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Question: I'm going to start by asking Eckhart and R am
Dass about love as another wor d for "now ." Is it another
word for "now"? Is it the dimension of feeling in the pr esent
moment? Eckhart, you speak so of ten of "silence"; that has
a diﬀer ent "ﬂavor" than love, at least in my e xperience. So,
love as the emotional dimension of the pr esent moment.... ? -ECKHAR T TOLLE: I very rar ely use that wor d. Ther e are
some false beliefs ar ound love, because ther e are so many
diﬀer ent kinds of love. Sometimes it's har d to get away fr om
the idea that love is a for m of "wanting" in the sense of "I
want this." And in Spanish, the common e xpression for "I
love you" also means "I want you" and this especially
applies to r omantic love: you want the other person. And I
don't know e xactly who said it: true love wants the best for
the other person; in r omantic love, you want the other
person. Diﬀer ent languages have diﬀer ent wor ds for love in
order to be able to distinguish between the emotional
"want" and the deeper aspects; "agape", "metta" and so on,
The Dalai Lama says: "My r eligion is kindness". He uses this
word, goodness. And these wor ds indicate something that is
within you, an essence fr om which you per ceive something
and you come into contact with the outer world, in a way
that is very diﬀer ent fr om the or dinary, mental,
conceptualized per ception of the sur rounding r eality,
including other people. The or dinary way of r elating for people who have not yet
awak ened to that deeper level within them, which I of ten
call "essence" or "identity of being." The usual way is to
connect with other people thr ough mental concepts or
judgments. They become the veil that stands between
oneself and the per ception of r eality . And to awak en means
to free oneself fr om the constraint of continuous judgments,interpr etations, denominations and designations of what
surrounds us and the people we come into contact with. And
when this constraint of having to continually mentally name
everything, the conceptualized r eality, is r eleased - and it is
released when the pr esence awak ens - then one can feel in
everything one per ceives something lik e a kind of
recognition, whether it is a human being or another natural
being, a tr ee or an animal, one r ecognizes something in
front of oneself that was pr eviously unr ecognizable by
naming and designating. When one names and designates,
the other has always been the other . And wher e natur e is
then always been conceptualized. It is especially human beings who ar e conceptualized as
"the other". In the egoic state, the ego even emphasizes the
"diﬀer ence" of the "others" by continuously criticizing,
judging, having views and confusing each view with the
"truth"; each thought that comes in: "He is lik e that! She is
like that! That means ther e can be no love, although selﬁsh
beings sometimes talk about love or it says, "Y ou must love
your neighbor as yourself!" "I r eally try very har d!" And that
phrase of course comes fr om Jesus who said, "L ove your
neighbor as yourself" which actually means "r ecognize your
neighbor, that is, the other person, as yourself" and it's that
recognition, that feeling when you look at another person in
the immensity of the pr esent. I sometimes call it the
"formless" dimension; what you look at is the for m, what
you look at is the physical body and what you per ceive in
addition is the spiritual "for m", the psychological "for m" of
that person, and you go beyond the for m of the other
person when you feel by your own pr esence the pr esence of
the other person, which cannot be seen and which is the
essence of everything. We cur rently have a small dog and we hope he lives on; he
has a heart condition. If that dog dies - hopefully not very
quickly - everything that we ar e left with, the fur and what's
under the fur, the bones and the intestines and so on, the
essence is gone, the essence of that being is gone. But
when you look at a living dog, you can feel an essence of
being - of being in the other -, sometimes it's easier to feel
in animals than in humans, because in humans you have a
lot of mental identiﬁcations and you feel the being because
you feel your own being and it's the heart; even if I rar ely
use this wor d you can say : it is to feel with the heart; you
use the wor d mor e often, to per ceive with the heart means
to per ceive with the being so and then one feels the being
of the other and this r ecognition is the r ecognition of the
unity and it is the love. L ove is to feel that one shar es one's
consciousness with someone. What we ﬁnally love in the
other is consciousness; it is beautiful to touch the dog's coat
or the skin of another person, but what we ﬁnally love in the
other is something that we cannot per ceive with our senses,
that we cannot grasp with our head. And to per ceive
something in this space of love means at the same time to
be free from the constraint of mentalization and
conceptualization and, e xpressed "practically", it looks
something lik e this: I look at R am Dass without
conceptualization, if I conceptualize, I have a certain image
and I say, "Oh, that's that famous guru, he wr ote that book"
or whatever concept I may have about him; can I look at
him without any concept? And suddenly ther e is an
encounter in the silence. Because that's r eally what it is;
when you look at something without naming it, you see fr om
the silence. And I know that he (R am Dass) is alr eady in the
silence, and I invite everyone else her e right now to
perceive the totality of this space, the envir onment -
whatever it is that sur rounds us - without naming it but
simply per ceiving it fr om a place of attention to the silence. Be the space of silence. This only happens when you stopconceptualizing. And so love and silence ar e related to each
other, very closely, and the pr esent is of course part of it,
silence is the essence of the pr esent and that is how love is
born. It is our pr edestination to live this way; it is our
"normal" state of consciousness. And then, of course, the
whole world would be transfor med if enough people lived in
this "space. W e'll come back to that later, because basically
we're still pointing to the one essential truth: the truth about
who you ar e.
