• 52:20Eckhart Tolle?

  One person might think, okay, what I want is a, a big house with a, or overlooking the ocean or whatever, and then you, you feel yourself, you're, you're already there, experiencing that. Another person might think, well, what I want is to have this great company that does good things in this world and it's, and, and I'm, yeah, how does that feel? But you might find that the feeling is actually basically always the same, whether your mind says, but it's a house overlooking the ocean, you know why?

• 53:01Eckhart Tolle?

  Or the other person says, well, this is the company that I'm, well, the head of that's doing great things in this world. The feeling is basically the same feeling and, and the feeling is a feeling of fullness of life. Yes. Of completeness. That is power. So when you feel this feeling of fullness and then you associate it with a mental image, that, that is the power of manifestation there. But the feeling itself is beyond the mental image and is beyond whatever for you are able to manifest in this world, because that is the feeling of the inherent sense of aliveness

• 53:45Eckhart Tolle?

  that comes when you go deeper into yourself and experience the, the presence that you are in this, to, to know yourself as the presence is inherently joyful and powerful. To know yourself as so. And that is you manifest from a place of fullness, not from a place of lack.

• 54:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:08Eckhart Tolle?

  The fullness is already there. And that also means if for some reason it doesn't manifest, because not everybody's desires manifest, uh, I mean, I don't know if it's still happening. L A, for example, uh, if you go to any, any good restaurant in L A, it's more than likely that the waiter or waitress will be actors waiting for, for their big breakthrough. And then it's just not possible for so many people to have the big breakthrough in L A as actors. Some may do, a few may do, but most probably won't.

• 54:47Eckhart Tolle?

  But they have made, they probably have other breakthroughs, but perhaps are much more important than what their ego tells them is important.

• 54:54Lewis Howes?

  And to add to that, I love this, what you're sharing here, because I want people to really feel this and understand this and embrace it because when we try to manifest from lack, it's going to be this needy energy, which was your first point, that kind of kills the, the dream of the law of attraction. And when we manifest from a place of fullness, like you spoke of, like feeling, a feeling of fullness, wholeness, excitement, abundance, joy inside of us. And if it doesn't happen, if that dream doesn't come to us in the next year or five or 10 years, then we've lived a full, rich life every moment

• 55:34Lewis Howes?

  till that moment. Like we've, we've lived a full year of feeling excited and passionate and good about ourselves. And that energy is magnetic. You will draw in great people, partners, relationships, opportunities that maybe you couldn't have dreamed of because the energy you, you gave into the world like you talked about. And I think that's the, the big point for me is. The dream and the idea you have, maybe your ego wants, maybe you won't have it. But man, you'll live a great, beautiful, rich life in the process of pursuing it.

• 56:11Eckhart Tolle?

  Very good point. So in other words, the journey is what matters. The arrival, the arriving at some destination is the end point, but it's secondary. It's a journey. It's always the journey. It's always now. That's what matters. And so sometimes what you wanted to manifest does not happen, but something else manifests. That could be even better. In fact, in many cases, it's much better than what you are.

• 56:40Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Yeah, I always, I always wanted to be a professional athlete. And I played professional football for about a year and a half before I got injured. In the injury, I broke my wrist and I was wearing a cast and I had a surgery. And I had a cast on for six months and it took about a year and a half for me to use my, my wrists again from the injury. And during that time, I was in a state of extreme sadness and a loss and a grief of this identity that I once had and this dream that I once had, that I was working so hard for my whole life to manifest, to create. And then all of a sudden, this injury broke the, the, my abilities to do that. And I remember thinking, what am I going to do with my life? Like, what's the point?

• 57:23Lewis Howes?

  Twenty-three, twenty-four years old. I'm like, what am I supposed to do now? And it led me into this journey that I'm on now, uh, doing this interview series and podcast for the last 10 years. That I'd much rather have this life than the life of a professional athlete now, like. And sometimes, like you said, going back to the beginning of this, if we can accept and surrender in the positive way to see what good can come, it may be challenging in the moment, but it's been a blessing since then.

