Eckhart Tolle 
 
Stillness Speaks 
 
Introduction  
 
A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of 
the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, 
beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you 
remove that which separates you from the truth of w ho you already are and what 
you already know in the depth of your being. The s piritual teacher is there to 
uncover and reveal to you that dimension of the inn er depth that is also peace. If you come to a spiritual teacher or this book loo king for stimulating ideas, 
theories, beliefs, intellectual discussions, then y ou will be disappointed. In other 
words, if you are looking for food for thought, you  won't find it. And you will miss 
the very essence of the teaching, the essence of th is book which is not in the words 
but within yourself. It is good to remember that, t o feel that, as you listen. The words are no more than signposts. That to which  they point is not to be found 
within the realm of thought but a dimension within yourself that is deeper, and 
infinitely vaster than thought. A vibrantly alive peace is one of the characteristics 
of that dimension. So whenever you feel inner peace  arising as you listen, the book 
is doing it work and fulfilling its function as you r teacher. It is reminding you of 
who you are and pointing the way back home. This is not a book to be read from cover to cover a nd then put away. Live with it. Pick it up frequently. And, more importantly, put i t down frequently. Or spend 
more time holding it than reading it. Many readers will feel naturally inclined to 
stop reading after each entry, to pause, reflect, b ecome still. It is always more 
helpful and more important to stop reading than to continue reading. Allow the 
book to do its work, to awaken you from the old gro ves of your repetitive and 
conditioned thinking 
 
The form of this book can be seen as a revival for the present age of the oldest form 
of recorded spiritual teachings, the sutras of anci ent India. Sutras are powerful 
pointers to the truth in the form of aphorisms or s hort sayings with little conceptual elaboration. The Vedas and Upanishads are the earl y sacred teachings recorded in 
the form of sutras, as are the words of the Buddha. The sayings and parables of 
Jesus, too, when taken out of their narrative conte xt could be regarded as sutras as 
well as the profound teachings contained in the Tao  Te Ching, the ancient Chinese 
book of wisdom. The advantage of the sutra form lies in its brevity . It does not engage the thinking 
mind more than is necessary. What it doesn't say, b ut only points to, is more 
important than what it says. The sutra-like character, of the writings in this b ook is particularly marked in 
chapter 1, Silence and Stillness, which contains on ly the briefest of entries. This 
chapter contains the essence of the entire book and  may be all that some readers 
require. The other chapters are there for those who  need a few more signposts. Just like the ancient sutras, the writings containe d within this book are sacred and 
have come out of a state of consciousness we may ca ll stillness. Unlike those 
sutras, however, they don't belong to any one relig ion or spiritual tradition, but are 
immediately accessible to the whole of humanity. There is also an added sense of urgency here. The transformation of human 
consciousness is no longer a luxury, so to speak, a vailable only to a few, isolated 
individuals, but a necessity if human kind is not t o destroy itself. At the present 
time, the dysfunction of the old consciousness and the arising of the new are both 
accelerating. Paradoxically, things are getting wo rse and better at the same time, 
although the worse is more apparent because it make s so much noise. This book, of course, uses words that in the act of  reading or listening, become 
thoughts in your mind. But those are not ordinary t houghts: repetitive, noisy, self-
serving, clamoring for attention. Just like every t rue spiritual teachers, just like the 
ancient sutras, the thoughts within this book don't  say “look at me", but “look 
beyond me.” Because the thoughts came out of stilln ess, they have power, the 
power to take you back into the same stillness from  which they arose. That stillness 
is also inner peace. And that stillness and peace i s the essence of your being. It is 
the stillness that will save and transform the worl d. 
 
 
 Chapter 1 
Silence and Stillness  
 
When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you 
lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world. Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is in separable from stillness. This is 
the “I Am” that is deeper than name and form. *** 
 
Stillness is your essential nature. What is stillne ss? The inner space or awareness in 
which the words on this page are being perceived an d become thoughts. Without 
that awareness, there would be no perception, no th oughts, no world. You are that awareness, disguised as a person. *** 
 
The equivalent of external noise is the inner noise  of thinking. The equivalent of 
external silence is inner stillness. Whenever there is some silence around you — listen to it. That means just notice it. Pay attention to it. Listening to silence awakens t he dimension of stillness within 
yourself, because it is only through stillness that  you can be aware of silence. See that in the moment of noticing the silence arou nd you, you are not thinking. You are aware, but not thinking. *** 
 
When you become aware of silence, immediately there  is that state of inner still 
alertness. You are present. You have stepped out of  thousands of years of collective 
human conditioning. *** 
 
Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awarene ss rest upon it. How still they are, 
how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach y ou stillness. *** 
 
When you look at a tree and perceive its stillness,  you become still yourself. You 
connect with it at a very deep level. You feel a on eness with whatever you perceive 
in and through stillness. Feeling the oneness of yo urself with all things is love. *** 
 
Silence is helpful, but you don’t need it in order to find stillness. Even when there 
is noise, you can be aware of the stillness underne ath the noise, of the space in 
which the noise arises. That is the inner space of pure awareness, consciousness 
itself. You can become aware of awareness as the background  to all your sense 
perceptions, all your thinking. Becoming aware of a wareness is the arising of inner 
stillness. *** 
 
Any disturbing noise can be as helpful as silence. How? By dropping your inner 
resistance to the noise, by allowing it to be as it  is, this acceptance also takes you 
into that realm of inner peace that is stillness. Whenever you deeply accept this moment as it is — n o matter what form it takes 
— you are still, you are at peace. *** 
 
Pay attention to the gap — the gap between two thou ghts, the brief, silent space 
between words in a conversation, between the notes of a piano or flute, or the gap 
between the in-breath and out-breath. When you pay attention to those gaps, awareness of “something” becomes — just 
awareness. The formless dimension of pure conscious ness arises from within you 
and replaces identification with form. *** 
 
True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is w here creativity and solutions to 
problems are found. *** 
 
Is stillness just the absence of noise and content? No, it is intelligence itself — the 
underlying consciousness out of which every form is  born. And how could that be 
separate from who you are? The form that you think you are came out of that and is 
being sustained by it. It is the essence of all galaxies and blades of gra ss; of all flowers, trees, birds, and 
all other forms. *** 
 
Stillness is the only thing in this world that has no form. But then, it is not really a 
thing, and it is not of this world. *** 
 
When you look at a tree or a human being in stillne ss, who is looking? Something 
deeper than the person. Consciousness is looking at  its creation. In the Bible, it says that God created the world an d saw that it was good. That is 
what you see when you look from stillness without t hought. *** 
 
Do you need more knowledge? Is more information goi ng to save the world, or 
faster computers, more scientific or intellectual a nalysis? Is it not wisdom that 
humanity needs most at this time? But what is wisdom and where is it to be found? Wis dom comes with the ability to 
be still. Just look and just listen. No more is nee ded. Being still, looking, and 
listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence  within you. Let stillness direct 
your words and actions. Chapter 2 
Beyond the Thinking Mind 
 
The human condition: Lost in thought. *** 
 
Most people spend their entire life imprisoned with in the confines of their own 
thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made,  personalized sense of self 
that is conditioned by the past. In you, as in each human being, there is a dimensio n of consciousness far deeper 
than thought. It is the very essence of who you are . We may call it presence, 
awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. In the ancient teachings, it is the 
Christ within, or your Buddha nature. Finding that dimension frees you and the world from  the suffering you inflict on 
yourself and others when the mind-made “little me” is all you know and runs your 
life. Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting in ner peace cannot come into your 
life except through that unconditioned dimension of  consciousness. If you can recognize, even occasionally, the though ts that go through your mind as 
just thoughts, if you can witness your own mental-e motional reactive patterns as 
they happen, then that dimension is already emergin g in you as the awareness in 
which thoughts and emotions happen — the timeless i nner space in which the 
content of your life unfolds. *** 
 
The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that c an easily drag you along 
with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much. It wants to draw your 
attention in completely. Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don’t tak e your thoughts too seriously. *** 
 