- RAM DAS S: I would lik e to say that love is not an
emotion; rather, love is a kind of conversation between
souls, a conversation between souls, because this "I" that is
each individual her e is a soul and we ar e all one; they ar e
two diﬀer ent levels of consciousness. When one
individualized soul meets another individualized soul, one
soul r ecognizes the other soul. ...and... the ego has its r oots
in negative things while the soul has its r oots in love. That
is, when you ar e in your ego, you ar e afraid and separated
from all others. When a soul is separated fr om another soul
but they r ealize that they shar e a consciousness. If one
perceives with the soul, the other people appear as souls. Like for e xample when you go to a stor e, ther e are diﬀer ent
people playing diﬀer ent roles; ther e is the customer, and
the cashier . But I go into that stor e and I r ealize that they
are souls and they ar e only playing these r oles in this
incar nation. They have chosen these r oles only because of
their particular k arma. Is that wor d clear? ... yes. I think it is. Question : A question about this: not only do you very
rarely use the wor d "love" in your teaching, but you don't
use the wor d "soul" very of ten either . I hear you talk a lot
about how our conceptualized thinking separates us fr om
the ﬁeld of unity and being, but the idea of an individualized
soul... ? I'm curious if you can say anything about that, how
it ﬁts for you in that conte xt. - ECKHAR T TOLLE: I never decided not to use the wor d
"soul"; it just didn't appear; I never decided not to use the
word "soul"; it just didn't appear; lik ewise, I don't use "God"
much...soul... means to me, as R am Dass just said, that you
walk into a stor e or wher ever, you see all kinds of people,
diﬀer ent for ms, and it's wonderful to see the diversity of life
forms ar ound you without having to believe that the
fundamental r eality of each person you see or come incontact with is in their for m or in the r ole they play; they'r e
only temporary; but you can still enjoy the diversity of life
forms and even enjoy the r oles that people play . You can
only r eally enjoy it if you r ecognize the other at a deeper
level and if that r ecognition tak es place - and it can only
succeed if you r ecognize who you ar e beyond your own r ole
and for m - and that is consciousness, the light of
consciousness, the for mless. Consciousness has tak en a temporary for m and so the
universe generates billions, trillions, an inﬁnite number of
life for ms, even on this one planet, even in the one human
form. Every human being is diﬀer ent in some way, it's
amazing! But if you only see the diﬀer ences, you ar e
trapped at that level. One must be able to feel one's own
fundamental r eality as consciousness to be able to
appreciate the play of for ms. Because otherwise, not only
the play of for ms attracts us, but we ar e looking for
something in those for ms, the fulﬁllment, thr ough other
forms, other people; the ego again, which would lik e other
people to bring us fulﬁllment. Along with this device, ther e
is also the r ole... So if we ar e sitting; these ar e only
temporary for ms, this for m will soon go away, and sooner or
later all these for ms her e will have dissolved. Lik e soap
bubbles. And all that's lef t is the One that has e xpressed
itself in the many . And when one r ecognizes oneself as the
One, -and this happens when the ﬂow of thoughts stops-,
there is only an attentive pr esence, a vast, conscious,
formless pr esence. That is what one is - beyond for m - and
from ther e one can enjoy the play of for ms. If we ar e not ther e, the play of for ms is thr eatening. Or one
constantly tries to complete oneself by trying to r each
certain for ms. The play of for ms is never satisf ying until one
has touched the r oot of all satisfaction, that is, being itself,consciousness itself . The Buddha has alr eady taught us that
the unsatisfactory natur e of "things", -he said: wher ever one
ﬁnds oneself, one ﬁnds "duca"-suﬀering- no matter what
situation one is in, ther e is always a "crack" in everything. And of course, these wor ds of L eonar d Cohen: "Ther e is a
crack in everything, and that's how the light gets in". This
means that everything that goes "wr ong" her e in our
encounter is in fact beautiful, not being able to speak is for
example a possibility to be silent. It is to welcome what may
arise, while being in contact with what is unchanging, the
consciousness itself, to feel it, to feel it, in this moment, the
silent and attentive pr esence within. And is it an individual
presence or is it an impersonal pr esence? I don't think you
can r eally separate them; the sense of "I", which is the
formless consciousness, is at the same time the basis of
one's sense of identity, which is however confused with the
stories of the mind. But if we r eally dive deep: wher e does
this feeling of "I" come fr om? Not the "I" = my story or the "I
want" and the "I need" and the "I must have" etc. but the
deeper sense of being "I", the "I am"; "I am the way" said
Jesus and I think they lef t out one wor d: I am IS the way . And
the distinction between personal and impersonal no longer
really appears, because the essence of each individual's
identity beyond the for ms is consciousness itself and it is
the impersonal soul that e xpresses itself as an individual
person...so ... ...that was the answer ... ? I never wonder if I
will survive as that personal "self", no; I don't have the
sense of personhood because. The essence of who I am is
timeless, I know that. I don't need to know the details; what
will the essence of who I am, the timeless, do in the futur e? To me, it seems that you associate the individual soul and
the collective unity; you don't ﬁnd it important to mak e a
distinction between the two . No, because many of these things ar e just wor ds; Buddhism,
Hinduism; in Hinduism we have the atman; the inner God is
called atman; Buddhists say : no, ther e is no atman; ther e is
only emptiness! And they ar e both talking about the same
thing, because the atman is for mless. Emptiness" cansometimes be mor e useful, because one cannot believe in
it. The moment you say, "Ther e is an atman!" you begin to
believe in something; you have another spiritual concept. And the buddah made it very diﬃcult for people to believe
in what he was imparting; very diﬃcult, because they could
not say, "W e believe in emptiness!" Maybe they do in
Buddhist monasteries, but actually it shouldn't be e xpressed
that way, it should be r ecognized, and the moment it is
recognized, it is clear : atman and emptiness ar e the same
thing. L'... soul... The individual soul... W e agr ee that we see
the atman in our interlocutor . So it's not r eally a thought;
the soul is consciousness and as my guru was saying that
you have to love everybody, I said that the soul is the loving
consciousness. ...and... when he said to me, "L ove
everybody", I ﬁrst thought of the politicians; should I love
them? So some of them I could stand, but I said,
"Maharadshi, I can't do that! I can't do that, I can't love
everybody . And that was my ego . Because the ego judges,
judges, judges. The soul does not judge. I live in the soul
now... and I can love the walls and the ceiling and all of you
here and me and the wheelchair and Eckhart and
everybody . At ﬁrst I thought I was psychotic because if I loved the wall,
it would get closer to me. And the love becomes... ...it
merges me with the wall. ...and the tr ee is an ocean... And I
think we ar e one, but we will only feel if we love
everything.... ...by loving everything. ...and...when I was in
my ego, I judged everything including myself . But in the
soul, we ar e like the ocean of love, we swim in the ocean of
love. And it pushes you to love everything, including the
wall. I had a funny e xperience: I told an audience that I
loved everything. and I said: "I love this carpet". It was in a
restaurant. and the carpet was full of stains...and...I could
love it and a friend of mine, Mick ey Lammley, came up to
me he was sitting in the audience; and he said, "So I lik etrees, or paintings, but I still can't lik e this carpet!" And I
said, "Judge, judge, judge...". He then sent me for my 80th
birthday a piece of carpet with a stain in the middle and
said, "Maybe you'd lik e to trade it for your guru on the wall." He couldn't understand how I could do that. He lost because
of his judgmental mindset, because I was moving towar d
unity with love. It's inter esting that you mention walls and what look lik e
inanimate objects. I also of ten notice: I pick up an object,
say a piece of soap or a pen, and ther e is an appr eciation of