• 57:55Eckhart Tolle?

  Yes, that's a lovely story. That's, uh, that's how it actually works. And another, uh, thing to mention is, let's say you do. Let's say you do manifest what it is you wanted to manifest. Uh, when you come from this place of fullness, you do not have, yes, you have an appreciation of what you have achieved, but you don't have an excessive attachment to what you have achieved. Uh, so let's say you are, you are able to manifest that you have a, a, a house overlooking the ocean and you manifest it. There you have it. And one day, uh, you get you, when you get home, you find your house is

• 58:40Eckhart Tolle?

  fallen into the ocean. It's gone.

• 58:43Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 58:45Eckhart Tolle?

  So the, the whole thing that you worked so hard for to achieve is suddenly gone. But this place of fullness that, that enabled you to, to, to manifest that is still there. It's beyond outer forms.

• 59:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you feel full in life. Maybe there's a moment of sadness during that, but if you're not attached to the physical things you've manifested. Um, I'm sure if I lost my home, I feel like it's a sanctuary. It's a, it's a, it's a beautiful, peaceful space. But I've lived in two bedroom apartments for most of my life and I felt like those were peaceful places for me. And it's not like, I'm sure I'd be sad for a minute, but then I could also create the sense of fullness in the next space.

• 59:32Eckhart Tolle?

  Exactly. And I have this, let's see, um, I, um, for a long time, until, until my thirty second year, I, my main form of transportation was, except other than public transport, was a bicycle.

• 59:52Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful.

• 59:53Eckhart Tolle?

  So I got my driver's license when I was thirty, in my first car when I was thirty two. And that was a very old.

• 1:00:00Lewis Howes?

  What city were you in? What, what country or city?

• 1:00:03Eckhart Tolle?

  London, London and Cambridge I lived, uh, at that time. Uh, and the.

• 1:00:10Eckhart Tolle?

  I loved my bicycle. I just wonder, I I appreciated it. I loved them. I was just looked at it was standing there and I had a and then somebody gave me, I was poor at the time, somebody gave me an order car and I loved that. And and then I was able to, I got a little bit of money. I was able to buy the cheapest car I could find. It was called Lada. It's a Russian lake. Uh, it they still make them, but they're a bit better now than they used to be. And people would laugh at these cars because they were notorious for breaking down. But it was very, very cheap and I bought this and it never broke down. I loved that car.

• 1:00:52Eckhart Tolle?

  It never broke down. It I must admit, very embarrassing on hills because you couldn't. You were holding everybody.

• 1:00:59Lewis Howes?

  You had to get out and push it. Yeah.

• 1:01:00Eckhart Tolle?

  Yeah, I I loved that car and um, the and then I I eventually left England and I sold it. A friend of mine was interested. I sold it to him. And

• 1:01:15Eckhart Tolle?

  two or three weeks after he bought it, it broke down and and couldn't get repaired anymore. It was incredible. Uh, it's almost FS because I I have this kind of relationship even with so-called inanimate objects. Like I think that even there, there is a there is a glimmer of consciousness in everything.

• 1:01:35Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:01:36Eckhart Tolle?

  That's how I sense things. There's a glimmer of consciousness. So.

• 1:01:40Lewis Howes?

  And when you have an intention and an appreciation for the thing that you're with, the bike, the the cheap car. It tends to take care of you when you take care of it with your energy, right?

• 1:01:54Lewis Howes?

  I had a similar experience when I moved to LA, uh, I don't know, eleven, twelve years ago. I didn't have a car in my twenties. I had a I had like a five hundred dollar car that broke down after six months. And so I walked everywhere in Columbus, Ohio for about a year. And then I moved to New York City. I didn't need a car. And then I moved to LA and I bought a four thousand dollar car. It was like a nineteen ninety. Seven uh year old car. And probably one of the oldest cars on the road. I drove it every day. It was a $4,000 car. And for for being in LA, you know, this world, that's that's kind of like looked down upon. It's like, oh, you don't have this nice new car. I drove for five or six years. I loved it. It was like it got me from place to place. It was comfortable.

