Transcription
No matter what your life circumstances are, the message is: wake up.
[Music]
I'm Dave Rubin, and joining me on The Rubin Report today is the internationally best-selling author of *The Power of Now*, which has sold 12 million copies worldwide since it was first published with translations into 52 languages. Along with his most recent book, *A New Earth*, which has already sold over 15 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 50 languages. Eckhart Tolle, welcome to The Rubin Report.
Thank you. I am truly thrilled to have you here, and I suspect this is going to be an interview like no other that I've done. Do you have a preference for what language? Since you've been translated into basically every living language on Earth, is English going to be okay for the purposes of this?
I'll be happy with English. I wrote it in English. I do give talks sometimes in German and Spanish, but before I do that, I always prepare myself in a region of German and Spanish translations of the book.
Yeah, well, all right. We'll go with English, at least for the beginning portion of this. So, the way that you end up here, because I think people are going to go, "Whoa, this is a little different than what's going on in Dave's Garage usually." You came here by way of seeing an interview that I did with my friend, my mentor, and really the guy that I think is the best interviewer of all time, Larry King. I thought that would be an interesting way of starting, because that, I think, is how you got introduced to me.
Yes, I've also been a fan of Larry King for many years, and I happened to come across your interview with him on YouTube. And I was very impressed not only by you as an interviewer because you have that openness that many interviewers lack, and that, of course, Larry King also has. And I was very impressed by some of the things that Larry actually said about how he conducts his interviews. He always comes from a place of curiosity, from a place of not knowing, from a place of wanting to find out the interviewee's perspective. And most interviewers, of course, come from a they have a mental position that they seek to protect, or they are trying to prevail with their mental possessions. They're not really interested in what the interviewee has to say.
So, after seeing that interview, oh, I believe during the interview with Larry King, I actually mentioned he interviewed me a few weeks after.
Right, right. I watched that interview, and that was another coincidence. And when Larry King interviewed me, I mentioned having seen your interview with him. And then our makeup artist connected us because she works for Larry as well as for you.
Yeah. And here we are.
And here we are. All right. Well, I guess a good way to start for the few people watching that don't know you, can you just tell me a little bit about your background? And until you were 29 years old, spirituality actually wasn't wasn't your thing. People are so associative of that with you, but can you just tell a little bit about growing up?
Yes, I grew up in Germany until the age of 15. At 15, I left school. I just couldn't stand it anymore, so I refused to go to school. My parents had gotten a divorce, my dad had moved to Spain, and my mom didn't know what to do with me. I was just hanging around at home, didn't want to go to school anymore. So I was saying to live with my dad in Spain, where I lived for four years, until the age of 19, without going to school. My dad was always a very unconventional person, and he asked me, "Do you want to go to school?" I said, "No." Then he said, "Well, then don't."
Wow. So what were you doing?
I pursued my own interests. I read some, which started reading the literature, of course, learning Spanish, learning English. I loved languages. I loved reading. I loved literature. At 16, I started working part-time as a translator of restaurant menus, and then I became a tour guide. I was 17, I became a tour guide for taking people around from cruise ships around the Spanish town where we lived. And then at 19, I moved to England to work in England. I was immediately, I immediately felt at home. I have to feel some deep connection with England. And I worked in England for four years full-time and became more interested in intellectual things. So I took all the necessary exams that were required to get into university. They're called, well, at the time they were called O-levels and A-levels and so on. So I took those exams, and finally, I got a scholarship to get into the London University, where I studied modern languages and literature.
And so that's the external story. On the inside, I experienced increasingly periods of terrible anxiety and depression, even by the while I was working and while I was a student.
Can you describe what that was like?
Yes, it was an inability to stop my mind. My mind was continuously racing along and creating scenarios of where I failed, where I lost even the little that I had. It went a lot into the past, to where I felt ashamed about things that happened in the past. But not only that, there was a deeper existential fear and an existential anguish. It's hard to describe. It is a kind of alienation from the world. Alienation is probably the best word, where everything that you come into contact with feels strange and alien, or disconnected from everything and everybody. And that is something that I believe many people these days suffer from, although it has also existed. It has happened to isolated individuals in the past.
If you want to read about that state, I recommend in the Old Testament, there is the Book of Ecclesiastes, which starts with a famous phrase, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." But what it really means, if you use the modern term, I would translate it as, "Everything is so effing pointless. What's the point of it all?" So that to be deeply affected by the seeming meaninglessness of life around you. So I remember when I went into a department store in London, or walked along the streets, it seemed so, so absurd that people were buying all these things and then going out with their shopping bags full of stuff. Everything seemed so absurd and meaningless. They're almost producing a kind of nausea. And that nausea is actually a novel by Jean-Paul Sartre, where he describes that state. So that's exactly how it is. It is described in various places in world literature, too. For example, in *Anna Karenina*, at the end of the book, just before she commits suicide, the whole story describes how she sees the world just before how she commits suicide, and everything is just, every human being she sees is despicable and dreadful, and it's total disconnection from the world around her. So that is the existential anguish that I also experienced quite frequently.
Did you have a sort of rock bottom moment with that? Was there a specific moment that then started your turnaround?
Yes. So I would often wake up in the middle of the night in a state of panic or fear, and almost feeling breathless. And one night, I woke up again at 3:00 in the morning, and my mind was racing along. And then a strange thought came into my mind that said, "I can't live with myself any longer. I can't live with myself any longer." And after thinking that thought, there was a kind of subtle shift that occurred. I was standing back from that thought, so to speak, and I thought, "What a strange thought. You think I can't live with myself? Am I one, or am I two? Who is that self that I cannot live with, and who am I?" So a kind of inner separation occurred, and I felt like of disappearing into a kind of void. And the next morning, I woke up and I felt incredibly peaceful for some reason. I didn't understand why. It took me several years to understand why.
From that point onward, there was always, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the background, a sense of inner peace, no matter what my outer circumstances were. But now I can actually explain what happened that night. There was a disidentification in my consciousness from the stream of compulsive and incessant thinking that most people have absolutely no control over. People say, "I think," but that is usually not the case, because thinking happens to them. They have no control over it. So it is actually wrong to say, "I think." It would be the same as you were saying, "I'm beating my heart." You're not beating your heart. It's done for you. It happens to you.