its existence, just a little moment of appr eciation; the mind
might e xplain it and say, "W ell, that's because ultimately
everything comes out of the One, tak es on a for m and then
transfor ms itself . So, in the end, everything you see or
perceive is an e xpression of the One, and if you have
recognized the One in yourself, you can r ecognize it in any
form. Nor mally we wouldn't call this love, but on a deeper
level it is a love, it is an appr eciation of what may be ar ound
us, and this again has to do with the world of for ms, living in
balance in confr ontation with the world of for ms and at the
same time r emaining gr ounded in the for mless, what is
perhaps traditionally called "spirit" as the case may be. And
in this dance and in oneself, one can feel something. I'm going to describe a brief event when we came her e
today - so ther e's this ephemeral body that's sitting in the
car and ther e's the spirit that's tied to a name and a
personal identity; so ther e's always two pr esences - but
don't tak e any of this literally, we'r e just using indicators -
so ther e's always two pr esences, the for m : this is Eckhart,
the spiritual teacher - one concept - who is about to meet
another spiritual teacher - another concept - and they ar e
going to talk together, and outside of my consciousness, I
also knew that this was true, but the fundamental truth was:
there is a moving, per ceiving space of consciousness her e.So in any given moment, one can either be mor e on the side
of for m or mor e on the side of for mlessness. And the most
satisf ying way to live is to be mor e on the side of
formlessness. When I was in the car, I wasn't r eally pr esent
as a person but simply as a space of consciousness -
because when ther e is no thought, that's how it is. On the
other hand, if a "person" was going to an important event -
how could a "person" not be anxious - the thought would
come up: how is this going to happen? What will they say? Will they lik e us? All sorts of things would happen... But the
essence of it all is to be able to - -and I know that people
here and those connected elsewher e are able to see the
truth of what I'm saying, and that is that mor e and mor e
people ar e able to get into a state wher e they don't have to
think. The compulsion to think disappears and is r eplaced by
presence. Silence- beautiful attentive space of silence- and
if one can be that in every moment- and of course one is
still temporarily a person and if someone asks us, "How old
are you?" or, "What is your name?" one does not need to
answer, "I am nameless and timeless!" W e can still go with
the conventions and say, yes, that's my age, that's my
name, so we use the conventions of for ms and we can
continue to cr eate in the world of for ms, but we have r oots
elsewher e: in the vastness of consciousness. During a transition period in my home, I was so into the
dimension of br eadth that for a while, I wasn't as
comfortable with the for m. And af ter a few years, the
balance came back. The essence - and I'm sur e you agr ee
with me - is the fr eedom of thought, to access that
dimension within. R amana Maharshi said that a r eal criterion
for knowing whether one is pr ogressing on the spiritual path
- after someone ask ed him this question, "How can I
measur e my pr ogress on the spiritual path?" And R amana
Maharashi r eplied, "The degr ee of thoughtlessness is themeasur e of pr ogress on your spiritual path." It's so simple;
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Ram Dass, you mentioned at the beginning the wor d karma
and I wanted to ask you something about that. I think a lot
of people would say that the sudden awak ening that you
had, Eck art, was a kind of fabulous, e xtraor dinary good
karma, pur e grace. R am Dass, you met your guru, Neem
Karoli Baba, and you e xperienced some kind of opening of
the heart - very good k arma, e xtraor dinary k arma - and then
the str oke happened; a str oke while you wer e sleeping -some would say that doesn't sound lik e very good k arma, it
sounds lik e bad k arma. So I'm curious how you feel about
that; So to both of you; the idea of good k arma and bad
karma in your life... is it a matter of grace and k arma?. -RAM DAS S: My guru knew that I was going to meet
him...and...and when I found out and r ecognized him and his
consciousness, it led me to think that this meeting was a
special grace. And I thought it was his grace for me. But I
think it was my awar eness of his awar eness that led me to
that conclusion. It was lik e he knew my whole life. My mother died of a spleen disease and my guru said it was
in the stomach in Hindu language. Then he said: it's the
spleen. And the wor d "spleen", he said it in English. So my
mother's death was used to help me. It was a "siddih", a
power that he had. And that's why I thought it was grace. In
fact, I live in that grace all the time; when I was still a
psychologist, I didn't r ead the Bhagavad Gita, a weir d book,
and then when we came down the hall fr om my oﬃce, we
came to T im Lar ry's, and so I took mushr ooms; and that
opened me up to my encounter with the Maharashi and my
encounter with the Bhagavad Gita. My guru knew all this. That's grace. I don't think grace necessarily has to be the
result of good k arma. Grace can come suddenly at any level
of development. It can also come in the for m of bad k arma. It can come in the for m of good k arma. It sort of comes fr om
another dimension; in my case I would say it came because
of bad k arma. W ith all the suﬀering, an unhappy childhood,
parents ﬁghting all the time, no har monious envir onment,
often little money, and then they separated, and I was very
ashamed of that, because at that time not many par ents
separated. So I had to hide this fact. And countless other
things came into play; my father, on one level I loved him,
on another I hated him, because he was lik e a powder k eg,like a bomb that had not yet e xploded and that could
explode at any moment; and so I lived my whole childhood
with a bomb that had not yet e xploded and that, of course,
also e xploded fr om time to time. So this is not good k arma and so the young adult became
unhappy, he absorbed the unhappiness of his envir onment,
etc. All this is not good k arma, but it is pr ecisely because of
this bad k arma that the suﬀering became unbearable and
then this sur render happened, when the suﬀering was no
longer bearable, and suddenly the grace appear ed. One
may ask - I may not be able to answer it, but I am asking
the question - the fact that the devotion took place in the
midst of suﬀering must have been a grace; it may well have
been. W ell, who knows - the sur render happened, and with
the sur render, suddenly grace could ﬂow in completely . Grace is the essence of who you ar e and it ﬂows thr ough
that for m, and in that state of grace, the density of the for m
decreases, and when it decr eases, grace can better ﬂow
through it. The density of the for m decr eases thr ough the
surrender or acceptance of something simple lik e the
present moment, just as it is. As a spiritual e xercise, if you
make that your spiritual practice, you won't always succeed,
that's ok ay, you should for give yourself, and if you don't
succeed in accepting what is, you accept that you can't
accept what is at that moment, so you have another level of
acceptance behind the non-acceptance. I can accept that
anger is arising in me at that moment, it is what is; I could
also deny it and think: "Oh, I should be accepting- why can't
I accept the pr esent?"! Or better yet: a conversation in the
mind, as if it wer e two people: "Why can't you do this? See,
you can't do it! Y ou failed again!" This is the ego's soliloquy . Instead, we should have compassion; if we can't accept, we
should acknowledge it and allow the emotion to be ther e;
then we still have some "width" ther e. And ther e is grace,because grace is br eadth; (r hymes in English with grace-
space) grace happens when e xpanse, as unconditioned
divine consciousness, comes into life, and that's why the
quick est way to invite that grace into one's life is, as I
sometimes e xpress it, to accept being that moment,
whatever for m it tak es, because "it is" anyway "lik e that", so
why not say "yes" because "it is" That doesn't mean that
you can't do something. But at that point, it's lik e that. In
other wor ds, we follow the pr overbial e xpression of walking
with the river of life and the river is always her e and now,
never go against it and the point of entry is always the
being-ther e of this moment. With this acceptance, the gate is opened and grace can