• 1:02:39Lewis Howes?

  It was reliable and I was happy with it. So.

• 1:02:41Eckhart Tolle?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:42Lewis Howes?

  It took care of me and I took care of it.

• 1:02:45Eckhart Tolle?

  Yes, and that's uh that's uh I I feel the same. And then later, then finally I had the money. I bought a uh an expensive car. Which I still have what it's 16 years ago. It's now kind of classic. And and I I love that as much as I love the bicycle. Many years ago.

• 1:03:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:03:08Eckhart Tolle?

  It's the same and and it's not. It's many people, of course, have an egoic. Identification with their car, but what we are talking about is very different. It's not that. It's not an egoic. If I had had an ego egoic identification with my cheap Russell car. My ego would have felt diminished because often people laughed at it's all of this car. But I did. I didn't mind. It was fine. I didn't have egoic identification. And I don't have any going identification with this. More expensive classic car that I have now that's 16 years old. But I still I love it. Uh I have a kind of relationship with it. If something happened to it, that I would. Let go. It's fine.

• 1:03:52Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:03:53Eckhart Tolle?

  Everything eventually leaves you and unless you leave it, it leads you.

• 1:03:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's interesting. That's beautiful. Was there anything else? That you think hurts people from? The law of attraction and manifesting? What they want? We talked about the neediness and coming from a place of lack.

• 1:04:13Eckhart Tolle?

  Yeah, well, maybe one other thing um. The uh.

• 1:04:19Eckhart Tolle?

  Sometimes the whatever people want to manifest comes on an egoic place. The ego wants to, by achieving this or that, the ego wants to feel more powerful than before. It wants to have an enhanced sense of identity through it by showing to other people that you have more than others. It wants to show its superiority. The ego always looks for superiority. And so that, that could be, uh, uh,

• 1:04:56Eckhart Tolle?

  you may still, you may still get what you want. But your, your power will be greatly diminished if it's an egoic interior. But even with an egoic interior, sometimes even that it could still work with hard work and determines you might get it, but it won't make you happy. You, when you get it, you very quickly you will feel needy again.

• 1:05:23Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Why, why is that? Why do you think, why do you, I'm sure you know a lot of very famous, rich billionaires and people with lots of money who are still suffering and aren't happy inside once they got the thing they wanted. Why is it that people suffer and struggle when they have lots of money and have the big homes? Why this is still not enough?

• 1:05:47Eckhart Tolle?

  Yes, well, to the ego is never enough to the ego, nothing, because the ego is a sense of lack, sense of not good enough, not, not, not enough yet. So it's never enough for, for the ego. And if you have everything that the world tells you, you really should be happy now because you've got, and I've met people like that. They've got money, huge amounts of money. They've got fame and recognition and the private jet. They've got, can do, do anything, go anywhere at any moment. And that can be particularly, uh, um, bad.

• 1:06:33Eckhart Tolle?

  Counterproductive because you cannot fool yourself, the ego cannot fool itself by saying, when I get this, I'll be happy. Because then you can, you can still postpone, ego can say, once I achieve that, I'll be happy. But the person already has everything. He or she cannot say that anymore because so you have no way, there, there's no excuse anymore. And because you have everything and you're not happy. So then, and this, this is very often, people then start taking drugs or engage in other kinds of seeking sensory satisfaction through substances

• 1:07:14Eckhart Tolle?

  or going from one relationship into another, having sex or whatever they do because they can buy anything they want and they get pretty more and more unhappy. Because they do all, the ego was there and the ego will never be satisfied. No matter what you achieve. The, in the Course in Miracles, it says, I don't know if you've been there, it says, you will, you will always know when the, the, whether the ego was at work, when, once you achieved it, it, it hasn't satisfied you. That was ego. So there's another, there's another saying that goes, there are two ways of being unhappy.