How easy it is for people to become trapped in thei r conceptual prisons. The human mind, in its desire to know, understand, and control, mistakes its opinions and viewpoints for the truth. It says: thi s is how it is. You have to be 
larger than thought to realize that however you int erpret “your life” or someone 
else’s life or behavior, however you judge any situ ation, it is no more than a 
viewpoint, one of many possible perspectives. It is  no more than a bundle of 
thoughts. But reality is one unified whole, in whic h all things are interwoven, 
where nothing exists in and by itself. Thinking fra gments reality — it cuts it up into 
conceptual bits and pieces. The thinking mind is a useful and powerful tool, bu t it is also very limiting when it 
takes over your life completely, when you don’t rea lize that it is only a small aspect 
of the consciousness that you are 
 
*** 
 
Wisdom is not a product of thought. The deep knowin g that is wisdom arises 
through the simple act of giving someone or somethi ng your full attention. Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness  itself. It dissolves the barriers 
created by conceptual thought, and with this comes the recognition that nothing 
exists in and by itself. It joins the perceiver and  the perceived in a unifying ﬁeld of 
awareness. It is the healer of separation. *** 
 
Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking, y ou are avoiding what is. You 
don’t want to be where you are. Here, Now. *** 
 
Dogmas — religious, political, scientific— arise ou t of the erroneous belief that 
thought can encapsulate reality or the truth. Dogma s are collective conceptual 
prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they 
give them a sense of security and a false sense of “I know.” 
 
Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity th an its dogmas. It is true that 
every dogma crumbles sooner or later, because reali ty will eventually disclose its 
falseness; however, unless the basic delusion of it  is seen for what it is, it will be 
replaced by others. What is this basic delusion? Identification with th ought. ***  
Spiritual awakening is awakening from the dream of thought. *** 
 
The realm of consciousness is much vaster than thou ght can grasp. When you no 
longer believe everything you think, you step out o f thought and see clearly that the 
thinker is not who you are. *** 
 
The mind exists in a state of “not enough” and so i s always greedy for more. When 
you are identified with mind, you get bored and res tless very easily. Boredom 
means the mind is hungry for more stimulus, more fo od for thought, and its hunger 
is not being satisﬁed. When you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind’s hun ger by picking up a magazine, 
making a phone call, switching on the TV, surfing t he web, going shopping, or — 
and this is not uncommon — transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for 
more to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingestin g more food. Or you can stay bored and restless and observe what  it feels like to be bored and 
restless. As you bring awareness to the feeling, th ere is suddenly some space and 
stillness around it, as it were. A little at first,  but as the sense of inner space grows, 
the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in in tensity and significance. So even 
boredom can teach you who you are and who you are n ot. You discover that a “bored person” is not who you a re. Boredom is simply a 
conditioned energy movement within you. Neither are  you an angry, sad, or fearful 
person. Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not “y ours,” not personal. They are 
conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you. “I am bored.” Who knows this? “I am angry, sad, afraid.” Who knows this? You are the knowing, not the condition that is know n. 
 
***  
Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identifi ed with the thinking mind. It 
means you don’t see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of 
that human being. To reduce the aliveness of anothe r human being to a concept is 
already a form of violence. *** 
 
Thinking that is not rooted in awareness becomes se lf-serving and dysfunctional. Cleverness devoid of wisdom is extremely dangerous and destructive. That is the 
current state of most of humanity. The amplificatio n of thought as science and 
technology, although intrinsically neither good nor  bad, has also become 
destructive because so often the thinking out of wh ich it comes has no roots in 
awareness. The next step in human evolution is to transcend th ought. This is now our urgent 
task. It doesn’t mean not to think anymore, but sim ply not to be completely 
identified with thought, possessed by thought. *** 
 
Feel the energy of your inner body. Immediately men tal noise slows down or 
ceases. Feel it in your hands, your feet, your abdo men, your chest. Feel the life that 
you are, the life that animates the body. The body then becomes a doorway, so to speak, into a deeper sense of aliveness 
underneath the fluctuating emotions and underneath your thinking. *** 
 
There is an aliveness in you that you can feel with  your entire Being, not just in the 
head. Every cell is alive in that presence in which  you don’t need to think. Yet, in 
that state, if thought is required for some practic al purpose, it is there. The mind 
can still operate, and it operates beautifully when  the greater intelligence that you 
are uses it and expresses itself through it. *** 
 
You may have overlooked that brief periods in which  you are “conscious without 
thought” are already occurring naturally and sponta neously in your life. You may 
be engaged in some manual activity, or walking acro ss the room, or waiting at the airline counter, and be so completely present that the usual mental static of thought 
subsides and is replaced by an aware presence. Or y ou may find yourself looking at 
the sky or listening to someone without any inner m ental commentary. Your 
perceptions become crystal clear, unclouded by thou ght. To the mind, all this is not significant, because i t has “more important” things to 
think about. It is also not memorable, and that’s w hy you may have overlooked that 
it is already happening. The truth is that it is the most significant thing that can  happen to you. It is the 
beginning of a shift from thinking to aware presenc e. 
 
*** 
 
Become at ease with the state of “not knowing.” Thi s takes you beyond mind 
because the mind is always trying to conclude and i nterpret. It is afraid of not 
knowing. So, when you can be at ease with not knowi ng, you have already gone 
beyond the mind. A deeper knowing that is non-conce ptual then arises out of that 
state. *** 
 
Artistic creation, sports, dance, teaching, counsel ing — mastery in any field of 
endeavor implies that the thinking mind is either n o longer involved at all or at least 
is taking second place. A power and intelligence gr eater than you and yet one with 
you in essence takes over. There is no decision-mak ing process anymore; 
spontaneous right action happens, and “you” are not  doing it. Mastery of life is the 
opposite of control. You become aligned with the gr eater consciousness. It  acts, 
speaks, does the works. *** 
 
A moment of danger can bring about a temporary cess ation of the stream of 
thinking and thus give you a taste of what it means  to be present, alert, aware. *** 
 
The Truth is far more all-encompassing than the min d could ever comprehend. No 
thought can encapsulate the Truth. At best, it can point to it. For example, it can 
say: “All things are intrinsically one.” That is a pointer, not an explanation. Understanding these words means feeling deep within  you the truth to which they point. Chapter 3 
The Egoic Self 
 
The mind is incessantly looking not only for food f or thought; it is looking for food 
for its identity, its sense of self. This is how th e ego comes into existence and 
continuously re-creates itself. *** 
 
When you think or speak about yourself, when you sa y, “I,” what you usually refer 
to is “me and my story.” This is the “I” of your li kes and dislikes, fears and desires, 
the “I” that is never satisfied for long. It is a m ind-made sense of who you are, 
conditioned by the past and seeking to find its ful fillment in the future. Can you see that this “I” is fleeting, a temporary formation, like a wave pattern on 
the surface of the water? Who is it that sees this? Who is it that is aware o f the fleetingness of your physical 
and psychological form? I am. This is the deeper “I ” that has nothing to do with 
past and future. *** 
 
What will be left of all the fearing and wanting as sociated with your problematic 
life situation that every day takes up most of your  attention? A dash–one or two 
inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone. To the egoic self, this is a depressing thought. To  you, it is liberating. *** 
 
When each thought absorbs your attention completely , it means you identify with 
the voice in your head. Thought then becomes invest ed with a sense of self. This is 
the ego, the mind-made “me.” That mentally construc ted self feels incomplete and 
precarious. That’s why fearing and wanting are its predominant emotions and 
motivating forces. When you recognize that there is a voice in your he ad that pretends to be you and 
never stops speaking, you are awakening out of your  unconscious identification 
with the stream of thinking. When you notice that v oice, you realize that who you 
are is not the voice–the thinker–but the one who is  aware of it. Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom. *** 
 
The egoic self is always engaged in seeking. It is seeking more of this or that to add 
to itself, to make itself feel more complete. This explains the ego’s compulsive 
preoccupation with future. Whenever you become aware of yourself “living for t he next moment,” you have 
already stepped out of that egoic mind pattern, and  the possibility of choosing to 
give your full attention to this moment arises simu ltaneously. By giving your full attention to this moment, an in telligence far greater than the 
egoic mind enters your life. *** 
 