Yeah. So there was this, what I now call the voice in the head, that I was completely identified with. So I was completely identified with the stream of thinking that, which is quite normal for many people. And a lot of that stream of thinking was of a negative nature. So I did not experience the reality around me except through the veil of negative self-talk, the veil, the mental veil of negative labeling and interpretations. And my whole, what I consider to be my life, I hadn't realized until I disidentified, what I took to be my life was a narrative in my mind. And it consisted of certain things from the past that I identified with, things that had happened to me. It was a bundle of thoughts that recurred continuously that gave me my sense of self. And it was an unhappy sense of self. It was a narrative-based sense of self.
And that night, I stood back from this narrative, which is fueled by continuous thinking. I stood back, and I realized for the first time a dimension of consciousness within myself that was deeper, one could also say higher, depends how you want to look at it, deeper than thinking. Now, this dimension of consciousness that's deeper than thinking, I now call it awareness, or sometimes call it presence. And that exists in every human being, but most humans are not aware of it at all. They don't know that there is a deeper dimension of consciousness in them. And that dimension transcends thinking. You experience it when the mind becomes still for a moment. This is what people want to achieve, for example, when they meditate. It can also happen to you when you're engaged in a dangerous activity like mountain climbing. Then you cannot be involved in thinking. You have to kill conceptual thinking stops, but you do not lose consciousness. So the important thing is there is a state of consciousness possible in humans where you are fully conscious without the activity of conceptual thinking. That's also the essence, for example, of Zen. And I would suggest that it's actually the essence of all spirituality is to find that state of consciousness in yourself where you can be alert and aware, but there's no conceptualization in my mind. It doesn't mean it stays like that for a long time. You then go back into thinking. But if you're able to access the dimension in yourself, you are no longer possessed by your thinking mind. You are no longer used by your thinking mind. You are actually able to use your mind instead of being used by your mind.
As long as you are used by your mind, all your mental activity is a reflection of the conditioning that has happened to you. So you take on the conditioning from a personal, on a personal level, from school, parental background, and so on. That conditions the way that you think. Then you have the collective conditioning around you. You take on the conditioning of the culture that you inhabit that's around you. If you watch the media every day, then you take on those viewpoints, and you think they are your thoughts. They are not your thoughts. You take these thoughts on from the outside, and they become part of your identity.
So identity is a key word, because identity, everybody is extremely interested in finding their identity. One could say that after after meeting the needs of food and shelter, almost immediately after that comes the search for an identity, which already starts with a child. When the child has a toy that feels it belongs to me, it's my toy. Somebody takes it away, there's great suffering in the child. It cries because the child began to identify with something and called it mine. And that's only the beginning, of course.
So please, well, there's so many, there's so many things there that I want to jump into. So, well, I guess first, we are going to get to some of the techniques that you use, and that many other people use, to to attain this sort of level of peace and separation from that, that sort of endless stream. But do you think that most people, whether they're conscious of it or not, are just all day long just sort of spinning like a top out of control, where they they bounce in and out of this at all times? So you might do all sorts of things during the day that are distractions, and you can get upset about politics, or do drugs, or waste time with this or that. But then we all have that voice in us that sort of knows more of the right way to do things, or more of a peaceful way to do things. But we but we don't have any way to really, I don't know, is control the right word? I don't know if control is the right word, but we don't have any way to really ascertain what's really happening.
Yes. Unless you're completely neurotic, or even clinically insane, you probably have some access. I'm not talking to you in standard terms. You can diagnose me at the end. If you're not, if you're not continuously in a state of confusion or anxiety or depression, if you're not, if you occasionally feel okay, you feel occasionally happy, you probably have some access to that dimension in yourself without knowing it, without recognizing it. So there are actually, we could describe this as moments in your daily life, brief moments when you're actually not thinking. But they're very, they tend to be for most people very brief, but they are very significant. These are moments perhaps you are looking at something, and you're looking, you might be looking at a tree or flower or the sky, and for a moment, there's three seconds when you take this in completely. Often it's something natural that you're looking at, and you're looking at the sky, and perhaps for the first three or four seconds you are looking at it, you feel a sense of inner expansion, almost like coming to a to a rest. And then perhaps after four, five, six seconds, the mind comes in and interprets what you have just seen.
I also find that people find enter that state without knowing it when they relate to pets or to animals. When you meet a dog, you look into the eyes of the dog. Now, the dog is a conscious being, but the dog has no conceptual thinking. So when you look into the eyes of the dog, you instinctively realize that the dog is not judging you in any way because they don't get no concepts by which to judge you. So you feel kind of, when you look into the eyes of the dog, you feel a moment of liberation from your from your conceptual self, because there you have a being who has no conceptual self. So you're able to feel, so to speak, the beingness, the being of the dog. And that's, and in that moment, you're not thinking. A few seconds of inner spaciousness, and then you, it feels good to be with this animal. I call dogs guardians of being.
And so another one is, look into the eyes of a one-year-old baby. When this baby is looking back at you, and this baby has not yet arrived at conceptualization, but there is obviously a luminous consciousness there. And the eyes of the baby can be just amazing when the baby looks at you like this, and you feel, "Wow, this touches me deeply." In that moment, you are free of conceptual thinking because the baby is not thinking conceptually, and you're connecting with this beautiful being at a deeper level. So there are moments when you are naturally free of the stream of thinking, and those are the most worthwhile moments in your life. Ultimately, it could happen also when you're out in nature, you're hiking, or you're doing some physical activity, and you're not thinking very much. You're taking in the world that surrounds you, the essential sensory perception, you're taking everything in, you're completely present. Where you're in the forest, or on the mountain, on the beach, you're completely present, and suddenly you feel so peaceful. Why do you feel so peaceful? Do you feel so peaceful because you are out in nature? Well, indirectly, yes. But the real reason why you feel so peaceful is that in that moment, you are conscious and consciously perceiving, but not thinking.