enter . If one complains about the diﬃculties or the
unsatisfactory natur e of the pr esent moment, the gate
remains closed or, in other wor ds, the shutters ar e down,
the sun cannot enter . This does not mean that one is mor e
powerful than the sun, the shutters ar e equal to the sun. When one goes into denial, one is somehow against the
present moment, or one uses it as a means to get to a mor e
important place, because one wants to go thr ough it, and
then grace can no longer act in one's life, or one r eceives
only a dr op, just enough to go further, occasional dr ops,
when one per ceives for e xample something: "L ook at that
sunset! "and for a moment the complaining entity goes away
and grace can enter, and you live for 3 weeks: a sunset. But
it's only a dr op of water, of course, and so moving fr om for m
to for mlessness is achieved by accepting whatever for m
appears in the pr esent moment, whatever for m that
moment is. Y ou immediately say to yourself, "Ok ay, this is
how it is now ." With the acceptance of for ms, the
formlessness opens up within. And the ultimate truth of that
can be seen in the image of the cruciﬁxion, which to me is
beyond r eligion; some people have an aversion to that andsay, "Oh, I don't lik e that image with that man on the cr oss,
it's connected to so much suﬀering and unhappiness" and
so on. But ther e is a deep meaning ther e which per haps
could not be e xpressed in an abstract way for a long time,
and that meaning is: her e is the image of the absolute
suﬀering of a man; he is nailed to a cr oss, and it is an
instrument of tortur e, and this man is able to sur render and
accept: "Not my will but yours be done! ", and then the
instrument of tortur e suddenly becomes a symbol of the
divine. Isn't that strange? The instrument of tortur e
becomes a symbol of the divine. Everything that is
consider ed an obstacle or something hor rible is transfor med
by acceptance. Any situation that is fundamentally accepted
- and if it is a big deal lik e a cruciﬁxion, then the acceptance
has to be very deep - then an immediate transfor mation
takes place. Grace is also hidden in what seems so ter rible; the ter rible
suﬀering that we see all ar ound us - it is ther e! And grace is
hidden ther e - and you can only see the truth of that in
yourself; I'm not saying that everyone should just believe it. You have to discover for yourself that grace is hidden in the
seemingly hor rible things; even in the little things that go
"wrong", but even mor e so in the big things that go "wr ong";
and eventually you r ealize that it's not "wr ong" at all; it just
looks lik e it is when you judge it. And that's how you invite
grace into your life, you bring a deep "yes" into the pr esent
moment and then personal development accelerates and
the mor e you do that, the less you need the disasters
because you'r e working with the unfolding consciousness;
the consciousness wants to unfold in that dimension. So it's
really about welcoming what is. That was my str oke. I was in
the hospital, and I saw all the doctors and nurses talking to
my family, my friends...all shaking their heads and saying,
"You're having a str oke?!" and I could feel how somethingquite ter rible had happened to them, and on the wall was a
pictur e of Maharashi. That str oke was grace. Ther e are three
guys her e - my medical team - I would never have met
them. I wouldn't have met them; we philosophize together,
we talk about medicine. But I had a str oke and it was grace. Befor e I had this str oke, I read a book called "How Can I
Help". I felt lik e I could r eally help. A fter the str oke, I had the
title of the book in my head, "How can I help? I never
thought it was possible, that... I was so addicted; and so
trapped in myself; I lear ned a lot about addiction. And it was
positive. Many of you have pr obably seen the movie that
was made about R am Dass' life, called "F ierce Grace." I love
that title, because when something bad lik e that happens,
it's really "violent" and those who can sur render to it r eally
go far . So when a kind of "violent grace" comes into a life,
there is at the same time the possibility of going very deep
and this violent grace bur ns the illusory self . It is the ﬁr e in
which the ego is bur ned. But it can just as easily str engthen
the ego by saying, "T errible, ter rible, what happened to
me?" "How could life do this to me? How could God do this
to me? Why did this happen to me?" And so then what
would have actually been a huge opening and an
opportunity to bur n through the accumulations of maybe
thousands of years is block ed. This may be good to know for
those who ar e facing a very big challenge in their lives right
now.I have one last question for both of you: R am Dass, you
mentioned several times your r elationship with Maharashi
and the importance he had in your life. I know that some
people look at the two of you and see you as a guru ﬁgur e
to them personally . Whether you believe it or not. I've seen
the pictur es in people's homes and I wonder : if someone
looks at you that way, how do you think they can get the
most out of that r elationship? - ECKHAR T TOLLE: Oprah said to me, "Y ou're not a guru,
are you?" And I said, "No, of course not!". Of course, I don't
consider myself a guru. I know some people look at my
pictur e-at ﬁrst I was shock ed when someone told me they
had a pictur e of me on their desk-and I thought, "What for?" But then I r emember ed the pictur e of R amana Maharshi that
I have myself, ther e's a pictur e of R amana Maharshi in
which ther e's an incr edible light coming thr ough, his eyes,
and I r emember when I look ed at that pictur e years ago, I
felt this silence, and this deep peace and liveliness, and
what I knew was that it was not in the for m that I was
looking at, it was in me, I could feel it, and I could also
perceive this r eﬂection of peace and liveliness in the photo . So it was a self -knowledge, it work ed a bit lik e a mir ror, and
it was a self -knowledge, this mir ror doesn't r eﬂect the outer
form back to you, but the inner essence. Every time you
look at a pictur e of someone, of an "awak ened" sage or of a
person who was at that moment fr ee of all thoughts, in a
state of pur e consciousness, something passes thr ough the
eyes of that person, which is then r ecognized by something
within you. It has absolutely nothing to do with the person
himself . What one feels is one's own fundamental r eality,
which is r eﬂected back to us by someone who is fr ee of all
the things that nor mally cover it. Ther e's a line in "A Course
in Miracles" that pr obably quotes Jesus; but of course, that's
just an e xpression of an awak ened consciousness. Or let's
say the Christ; Jesus is the person, the Christ is the for mless. So it says ther e: The line says - written in the ﬁrst person -:
"I", which means I = Christ or Jesus; "I have nothing that you
don't also have, e xcept that I have nothing else either". Meanwhile, I am quite happy when people look at me or my
pictur e, as long as they don't think they ar e looking at a
person. The person is ther e, on the surface, but it's not
important. Y ou could say it's a "window frame". What one
sees or per ceives with one's senses is the "window frame",
but what is important is the light that enters thr ough thewindow . And the moment we r ecognize it, it is in ourselves,
because it is the self in itself that r ecognizes it. This is how
reﬂection works. It is also advisable to look into someone else's eyes fr om
time to time, and then something similar can happen, if
both ar e able to enter into a state of attentive pr esence
while looking into each other's eyes; then the thinking
stops. And what is lef t when the thought stops? Just
attention, pur e and unconditioned awar eness, and we look
at the other and suddenly ther e is no "other", ther e is a
fusion in the ﬁeld of consciousness. It is a beautiful e xercise
wher e we transcend what is personal in ourselves and in the
other . And it is a beautiful possibility to get in touch with
each other, and so we see ourselves in the other, we mer ge. It's a wonderful spiritual e xercise, if you don't abuse it. Only
once in a while; and then they do the same thing in every
situation. When you look at someone, you no longer
conceptualize that person and you look at yourself . That is
to say, we don't r eally "see" him or her, but rather we feel
him or her, the consciousness in the other being the
consciousness itself . This is how everything works in the
same way . And what do you think about people looking at your pictur e? I would tell them: if they met a "r eal" one, they wouldn't
look at my pictur e.