When you live through the ego, you always reduce th e present moment to a means 
to an end. You live for the future, and when you ac hieve your goals, they don’t 
satisfy you, at least not for long. When you give more attention to the doing than to t he future result that you want to 
achieve through it, you break the old egoic conditi oning. Your doing then becomes 
not only a great deal more effective, but infinitel y more fulfilling and joyful. *** 
 
Almost every ego contains at least an element of wh at we might call “victim 
identity.” Some people have such a strong victim im age of themselves that it 
becomes the central core of their ego. Resentment a nd grievances form an essential 
part of their sense of self. Even if your grievances are completely “justified,”  you have constructed an 
identity for yourself that is much like a prison wh ose bars are made of thought 
forms. See what you are doing to yourself, or rathe r what your mind is doing to 
you. Feel the emotional attachment you have to your  victim story and become aware of the compulsion to think or talk about it. Be there as the witnessing 
presence of your inner state. You don’t have to do anything. With the awareness 
comes transformation and freedom. *** 
 
Complaining and reactivity are favorite mind patter ns through which the ego 
strengthens itself. For many people, a large part o f their mental-emotional activity 
consists of complaining and reacting against this o r that. By doing this, you make 
others or a situation “wrong” and yourself “right.”  Through being “right,” you feel 
superior, and through feeling superior, you strengt hen your sense of self. In reality, 
of course, you are only strengthening the illusion of ego. Can you observe those patterns within yourself and recognize the complaining 
voice in your head for what it is? *** 
 
The egoic sense of self needs conflict because its sense of a separate identity gets 
strengthened in fighting against this or that, and in demonstrating that this is “me” 
and that is not “me." Not infrequently, tribes, nations, and religions de rive a strengthened sense of 
collective identity from having enemies. Who would the “believer” be without the 
“unbeliever?" *** 
 
In your dealings with people, can you detect subtle  feelings of either superiority or 
inferiority toward them? You are looking at the ego , which lives through 
comparison. Envy is a by-product of the ego, which feels dimini shed if something good happens 
to someone else, or someone has more, knows more, o r can do more than you. The 
ego’s identity depends on comparison and feeds on m ore. It will grasp at anything. If all else fails, you can strengthen your fictitio us sense of self through seeing 
yourself as more unfairly treated by life or more i ll than someone else. What are the 
stories, the fictions from which you derive your se nse of self? *** 
 Built into the very structure of the egoic self is a need to oppose, resist, and exclude 
to maintain the sense of separateness on which its continued survival depends. So 
there is “me” against the “other,” “us” against “th em." The ego needs to be in conflict with something or s omeone. That explains why you 
are looking for peace and joy and love but cannot t olerate them for very long. You 
say you want happiness but are addicted to your unh appiness. Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the cir cumstances of your life but 
from the conditioning of your mind. *** 
 
Do you carry feelings of guilt about something you did–or failed to do–in the past? This much is certain: you acted according to your l evel of consciousness or rather 
unconsciousness at that time. If you had been more aware, more conscious, you 
would have acted differently. Guilt is another attempt by the ego to create an id entity, a sense of self. To the ego, 
it doesn’t matter whether that self is positive or negative. What you did or failed to 
do was a manifestation of unconsciousness–human unc onsciousness. The ego, 
however, personalizes it and says, “I did that,” an d so you carry a mental image of 
yourself as “bad." Throughout history humans have inflicted countless violent, cruel, and hurtful acts 
on each other, and continue to do so. Are they all to be condemned; are they all 
guilty? Or are those acts simply expressions of unc onsciousness, an evolutionary 
stage that we are now growing out of? Jesus’ words, “Forgive them for they know not what they do,” also apply to 
yourself. *** 
 
If you set egoic goals for the purpose of freeing y ourself, enhancing yourself or 
your sense of importance, even if you achieve them,  they will not satisfy you. Set goals, but know that the arriving is not all th at important. When anything arises 
out of presence, it means this moment is not a mean s to an end: the doing is 
fulfilling in itself every moment. You are no longe r reducing the Now to a means to 
an end, which is the egoic consciousness. *** 
 
"No self, no problem,” said the Buddhist master whe n asked to explain the deeper 
meaning of Buddhism. Chapter 4 
The Now  
 
On the surface it seems that the present moment is only one of many, many 
moments. Each day of your life appears to consist o f thousands of moments where 
different things happen. Yet if you look more deepl y, is there not only one moment, 
ever? Is life ever not this moment? This one momen t, now, is the only thing you 
can never escape from. The one constant factor in y our life. No matter what 
happens. No matter how much your life changes. One thing is certain. Its always 
now. Since there is no escape from the now, why not  welcome it, become friendly 
with it. *** 
 
When you make friends with the present moment, you feel at home no matter 
where you are. When you don't feel at home in the n ow, no matter where you go, 
you will carry unease with you. *** 
 
The present moment is as it is, always. Can you let  it be? *** 
 
The division of life into past, present and future is mind made, and, ultimately, 
illusory. The past and future are thought forms, mental abstr actions. The past can only be 
remembered Now. What you remember is an event that took place in the Now and 
you remember it Now. The future, when it comes, is the Now. So the only thing 
that is real, the only thing that ever is, is the N ow. *** 
 
To have your attention in the Now is not a denial o f what is needed in your life. It 
is recognizing what is primary. Then you can deal w ith what is secondary with 
great ease. It is not saying, “I’m not dealing with  things anymore because there is 
only the Now.” No. Find what is primary first, and make the Now into your friend, 
not your enemy. Acknowledge it, honor it. When the Now is the foundation and 
primary focus of your life, then your life unfolds with ease. *** 
 
Putting away the dishes, drawing up a business stra tegy, planning a trip–what is 
more important: the doing or the result that you wa nt to achieve through the doing? This moment or some future moment? Do you treat this moment as if it were an obstacle to be overcome? Do you feel you 
have a future moment to get to that is more importa nt? Almost everyone lives like this most of the time. S ince the future never arrives, 
except as the present, it is a dysfunctional way to  live. It generates a constant 
undercurrent of unease, tension, and discontent. It  does not honor life, which is 
Now and never not Now. *** 
 
Feel the aliveness within your body. That anchors y ou in the Now. *** 
 
Ultimately you are not taking responsibility for li fe until you take responsibility for 
this moment–Now. This is because Now is the only pl ace where life can be found. Taking responsibility for this moment means not to oppose internally the 
“suchness” of Now, not to argue with what is. It me ans to be in alignment with life. The Now is as it is because it cannot be otherwise. What Buddhists have always 
known, physicists now confirm: there are no isolate d things or events. Underneath 
the surface appearance, all things are interconnect ed, are part of the totality of the 
cosmos that has brought about the form that this mo ment takes. When you say “yes” to what is, you become aligned w ith the power and 
intelligence of Life itself. Only then can you beco me an agent for positive change 
in the world. *** 
 
A simple but radical spiritual practice is to accep t whatever arises in the Now–
within and without. *** 
 
When your attention moves into the Now, there is an  alertness. It is as if you were 
waking up from a dream, the dream of thought, the d ream of past and future. Such 
clarity, such simplicity. No room for problem makin g. Just this moment as it is. *** 
 
The moment you enter the Now with your attention, y ou realize that life is sacred. There is a sacredness to everything you perceive wh en you are present. The more 
you live in the Now, the more you sense the simple yet profound joy of Being and 
the sacredness of all life. *** 
 
Most people confuse the Now with what happens in th e Now, but that’s not what it 
is. The Now is deeper than what happens in it. It i s the space in which it happens. So do not confuse the content of this moment with t he Now. The Now is deeper 
than any content that arises in it. *** 
 
When you step into the Now, you step out of the con tent of your mind. The 
incessant stream of thinking slows down. Thoughts d on’t absorb all your attention 
anymore, don’t draw you in totally. Gaps arise in b etween thoughts–spaciousness, 
stillness. You begin to realize how much vaster and  deeper you are than your 
thoughts. *** 
 
Thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and whatever  you experience make up the content of your life. “My life” is what you derive your sense of self from, and “my 
life” is content, or so you believe. You continuously overlook the most obvious fact: yo ur innermost sense of I Am 
has nothing to do with what happens in your life, n othing to do with content. That 
sense of I Am is one with the Now. It always remain s the same. In childhood and 
old age, in health or sickness, in success or failu re, the I Am–the space of Now–
remains unchanged at its deepest level. It usually gets confused with content, and 
so you experience I Am or the Now only faintly and indirectly, through the content 
of your life. In other words: your sense of Being b ecomes obscured by 
circumstances, your stream of thinking, and the man y things of this world. The 
Now becomes obscured by time. And so you forget your rootedness in Being, your di vine reality, and lose yourself 
in the world. Confusion, anger, depression, violenc e, and conflict arise when 
humans forget who they are. Yet how easy it is to remember the truth and thus r eturn home: 
 
I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the 
content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in wh ich all things happen. I am 
consciousness. I am the Now. I Am. Chapter 5 
Who You Truly Are 
 
The now is inseparable from who you are at the deep est level. *** 
 
Many things in your life matter but only one thing matters absolutely. It matters whether you succeed or fail in the eyes of the world. It matters whether 
you are healthy or not healthy, whether you are edu cated or not educated. It matters 
whether you are rich or poor. It certainly makes a difference in your life. Yes, all these things matter, relatively speaking. But they don't matter absolutely. There is something that matters more than any of th ose things and that is finding the essence of who your are beyond that short-lived  entity, that short-lived 
personalized sense of self. You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances  of your life but by realizing 
who you are at the deepest level. *** 
 
Reincarnation doesn't help you if in your next inca rnation you still don't know who 
you are. *** 
 
All the misery on the planet arises due to a person alized sense of me or us. That 
covers up the essence of who you are. When you are unaware of that inner essence, 
in the end, you always create misery. It's as simpl e as that. When you don't know 
who you are, you create a mind-made self as a subst itute for your beautiful, divine 
being and cling to that fearful and needy self. Pro tecting and enhancing that false 
sense of self then becomes your primary motivating force. *** 
 
Many expressions that are in common usage and somet imes the structure of 
language itself, reveal the fact that people don't know who they are. You say, “He 
lost his life.” Or, “my life” as if life were somet hing that you can possess or lose. The truth is you don't have a life, you are life, t he one life, the one conscious that 
pervades the entire universe and takes temporary fo rm to experience itself as a 
stone or a blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy. Can you sense 
deep within that you already know that. Can you sen se that you already are that? *** 
 
For most things in life, you need time: to learn a new skill, build a house, become 
an expert, make a cup of tea. Time is useless, however, for the most essential th ing in life, the one thing that 
really matters, self-realization–which means knowin g who you are beyond the 
surface self, beyond your name, your physical form,  your history, your story. You cannot find yourself in the past or future. The  only place where you can find yourself in the Now. Spiritual seekers look for sel f realization or enlightenment in 
the future. To be a seeker implies that you need th e future. If this is what you 
believe, it becomes true for you. You will need tim e until you realize that you don't 
need time to be who you are. *** 
 
When you look at a tree, you are aware of the tree. When you have a thought or 
feeling, you are aware of that thought or feeling. When you have a pleasurable or 
painful experience, you are aware of that experienc e. These seem to be true and 
obvious statements. Yet if you look at them very cl osely, you will find that in a 
subtle way their very structure contains a fundamen tal illusion, an illusion which is 
unavoidable when you use language. Thought and lang uage create an apparent 
duality and a separate person where there is none. The truth is you are not somebody who is aware of t he tree, the thought, feeling or 
experience. You are the awareness or consciousness in and by which those things 
appear. As you go about your life, can you be aware  of yourself as the awareness in 
which the entire content of your life unfolds? *** 
 
You say, “I want to know myself.” You are the I. Yo u are the knowing. You are the 
consciousness through which everything is known and  that cannot know itself. It is 
itself. There is nothing to know beyond that. And y et all knowing arises out of it. The “I” cannot make itself into an object of knowle dge, of consciousness. So you cannot become an object to yourself. That is  the very reason the illusion of 
egoic identity arose because mentally you made your self into an object. “That's 
me,” you say, and then you begin to have a relation ship with yourself and tell 
others and yourself your story. *** 
 
By knowing yourself as the awareness in which pheno menal existence happens, 
you become free of dependency on phenomena and free  of self seeking in 
situations, places, and conditions. In other words,  what happens or doesn't happen 
is not that important anymore. Things lose their he aviness, their seriousness. A 
playfulness comes into your life. You recognize thi s world as a cosmic dance, the 
dance of form. No more and no less. *** 
 
When you know who you truly are, there is an abidin g alive sense of peace. You 
could call it joy because that's what joy is, vibra ntly alive peace. It is the joy of 
knowing yourself as the very life essence before li fe takes on form. That is the joy 
of being, of being who you truly are. *** 
 
Just as water can be solid, liquid, or gaseous, con sciousness can be seen to be 
frozen as physical matter, liquid as mind and thoug ht, or formless as pure 
consciousness. Pure consciousness is life before it  comes into manifestation and 
that life looks at the world of form through your e yes because consciousness is who 
you are. When you know yourself as that, then you r ecognize yourself in 
everything. It is a state of complete clarity of pe rception. You are no longer an 
entity with a heavy past that becomes a screen of c oncepts through which every 
experience is interpreted. When you perceive withou t interpretation, you can then 
sense what it is that is perceiving. The most we ca n say in language is that there is a 
field of alert stillness in which the perception ha ppens. Through you, formless 
consciousness has become aware of itself. *** 
 
Most people's lives are run by desire and fear. Des ire is the need to add something 
to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All  fear is the fear of losing 
something, and thereby become diminished and be les s. These two movements 
obscure the fact that being cannot be given or take n away. Being in its fullness is 
already within you, now. Chapter 6  
Acceptance and Surrender 
 
Whenever you are able, have a “look” inside yoursel f to see whether you are 
unconsciously creating conflict between the inner a nd the outer, between your 
external circumstances at that moment–where you are , who you are with, or what 
you are doing–and your thoughts and feelings. Can y ou feel how painful it is to 
internally stand in opposition to what is? When you recognize this, you also realize that you are now free to give up this 
futile conflict, this inner state of war. *** 
 
How often each day, if you were to verbalize your i nner reality at that moment, 
would you have to say, “I don't want to be where I am?” What does it feel like 
when you don't want to be where you are–the traffic  jam, your place of work, the 
airport lounge, the people you are with? It is true, of course, that some places are good pl aces to walk out of–and sometimes 
that may well be the most appropriate thing for you  to do. In many cases, however, 
walking out is not an option. In all those cases, t he “I don't want to be here” is not 
only useless but also dysfunctional. It makes you a nd others unhappy. It has been said: wherever you go, there you are. I n other words: you are  here. Always. Is it so hard to accept that? *** 
 
Do you really need to mentally label every sense pe rception and experience? Do 
you really need to have a reactive like/dislike rel ationship with life where you are 
in almost continuous conflict with situations and p eople? Or is that just a deep-
seated mental habit that can be broken? Not by doin g anything, but by allowing this 
moment to be as it is. *** 
 
The habitual and reactive “no” strengthens the ego. “Yes” weakens it. Your form 
identity, the ego, cannot survive surrender. *** 
 
“I have so much to do.” Yes, but what is the qualit y of your doing? Driving to 
work, speaking to clients, working on the computer,  running errands, dealing with 
the countless things that make up your daily life–h ow total are you in what you do? Is your doing surrendered or non-surrendered? This is what determines your 
success in life, not how much effort you make. Effo rt implies stress and strain, 
needing to reach a certain point in the future or a ccomplish a certain result. Can you detect even the slightest element within yo urself of not wanting to be doing what you are doing? That is a denial of life,  and so a truly successful 
outcome is not possible. If you can detect this within yourself, can you als o drop it and be total in what you 
do? *** 
 
“Doing one thing at a time.” This is how one Zen Ma ster defined the essence of 
Zen. Doing one thing at a time means to be total in what  you do, to give it your complete 
attention. This is surrendered action–empowered act ion. *** 
 
Your acceptance of what is takes you to a deeper le vel where your inner state as 
well as your sense of self no longer depend on the mind's judgment of “good” or 
“bad.” 
 
