Lightworker Journals -
Eckhart Tolle Teachings
 Eckhart Tolle
Q: Can we help our children and others that we love to transcend their unconsciousness? Or is it necessary for them to go through it on their own?
ET: There are more children born nowadays who may not have to go through the deep unconsciousness that [adults] had to go through, certainly that I had to go through. And also there are more children born nowadays to parents who are in the awakening process, or relatively conscious parents. In my generation, I can’t think of any conscious parents. There might have been some, but it was rare. They are still rare now, but much less rare than before. I loved my parents, but they were deeply unconscious. So, the question is how to help the children stay relatively conscious, so that they do not get drawn into the mass unconsciousness that still pervades mass culture, and the technology that promotes unconsciousness and addictive behavior.
The most powerful teaching is not what you say or do to them, but your state of consciousness at home. That’s the very foundation for teaching your children. It has nothing to do with teaching, the foundation for transmitting consciousness is not even wanting to transmit consciousness to them, but to hold the space of presence as you interact with them at home. Also, to hold presence as much as possible as you interact with your husband. There’s a relationship there that will infect them, with either presence or painbody.
Lightworker Journals -
Eckhart Tolle Teachings
Eckhart Tolle
Q: You talk about Presence and Being as the keys to enjoying form, and creating positive circumstances, or softening circumstances. How does karma fit into all of that?
ET: Everybody is born into a certain external environment. Also, everyone is born with certain predispositions – they may be partly genetic, they may be other things. A person is born with certain patterns, in other words. We don’t need to examine where they come from, but the fact is that a human being is born into a certain environment. It may be violent, or it may be relatively peaceful. A person is born with inner patterns that you inherit. Even painbody is partly inherited.
There’s a whole set of conditioning that happens when you come into an environment. The environment conditions you further, and there’s no choice involved – it’s just influences. You find yourself in this world with certain unconscious patterns that have become the conditioning of who the person is. Karma, as I see it, is the unconscious conditioning that runs your life. Karma is partly collective, and partly personal. You can only understand karma not as an abstract subject external to yourself, you can only understand it by observing yourself, and then you know many other things. If you want to understand karma, you need to look at yourself.
Lightworker Journals -
Eckhart Tolle Teachings
Eckhart Tolle
Q: From the time I was a little girl, I was raised as a Catholic. I went completely full circle to denying God, not believing in God. And now, thanks to a large extent what you teach and share, I know that connectedness is there, awareness, Stillness is there. But I got the thought, why do I pray? Because if God is all-knowing, omnipotent, all-loving, and so on, I don’t think he/she/it needs me to say, “Psst – my friend is dying of cancer, can you help her?” I don’t think it’s necessary, but I enjoy praying. I’d love to hear your thoughts; what would be appropriate to pray for? Do you believe in prayer?
ET: Perhaps you can upgrade your prayers from petitionary prayers (“please make this happen”) to little mental pointers, towards peace for example. Little mental pointers still use concepts, because every prayer consists of words and concepts – to point, to help you go beyond concepts. You could say, for example, an affirmation – like what Jesus said, “I am the light of the word”. It’s an affirmation – it’s a concept, it points to a reality far deeper than the words. You can say, if you still want some petition, “please let me know that I am the light of the world”. Duality is implied usually, in the usual prayer. It implies that there is God, and here is me, asking God. That duality is ultimately an illusion, because you are an expression of God. You and God merge. The deepest prayers, then, are no longer prayers as such. They are when you adopt a listening attitude rather than a saying of words. As long as you enjoy it, that’s fine. But gradually get away from asking somebody to do something for you, because that keeps you stuck in duality.
Lightworker Journals -
Eckhart Tolle Teachings
 Eckhart Tolle
Question: How do we find balance between our individual will and the natural flow of life?
Eckhart Tolle: By living aligned with the present moment, you also align your will with the universal will, which you could call “the will of God”. You don’t have a separate will. The separate will wants to enhance or strengthen one’s sense of self. The separate will is concerned with the “me”, the “I”, the ego. But there is a divine Consciousness, the one Consciousness, there is an evolutionary impulse. What we are doing here at every moment, is to align ourselves with that.
Non-resistance is vital because as long as you are in resistance to the present moment, you will be trapped in the little egoic will. The egoic will needs to subside – that’s surrender to the present moment, and surrender to what is. When you align yourself with what is internally, it looks at first almost like a position of weakness, and it can be misinterpreted as something that prevents you from taking effective action. But the acceptance of what is, is totally compatible with responding to whatever the present moment requires. Whatever wants to be created, manifested, done, at this moment – to be aligned with that, you need to first accept whatever form this moment takes.
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Eckhart Tolle Teachings
Eckhart Tolle
