Eckhart on Unemployment
My question is about unemployment. For those of us who are unemployed and seeking employment, how do you stay connected to the Source, and to your own sense of divinity, and still deal with the reality and the drama and the pain of trying to find a job?
Questions for Eckhart: Ego vs. “I am”
Question: How do you know whether a feeling you have is coming from your ego, or from a deeper source?
Eckhart Tolle: Sometimes it’s not so easy to tell. One criterion you can use is to know, if there is any negativity involved, anger, resentment, irritation, then ego is present there. If there is no negativity but there is an underlying field of peace, then it arises from a deeper place that is not the ego.
The Opportunity in Adversity
Life unfolds between the polarities of order and chaos. It is important at this time to recognize these two fundamental opposites, without which the world could not even be. Another word for disorder is “adversity.” When it becomes more extreme, we might call it “chaos.”
Manifestation, Illness, and the Ego
Understandably, millions of people on the planet today are experiencing fear and uncertainty around physical health—their own and that of friends and loved ones. It is an unprecedented time, and it is extremely important to remain as conscious as possible. The ego—on both the individual and the collective level—loves “the drama” that times like this can create. Our challenge is to remain alert and present so that we don’t fall into egoic reactivity, adding to the suffering so many are already facing.
The Role of Service in Spiritual Development
Question: What is the role of being in service to others in one’s spiritual development?
ET: It can be a wonderful spiritual practice if it arises from the right place inside you. It can also be a strengthening of your ego, if it arises from a different place inside you. Jesus talked about that, when he talked about giving alms. He said, some people like to be seen when they give alms to the poor.
Realizing the “Deep I”
There are two dimensions to who you are. The first is what I sometimes call the “surface I”—the person with a past and a future. This is your historical identity, which is relatively fragile because the past and future only exist as thought forms or concepts in the mind. Most people on the planet are completely identified with the “surface I.”
The Foundation of Manifestation
Many people have a sincere desire to help raise the consciousness on the planet. I often hear from individuals who say, for example, that they want to manifest an innovative business that can change the world in some way or other. That is good—but if you want to manifest consciously, you have to start with the right foundation.
Eckhart on Peace After a Loss
Questioner: My sons drowned in the sea ten months ago. I did surrender, but when I felt the peace and calm coming over me, it felt wrong. It was not right to feel peace and calm with such a loss.
ET: The natural way of being after death of a loved one is suffering at first, then there is a deepening. In that deepening, you go to a place where there is no death. And the fact that you felt that means you went deep enough, to the place where there is no death.
The Stillness of Space
When you are no longer totally identified with forms, consciousness—who you are—becomes freed from its imprisonment in form. This freedom is the arising of inner space. It comes as a stillness, a subtle peace deep within you, even in the face of something seemingly bad. This, too, will pass. Suddenly, there is space around the event. There is also space around the emotional highs and lows, even around pain. And above all, there is space between your thoughts. And from that space emanates a peace that is not “of this world,” because this world is form, and the peace is space. This is the peace of God.
Personal Love
Q: If we’re all one, why do we feel drawn toward certain individuals in an expression of “personal love”?
ET: True love is transcendental. Without recognition of the formless within yourself, there can be no true transcendental love. If you cannot recognize the formless in yourself, you cannot recognize yourself in the other. The recognition of the other as yourself in essence – not the form – is true love. As long as the conditioned mind operates and you are completely identified with it, there’s no true love. There may be substitutes, things that are called “love” but are not true love. For example, “falling in love”…perhaps most of us have experienced it. Maybe one or two at this moment are “in love”, and those who have experienced it have also experienced “falling out of love”.