When you say “yes” to the “isness” of life, when yo u accept this moment as it is, 
you can feel a sense of spaciousness within you tha t is deeply peaceful. On the surface, you may still be happy when it's su nny and not so happy when it's 
rainy; you may be happy at winning a million dollar s and unhappy at losing all 
your possessions. Neither happiness nor unhappiness , however, go all that deep 
anymore. They are ripples on the surface of your Be ing. The background peace 
within you remains undisturbed regardless of the na ture of the outside condition. The “yes” to what is reveals a dimension of depth w ithin you that is dependent 
neither on external conditions nor on the internal conditions of constantly 
fluctuating thoughts and emotions. *** 
 
Surrender becomes so much easier when you realize t he fleeting nature of all 
experiences and that the world cannot give you anyt hing of lasting value. You then 
continue to meet people, to be involved in experien ces and activities, but without 
the wants and fears of the egoic self. That is to s ay, you no longer demand that a 
situation, person, place, or event should satisfy y ou or make you happy. Its passing 
and imperfect nature is allowed to be. And the miracle is that when you are no longer plac ing an impossible demand on it, 
every situation, person, place, or event becomes no t only satisfying but also more 
harmonious, more peaceful. *** 
 
When you completely accept this moment, when you no  longer argue with what is, 
the compulsion to think lessens and is replaced by an alert stillness. You are fully 
conscious, yet the mind is not labeling this moment  in any way. This state of inner 
nonresistance opens you to the unconditioned consci ousness that is infinitely 
greater than the human mind. This vast intelligence  can then express itself through 
you and assist you, both from within and from witho ut. That is why, by letting go 
of inner resistance, you often find circumstances c hange for the better. *** 
 
Am I saying, “Enjoy this moment. Be happy?” No. Allow the “suchness” of this moment. That's enough. *** 
 
Surrender is surrender to this moment, not to a sto ry through which you interpret 
this moment and then try to resign yourself to it. For instance, you may have a disability and can't w alk anymore. The condition is as 
it is. Perhaps your mind is now creating a story that says , “This is what my life has come 
to. I have ended up in a wheelchair. Life has treat ed me harshly and unfairly. I don't 
deserve this.” 
 
Can you accept the isness of this moment and not co nfuse it with a story the mind 
has created around it? *** 
 
Surrender comes when you no longer ask, “Why is thi s happening to me?” 
 
***  
Even within the seemingly most unacceptable and pai nful situation is concealed a 
deeper good, and within every disaster is contained  the seed of grace. Throughout history, there have been women and men w ho, in the face of great loss, 
illness, imprisonment, or impending death, accepted  the seemingly unacceptable 
and thus found “the peace that passeth all understa nding.” 
 
Acceptance of the unacceptable is the greatest sour ce of grace in this world. *** 
 
There are situations where all answers and explanat ions fail. Life does not make 
sense anymore. Or someone in distress comes to you for help, and you don't know 
what to do or say. When you fully accept that you don't know, you give  up struggling to find answers 
with the limited thinking mind, and that is when a greater intelligence can operate 
through you. And even thought can then benefit from  that, since the greater 
intelligence can flow into it and inspire it. Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to under stand and becoming 
comfortable with not knowing. *** 
 
Do you know of someone whose main function in life seems to be to make 
themselves and others miserable, to spread unhappin ess? Forgive them, for they too 
are part of the awakening of humanity. The role the y play represents an 
intensification of the nightmare of egoic conscious ness, the state of non-surrender. There is nothing personal in all this. It is not wh o they are. *** 
 
Surrender, one could say, is the inner transition f rom resistance to acceptance, from 
“no” to “yes.” When you surrender, your sense of se lf shifts from being identified 
with a reaction or mental judgment to being the spa ce around the reaction or 
judgment. It is a shift from identification with fo rm–the thought or the emotion–to 
being and recognizing yourself as that which has no  form–spacious awareness. ***  
Whatever you accept completely will take you to pea ce, including the acceptance 
that you cannot accept, that you are in resistance. *** 
 
Leave Life alone. Let it be. Chapter 7 
Nature 
 
We depend on nature not only for our physical survi val. We also need nature to 
show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. We got lost in 
doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating–lost in a maze of complexity and a 
world of problems. We have forgotten what rocks, plants, and animals s till know. We have forgotten 
how to be–to be still, to be ourselves, to be where  life is: Here and Now. *** 
 
Whenever you bring your attention to anything natur al, anything that has come into 
existence without human intervention, you step out of the prison of conceptualized 
thinking and, to some extent, participate in the st ate of connectedness with Being in 
which everything natural still exists. To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an a nimal does not mean to think about 
it, but simply to perceive it, to hold it in your a wareness. Something of its essence then transmits itself to y ou. You can sense how still it is, 
and in doing so the same stillness arises within yo u. You sense how deeply it rests 
in Being–completely at one with what it is and wher e it is. In realizing this, you too 
come to a place of rest deep within yourself. *** 
 
When walking or resting in nature, honor that realm  by being there fully. Be still. Look. Listen. See how every animal and every plant is completely itself. Unlike humans, they have not split themselves in two. They  do not live through mental 
images of themselves, so they do not need to be con cerned with trying to protect 
and enhance those images. The deer is itself. The d affodil is itself. All things in nature are not only one with themselv es but also one with the totality. They haven't removed themselves from the fabric of the whole by claiming a 
separate existence: “me” and the rest of the univer se. The contemplation of nature can free you of that “m e,” the great troublemaker. *** 
 
Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature –the rustling of leaves in the 
wind, raindrops falling, the humming of an insect, the first birdsong at dawn. Give 
yourself completely to the act of listening. Beyond  the sounds there is something 
greater: a sacredness that cannot be understood thr ough thought. *** 
 
You didn't create your body, nor are you able to co ntrol the body's functions. An 
intelligence greater than the human mind is at work . It is the same intelligence that 
sustains all of nature. You cannot get any closer t o that intelligence than by being 
aware of your own inner energy field–by feeling the  aliveness, the animating 
presence within the body. *** 
 
The playfulness and joy of a dog, its unconditional  love and readiness to celebrate 
life at any moment often contrast sharply with the inner state of the dog's owner–
depressed, anxious, burdened by problems, lost in t hought, not present in the only 
place and only time there is: Here and Now. One won ders: living with this person, 
how does the dog manage to remain so sane, so joyou s? *** 
 
When you perceive nature only through the mind, thr ough thinking, you cannot 
sense its aliveness, its beingness. You see the for m only and are unaware of the life 
within the form–the sacred mystery. Thought reduces  nature to a commodity to be 
used in the pursuit of profit or knowledge or some other utilitarian purpose. The 
ancient forest becomes timber, the bird a research project, the mountain something 
to be mined or conquered. When you perceive nature, let there be spaces of no  thought, no mind. When you 
approach nature in this way, it will respond to you  and participate in the evolution 
of human and planetary consciousness. *** 
 
Notice how present a flower is, how surrendered to life. *** 
 
The plant that you have in your home–have you ever truly looked at it? Have you 
allowed that familiar yet mysterious being we call plant to teach you its secrets? Have you noticed how deeply peaceful it is? How it is surrounded by a field of 
stillness? The moment you become aware of a plant's  emanation of stillness and 
peace, that plant becomes your teacher. *** 
 
Watch an animal, a flower, a tree, and see how it r ests in Being. It is itself. It has 
enormous dignity, innocence, and holiness. However,  for you to see that, you need 
to go beyond the mental habit of naming and labelin g. The moment you look 
beyond mental labels, you feel that ineffable dimen sion of nature that cannot be 
understood by thought or perceived through the sens es. It is a harmony, a 
sacredness that permeates not only the whole of nat ure but is also within you. *** 
 