Do you think, do you think one way to describe it in sort of simplistic terms would be that when you're doing sort of what you're supposed to be doing, that you can lock into that kind of thinking? Because I can give you two quick examples for myself. I've had a few moments in the hundreds of interviews that I've done where there's something where I can lock eyes with someone, and we are so right here, doing exactly where we're supposed to be doing what we're supposed to be doing, that actually some of the background almost gets a little bit blurry. I can, I can feel, I mean, I can feel a little bit of it right now, actually. There's, and you can't, you can't hold it, it just, it comes and goes. And all those things. So I've had it in this very room. And then the other time that I think I've had it was when I was doing stand-up, and there was one particular night where I was killing. I mean, I had the room in my hand. And I remember seeing myself from behind myself. It was actually, I could actually see the back of myself. And I don't even remember what I was saying, but it almost was like slow motion. It was like, "Yes, this is what I was supposed to be doing." Exactly. Is that, is that can happen when you are engaged in an activity, and sadly, you're guided by an intelligence that is greater than collected information that you have in your minds? Now, that intelligence that is, I call it the unconditioned consciousness, whereas the mind is the conditioned consciousness. That intelligence can use your mind, and then your mind becomes a creative tool. So, and then you can be spontaneous in, for example, in your presentation. When you're on stage, and you will come up with things that you could never have thought of. If they, they come because you're connected with a deeper level of consciousness within yourself. And that ultimately is with the way to live. As much as nobody is connected 100% of the time with that, but to be connected with that when you're engaged in your, whatever your main activity is, that's an act of grace if you're able to do that. And then you are empowered. Whatever you do is empowered by something much greater than yourself.
And what is that? It is, I say, you have access to what I call, it sounds perhaps a little bit mystical, universal intelligence, of which the human mind is only one expression. There are countless expressions of universal intelligence. And all the spiritual, all the ancient spiritual teachings, they actually point that way.
May I, if you don't mind, if I may interpret some, interpret something that Jesus said? Because I believe it is actually exactly the same thing. Jesus often talks about the Kingdom of Heaven. Interesting expression. And there's a line which I opened the Bible the other day, and I saw the line that Jesus went from village to village and from town to town and said, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." And the whole thing is already contained there. Repent means it's a mistranslation. Repentance, the original Greek is *metanoia*, which means a turnaround, a shift, a complete shift. So the repentance. So people think of it as apologize or something like that.
Yes, beat yourself up. "I'm such a miserable sinner." That's not that's a missing, it's a misinterpretation of repentance. It started when it was translated into Latin, into Latin *poenitentia*, which was already wrong. And now we have *metanoia* as repentance. No, a complete reverse, a complete turnaround. In other words, a shift in consciousness. Repent. Now, what does he mean by the Kingdom of Heaven? No, Christians traditionally believe it's something that's going to come. They believe they completely overlooked when they asked Jesus, when, when does the Kingdom of Heaven come? He said, "The Kingdom of Heaven does not come with observation." In another translation, it says, "The Kingdom of Heaven does not come with signs to be perceived. You cannot say it's over here or it's over there, for the Kingdom of Heaven is within you." No, what is that thing that's within you where you can never say it's there or it's there? I re-translate Kingdom of Heaven into modern terminology. For Kingdom, I would substitute dimension. And Heaven, what is heaven? When you look up into heaven, you see the vast sky, the spaciousness of the sky. He used that analogy to point us to an inner reality. He used, because language usually refers to external things that you can see and touch. So the closest that Jesus could find in the external world to point to something in the inner realm was to look at the vast spaciousness of the sky, which in itself has no particular form, but is amazing. And he said, "The Kingdom of Heaven then is heaven." My translation is spaciousness, inner spaciousness, which is the uncluttered mind, consciousness without conceptual, without thought. It's inner alert stillness. The dimension of spaciousness. Find the dimension of that's the primordial teaching in Jesus. Find that within yourself. Find the Kingdom of Heaven, find the dimension of inner spaciousness where you're able to be alert and still, completely conscious, but not thinking. And that's the essence of Jesus' teaching. To find that. When you find that, then you write, when you relate to other human beings, you can sense the same dimension in the other human. Although they have a personality, which is a conditioned self, but underneath, so to speak, the personality, there is a deeper being. And the deeper being is their unconditioned consciousness. But it's not consciousness is not a personal thing. So when I look at you, first thing I would see is your personality, and of course, the physical body and the personality, whatever makes up your personality. But if I look more deeply, and not just look, but actually sense your presence, I know that beyond your personality, there is an essence in you that is one with the essence in me. And one could describe it as consciousness itself. The essence of who you are, the essence of who I am, is consciousness. When I recognize that consciousness, the same consciousness that in me, this consciousness beyond the conditioned itself, recognizes the consciousness in you, that which is beyond your conditioned self. And that recognition is what Jesus called love. And therefore, he said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." But that, as a separate statement, it doesn't work. But when you put it together with Kingdom of Heaven, that then it reads, "Find the Kingdom of Heaven within you, the dimension of spaciousness. Then you will recognize your neighbor, which is anybody that you are with, that you will recognize him or her as yourself." And this recognition that in essence you are one, that you are deeply, deeply connected, that you share the one consciousness. When you recognize them in the other, then you have suddenly an outflow of benevolence and goodwill and love, not the ego love, but true love towards the, which in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, *agape*, spiritual love for another human being. You can sense their very beings. So, and that's the whole secret of the, of, of all spirituality. It's in Jesus, in the teaching of Jesus.
Um, it is so, the, our purpose here, beyond the personal purposes that we have, everybody has their personal purpose, the work you do, whatever it is. There's a deeper purpose that the personal purpose must be aligned with. And that deeper purpose is to live from that deeper place. The way I interpret, you know, in the English language doesn't have a word that describes both men and women. The German language has *Mensch*, which is also used in Yiddish. To the Germans, it means both man or woman. For a long time, I regretted that the English language doesn't have a word for human. You have to say "human being." But now I'm happy that I have to say "human being" because that describes exactly the two dimensions. The human is the conditioned self. It's a personality, your historical person, which comes from the past, based on past who you are as a person. That includes your physical body and your psychological self. I call that sometimes your form identity. There's a physical form and there's a psychological form of you. That's the human. And then there's a being. The being is the deeper self that is consciousness, unconditioned. And no human life is fulfilled unless the human has at least some access to this dimension within them. That really is the ultimate purpose. To at least, maybe not complete access, but at least you have glimpses of that which transcends the self. To have glimpses of self-transcendence in your life. If you, no matter how successful you are in this world, if you have never had even a glimpse of self-transcendence, then your life is pretty purposeless, and it's very unlikely that you will be a happy human being.
