no matter what your life circumstances are the the message is wake up [Music] I'm Dave Rubin and joining me on the Reuben report today is the internationally best-selling author of The Power of Now which is 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 Reuben report thank you I am 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 talk 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 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 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 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 you have that openness uh 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 the 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 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 um 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 for the few people watching that don't know you uh can you just tell me a little bit about your background and until you were 29 years old uh spirituality actually wasn't wasn't your thing people are so associative of that with you uh but can you just tell a little bit about growing up yes I grew up in Germany out to 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 to 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 all levels in a levels and so on so I took those exams and finally I got a 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 uh periods of terrible anxiety and depression even by the while I was working and while I was a student um can you describe what that was to yes it was an inability to stop my mind my mind was continuously racing along and creating uh 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 that's a hard to describe it it is a kind of alienation from the world uh alienated Asian 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 as in the old translation 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's 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 Norse is actually a novel by example satra where he describes that state so that's exactly how it is it's 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 uh the world the tall 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 language that uh 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 uh so I would often break up in the middle of the night in the state of panic or fear and almost feeling Breathless and one night I woke up again on three 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 this little shift 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 uh I felt like of Disappearing into a kind of void and the next morning I woke 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 in sometimes in the foreground sometimes in the background its 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 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 are uh 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 negatives of negative labeling and interpretations and I 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 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 is transcends thinking it 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 you 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're 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 in that conditions the way that you think then you have the collective conditioning around you you take on the conditioning of the the culture that you inhabit that's around you uh if 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 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 and in finding their identity one could say that after after meeting the needs of food and shelter almost immediately after that's come to 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 uh 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 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 uh unless uh your your completely neurotic or 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 um if you're not if you're not uh continuously in a state of confusion or anxiety or depression if you're not if you occasionally you 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 of 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 we 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 uh 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 what 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 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 you 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 you're doing some physical activity and you're not thinking very much you're taking in or 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 or 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 the indirectly yes but the 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 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 con and connected with a deeper level of Consciousness within yourself and that ultimately is with the way to live as much as nobody is connected a hundred percent of the time with that but to be connected with that when you're engaged in your whatever your main activity is that's a it'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 they are countless expressions of universal intelligence and all the spirit all the ancient spiritual teachings they actually point that way may I if I if you don't mind if I may interpret some interpret something that Jesus said because I believe is actually exactly the same thing uh Jesus often talks about the kingdom of heaven interesting expression and there 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 uh repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and the whole thing is already contained there repent means it's Miss 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 misinter interpretation of repentance started when it was translated into Latin into latiness penitentia 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 believed it's something that's going to come that she 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 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 finds 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 good to 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 condition 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 con the one Consciousness when you recognize them in the other then you have suddenly an outflow of benevolence and Good Will 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 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 uh the way I interpret you know in the English language doesn't have a word that describes both men and women it's the German language has Mensch which is also used in Yiddish to the Germans means both man or woman for a long time I regret it 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 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 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 uh trying to attain that state that you can't a you can't you to function as a human maybe not as a human being but just as a human uh 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 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 a daily life beyond the personal purpose which is also important because we need to honor who we are as a person to 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 a collective around you it could be your religion it could whatever it might be or the culture that you grow up in that has its place that 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 no who you are in your essence so because you have the form identity which is a personality for and you hasn't have as I call it an Essence identity and so to know yourself at this Essence is it called in in Indian some in some Indian Indian spiritual philosophy is called self-realization so you know and 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 this quite a bit of time we spend waiting 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 press which is the embrace and you follow the breast 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 may be too conscious breaths everybody has time for one or two conscious prayers 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 know 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 spaciously 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 create something really new uh had some access to that dimension in 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 a 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 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 Siege 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 and 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 drug drugs whatever whatever it may be I've mended relationships Etc et cetera but they have trouble getting over some sort of past guilt yeah 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 grief 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 uh 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 a very extreme cases and that brings about guilt now guilt is uh 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 uh 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 both 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 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 of 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 to 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 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 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 is 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 um 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 that 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 they 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 then uh 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 your 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 the 20 years they've had a voice in their head talking to them 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 it's Another Part of Yourself is well well I'm doing my best I'm 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 you surrender it or you breathe it out you don't need it you reckon an emotion sometimes people and they grip of strong emotions but if there's a little bit of awareness there if act let's say it's anger you're suddenly anger arises but in the background you're aware that there's emotion of anger so there's a small element of choices come in do you want to then attack this person if there's awareness you can observe the anger but may long 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 and people and in their personal lives often very dysfunctional personal lives so it's not to be equated with intelligence this awareness um 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 an uh 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 what do you make of that life that maybe doesn't lock into hearing the the inner voice 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 on the lack of balance in their lives like famous people like even some famous pop artists who were who are quite quite creative in the way that Michael Jackson for example um as a person he's got just come he's just I mean he's passed away now but I remember seeing him an interview as a person he's just a little I just got much to say and he said teammate and 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 um the important thing is the this that this that creative intelligence needs to come into the into the rest of your your knife 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 the polarities of Life the perhaps worth mentioning here um you know the ancient Yin and Yang Chinese way of looking at the world there's the the yin is the feminine principle and the Yang is the masculine principle so these the polarities are everywhere in life this is a very the Western mind is a very strange way of looking at things but the the Chinese philosophy ancient Chinese philosophy says this this a 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 um 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 uh 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 this dictatorship is in the grip of an extreme grip of yang um traditionally Society in at least in the west has been dominated by the young 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 in Germany in Russia and China Cambodia and other places observed unconsciousness then the world the Western World especially experienced as a reaction to the extreme Yang ex influx of Yin it started in the 60s actually a very strong influx of Yen and with that came the the woman's women's movement and all those things more empathy towards other human beings came in also an openness to to what 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 over with this is where the embassy with a 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 to more empathy came up and this was a great thing it's a necessary thing education changed completely from being dominated by the young energy disciplined and young and now education became more and more permissive you do your own things 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 so 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 uh the the mass of the media universities and so on are strongly in the group of yen Germany is a 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 this consists of two things there is the compassion that arises when Yen comes in there's another element that needs to be mentioned yes there's also guilt which replace its part two It's a combination of of guilt and Yin energy so yen 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's 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 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 polarity 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 paid 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 is 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 I have a conversation and it's only by having a conversation that uh 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 are 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 mclue 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 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 definitely 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 their insane is completely insane the real insane people don't know their answer 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 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 to 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 a it's a parable uh turn the other Secrets it means to just be free of reaction and that uh that uh 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 20 000 but I need some more and then and then not to make the other engine enemy just no I'm sorry I can't do it anymore it's a high quality no that's uh 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 conscience determine determines the way in which you experience reality and that is 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 liveness 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 science 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 bird 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 foreign