The air that you breathe is nature, as is the breat hing process itself. Bring your attention to your breathing and realize that you are not doing it. It is the 
breath of nature. If you had to remember to breathe , you would soon die, and if you 
tried to stop breathing, nature would prevail. You reconnect with nature in the most intimate and powerful way by becoming 
aware of your breathing and learning to hold your a ttention there. This is a healing 
and deeply empowering thing to do. It brings about a shift in consciousness from 
the conceptual world of thought to the inner realm of unconditioned consciousness. *** 
 You need nature as your teacher to help you re-conn ect with Being. But not only do 
you need nature, it also needs you. You are not separate from nature. We are all part o f the One Life that manifests 
itself in countless forms throughout the universe, forms that are all completely 
interconnected. When you recognize the sacredness, the beauty, the incredible 
stillness and dignity in which a flower or a tree e xists, you add something to the 
flower or the tree. Through your recognition, your awareness, nature too comes to 
know itself. It comes to know its own beauty and sa credness through you! *** 
 
A great silent space holds all of nature in its emb race. It also holds you. *** 
 
Only when you are still inside do you have access t o the realm of stillness that 
rocks, plants, and animals inhabit. Only when your noisy mind subsides can you 
connect with nature at a deep level and go beyond t he sense of separation created 
by excessive thinking. Thinking is a stage in the evolution of life. Natur e exists in innocent stillness that is 
prior to the arising of thought. The tree, the flow er, the bird, the rock are unaware 
of their own beauty and sacredness. When human bein gs become still, they go 
beyond thought. There is an added dimension of know ing, of awareness, in the 
stillness that is beyond thought. Nature can bring you to stillness. That is its gift  to you. When you perceive and 
join with nature in the field of stillness, that fi eld becomes permeated with your 
awareness. That is your gift to nature. Through you nature becomes aware of itself. Nature has been waiting for you, as it 
were, for millions of years. Chapter 8 
Relationships 
 
How quick we are to form an opinion of a person, to  come to a conclusion about them. It is satisfying to the egoic mind to label a nother human being, to give them a 
conceptual identity, to pronounce righteous judgmen t upon them. Every human being has been conditioned to think and  behave in certain ways–
conditioned genetically as well as by their childho od experiences and their cultural 
environment. That is not who they are, but that is who they appe ar to be. When you pronounce 
judgment upon someone, you confuse those conditione d mind patterns with who 
they are. To do that is in itself a deeply conditio ned and unconscious pattern. You 
give them a conceptual identity, and that false ide ntity becomes a prison not only 
for the other person but also for yourself. To let go of judgment does not mean that you don’t see what they do. It means that 
you recognize their behavior as a form of condition ing, and you see it and accept it 
as that. You don’t construct an identity out of it for that person. That liberates you as well as the other person from  identification with conditioning, 
with form, with mind. The ego then no longer runs y our relationships. *** 
 
As long as the ego runs your life, most of your tho ughts, emotions, and actions 
arise from desire and fear. In relationships you th en either want or fear something 
from the other person. What you want from them may be pleasure or material  gain, recognition, praise or 
attention, or a strengthening of your sense of self  through comparison and through 
establishing that you are, have, or know more than they. What you fear is that the 
opposite may be the case, and they may diminish you r sense of self in some way. When you make the present moment the focal point of  your attention–instead of 
using it as a means to an end–you go beyond the ego  and beyond the unconscious 
compulsion to use people as a means to an end, the end being self-enhancement at 
the cost of others. When you give your fullest atte ntion to whoever you are 
interacting with, you take past and future out of t he relationship, except for 
practical matters. When you are fully present with everyone you meet, you 
relinquish the conceptual identity you made for the m–your interpretation of who 
they are and what they did in the past–and are able  to interact without the egoic 
movements of desire and fear. Attention, which is a lert stillness, is the key. How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in y our relationships. Love does 
not want or fear anything. *** 
 
If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her  level of consciousness your level 
of consciousness, you would think and act exactly a s she does. With this realization 
comes forgiveness, compassion, peace. The ego doesn’t like to hear this, because if it ca nnot be reactive and righteous 
anymore, it will lose strength. *** 
 
When you receive whoever comes into the space of No w as a noble guest, when 
you allow each person to be as they are, they begin  to change. *** 
 
To know another human being in their essence, you d on’t really need to know 
anything about them–their past, their history, thei r story. We confuse knowing 
about with a deeper knowing that is non-conceptual. Knowing about and knowing 
are totally different modalities. One is concerned with form, the other with the 
formless. One operates through thought, the other t hrough stillness. Knowing about is helpful for practical purposes. On  that level, we cannot do 
without it. When it is the predominant modality in relationships, however, it 
becomes very limiting, even destructive. Thoughts a nd concepts create an artificial 
barrier, a separation between human beings. Your in teractions are then not rooted 
in Being, but become mind-based. Without the concep tual barriers, love is naturally 
present in all human interactions. *** 
 
Most human interactions are confined to the exchang e of words–the realm of 
thought. It is essential to bring some stillness, p articularly into your close 
relationships. No relationship can thrive without the sense of spa ciousness that comes with 
stillness. Meditate or spend silent time in nature together. When going for a walk or 
sitting in the car or at home, become comfortable w ith being in stillness together. Stillness cannot and need not be created. Just be r eceptive to the stillness that is 
already there, but is usually obscured by mental no ise. If spacious stillness is missing, the relationship will be dominated by the mind and 
can easily be taken over by problems and conflict. If stillness is there, it can contain 
anything. *** 
 
True listening is another way of bringing stillness  into the relationship. When you 
truly listen to someone, the dimension of stillness  arises and becomes an essential 
part of the relationship. But true listening is a r are skill. Usually, the greater part of 
a person’s attention is taken up by their thinking. At best, they may be evaluating 
your words or preparing the next thing to say. Or t hey may not be listening at all, 
lost in their own thoughts. True listening goes far beyond auditory perception. It is the arising of alert 
attention, a space of presence in which the words a re being received. The words 
now become secondary. They may be meaningful or the y may not make sense. Far 
more important than what you are listening to is th e act of listening itself, the space 
of conscious presence that arises as you listen. Th at space is a unifying field of 
awareness in which you meet the other person withou t the separative barriers 
created by conceptual thinking. And now the other p erson is no longer “other.” In 
that space, you are joined together as one awarenes s, one consciousness. *** 
 
Do you experience frequent and repetitive drama in your close relationships. Do 
relatively insignificant disagreements often trigge r violent arguments and 
emotional pain. At the root of it lie the basic ego ic patterns: the need to be right, 
and, of course, for someone else to be wrong, that is to say identification with 
mental positions. There is also the ego's need to b e periodically in conflict with 
something or someone in order to strengthen its sen se of separation between me 
and the other, without which it cannot survive. In addition, there is the accumulated 
emotional pain from the past that you and each huma n being carries within, both 
from your personal past as well as the collective p ain of humanity that goes back a 
long, long time. This pain body is an energy field within you that sporadically takes 
you over because it needs to experience more emotio nal pain for itself to feed on 
and replenish itself. It will try to control your t hinking and make it deeply negative. It loves your negative thoughts since it resonates with every frequency and so can 
feed on them. It will also provoke negative emotion al reactions in people close to you, especially your partner, in order to feed on t he ensuing drama and emotional 
pain. How can you free yourself from this unconscio us identification with pain that 
creates so much misery in life. Become aware of it. Realize that it is not who you 
are and recognize it for what it is, past pain. Wi tness it as it happens in your 
partner or in yourself. When your unconscious ident ification with it is broken, 
when you are able to observe it in yourself, you do n't feed it anymore and it will 
gradually lose its energy charge. *** 
 