Is the ultimate paradox with all of this that it's almost impossible to hold on to? So even someone that has spent their life trying to attain that state, that you can't, you, to function as a human, maybe not as a human being, but just as a human, it would be almost impossible to constantly be in that state in a world that doesn't exist in that state.
Yes, not constantly, but it is possible to, to, to not just have that when you are perhaps, let's say, engaged in spiritual practice, or you're meditating, or when you're out in nature. And it's unhappy moments out in nature. It is our task to, as much as possible, incorporate that deeper level of consciousness into our daily life. Even if we don't succeed all the time, that's fine. That's part of the practice.
So one could say then, our purpose in our daily life, beyond the personal purpose, which is also important because we need to honor who we are as a person, too. And we need to honor our identity as a person because, no doubtedly, that exists. And whatever it is that makes up your identity, whether it's mostly your personal kind, whether you identify with a certain collective around you, it could be your religion, it could be whatever it might be, or the culture that you grow up in, that has its place. There's nothing wrong with it. But if that is all you know about yourself, that's very limiting. So you honor it, but there's more to you than that. And that's why the ancient Greeks said, starting from Pythagoras, 500 BC, "Know thyself." The most, perhaps the most important dictum in ancient Greek philosophy, which was carved, carved on the walls of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, "Know thyself." Very deep saying. Know who you are in your essence. So because you have the form identity, which is a personality form, and you have, as I call it, an essence identity. And so to know yourself at this essence is called in, in Indian, some, in some Indian spiritual philosophy, is called self-realization. So you know. And then the practice becomes in daily life to, as much as possible, live from that dimension.
For example, another countless examples one could give. Some very simple things like I recommend, for example, whenever you are waiting for something at the elevator, or you're in the elevator, or you're waiting for a phone call, or you're waiting in line somewhere at the airport, you're waiting. There's quite a bit of time we spend waiting at traffic lights, in waiting. Now, these days, mostly people get out their phone when they're waiting because this means there's a, the contingent continuously your mind is being cluttered more and more. I call it clutter. Clutter is useless information. They get, often they get out their phone. They don't know why they get out their phone because somebody next to them is getting out their phone. And then they start switching around. There's a, there would be a moment whenever you're waiting, an opportunity to in that moment to declutter your mind and create a little bit of inner spaciousness, the Kingdom of Heaven, the dimension of spaciousness. For example, this is very ancient and very simple method. By becoming aware that you are breathing, you're becoming, I call it, it's a mini-meditation. One conscious breath, which is the embrace, and you follow the breath with your attention. You feel it, the air moving into the body, you might even feel it into your evening, into your abdomen, the energy, and then you breathe out. One. And what does that do? Why is it so important? When you're aware of your breathing, you take attention away from thinking. You cannot be completely aware of your breathing and think at the same time. You can either think or be aware of your breathing. So that's a quick way of having a little bit of spaciousness in your life. One conscious breath, maybe two conscious breaths. Everybody has time for one or two conscious breaths from time to time during the day. Nobody is so busy that this guy cannot take six, seven, or eight seconds for the mind might tell you, "No, I have too much to do." It's a lie. Don't believe every thought that comes into your head. And then you create spaciousness. The more spaciousness you create, the more effective your thinking will be when you start thinking again, because then thinking can link into this creative intelligence that is the unconditioned intelligence in you. And then it can be inspired by that. I would suggest every creative person who creates something really new had some access to that dimension in the area of their creative endeavor. Probably not in the rest of their lives. They may be quite as crazy as everybody else in the rest of their lives, right? But when they engage in their act of creation, they have access to their dimension. And that's, this is once you, you touch this power within you, which is not egoic power, it's not power over somebody else, it's primordial, the power of life itself. When you can sense that within yourself, that becomes the basis for your sense of who you are, and no longer the story in your mind. And that's the shift. So you become free of identity, having to completely identify with your past, derive your consensus who you are from your historical past, which is most people's past is just a very mixed bag, and there's a lot of it that you may not like. Instead of that, your sense of who you are comes from a deeper place. And that resolves all questions of what people are concerned with, self-esteem, self-confidence. People go to therapists to build up their self-esteem because there's no kind of. But once you touch that level of consciousness within yourself, self-esteem comes from there. But it's not comparative anymore. Then you can sense the power that dwells within you, and you don't need to compare yourself to somebody else and say, "I'm powerful because I have more than this person." You know, in essence, every human has that, but most of them don't know it. But it's there as a seed, one could say, in every human being. It's just, it's all wonderful.
This realization, where does, where does past guilt, which I think you're sort of referencing, I just fit into this? Because we mentioned right before we started that I've been on tour with Jordan Peterson, and during the Q&A's, I see so many people that will say to him, "You know, I just read your book, and I'm applying the 12 Rules for Life, and my life is better, my relationships better, I'm not doing drugs, whatever, whatever it may be. I've mended relationships, etc., etc." But they have trouble getting over some sort of past guilt. And I think what you're describing here is the first step in getting away from that. But I think a lot of people think it's something that you can do like this, right? But but it's not.