Eckhart: "Y ou ar e the 'good one' . Yes... just lik e you. And so is everyone else her e. Ramana
Maharshi... ...this pictur e... . I r ead once that when this
pictur e of R amana Maharshi was tak en, R aman Maharshi
asked the photographer, "Do we have enough light?" And
the photographer r eplied, "Y ou ar e the light!" And it work ed. OceanofPDF .com 
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How can you love violence, crime and famine? T o name a
few, how can you love these things? We don't lik e what people do, but what they ar e in their
essence. And what they do is of ten based on deception,
because they don't know who they ar e, that is to say,
unconsciousness acts thr ough these people. Y ou don't lik e
what they do, but whenever you meet a person, even if theyare a criminal or have committed acts of violence,
somewher e in them ther e is something that is pur e, that is
the essence of who they ar e, and if that person is heavily
burdened by selﬁsh deception or has a body of sever e pain,
then you have to be even mor e intensely pr esent when you
are with them. And this can also apply to a person who is
mentally unbalanced. It can happen that when one is
absolutely pr esent, one pulls - not as an act of will, but
simply because it happens - one then pulls fr om that person
something that is beyond deception, the essence of who
they ar e. It may only be temporary, but it's ther e. So one
loves the individual person. But how do you lik e a disturbing noise? Love is not necessarily an active thing; love of ten lies in
letting go; as in the gestur e of the V irgin Mary for e xample,
there is a feminine aspect that tak es everything in her ar ms. So, one can embrace the loud noise, even though one may
be frightened at ﬁrst. This does not mean that one has
resisted the noise; ther e is fear, and right af ter the fear,
there is per mission. Y ou can practice this when you bump
into something; I sometimes r ecommend it as another
spiritual e xercise, because sometimes you bump into
something with your elbow or with your foot, and then ther e
is this sharp pain. And usually, right af ter the pain, you
shout something, it can be a four letter wor d, usually it has
four letters... And it's a beautiful practice; you hit yourself
and the pain is ther e, and then ther e's immediate
acceptance, without comment or other r eaction e xcept the
physical r eaction. It's r eally beautiful. Nothing mor e. The
unpleasant noise; you don't say, "Oh, I love that unpleasant
noise!" No, we embrace it: "I allow you to be her e", that's
love, instead of : "I love you", it's mor e like: "I allow you to be
here at this moment, as you ar e. And that "you" can be asituation or a person. I allow you to be as you ar e right now,
that's love. And that is better than thinking: "I love you". Are ther e circumstances wher e you yourself have diﬃculty
accepting what is? Something that mak es you impatient,
judgmental or angry ? There are moments of anger, it can happen, they usually
don't last very long, ther e is an attention in the backgr ound
that accepts the anger when it happens. The anger doesn'thave a total hold on you, but you ar e the space ar ound the
anger . Or sadness can arise; I sometimes have to cry when I
see something sad. Or someone dies; for e xample, last year
we went for a walk in Italy, and we visited a little town. And
the chur ch bells rang, and the people who wer e walking with
me k ept walking, and I stopped at the cr ossroads in fr ont of
the chur ch, and a coﬃn was car ried out. And some of my
relatives wer e ther e, and I was crying; I didn't know who had
died, I had no idea who the person was; but this situation
embodied for me the death of every human being who has
ever lived. It embodied the imper manence of human
existence and I was crying, but they wer e not tears of
despair, ther e was a beauty, a peace under neath those
tears; but I was crying. I didn't say, "Death shouldn't be" or
"Death has no meaning", no, ther e was an acceptance, but
still the tears. But it was a beautiful e xperience, even if
there was a deep sadness. But under neath, ther e was the
knowledge that ther e was something that did not die. And
so something emotional can also e xist in the vastness of
consciousness. Ram Dass, can you say something about loving something
that seems unacceptable? How, please? Something else on
the theme: loving what initially seems unlovable? I love all of it... I mean: even this... and even this... and even
this... Y ou have to mak e it come to you. ...and... we had
every opportunity to love, this dictator, this year ...and ... He
was a for m that ... br ought suﬀering to many people. Is he
not worthy of being loved? I think that every for m is a for m
of God. Sometimes very well disguised! Another question is what R am Dass and Eckhart T olle think
about psychedelic drugs and/or "sacr ed plant medicine. "And for you, R am Dass, as an aid to e xploring your
consciousness at a younger age. The pr ofessional ﬁrst! That's gr eat! (everyone laughs) That's gr eat. The mushr oom
intoxication that I had had; I had lef t the gr oup and I went
into a quiet r oom and I was sitting on a couch and I saw that
there was someone else in the r oom. But the r oom was
dark, I just felt that ther e was someone ther e. And I look ed
over ther e in the cor ner of the r oom and every one of my
"roles," my superﬁcial r oles, my - you could call them kitsch,
kitsch r oles, r oles. Even the r ole of "Richar d" that my
parents gave me. And I thought, "Oh, maybe I just have
amnesia"? A t least I still had my body! And I look ed down
and ther e was the couch. And ther e was no body on it. and
my eyes wer e open and I wanted to call for help but: who
really wanted to call for help? All my parts wer e out, my
body was gone, but ther e was still something. And I r olled
around in the snow, r olled down some hills and passed T im's
house. And my par ents' house was only two blocks away . There was a snowstor m and I was up to my knees in snow . I
ran in the dir ection of T im's house. The sidewalk at the
house was full of snow . The par ents wer e old and I was
young, so I got a shovel fr om the garage. I thought I was
doing the right thing. My heart told me that this was wher e I
should be clearing their path. And I shoveled with all my
heart, then I look ed up at the window and they both look ed
very upset. Up until that point, I had always been very
careful about how I behaved in the eyes of others. But they
were upset; and I danced a little cir cle ar ound the shovel
and gave them laughs and signs. It was the ﬁrst time I
rebelled against authority . And then I found out that they
were mad because it was 4:30 in the mor ning! I was happy
with what I was doing: I was clearing the way for them! But
they lived in this little bo x with the conviction: Y ou don't
clear the way at that hour .Ram Dass, do you have anything else to say about
psychoactive substances and how you view them as an aid? It took me fr om psychology to Maharadji, that's very good! It
is very good. Y es, it says it all! It must have been powerful! Look, I never advise anyone to do this, or because I
approved it. Everything I say is what happened to me. I
make my jok es her e now, but people don't know that these
are really very, very powerful plants. And they shouldn't beused for that-although ther e's no "should-shouldn't"- God
should be their copilot. And Eckhart? Of course, I can only speak fr om my own e xperience, and it