Human interaction can be hell. Or it can be a great  spiritual practice. *** 
 
When you look upon another human being and feel gre at love towards them, or 
when you contemplate beauty in nature and something  within you responds deeply 
to it, close your eyes for a moment and feel the es sence of that love or that beauty 
within you, inseparable from who you are, your true  nature. The outer form is a 
temporary reflection of what you are within, in you r essence. That is why love and 
beauty can never leave you, although all outer form s will. *** 
 
What is your relationship with the world of objects , the countless things that 
surround you, and that you handle everyday. The cha ir you sit on, the pen, the car, 
the cup. Are they to you merely a means to an end or do you occasionally 
acknowledge their existence, their being, no matter  how briefly, by noticing them 
and giving them your attention. When you get attach ed to objects, when you are 
using them to enhance your worth in your own eyes a nd in the eyes of others, 
concern about things can easily take over your whol e life. When there is self-identification with things, you don't appreciate them for what 
they are because you are looking for yourself in th em. When you appreciate an 
object for what it is, when you acknowledge its bei ng without mental projection, 
you cannot not feel grateful for its existence. You  may also sense that it is not 
really inanimate, that it only appears so to the se nses. Physicist will confirm that 
on a molecular level, it is indeed, a pulsating ene rgy field. Through selfless 
appreciation of the realm of things, the world arou nd you will begin to come alive 
for you in ways you cannot comprehend with the mind . ***  
Whenever you meet anyone, no matter how briefly, do  you acknowledge their 
being by giving them your full attention, or are yo u reducing them to a means to an 
end, a mere function or role. What is the quality o f your relationship with the 
cashier at the supermarket, the parking attendant, the repair man, the customer? A moment of attention is enough. As you look at the m or listen to them, there is an 
alert stillness. Perhaps only two or three seconds. Perhaps longer. That is enough 
for something more real to emerge than the roles we  usually play and identify with. All roles are part of the conditioned consciousness  that is the human mind. That 
which emerges through the act of attention is the u nconditioned–who you are in 
your essence underneath your name and form. You are  no longer acting out a 
script. You become real. When that dimension emerge s from within you, it also 
draws it forth from within the other person. Ultim ately, of course, there is no other 
and you are always meeting yourself. Chapter 9 
Death and the Eternal 
 
When you walk though a forest that has not been tam ed and interfered with by 
man, you will see not only abundant life around you , but you will also encounter 
fallen trees and decaying trunks, rotting leaves an d decomposing matter at every 
step. Wherever you look, you will find death as wel l as life. Upon closer scrutiny, however, you will discover th at the decomposing tree trunk 
and rotting leaves not only give birth to new life,  but are full of life themselves. Microorganisms are at work. Molecules are rearrangi ng themselves. So death isn’t 
to be found anywhere. There is only the metamorphos is of life forms. What can 
you learn from this? Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no oppo site. The opposite of death is 
birth. Life is eternal. *** 
 
Sages and poets throughout the ages have recognized  the dreamlike quality of 
human existence–seemingly so solid and real and yet  so fleeting that it could dissolve at any moment. At the hour of your death, the story of your life m ay, indeed, appear to you like a 
dream that is coming to an end. Yet even in a dream  there must be an essence that 
is real. There must be a consciousness in which the  dream happens; otherwise, it 
would not be. That consciousness–does the body create it or does consciousness create the dream 
of body, the dream of somebody? Why have most of those who went through a near-deat h experience lost their fear 
of death? Reflect upon this. *** 
 
Of course you know you are going to die, but that r emains a mere mental concept 
until you meet death “in person” for the first time : through a serious illness or an 
accident that happens to you or someone close to yo u, or through the passing away 
of a loved one, death enters your life as the aware ness of your own mortality. Most people turn away from it in fear, but if you d o not flinch and face the fact that 
your body is fleeting and could dissolve at any mom ent, there is some degree of 
disidentification, however slight, from your own ph ysical and psychological form, 
the “me.” When you see and accept the impermanent n ature of all life forms, a 
strange sense of peace comes upon you. Through facing death, your consciousness is freed t o some extent from 
identification with form. This is why in some Buddh ist traditions, the monks 
regularly visit the morgue to sit and meditate amon g the dead bodies. There is still a widespread denial of death in West ern cultures. Even old people try 
not to speak or think about it, and dead bodies are  hidden away. A culture that 
denies death inevitably becomes shallow and superfi cial, concerned only with the 
external form of things. When death is denied, life  loses its depth.
Eckhart_Tolle_Stillness_Speaks.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Eckhart Tolle 
 
Stillness Speaks 
 
Introduction  
 
A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of 
the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, 
beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you 
remove that which separates you from the truth of w ho you already are and what 
you already know in the depth of your being. The s piritual teacher is there to 
uncover and reveal to you that dimension of the inn er depth that is also peace. If you come to a spiritual teacher or this book loo king for stimulating ideas, 
theories, beliefs, intellectual discussions, then y ou will be disappointed. In other 
words, if you are looking for food for thought, you  won't find it. And you will miss 
the very essence of the teaching, the essence of th is book which is not in the words 
but within yourself. It is good to remember that, t o feel that, as you listen. The words are no more than signposts. That to which  they point is not to be found 
within the realm of thought but a dimension within yourself that is deeper, and 
infinitely vaster than thought. A vibrantly alive peace is one of the characteristics 
of that dimension. So whenever you feel inner peace  arising as you listen, the book 
is doing it work and fulfilling its function as you r teacher. It is reminding you of 
who you are and pointing the way back home. This is not a book to be read from cover to cover a nd then put away. Live with it. Pick it up frequently. And, more importantly, put i t down frequently. Or spend 
more time holding it than reading it. Many readers will feel naturally inclined to 
stop reading after each entry, to pause, reflect, b ecome still. It is always more 
helpful and more important to stop reading than to continue reading. Allow the 
book to do its work, to awaken you from the old gro ves of your repetitive and 
conditioned thinking 
 
The form of this book can be seen as a revival for the present age of the oldest form 
of recorded spiritual teachings, the sutras of anci ent India. Sutras are powerful 
pointers to the truth in the form of aphorisms or s hort sayings with little conceptual elaboration. The Vedas and Upanishads are the earl y sacred teachings recorded in 
the form of sutras, as are the words of the Buddha. The sayings and parables of 
Jesus, too, when taken out of their narrative conte xt could be regarded as sutras as 
well as the profound teachings contained in the Tao  Te Ching, the ancient Chinese 
book of wisdom. The advantage of the sutra form lies in its brevity. It does not engage the thinking 
mind more than is necessary. What it doesn't say, b ut only points to, is more 
important than what it says. The sutra-like character, of the writings in this b ook is particularly marked in 
chapter 1, Silence and Stillness, which contains on ly the briefest of entries. This 
chapter contains the essence of the entire book and  may be all that some readers 
require. The other chapters are there for those who  need a few more signposts. Just like the ancient sutras, the writings containe d within this book are sacred and 
have come out of a state of consciousness we may ca ll stillness. Unlike those 
sutras, however, they don't belong to any one relig ion or spiritual tradition, but are 
immediately accessible to the whole of humanity. There is also an added sense of urgency here. The transformation of human 
consciousness is no longer a luxury, so to speak, a vailable only to a few, isolated 
individuals, but a necessity if human kind is not t o destroy itself. At the present 
time, the dysfunction of the old consciousness and the arising of the new are both 
accelerating. Paradoxically, things are getting wo rse and better at the same time, 
although the worse is more apparent because it make s so much noise. This book, of course, uses words that in the act of  reading or listening, become 
thoughts in your mind. But those are not ordinary t houghts: repetitive, noisy, self-
serving, clamoring for attention. Just like every t rue spiritual teachers, just like the 
ancient sutras, the thoughts within this book don't  say “look at me", but “look 
beyond me. ” Because the thoughts came out of stilln ess, they have power, the 
power to take you back into the same stillness from  which they arose. That stillness 
is also inner peace. And that stillness and peace i s the essence of your being. It is 
the stillness that will save and transform the worl d. Chapter 1 
Silence and Stillness  
 
When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you 
lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world. Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is in separable from stillness. This is 
the “I Am” that is deeper than name and form. *** 
 