• 1:07:56Eckhart Tolle?

  One is not getting what you want and the other one is getting what you want.

• 1:08:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:08:01Eckhart Tolle?

  That refers to the ego. So you can, some people are unhappy because they don't get what they want. And the others are unhappy because they get everything they want, but it's the ego.

• 1:08:14Lewis Howes?

  What do you think, how do, how does someone be happy while they're on the path of trying to manifest, you know, more in their life, more, a better relationship or better qualities that they have in their current relationship, more career success, money, things like this, how can they be happy? No matter what happens, it comes to you or it doesn't?

• 1:08:35Eckhart Tolle?

  Happiness starts with alignment with the present moment. It can only arise if you are aligned with the present moment. I sometimes call that the, the vertical dimension of life, which is now. And then there's a horizontal dimension of life is where it's past and future and you have a goal you're working towards. That's fine. You have the horizontal dimension. And the vertical dimension is the present moment. The horizontal dimension is the dimension of becoming. You become good at something or you acquire something. You become something, there's an evolutionary process at work and that obviously has its place. It's there.

• 1:09:20Eckhart Tolle?

  But if you're too, if you're exclusively focused on becoming and achieving and training and acquiring, you're always, you're trapped on the horizontal and you can never really enjoy the present moment.

• 1:09:37Eckhart Tolle?

  Because the present moment is the vertical dimension, is here now inseparable from the now. The cross, the symbol of the cross, one could interpret as, which is an ancient, it predates Christianity. The symbol of a cross can be interpreted as the, pointing to the intersection between the horizontal and vertical dimension of life. That is, uh, the, so the importance then is to, to discover the dimension, the vertical dimension, which is the power of the, of the now, the present moment. And then the horizontal dimension works, actually works better.

• 1:10:22Eckhart Tolle?

  And you're not dependent on it for your ultimate satisfaction. You're not dependent on any kind of achievement, attainment, or whatever it is that on the horizontal dimension for your, it may give you some kind of satisfaction, but not the deepest satisfaction. The deepest satisfaction is inseparable from going more deeply into the present moment and discover the essence of who or what you are as. Consciousness itself, presence, here and now. And you, you could, you, you, you, in other words, you could say, you sense the beingness of you. You sense that you are.

• 1:11:05Eckhart Tolle?

  And, and you, there is an enormous power there that has no form. You can't interpret it. It's, it's, it's, it's the power of aliveness itself, here and now. It, it goes far beyond who or what you are as a person. The person exists on the horizontal dimension. But there is a deeper dimension to who you are, that's only discovered in the vertical dimension. In the vertical dimension, you are already complete.

• 1:11:34Lewis Howes?

  Ah.

• 1:11:35Eckhart Tolle?

  There is, there's nothing to achieve there, you're, you're already full and complete.

• 1:11:40Lewis Howes?

  That's so hard for people to, that's so hard for people to comprehend where they don't feel complete.

• 1:11:45Eckhart Tolle?

  On the horizontal, you're not complete and you'll never be complete.

• 1:11:49Lewis Howes?

  Got you, okay.

• 1:11:50Eckhart Tolle?

  Because no matter what you achieve, if you become good at one thing, you'll lose something. There's always a world of polarities on the horizontal dimension. Um, that even, I find that still, the, you, you achieve, you achieve great things. Um, before I used, I've been teaching spiritual awakening for many, many, many years. Uh, in the past, I had intimate groups of ten, twenty people.

• 1:12:22Eckhart Tolle?

  Now I, there's hundreds or thousands of people often come.

• 1:12:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Eckhart Tolle?