No, you need to recognize where it comes from, how it arises in you. Of course, guilt is related to grievance. When it refers to another person, it's a grievance. You have a resentment or a grievance towards another person. When it refers to yourself, then it's called guilt. But it always refers to something that was, that either you did to somebody that you now recognize as bad in some way, not ethical. You did something perhaps when you were younger, perhaps you brought up your children in a way that you now recognize as dysfunctional in some ways, or you injured somebody, or you inflicted suffering on somebody, whether it's emotional suffering, mental suffering, even physical suffering. In extreme cases, you might even have killed somebody in very extreme cases, and that brings about guilt. Now, guilt is something that you did that you now recognize as bad. This becomes a thought form in your head and becomes incorporated into your sense of self. What you don't realize is you did something because you didn't, your consciousness, your level of consciousness at that time, manifested that kind of behavior. No human being can manifest behavior that's beyond their level of consciousness. So if you inflicted harm on somebody, the ego tends to then make it into an identity for yourself, and that brings about guilt. When you see the my, that this is your essential self is guilty, that can be a huge ego boost. There can also be a huge ego boost to declare somebody else as guilty, and somebody who did something to me. So people carry a grievance or resentment sometimes for many, many years. And then again, what they are doing is they're transforming somebody's, I call it unconscious behavior. When you inflict suffering on another human being, except of course self-defense or whatever, but you inflict suffering on any life form or a human being, you do it. It's unconscious. You, as Jesus is supposed to have said on the cross, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." Translate it into modern terminology is, "They are unconscious. They know not what they do." So people do all kinds of things sometimes in states after they've taken drugs, they become even more unconscious, or they've consumed alcohol, they become makes you more unconscious, even with the not more unconscious than normal unconsciousness. By unconscious, by the way, and perhaps need to explain what I mean by unconscious, which is in spiritual terms. In conventional usage, unconscious means obviously you're right, lost consciousness. But in spiritual terms, unconscious means you are at the mercy of the conditioning of your mind and your emotions. The ways in which your emotions have been conditioned, you are being run by that conditioning. There's no way that this human being has any awareness of their conditioning. There's no awareness whatsoever. And the human being who has zero awareness, perhaps not throughout their lives, in moments when they are very unconscious, they get triggered by something, as I said, they take drugs, whatever, they become zero awareness, and then they do what they do. Later, you look back on that, and then you erroneously incorporate that time of your life when you, you weren't even there. You were run by an automatic program in your mind and in your emotional field. You weren't even there. But the ego will transform it into an identity and says, "I, I did this. This is no part of who I am." Or it will do to somebody else. There was a long time when I had resentment towards my father, because my father was pretty unconscious. Except very late in life, I had a very strong ego. And living with him as a child was living with an unexploded bomb that could go off at any moment. Without these intense rages would suddenly come several times a week. So I lived in a constant state of kind of a background anxiety. But when is this bomb going to explode again next? And then for a long time, it was in my 20s, I had a resentment towards him until I went to the shift in consciousness. And I suddenly realized, he, he did what he had to do, but there wasn't enough awareness in him to act any different. So he was at the mercy of his own conditioning. And once you see that, you no longer make it into an identity for him. And so you free him. And really, perhaps this is the meaning of forgiveness. You can forgive yourself by not making unconscious behavior in your past into an identity for yourself, or for somebody else.
Now, a question may arise, this is an interesting point. Now, does that mean people are not really responsible for what they do? So that's, that's an interesting question. In ultimate terms, it can say it is true, they are not responsible for what they do. But they will have to suffer the consequences of their unconsciousness. Because we humans are meant to become more conscious here. And one of the ways, or even one of the, perhaps the main way, in which a very unconscious human evolves eventually, or potentially, is by suffering the consequences of their unconsciousness. And sometimes the consciousness might be, they have to go to prison. It doesn't. So, but it does. Even if you meet a prisoner, it's important. If they did something in the past, let's say they killed somebody in the past, of course, they have to suffer the consequences and consciousness. But when you meet a human being like that, you can still, you may be able to to sense that there's more to this human being than this this unconscious person.
So, how does that play into your perspective on free will then?
Free will ultimately does not come in until there's some awareness in you. That's where free will comes from. Until you have some awareness, you are run by the conditioning of your mind. And so you have no choice. The element of choice comes in when you become aware, for example, of the thoughts that go through your head. And you might realize suddenly, and for some people, that's the first time they awaken spiritually, when they realize, "For 20 years, I've had a voice in my head talking to me." Which could be a monologue, it could be a dialogue. You could have a conversation with yourself. You can, you can beat yourself up and say, "Why, why, you're no good enough, aren't you?" And then another part of yourself is, "Well, well, I'm doing my best. I just, I can't, I can't do it. I'm not, I'm not good enough." The voice in the head. For some people, the spiritual awakening comes when they become aware that there's a voice in the head, and there's the awareness. Right at the moment, that's the awareness. You might even be able to choose to let go of a certain thought, a repetitive thought that you don't need anymore, that you don't want anymore, and then you surrender it, or you breathe it out. You don't need it. You recognize an emotion. Sometimes people, and they grip of strong emotions, but if there's a little bit of awareness there, if, let's say, it's anger, you're suddenly anger arises, but in the background, you're aware that there's an emotion of anger. So there's a small element of choice that comes in. Do you want to then attack this person? If there's awareness, you can observe the anger, but may no longer need to act it out. I'm not talking about suppressing, but recognizing. The more awareness you have, or presence, the more choices in your life. And then it's only then that you actually become truly intelligent. Because this awareness is not an IQ thing. The way you can have, I've met highly intelligent people with one or two or three PhDs, academics and others, who are completely unconscious, completely unaware, still just completely in their minds, and in their personal lives, often very dysfunctional personal lives. So it's not to be equated with intelligence, this awareness. It's a, what do you make of that life, actually? So if there's someone that exists in that state all the time, but then becomes a, you know, a world-changing scientist or mathematician or or athlete, or whatever it takes, they have to stay in that, whether it's consciously or not, they have to stay in that mode of thinking.
Well, it can be a very extremely unbalanced life. And no matter how intelligent they are, even people who have, there are some people who are very creative in one area, but the rest of their lives is completely unbalanced. And then some people are almost destroyed by the, by the lack of balance in their lives. Like famous people, like even some famous pop artists who were quite creative in the way that Michael Jackson, for example, as a person, he's just, I mean, he's passed away now, but I remember seeing him in an interview as a person, he's just a little, he's got much to say. And he said, "Teamwork." Oh, no. But the moment he moves, he makes a dance movement, or just a power flows through him. And I saw that. But this, the important thing is this, that this creative intelligence needs to come into the rest of your life. Needs to become a work of art, a creative work of art, not just a little area in your life. So what the world needs is actually not more intelligence. It doesn't need more knowledge. I mean, we're just, we're drowning in facts and information that we don't need more of that. To use an old-fashioned word, what the world needs is wisdom. Wisdom is inseparable from awareness. It arises out of awareness. Without wisdom, you're torn. You may be identified with the polarities of life.