is very limited. I'll tell you about it very brieﬂy . A fairly
recent e xperience; it's amazing that it took me so long to try
hashish; we wer e in Amster dam last year and someone
gave me some very good quality hashish to smok e and I
thought, yeah why not? P eople of ten ask me about it, is it
like a meditation, or is it useful? So I smok ed and when it
started to tak e eﬀect, it felt lik e maple syrup for the brain, it
was lik e .... And I r ealized that it could be something
wonderful for someone whose mind is very active. Because
it slows down for a while. But because my mind is not very
active, I didn't think it was gr eat and I didn't want to do it
again, but it was inter esting and I r ealized that it could help
people who suﬀer fr om a cruel mind that never stops. Not
as a per manent solution, but maybe to open a door and
then continue to meditate, practice pr esence, etc. And it's
the same with LSD. I'm not sur e, I think it was 15 years ago,
and I was alr eady working as a counselor and giving small
workshops, and of ten people would ask me: is LSD useful? And I would say : I don't know, I haven't tried it yet. And
ﬁnally, somebody br ought me something. And I took it, and
again, I have very limited e xperience. My e xperience was
just that the sensory per ceptions wer e extremely ampliﬁed,
it was lik e everything was scr eaming at me: colors, smells,
physical contact; it was lik e the volume was tur ned up
everywher e. I didn't lose attention though; the attention was
there and watching what was going on. It was inter esting,
and I immediately understood that in some people this
causes the mind to stop, because when you per ceive with
such intensity, you don't have time to comment on whatyou per ceive, so you ar e only bombar ded by sensory
impressions and the mind stops for a moment and you ar e
only amazed. Some people have the e xperience of looking
at a k ettle, for e xample, and per ceiving an incr edible depth
and liveliness, which I alr eady per ceive without LSD. When I
look at a k ettle, I feel its liveliness. It may not scr eam at me,
but ther e is something subtle about it, it has a pr esence. So
things don't have to shout at me, but I understand that for
someone who is totally dr owned in the noise of the mind, it
can be an opening. That's about it. Of course, ther e are sacr ed ar eas of other
substances, lik e mushr ooms, etc. that I haven't e xperienced
myself, this goes back thousands of years, when it was part
of a sacr ed jour ney, not a hobby; it was part of the cultural
fabric of the time and certainly did good service ther e, and
personally, I may have to wait another lifetime befor e I try
it. When someone has dementia or Alzheimer's disease, their
"being" seems to disappear . When I spend time with my 93
year old mother, I begin to wonder what it is that you ar e
referring to . Can you tell us something about it? Sometimes ther e is an in-between stage in Alzheimer's
disease, when people don't r emember their pr oblems. I had
a friend whose mother had Alzheimer's disease, and it was
in that middle stage that she was happy for the ﬁrst time in
her life, because at that point she couldn't r emember her
problems. She was for getting who she was. Of course, this
also happens when you become mor e present, but the
diﬀer ence is that when you become mor e present, you go
beyond the thought, and when you develop this loss of
memory or when you drink alcohol for e xample, you fall
below the thought, which of course can be very pleasantwhen the thought is a tortur e for you, which it is also for
many people, because they tortur e themselves by talking to
themselves with their mind. When one falls under thought,
this is what happens: per ception is not sharpened but one
goes into sleep; in the middle stage of Alzheimer's disease,
some people seem to e xperience this fr eedom fr om the
mind, but as it pr ogresses; I see the mind or the brain as
something by which the non-localized consciousness that
permeates the whole universe tak es on a certain for m. The
brain and the mind ar e instruments for consciousness to
access that dimension, a focus for consciousness. And when
the brain br eaks down, as seems to be the case with
Alzheimer's disease, the brain can no longer fulﬁll this
function as a focus for consciousness and consciousness
then withdraws fr om ther e, which mak es it seem as if the
being that was ther e befor e is slowly disappearing. And
that's what happens. It's a slow death; you die befor e the physical vehicle dies,
the consciousness can't move thr ough the brain and the
mind, so it goes backwar ds; and what's lef t is the beginning
of the death or the death of the for m; the for m of the mind
dies befor e the physical vehicle dies. That's how I
understand it. The consciousness is still ther e, but it is no
longer in this dimension. Ram Dass, you said something inter esting the other day
when we talk ed. You said that the str oke aﬀected your body,
but not who you ar e; and I wonder if you can say anything
about that. It is a vehicle at this level of consciousness. I use it, I use it,
I'm not identiﬁed with it. It's lik e I said: the body had a
stroke. I didn't have a str oke. If I enter the pr esent moment,
which is neither time nor space, it is inﬁnite; that's what Iam. That's what I am. I don't think I am the ego either . All of
this, the ego, the body, all of this is part of this incar nation,
but I am not part of this incar nation, because I am just
visiting this incar nation. I would lik e to ﬁnish with one last question, to bring it full
circle. W e ﬁrst talk ed about love, not as an emotion, but as a
present moment e xperience, as an aspect. And I'd lik e to
know if each of you can give us a guide to help us adapt to
this love. In the pr esent, what would that guide look lik e? As I'm sur e you alr eady know, two days ago we visited R am
Dass, and as we wer e leaving, I saw the license plate on his
car. The license plate was quite or dinary - e xcept for an
inscription at the top and bottom: "I'd rather be her e right
now". Nor mally, ther e are things lik e: I'd rather be ﬁshing or
golﬁng... I would rather be her e right now . Being her e is
actually the k ey, because r ecognizing and embracing the
present and r ecognizing that this is all ther e ever is, is r eally
all that is needed. Being the pr esent rather than the entity
deﬁned by the mind. I also e xpress it sometimes lik e this: it
was not yet appar ent to me when I wr ote "the power of the
present moment", it came later : you ar e the pr esent. A t the
heart of the being. On the surface, the pr esent is what is
happening. In the depth of the now, the now is the e xpanse
in which it happens. What is happening is the world of
forms, a coming and going, coming and going, and the
expanse or space in which it is happening is the
unconditioned, the timeless, the for mless, the uncr eated,
the unmanifested, the consciousness itself, the One, or
perhaps we can say : the light of the One, and that is why
the now, rather be the space for what is happening instead
of constantly r eacting to what is happening and being
mesmerized by the world of for ms. So it is a de-
hypnotization. The world of for ms includes thought, everythought is a thought-for m, very hypnotizing, every thought
says, "L ook at me, look at me, follow me her e...." "No, follow
me!" And they do this for hours; they follow one thought
that leads to another, etc. and it pulls them in, it pulls them