  I don't have the, the close relationship with individuals anymore. It's just can't, I'm reaching many more people. But I've lost this closure connection with the people that I'm teaching. There's always a price to pay. On the other hand, I'm reaching far more people than before. But there's always a price to pay, evil privacy. I'm not a great celebrity, but I do, wherever I go, people, oh, I can't. And so, and the moment it happens, it's wonderful. I love the connection that I feel, but I do lose privacy because sometimes you'll watch, what's he eating? What's he doing? Why is he drinking coffee? Uh, whatever.

• 1:13:07Lewis Howes?

  I thought he was spiritual, yeah.

• 1:13:09Eckhart Tolle?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:11Eckhart Tolle?

  Well, you lose something, the horizontal, there's like always gain and loss. The world of polarities and the and the becoming, the becoming dimension, you become. Uh, again, has to, is a positive and a negative side. On the one hand, you can become stronger as you grow up, you become, you can become more knowledgeable, you become wealthier. But eventually, the becoming becomes both negative, because then your body becomes weaker, because you get old. And maybe you lose something and then you become. So the becoming, there's the polarities operate on the horizontal dimension, but it has, it's

• 1:13:55Eckhart Tolle?

  without the access to the vertical dimension, thus it can satisfy you truly, purely on the horizontal dimension. So the vertical dimension is the present moment. To to realize that that the power of the present moment that is inseparable from who or what you are in your essence, the power of you. And that is, that is not an egoic thing, because this you far transcends who or what you are as a person, it connects you with the identity of the universe itself. The, this is in the, it's the I am without adding anything to it, I am.

• 1:14:35Eckhart Tolle?

  In the Old Testament, Prophet asked, meets God and ask, ask God, what is your name? And God says, I am the I am. That is a very deep statement. That is the beingness itself, beingness itself, and you can feel that, you can sense that here and now, when you, for a moment, your mind subsides. You're not thinking anymore, without making an effort, you're not thinking anymore. And are you without any thought? You can't, you can't explain what it is, but you can sense that there is a light of consciousness, there is a presence. Right.

• 1:15:19Eckhart Tolle?

  The, in an inherent sense of aliveness. Sometimes people can feel it with their, with their entire body, that the entire body is pervaded by a sense of aliveness. You are, all you, um.

• 1:15:34Eckhart Tolle?

  That's the ancient Greeks already said, know thyself as the most important thing in life. Know thyself, and that refers to the deepest knowing, knowing yourself as consciousness. And then the person still operates for a while, and it operates actually much better when you're connected to that which transcends the person.

• 1:16:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:16:01Eckhart Tolle?

  Where in other, if you want, if you, for those people who are comfortable with sadistic language, you could say that is, that connects you to God. That is a deeper connection to the source of all life. You're connected to that. I see the consciousness that is, that you share with every human being. Uh, when you look at another human being, you interact with another human being. On the one level, you have the personality, horizontal dimension, the conditioning, mental, emotional conditioning, you're interacting with a person. But you're, you're also interacting with consciousness.

• 1:16:40Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:16:41Eckhart Tolle?

  Which is beyond the person. And when you can sense the consciousness that you are, is also the consciousness that the other person is. You can sense the oneness of that consciousness. And that sensing of oneness is ultimately what, the deeper meaning of love.

• 1:16:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:16:58Eckhart Tolle?

  Love is to recognize the other as ultimately one with who or what you are. One, the recognition, I, I would say love is the recognition of oneness. It's not the egoic love that says, I need you, don't you dare leave me, because if you do, I'll hate you.

• 1:17:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:17:19Eckhart Tolle?

  That's the egoic so-called love. But the real love is to recognize yourself in the other. But in order to do that, you need to first recognize yourself in yourself beyond the person. So, and and that that connects you with other humans in a very different way, this sense of connectedness that you then have.

• 1:17:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:17:42Eckhart Tolle?

  It's the one, the word for it, what could you this been, there's a a goodwill flows out from you towards others. Even others that you might only meet casually for a few seconds. You could, you can sense your a good, an outflow of goodwill and connectedness and feel so good. To recognize there's a, there is a human being there. Or my interpretation of human being is.