Perhaps worth mentioning here, you know, the ancient Yin and Yang, Chinese way of looking at the world. There's the Yin is the feminine principle, and the Yang is the masculine principle. So these polarities are everywhere in life. This is a very, the Western mind is a very strange way of looking at things. But the Chinese philosophy, ancient Chinese philosophy, says this play of the world is a manifestation of the play between Yin and Yang, the feminine, masculine principles. You may remember the symbol of Yin and Yang, the birth. And here too, you can be, you can be in the grip of a particular energy movement without awareness. You can get into the grip of Yang, and then you would become quite destructive if you go to an extreme. A country can be in the grip of Yang energy, like Germany was, Russia, China. Any country where there's dictatorship is in the grip of an extreme grip of Yang. Traditionally, society in at least in the West has been dominated by the Yang energy with occasional interludes of Yin in between, but relatively insignificant. For example, the Romantic Movement in the 19th century in art and literature coming in, but not for too long. So would you put the Enlightenment?
Enlightenment, there was a bit of Yin coming in. Yes, yes. But the first half of the 20th century was an extreme manifestation of Yang. The world wars, the genocide in Germany, in Russia, China, Cambodia, and other places. Unconscious. Then the world, the Western world, especially experienced as a reaction to the extreme Yang, influx of Yin. It started in the 60s, actually, a very strong influx of Yin. And with that came the women's movement, and all those things. More empathy towards other human beings came in. Also an openness to spirituality, more instead of the rigid patterns of institutionalized religion, there was an openness towards the influx also of Eastern spirituality coming into the West. There was an empathy towards this is where the empathy towards the disadvantaged humans came from, an empathy to the suffering of people who are physically disabled, be mentally disabled, or the so-called marginalized. All those things. This is a wonderful thing. You could sense their suffering. More empathy came up. And this was a great thing. It's a necessary thing. Education changed completely from being dominated by the Yang energy, disciplined and Yang. And now education became more and more permissive. "Do your own thing." It became so permissive that eventually there was no structure anymore. It was all. And schools became chaotic. And family, in many families, became totally chaotic. And so, and the wonderful empathy towards other human beings turned into political correctness quickly. The world was moving towards an extreme of Yin. And to counterbalance, but there was no awareness.
People first were in the grip of the young movement and identified with that as a collective. And now a significant portion of Western Civilization, not all, but the significant portion of the population is in the grip of a yin movement. And it's not stopping. It's going to an extreme. But something that it was initially good and necessary, yeah, now trans. Anything that goes to an extreme becomes destructive. And another ancient saying in Greek philosophy is nothing in excess, nothing in excess.
So now the collective is, is in the grip. Not all of it, but they gave them part. The especially the, the mass of the media, universities, and so on, are strongly in the group of yen. Germany is an interesting example. They like to go to extremes. They were an extreme of young, they became the most aggressive country in Europe. And now they're going into an extreme of Yin. They are the most compassionate country in Europe, except Sweden. The most, they open their borders completely. So at least we want to help you. This is, this is consists of two things. There is the compassion that arises when Yin comes in. There's another element that needs to be mentioned, yes. There's also guilt, which replaces its part too. It's a combination of, of guilt and Yin energy.
So Yin is symbolized as this, this is Yin, receptive, open. This is Yang. You can see Yang is this masculine, the thrusting principle. It's almost a sexual Yang. So Yang says, let's close the borders. On extreme form of Yang says, let's expand our country and then close the borders. Let's attack the neighboring countries, and then we'll be even bigger. The extreme of Yin says, no borders at all. In American book, and this, it, it feels so good to be able to say, how can we deny human beings who want a better life? How can we deny it? It feels so wonderful to say that. SpongeBob's lacking his wisdom. Compassion is there, and it's wonderful. So you have Yin and Yang. What's missing is they need to be, instead of two polarities, so you need to be a triangle. At the apex of the triangle, you need to have awareness. If there's enough awareness, then you don't need to go to an extreme of either Yin or Yang.
You know, it's so interesting because I wasn't really planning on doing anything sort of political with you. But actually, I think in the last few minutes, you've given me as good political analysis to sort of where we are. So without getting into the, the nitty-gritty of politics, if your premise is basically right, and this is why I always say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The people that I'm frustrated with right now, that you're describing as Yin, I don't believe they're evil people. There can be, there can be bad actors within that, let's say, or people that aren't acting and they're conscious. But I don't believe that the bulk of them are. But if we're act, if we're right now, we're caught between this, how, how does the good, decent person that I think most people are, that can check in and out of their higher self and all of those things, but that want a decent world, how do we, how do we help these sides to get to that place?
Well, first, you have to be careful with yourself so that you don't do not get drawn to either one or the other extreme. Because now the reactive mode of going too fine to Yin would be to go too far into Yang. And so a society, it goes totally into again, would produce fascism again. That's the danger. So the individual needs to be aware that they don't go into reactivity, so that you remain aware, so you don't contribute to the polarization in the world. So what, what you contribute, whether it's on the social media or in person, when you speak to somebody, or you write something, be careful that you do not confuse also somebody's mental emotional position, which may be mother there or there, with who they are. And then regard them as an enemy. The ego field strengthened the more enemies it can have, the stronger it feels. There's always the tendency, the unconscious ego, to make others into enemies. So it's, we need to develop enough awareness to be able to conduct a conversation with another human being without regarding the other, who might hold very, very different mental positions, as an enemy.
I was very happy to see recently, having to see an interview on YouTube with a guy who has come quite a long way. Russell Brand has come a long way with it. He's doing great thanks. Now, if anybody who hasn't seen him for a long time should see him again. He met with Candice Owens. Oh, I saw it. I saw it. And they, it's actually pretty incredible. They had an interview. He's on the left, she's on the right. They were in many ways opposing, opposite viewpoints, respected each other as human beings without making the other into an enemy. That is a wonderful. If they can do it, but can other people not do it? It just requires a little bit of awareness so that you can then have a conversation. And it's only by having a conversation that you can find somewhere a middle, a middle way, some. There's a Buddhist expression. Buddhism is called the middle way. You find the middle way somewhere.