Stillness is your essential nature. What is stillne ss. The inner space or awareness in 
which the words on this page are being perceived an d become thoughts. Without 
that awareness, there would be no perception, no th oughts, no world. You are that awareness, disguised as a person. *** 
 
The equivalent of external noise is the inner noise  of thinking. The equivalent of 
external silence is inner stillness. Whenever there is some silence around you — listen to it. That means just notice it. Pay attention to it. Listening to silence awakens t he dimension of stillness within 
yourself, because it is only through stillness that  you can be aware of silence. See that in the moment of noticing the silence arou nd you, you are not thinking. You are aware, but not thinking. *** 
 
When you become aware of silence, immediately there  is that state of inner still 
alertness. You are present. You have stepped out of  thousands of years of collective 
human conditioning. *** 
 
Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awarene ss rest upon it. How still they are, 
how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach y ou stillness. *** 
 
When you look at a tree and perceive its stillness,  you become still yourself. You 
connect with it at a very deep level. You feel a on eness with whatever you perceive 
in and through stillness. Feeling the oneness of yo urself with all things is love. *** 
 
Silence is helpful, but you don’t need it in order to find stillness. Even when there 
is noise, you can be aware of the stillness underne ath the noise, of the space in 
which the noise arises. That is the inner space of pure awareness, consciousness 
itself. You can become aware of awareness as the background  to all your sense 
perceptions, all your thinking. Becoming aware of a wareness is the arising of inner 
stillness. *** 
 
Any disturbing noise can be as helpful as silence. How. By dropping your inner 
resistance to the noise, by allowing it to be as it  is, this acceptance also takes you 
into that realm of inner peace that is stillness. Whenever you deeply accept this moment as it is — n o matter what form it takes 
— you are still, you are at peace. *** 
 
Pay attention to the gap — the gap between two thou ghts, the brief, silent space 
between words in a conversation, between the notes of a piano or flute, or the gap 
between the in-breath and out-breath. When you pay attention to those gaps, awareness of “something” becomes — just 
awareness. The formless dimension of pure conscious ness arises from within you 
and replaces identification with form. *** 
 
True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is w here creativity and solutions to 
problems are found. *** 
 
Is stillness just the absence of noise and content. No, it is intelligence itself — the 
underlying consciousness out of which every form is  born. And how could that be 
separate from who you are. The form that you think you are came out of that and is 
being sustained by it. It is the essence of all galaxies and blades of gra ss; of all flowers, trees, birds, and 
all other forms. *** 
 
Stillness is the only thing in this world that has no form. But then, it is not really a 
thing, and it is not of this world. *** 
 
When you look at a tree or a human being in stillne ss, who is looking. Something 
deeper than the person. Consciousness is looking at  its creation. In the Bible, it says that God created the world an d saw that it was good. That is 
what you see when you look from stillness without t hought. *** 
 
Do you need more knowledge. Is more information goi ng to save the world, or 
faster computers, more scientific or intellectual a nalysis. Is it not wisdom that 
humanity needs most at this time. But what is wisdom and where is it to be found. Wis dom comes with the ability to 
be still. Just look and just listen. No more is nee ded. Being still, looking, and 
listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence  within you. Let stillness direct 
your words and actions. Chapter 2 
Beyond the Thinking Mind 
 
The human condition: Lost in thought. *** 
 
Most people spend their entire life imprisoned with in the confines of their own 
thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made,  personalized sense of self 
that is conditioned by the past. In you, as in each human being, there is a dimensio n of consciousness far deeper 
than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, 
awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. In the ancient teachings, it is the 
Christ within, or your Buddha nature. Finding that dimension frees you and the world from  the suffering you inflict on 
yourself and others when the mind-made “little me” is all you know and runs your 
life. Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting in ner peace cannot come into your 
life except through that unconditioned dimension of  consciousness. If you can recognize, even occasionally, the though ts that go through your mind as 
just thoughts, if you can witness your own mental-e motional reactive patterns as 
they happen, then that dimension is already emergin g in you as the awareness in 
which thoughts and emotions happen — the timeless i nner space in which the 
content of your life unfolds. *** 
 
The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that c an easily drag you along 
with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much. It wants to draw your 
attention in completely. Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don’t tak e your thoughts too seriously. *** 
 
How easy it is for people to become trapped in thei r conceptual prisons. The human mind, in its desire to know, understand, and control, mistakes its opinions and viewpoints for the truth. It says: thi s is how it is. You have to be 
larger than thought to realize that however you int erpret “your life” or someone 
else’s life or behavior, however you judge any situ ation, it is no more than a 
viewpoint, one of many possible perspectives. It is  no more than a bundle of 
thoughts. But reality is one unified whole, in whic h all things are interwoven, 
where nothing exists in and by itself. Thinking fra gments reality — it cuts it up into 
conceptual bits and pieces. The thinking mind is a useful and powerful tool, bu t it is also very limiting when it 
takes over your life completely, when you don’t rea lize that it is only a small aspect 
of the consciousness that you are 
 
*** 
 
Wisdom is not a product of thought. The deep knowin g that is wisdom arises 
through the simple act of giving someone or somethi ng your full attention. Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness  itself. It dissolves the barriers 
created by conceptual thought, and with this comes the recognition that nothing 
exists in and by itself. It joins the perceiver and  the perceived in a unifying ﬁeld of 
awareness. It is the healer of separation. *** 
 
Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking, y ou are avoiding what is. You 
don’t want to be where you are. Here, Now. *** 
 
Dogmas — religious, political, scientific— arise ou t of the erroneous belief that 
thought can encapsulate reality or the truth. Dogma s are collective conceptual 
prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they 
give them a sense of security and a false sense of “I know. ” 
 
Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity th an its dogmas. It is true that 
every dogma crumbles sooner or later, because reali ty will eventually disclose its 
falseness; however, unless the basic delusion of it  is seen for what it is, it will be 
replaced by others. What is this basic delusion. Identification with th ought. ***  
Spiritual awakening is awakening from the dream of thought. *** 
 
The realm of consciousness is much vaster than thou ght can grasp. When you no 
longer believe everything you think, you step out o f thought and see clearly that the 
thinker is not who you are. *** 
 
The mind exists in a state of “not enough” and so i s always greedy for more. When 
you are identified with mind, you get bored and res tless very easily. Boredom 
means the mind is hungry for more stimulus, more fo od for thought, and its hunger 
is not being satisﬁed. When you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind’s hun ger by picking up a magazine, 
making a phone call, switching on the TV, surfing t he web, going shopping, or — 
and this is not uncommon — transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for 
more to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingestin g more food. Or you can stay bored and restless and observe what  it feels like to be bored and 
restless. As you bring awareness to the feeling, th ere is suddenly some space and 
stillness around it, as it were. A little at first,  but as the sense of inner space grows, 
the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in in tensity and significance. So even 
boredom can teach you who you are and who you are n ot. You discover that a “bored person” is not who you a re. Boredom is simply a 
conditioned energy movement within you. Neither are  you an angry, sad, or fearful 
person. Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not “y ours,” not personal. They are 
conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you. “I am bored. ” Who knows this. “I am angry, sad, afraid.
A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense, but rather helps you remove what separates you from your true nature and the truth of who you already are.
What is the role of a true spiritual teacher, according to Eckhart Tolle?
The purpose of the book is to help you recognize the stillness within yourself and realize that it is the essence of your being.
What is the purpose of the book "Stillness Speaks"?
The ancient sutras are not accessible to a specific religion or spiritual tradition, whereas the writings in this book are immediately accessible to all humanity.
What is the main difference between the ancient sutras and the writings in this book?
The ultimate goal of the ego is to maintain its own existence and sense of self, and to justify its own existence through the external world.
What is the ultimate goal of the ego, according to Eckhart Tolle?
The key is to acknowledge and appreciate the existence of the other person, and to recognize that they are not just a means to an end, but rather a part of the interconnected web of life.
What is the key to a harmonious and fulfilling relationship, according to the author?