• 1:18:09Eckhart Tolle?

  The English language doesn't have a word. That uh that refers to both men and women, so you have to say human being. Uh, in German, you have a word mensch, which could is a human being, could be either man or woman. But in English, you have to say human being, and I love that because. The human dimension is the person that lives on the horizontal dimension. The being is the essence of who you are. And it's our destiny to recognize our being, which is far beyond the person. And then you become, this is the human. And this is the being.

• 1:18:49Eckhart Tolle?

  And then you are true human being when you realize the being of your yourself, because then you.

• 1:18:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:18:56Eckhart Tolle?

  You fancy in others too. And then you can love others. That's the beauty of it.

• 1:19:02Lewis Howes?

  You mentioned love just now. I'm curious about you, when do you feel the most loved? When you're going about your day, when do you feel the most loved personally?

• 1:19:14Eckhart Tolle?

  Um. I don't make differentiate between loving and being loved. It's all, it's all one. So, um, uh, I feel that the the connection is there the moment I interact with somebody. There is that connectedness. And sometimes people respond, something within them responds back, and then you get the same energy back. They may not know why. Uh, for let's say. You're, let's say you're in a restaurant and you, I'm in the restaurant and I'm ordering, the waiter, waitress comes. And so you have, on the one hand.

• 1:19:57Eckhart Tolle?

  On the human level, you are the the guest or the client, the in the restaurant. And this person is the server. That's on the human level, you have your identity. Uh, but is that all there is? No. There is the server is, well, this is only a temporary function. It's not the real identity of of this human being. And I'm not, well, my identity is not to be a client or guest of this restaurant. It's a temporary thing. So am I able to recognize the being in this human, the human is the server? But behind that, there's a being. And when I look at this person and I'm, there's a

• 1:20:42Eckhart Tolle?

  really, let's see if I can describe it, or experience it. There's a while I, the person talks to me. That there's a still presence and I listen through this, the still, the still presence. And in that still presence, I can sense beyond the human, the beingness of the other also. I can sense their beingness. And that is the connection. And then it sometimes happens that they can feel something, that they feel acknowledged in their beingness. They may not be able to interpret that in it, or they may misinterpret.

• 1:21:18Lewis Howes?

  Without you saying anything, without you saying anything, yeah.

• 1:21:20Eckhart Tolle?

  No, nothing to say. Uh, um. And so usually it means that they, often it means that they, they like you, they, they feel uh, attracted to you, they love you as a person, and they're, uh, they like to be in your presence, they, there's a positive response. And that is, one could say, that is love coming back at you. So it, you send it out. And you don't always get it back. Sometimes the person may be so deeply trapped in their ego that, that nothing much gets through. And that's, and that's fine. That's where they're at at the moment. But it still feels good to.

• 1:22:01Eckhart Tolle?

  To feel this emanation, but very often when the emanation is reflected and then comes back and then you feel loved too. The, of course, usually the other person doesn't understand it at deeper level, doesn't understand that what they love in you is not the person, it's something deeper and that connects both of you. Um, so I, I feel it's always, um, the process is mu- is always mutual. I feel even when you love a flower, even the flower, there's a certain, this might

• 1:22:42Eckhart Tolle?

  sound a little mystical, but uh, there's a, there's a certain response that you get. Of all, so what I should do it sometimes when I recognize and appreciate the beauty of a tree or flower, uh, I, this is similar because even the tr- the flower of the tree is a manifestation of consciousness at a different vibration of frequency from a human. So everything is a vibration of consciousness that is taken temporary form. So the, the flower, the tree are also a manifestation of consciousness. And when I recognize and appreciate that the beauty of the flower or the tree, uh,

• 1:23:25Eckhart Tolle?

  we, there, there is a sense of oneness and, and at that moment, the tree can sense that it is being recognized and it becomes aware of its own beauty through you.

• 1:23:38Eckhart Tolle?