I, um, if we don't have conversations with others, we have different viewpoints, then the, there will be deterioration and eventually they would, it might even be violence. So it's interesting because I know you talk a lot about the collective conscious, which obviously, I mean, look, you happen to see me on YouTube, that brought us here. Now your message can get out to, you know, tons of other people and all of that stuff, which is absolutely incredible. So that's the, that's the great part of the internet that I think has fed the collective unconsciousness, unconscious. But then there's another part of it where we seemingly are just fighting all day long. And you mentioned before, we're distracted all day long. So if we're standing on a corner, we automatically go to our phone. Do you think that level of distraction and technology and our, our adolescents relative to knowing what is really going on by having the world in your pocket at all times? Do you think that is leading us to, to a sort of strange existential crisis that actually could have never happened before, just because of the, the speed with which, yes, we can communicate and learn and, and hate and all of those things?
Yes, well, there's both what is commune, what is communicated through these devices. But the very fact that there is this device, this was many years ago, there was a book by Marshall McLuhan, and it says the medium is the message. It was about television. But the, the nature of the device itself, um, we, we need to be very careful because what it does is it contributes to the clutter of our minds. So no matter potentially, it can be a very beneficial thing to connect with humans through these devices. But at the moment, the dangers, it might be destructive, are greater. I can see what he does to children who from an early age interact with these. They're no longer able to have personal relationships. Increasing number of children have attention deficit disorder. Now, what is attention deficit disorder? They can't focus on anything for very long anymore. What does that do to human consciousness? What does it do to a civilization if humans grow up now without the ability to, to focus on tension for very long? Because ending any creative act requires you to be present with something for a period of time, to give it attention. And if humans lose the ability to give attention, then they lose the ability to be creative. If they lose the ability to be creative, they lose the ability even to solve their problems. Because the problems that they have created, it requires wisdom and true creativity to solve those problems. So all kinds of scenarios are possible. The scenario of the breakdown of civilization within two generations is a possibility. But these things, if these things are, we need to learn how to use these devices in the same way that we have to learn how to use our minds. Because they are an extension of our minds. So if we become more aware of what our mind is doing, then it might be easier also to, to handle these devices. Because they are an extension and amplification of the mind. And the dysfunction that we see on the internet with all these, the dysfunctional behavior and so on, it's just, it's an externalization and an amplification of the dysfunction of the human ego. You can just see it much more clearly now. It's old for everybody to see. And that might be a good thing to see it. Because then we can really aware of it. What are we doing to ourselves? That's a good question to ask. What are we doing to ourselves? This is becoming insane. And the moment you see that it is insane, then there's some sanity in you. Because nobody who knows they're insane is completely insane. The real insane people don't know they're insane. So if you see the insanity in the way that we collectively communicate, you say, okay, I'm not going to be part of that. It's necessary to see it. And then your responsibility as an individual is not to feed it, to stay conscious, to stay present, so that your input is conscious and does not seek to destroy other human beings and demonize other, you dehumanize and demonize other human beings.
So you view that really as the antidote, let's say, to the mob culture that we have? Because there is this, you can feel this, you know, it's funny, this morning I was scrolling your Twitter feed, and it, and your Twitter feed is, is basically a breath of fresh air. It's like when I was reading it, there's like a breath, and it's, and it's pleasant. And, you know, there's some of your sayings and some of the ways that you want to help people think clearly, all those things. But that's so the reverse of the way most of Twitter is. And, and I'm part of that other world. And sometimes, sometimes I feed it, and I try not to, but, you know, I'm not perfect either. Um, but I do see this thing where where the mob is sort of moving around on Twitter. And sometimes it comes to get me too. Yes. And there's this, there's an innate human feeling, you see something and it has a lot of attention and it's shiny and it's whatever, and that everyone wants to get in. But basically, you're saying if you would take that breath, if you would just say, I don't want in on this, that eventually you can actually, you can almost pull other people out of it too, by your own behavior. Yes.
Because this isn't just about you. Yes. Also not to feed, uh, other. If other people post negative things about you, in many, many cases, non-reaction is the best thing instead of feeding it. That's a lesson I need to learn. I will try to take that one with me. That applies both offline and online, in your personal life too. Often it's just, well, I believe Jesus was talking about non-reaction when he's talked about turning the other cheek. I don't think it's to be taken literally, but it means when somebody, somebody attacks you, not, not physically, it's an analogy he uses, it's a parable, uh, turn the other cheek. It means to just be free of reaction. And that, uh, that very quickly deflates even the other person's ego. It doesn't, if the ego needs the reaction, it needs the reactivity. So that's a powerful thing.
But how do you avoid then just becoming a pushover within that? Well, in some situations, something needs to be said. But even then, that can come from, you could say, let's, especially if you're with somebody that kind of behavior is unacceptable. You can say that, um, in a conscious way, rather than, you know, destructive and aggressive way. You can one can actually be very firm and conscious. Or when you say no to somebody, it doesn't have to be aggressive. Uh, it's just really a clear. Is I call it a high-quality no. Uh, somebody says, can you lend me again? I've the two thousand dollars I need. I know I still owe you twenty thousand, but I need some more. And then, and then not to make the other an enemy. Just no, I'm sorry, I can't do it anymore. It's a high-quality no. That's, you're present while you say it. And then you can set boundaries if necessary. So in some cases, something needs to be said. I need to do something. But in many other cases, complete non-reactivity can be very, very powerful.
What gives you the most amount of joy in your life now? The little things in life. The little things. Walking around in nature, sometimes sitting quietly in a room, just being. I love being, uh, nature. I still enjoy traveling. And the greatest joy is, um, teaching, giving talks. Because that's my life purpose. And so once every, every time I engaged in my life purpose, then I'm really in a state of joy and heightened aliveness. And that's why I'm still doing it. Yeah.