like gravity, and then you become a person who lives lik e
that... Completely absent... only in the head... Even when
they meet someone, it goes on lik e that. They don't see
her... only their thoughts about her . And getting into the
present is getting out of everything else. Be the pr esent, be
the space for what's going on. That was tip-top, what mor e
can I say .... And if we meet someone and they ask us, "Who
are you?" So we say their name, or their r ole, or something
like that. But when we ar e alone and we ask ourselves,
"Who am I?" Then ther e is awar eness and love. And you can
say, "I am the consciousness that loves!" "I am the loving
consciousness!" "I am loving consciousness!" "I am loving
consciousness!" OceanofPDF .com 
 
 
 
 
 
Thank you very much to you, Eckhart and Ram Dass! OceanofPDF .com 
 
 
 
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_OceanofPDF.com_Eckhart_Tolle_Ram_dass_Here_and_Now_-_Landry_Boyle.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        OceanofPDF. com 
Question: I'm going to start by asking Eckhart and R am
Dass about love as another wor d for "now. " Is it another
word for "now". Is it the dimension of feeling in the pr esent
moment. Eckhart, you speak so of ten of "silence"; that has
a diﬀer ent "ﬂavor" than love, at least in my e xperience. So,
love as the emotional dimension of the pr esent moment. -ECKHAR T TOLLE: I very rar ely use that wor d. Ther e are
some false beliefs ar ound love, because ther e are so many
diﬀer ent kinds of love. Sometimes it's har d to get away fr om
the idea that love is a for m of "wanting" in the sense of "I
want this. " And in Spanish, the common e xpression for "I
love you" also means "I want you" and this especially
applies to r omantic love: you want the other person. And I
don't know e xactly who said it: true love wants the best for
the other person; in r omantic love, you want the other
person. Diﬀer ent languages have diﬀer ent wor ds for love in
order to be able to distinguish between the emotional
"want" and the deeper aspects; "agape", "metta" and so on,
The Dalai Lama says: "My r eligion is kindness". He uses this
word, goodness. And these wor ds indicate something that is
within you, an essence fr om which you per ceive something
and you come into contact with the outer world, in a way
that is very diﬀer ent fr om the or dinary, mental,
conceptualized per ception of the sur rounding r eality,
including other people. The or dinary way of r elating for people who have not yet
awak ened to that deeper level within them, which I of ten
call "essence" or "identity of being. " The usual way is to
connect with other people thr ough mental concepts or
judgments. They become the veil that stands between
oneself and the per ception of r eality. And to awak en means
to free oneself fr om the constraint of continuous judgments,interpr etations, denominations and designations of what
surrounds us and the people we come into contact with. And
when this constraint of having to continually mentally name
everything, the conceptualized r eality, is r eleased - and it is
released when the pr esence awak ens - then one can feel in
everything one per ceives something lik e a kind of
recognition, whether it is a human being or another natural
being, a tr ee or an animal, one r ecognizes something in
front of oneself that was pr eviously unr ecognizable by
naming and designating. When one names and designates,
the other has always been the other. And wher e natur e is
then always been conceptualized. It is especially human beings who ar e conceptualized as
"the other". In the egoic state, the ego even emphasizes the
"diﬀer ence" of the "others" by continuously criticizing,
judging, having views and confusing each view with the
"truth"; each thought that comes in: "He is lik e that. She is
like that. That means ther e can be no love, although selﬁsh
beings sometimes talk about love or it says, "Y ou must love
your neighbor as yourself. " "I r eally try very har d. " And that
phrase of course comes fr om Jesus who said, "L ove your
neighbor as yourself" which actually means "r ecognize your
neighbor, that is, the other person, as yourself" and it's that
recognition, that feeling when you look at another person in
the immensity of the pr esent. I sometimes call it the
"formless" dimension; what you look at is the for m, what
you look at is the physical body and what you per ceive in
addition is the spiritual "for m", the psychological "for m" of
that person, and you go beyond the for m of the other
person when you feel by your own pr esence the pr esence of
the other person, which cannot be seen and which is the
essence of everything. We cur rently have a small dog and we hope he lives on; he
has a heart condition. If that dog dies - hopefully not very
quickly - everything that we ar e left with, the fur and what's
under the fur, the bones and the intestines and so on, the
essence is gone, the essence of that being is gone. But
when you look at a living dog, you can feel an essence of
being - of being in the other -, sometimes it's easier to feel
in animals than in humans, because in humans you have a
lot of mental identiﬁcations and you feel the being because
you feel your own being and it's the heart; even if I rar ely
use this wor d you can say : it is to feel with the heart; you
use the wor d mor e often, to per ceive with the heart means
to per ceive with the being so and then one feels the being
of the other and this r ecognition is the r ecognition of the
unity and it is the love. L ove is to feel that one shar es one's
consciousness with someone. What we ﬁnally love in the
other is consciousness; it is beautiful to touch the dog's coat
or the skin of another person, but what we ﬁnally love in the
other is something that we cannot per ceive with our senses,
that we cannot grasp with our head. And to per ceive
something in this space of love means at the same time to
be free from the constraint of mentalization and
conceptualization and, e xpressed "practically", it looks
something lik e this: I look at R am Dass without
conceptualization, if I conceptualize, I have a certain image
and I say, "Oh, that's that famous guru, he wr ote that book"
or whatever concept I may have about him; can I look at
him without any concept. And suddenly ther e is an
encounter in the silence. Because that's r eally what it is;
when you look at something without naming it, you see fr om
the silence. And I know that he (R am Dass) is alr eady in the
silence, and I invite everyone else her e right now to
perceive the totality of this space, the envir onment -
whatever it is that sur rounds us - without naming it but
simply per ceiving it fr om a place of attention to the silence. Be the space of silence. This only happens when you stopconceptualizing. And so love and silence ar e related to each
other, very closely, and the pr esent is of course part of it,
silence is the essence of the pr esent and that is how love is
born. It is our pr edestination to live this way; it is our
"normal" state of consciousness. And then, of course, the
whole world would be transfor med if enough people lived in
this "space. W e'll come back to that later, because basically
we're still pointing to the one essential truth: the truth about
who you ar e. - RAM DAS S: I would lik e to say that love is not an
emotion; rather, love is a kind of conversation between
souls, a conversation between souls, because this "I" that is