  So you redeem nature, you give, you add something to nature by recognizing the sacredness and beauty of nature. You add something to nature.

• 1:23:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:23:49Eckhart Tolle?

  And then we can say nature loves you back too, you can sense that.

• 1:23:53Lewis Howes?

  Beautiful.

• 1:23:53Eckhart Tolle?

  Uh, yeah. So I sometimes recommend people should go, go to a tree and, and allow the tree to teach you stillness because the tree is there, it's deeply rooted in the earth and the its branches and it's very still. It might have been there for hundred years, two hundred years, very, it's still, you approach it and nature can teach you, anything in nature can teach you that the stillness connect you with the dimension that's beyond egoic consciousness.

• 1:24:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow. This is beautiful, Icar. Is there anything that you struggle with these days personally? Is there, you know, you've done this work and practiced it and taught it for so long. Is there anything you struggle or suffer with in your own life that is still a challenge?

• 1:24:46Eckhart Tolle?

  Oh, there's, yeah, there are challenges.

• 1:24:50Eckhart Tolle?

  I'm not good at dealing with practical things so much anymore of life.

• 1:24:58Eckhart Tolle?

  Financial things and so on can feel as a bit of a burden sometimes.

• 1:25:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:08Eckhart Tolle?

  The humans are, but otherwise there's no suffering. I don't, I don't have periods of suffering at all. It's gone. The humans have

• 1:25:24Eckhart Tolle?

  just being and doing is another way of putting it. Being dimension is the vertical, the doing dimension is the horizontal. The two are important. Some humans are more drawn towards doing, creating, manifesting.

• 1:25:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:25:41Eckhart Tolle?

  Others are more drawn towards being, appreciating what is and may not have many goals to achieve. They might be happy doing their gardening or whatever, their field. And every human has to find a kind of balance between being and doing. Nobody probably is completely in the middle, or it's very hard to be complete in the middle. You're totally balanced between being and doing. I'm always more inclined to, I'm in the being dimension. And for a few years, when I was younger, I experienced a kind of awakening.

• 1:26:23Eckhart Tolle?

  I was kind of so much in the being dimension that I lost interest in any kind of doing for a few years.

• 1:26:28Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:26:30Eckhart Tolle?

  It was so, the present moment was so joyful and beautiful. And I had no money, nothing for a while. I had no home, but it was lovely, big sitting on park benches. Present moment was so fulfilling. And then gradually I was able to start doing again. And now I am still, I love just be, just to be.

• 1:26:54Eckhart Tolle?

  To contemplate nature or even just to sit in a room and just be.

• 1:27:01Eckhart Tolle?

  But all but I I'm able to do because I well, I wrote the books, I do teachings, I travel. So I give talks and retreats. So I'm I am doing I I'm. I able to function on that level. But the irony is. That all the all my doing is in the service of teaching being.

• 1:27:28Lewis Howes?

  That's great. So you'll do for a week and then you're like, I'm gonna go be for a month. Yeah.

• 1:27:33Eckhart Tolle?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:34Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. Eckhart, I want to be respectful of your time. I have two final questions, kind of quicker questions for you. But before. I ask those, I want people to get your books. Again, The Power of Now is one that I read many years ago that I highly recommend. To everyone and also. This book as well, which is is become, you know, more popular in the last few years. I feel like it's got this resurgence, even though I think it's fifteen years. Fifteen years ago, you wrote it, I think.

• 1:28:01Eckhart Tolle?

  In fact, Oprah said Oprah said, if you only read one book in your life, read read a new Earth.

• 1:28:08Lewis Howes?

  A new Earth, Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. So make sure you guys get both copies. Start whichever one you want, but both of them are amazing. Also, if people want to connect with you, they can go to your website. We'll have everything linked up as well in here and you're starting to get more content on social media. So make sure to follow Eckhart over on YouTube and all the different platforms that you're on. And I really want to acknowledge you before I ask these final two questions, Eckhart, for. Your level of service. Again, you could be twenty four seven. And sit in the woods and in the room and and be a happy human being, just being. You've already done so much for humanity with your work, your message. Workshops and everything you've done. So I acknowledge you for.