Would you say you're, are you an optimist inherently, as far as human destiny is concerned? You mean, or humanity, or in general? Yeah. I don't mean it personally. Actually, I mean it just in, in the, in the wider world. Are you hopeful? Oh, yes. I'm, I'm, well, I sometimes call it, I'm a long-term optimist. I always say, world-weary optimist. Short term, I don't know. It's possible. Who knows where humanity is going right now? Nobody could predict where it's going. All the individual, all the individual can only take responsibility for their own state of consciousness. But that matters very much. The, because your state of consciousness determines the way in which you experience reality. And that has many repercussions. You affect many other humans through your state of consciousness. So that's, don't underestimate the importance of your state of consciousness in the present moment.
In, there's so much more we could do here, but I want to be respectful of your time. So I'll ask you one more. And then when we end this, I'm going to beg you to come back. Um, but if someone's watching this right now and is really in what Jordan Peterson would describe as the state of chaos, or the state that you were in in your late 20s before you had your awakening, and they hear you and they say, well, just, you know, taking that first breath isn't going to do it. If they're really just out of sorts right now, what would be some, some way that you think you could help shake them out of it? Give them something concrete that would help them click, you know, stop on this thing and, and fix themselves or begin the process, let's say. Yeah, yeah.
Well, the best starting point is the present moment. Uh, now, whatever I say, any advice I give, it's quite possible, if not likely, that their conditioned mind will deny what I say and it'll say, that's not going to work. So don't believe what I say now. If your mind says this is not going to work, don't believe what your mind says. Just try what I've got, what I'm saying now. So we become more fully conscious of the present moment, right now. Because that's, that's all there ever is. Your entire life is experienced and unfolds in the present moment. Most humans don't seem to even realize that, because they always live as if some other moment were more important than this one. You need to honor this moment. It's a basis for the soul, for the future. How that unfolds, which never comes, because when it comes, it's a now. And the past never happened except when you remember it. It's always a new member now. So to come into the present moment, be aware of your breathing. And another one I recommend anybody, this were actually very powerful, if it sounds almost too simple, but it's very powerful. Feel the aliveness inside your body. And if you don't know what I mean, usually I advise people to close their eyes, hold their hand like this, and ask themselves, without looking at my hand or moving my hand, how can I know whether my hand is still there? That question requires you to direct attention into your hand. And then after a few seconds, you'll probably feel a little bit of a tingling or aliveness in your hand. That is the beginning of being able to feel what I call the inner body. This is the, the energy field that the, that pervades every cell in the body. If you can start with the hands, then you feel your legs, your feet, your hands simultaneously. And then you incorporate the totality of your body. And so your attention is moved from your mind. You're taking consciousness into the body. So one could say you're now inhabiting your body consciously. And when you, it's a very lovely feeling. And you'll notice that you're no longer thinking very much. You can't. And all the, the problems that you have, to a large extent, were created by dysfunctional thinking and the emotions that accompany this functional thinking. Most of the problems reside in your mind. So if you are able to become more present, then you access a higher or deeper dimension of consciousness. And to become more present, you have to be able to step out of your mind without losing consciousness. So the consciousness, the goes into the body, and the body becomes an anchor. You can hold it for several minutes at a time. Becomes an anchor for being present. Become as present as you can. Also present of sense perceptions. It's very important. Sense perceptions can also bring you into the present moment. An expression you could use is, come to your senses, in both meanings of the word expression. Come to your senses. Look around. Be consciously, take everything in without the label, it is needing to label it mentally. And then you suddenly, you're aware of your surroundings. You're aware of your inner energy field. You're in the present moment. And in the present moment, there's no problem. It can't be. There's not an emergency. Sometimes, yes, then you have to act. But it's not an emergency. He has no problem. Then your ability to deal with your so-called problems becomes, uh, much greater. If you're able to access the power of your presence, then when you choose to deal with your problems, say, okay, now apply focused thought. What can I do? When you return to presence, it's always going. You're thinking back into learn what presence is. It's there. It's the, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, said it's right here. It's right here. Don't look for it elsewhere. And then you realize the, um, a lot of the unhappiness in one's life, the Buddha called it duka, suffering. He says, every human suffers unless they have awakened. And a lot of the suffering is not due to your life circumstances, although most people think it is. The larger part of your suffering is due to your mental commentary about your life circumstances. Your mind is telling you something that creates the unhappiness. Even you can test it out in a simple situation. You're in line somewhere, you get irritated, it's taking too long, you're waiting, you get very angry and irritated. Then experiment, how would I experience this situation without adding any thought to it? If I didn't add any thoughts to this moment, just, and then suddenly, well, it's actually fine. It's not, before you were unhappy, but we are not unhappy because you had to wait. You're unhappy because of the narrative in your mind. So there are millions of people who carry very toxic narratives in their mind, and they call it my life. That's not, it's a, it's a terrible burden. And they carry around. It doesn't have to be like that. And the essence of all spirituality is to be able to step out of that, realize if only a little bit of self-transcendence, which is inner spaciousness. And then that grows. And then you can begin to sense there is a power in you that transcends the person. And that is also the place where you can transcend the, uh, the feelings of, um, happiness and unhappiness, which fluctuate continuously. I'm not saying you've, it's not happiness that you ultimately find. Happiness is a little bit superficial. Uh, yeah, I made it. And the next day, on the opposite. It's something that transcends happiness and unhappiness. It's a deep sense of rootedness in being, of a deep sense of inner peace that really have as nothing much to do with your personal circumstances. I've had letters from people in prison who have written to me, said, I feel free now because I've read your book and I've practiced it, and my life is transformed. And now I'm teaching others from many letters from prison prisoners. So it's, it's real. No matter what your life circumstances are, the, the message is, wake up. Wake up out of complete identification with your mind. And so that's your, the ultimate purpose in life is to awaken.
This has been an absolute pleasure. I think that I, I'm not, I think I know that I had a few of those brief leading moments while we were here, and I thank you for that. And I think if my audience gets even one percent of that through the internet waves that go out there, I think this will will be something that I will always remember. I hope we can do this again because we think you just started here. I normally tell the Twitter handle of my guest, but in this case, I'm going to look at the camera and tell you guys just to take a breath.