each individual her e is a soul and we ar e all one; they ar e
two diﬀer ent levels of consciousness. When one
individualized soul meets another individualized soul, one
soul r ecognizes the other soul. and. the ego has its r oots
in negative things while the soul has its r oots in love. That
is, when you ar e in your ego, you ar e afraid and separated
from all others. When a soul is separated fr om another soul
but they r ealize that they shar e a consciousness. If one
perceives with the soul, the other people appear as souls. Like for e xample when you go to a stor e, ther e are diﬀer ent
people playing diﬀer ent roles; ther e is the customer, and
the cashier. But I go into that stor e and I r ealize that they
are souls and they ar e only playing these r oles in this
incar nation. They have chosen these r oles only because of
their particular k arma. Is that wor d clear. yes. I think it is. Question : A question about this: not only do you very
rarely use the wor d "love" in your teaching, but you don't
use the wor d "soul" very of ten either. I hear you talk a lot
about how our conceptualized thinking separates us fr om
the ﬁeld of unity and being, but the idea of an individualized
soul. I'm curious if you can say anything about that, how
it ﬁts for you in that conte xt. - ECKHAR T TOLLE: I never decided not to use the wor d
"soul"; it just didn't appear; I never decided not to use the
word "soul"; it just didn't appear; lik ewise, I don't use "God"
much. soul. means to me, as R am Dass just said, that you
walk into a stor e or wher ever, you see all kinds of people,
diﬀer ent for ms, and it's wonderful to see the diversity of life
forms ar ound you without having to believe that the
fundamental r eality of each person you see or come incontact with is in their for m or in the r ole they play; they'r e
only temporary; but you can still enjoy the diversity of life
forms and even enjoy the r oles that people play. You can
only r eally enjoy it if you r ecognize the other at a deeper
level and if that r ecognition tak es place - and it can only
succeed if you r ecognize who you ar e beyond your own r ole
and for m - and that is consciousness, the light of
consciousness, the for mless. Consciousness has tak en a temporary for m and so the
universe generates billions, trillions, an inﬁnite number of
life for ms, even on this one planet, even in the one human
form. Every human being is diﬀer ent in some way, it's
amazing. But if you only see the diﬀer ences, you ar e
trapped at that level. One must be able to feel one's own
fundamental r eality as consciousness to be able to
appreciate the play of for ms. Because otherwise, not only
the play of for ms attracts us, but we ar e looking for
something in those for ms, the fulﬁllment, thr ough other
forms, other people; the ego again, which would lik e other
people to bring us fulﬁllment. Along with this device, ther e
is also the r ole. So if we ar e sitting; these ar e only
temporary for ms, this for m will soon go away, and sooner or
later all these for ms her e will have dissolved. Lik e soap
bubbles. And all that's lef t is the One that has e xpressed
itself in the many. And when one r ecognizes oneself as the
One, -and this happens when the ﬂow of thoughts stops-,
there is only an attentive pr esence, a vast, conscious,
formless pr esence. That is what one is - beyond for m - and
from ther e one can enjoy the play of for ms. If we ar e not ther e, the play of for ms is thr eatening. Or one
constantly tries to complete oneself by trying to r each
certain for ms. The play of for ms is never satisf ying until one
has touched the r oot of all satisfaction, that is, being itself,consciousness itself. The Buddha has alr eady taught us that
the unsatisfactory natur e of "things", -he said: wher ever one
ﬁnds oneself, one ﬁnds "duca"-suﬀering- no matter what
situation one is in, ther e is always a "crack" in everything. And of course, these wor ds of L eonar d Cohen: "Ther e is a
crack in everything, and that's how the light gets in". This
means that everything that goes "wr ong" her e in our
encounter is in fact beautiful, not being able to speak is for
example a possibility to be silent. It is to welcome what may
arise, while being in contact with what is unchanging, the
consciousness itself, to feel it, to feel it, in this moment, the
silent and attentive pr esence within. And is it an individual
presence or is it an impersonal pr esence. I don't think you
can r eally separate them; the sense of "I", which is the
formless consciousness, is at the same time the basis of
one's sense of identity, which is however confused with the
stories of the mind. But if we r eally dive deep: wher e does
this feeling of "I" come fr om. Not the "I" = my story or the "I
want" and the "I need" and the "I must have" etc. but the
deeper sense of being "I", the "I am"; "I am the way" said
Jesus and I think they lef t out one wor d: I am IS the way. And
the distinction between personal and impersonal no longer
really appears, because the essence of each individual's
identity beyond the for ms is consciousness itself and it is
the impersonal soul that e xpresses itself as an individual
person. so. that was the answer. I never wonder if I
will survive as that personal "self", no; I don't have the
sense of personhood because. The essence of who I am is
timeless, I know that. I don't need to know the details; what
will the essence of who I am, the timeless, do in the futur e. To me, it seems that you associate the individual soul and
the collective unity; you don't ﬁnd it important to mak e a
distinction between the two. No, because many of these things ar e just wor ds; Buddhism,
Hinduism; in Hinduism we have the atman; the inner God is
called atman; Buddhists say : no, ther e is no atman; ther e is
only emptiness. And they ar e both talking about the same
thing, because the atman is for mless. Emptiness" cansometimes be mor e useful, because one cannot believe in
it. The moment you say, "Ther e is an atman. " you begin to
believe in something; you have another spiritual concept. And the buddah made it very diﬃcult for people to believe
in what he was imparting; very diﬃcult, because they could
not say, "W e believe in emptiness. " Maybe they do in
Buddhist monasteries, but actually it shouldn't be e xpressed
that way, it should be r ecognized, and the moment it is
recognized, it is clear : atman and emptiness ar e the same
thing. L'.
Yes, Eckhart Tolle rarely uses the word "love" in his teachings.
According to Eckhart Tolle, does he rarely use the word "love" in his teachings?
Ram Dass believes that the individual soul and the collective unity are not separate entities, and that it is possible to transcend the ego and see the interconnectedness of all beings.
How does Ram Dass view the concept of an individualized soul?
Eckhart Tolle does not advise using psychedelic substances, but he does not judge those who do.
Does Eckhart Tolle believe that one should not use psychedelic substances?
According to Eckhart Tolle, love is not an emotion, but rather a state of being that arises from the recognition of the interconnectedness of all beings in the present moment.
What is the relationship between love and the present moment, according to Eckhart Tolle?
Eckhart Tolle believes that the "I" or ego is a temporary, illusory concept that must be transcended in order to access the true nature of the self.
How does Eckhart Tolle define the concept of "I"?