• 1:28:53Lewis Howes?

  Continuing to be of service, continuing to serve when you choose to, when you show up, when you. Deliver, when you're coming on here and doing this. I know this is going to reach millions of people over time. And impact them profoundly. So I'm very appreciative and grateful to you for being.

• 1:29:10Lewis Howes?

  A messenger of love, generosity, of kindness, and teaching those who are struggling and suffering how to get back into alignment of who they truly are so they can be peaceful and in harmony in the now. So I really want to acknowledge you and appreciate you for taking the time. Uh, these two final questions, first one is,

• 1:29:35Lewis Howes?

  is a hypothetical scenario a question? I call this the three truths. So I'd like for you to imagine, even though you never imagined the future that much because you're always in the now, but I'd like for you to go there for a moment and imagine you get to live as long as you want to in this realm. But for whatever reason, it's the last day. And for whatever reason, in this hypothetical question, all your message is gone. It's got to go with you to the next place or it's just not in this world anymore. So your books, this interview, any workshop you've done online, it's, we don't have access to it. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three truths that you know are true for you. And this is all we would have to be reminded of your messages.

• 1:30:19Lewis Howes?

  What would be those three truths for you?

• 1:30:23Eckhart Tolle?

  Well, um, ultimately, the, the truth, uh, uh, the ultimate truth is, is one. I, and you can, out of the one, so you can extrapolate and several other truths may arise out of one. The ultimate truth is, uh, realize who are what you are. Realize that you are, in essence, not a person. You are consciousness, your manifestation of universal consciousness. You are the universe experiencing itself as a human.

• 1:31:05Eckhart Tolle?

  You are the consciousness of the universe experiencing itself briefly, but you are far beyond to realize who are what you are beyond the person. So that's the ultimate truth. And realize that you, you are not the ego that is discovering who are what you are not. And realize the possibility of living.

• 1:31:32Eckhart Tolle?

  Without uh suffering, the suffering that's created by the human mind, the uh the possibility of being free of suffering, free of unhappiness. And uh

• 1:31:47Eckhart Tolle?

  the way towards that is radical acceptance of the is-ness of the present moment. The radical acceptance of the is-ness of now that will take you to to a deep place of realization of who or what you are, and you're not the ego. The realizing who you're not is important part of the it's kind of negative realization, who you are not. Once you realize who or what you are ultimately not, then who or what you are emerges naturally.

• 1:32:22Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. Uh, final question for you, Eckhart. What is your definition of greatness?

• 1:32:29Eckhart Tolle?

  Well, um, of course, as you know, one can give many, many definitions according to one's level of consciousness, but at the deepest level, greatness is again, when you go to the deepest level, the answer is always the same, by the way. Greatness is to uh to live consciously, to embody consciousness in this lifetime, to embody the unconditioned consciousness in this lifetime. That is greatness. And then other things arise out of that. You affect the world in many different ways by living as consciousness

• 1:33:13Eckhart Tolle?

  and consciously rather than as an egoic entity. Uh, so then you you begin to change the world, even if you don't say, I am going to change the world. It happens organically and naturally. So the and the way in which you experience the world is always a reflection of your state of consciousness. So you begin to experience a different world when you are aligned with the, I call it, the unconditioned consciousness. That is who or what you are in your essence. That is the uh greatness is uh to have fulfilled.

• 1:33:57Eckhart Tolle?

  Your purpose in this incarnation on this earth, and that is to be part of the evolving consciousness of the universe. That is greatness, to have fulfilled your purpose. And all the outer conditions are secondary. And you could theoretically, you could have fulfilled your purpose even in the prison cell, when you come to this realization.

• 1:34:25Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 1:35:09Lewis Howes?

  And now it's time to go out there and do something great.