- The speaker shares a personal experience of living with multiple people, most of whom displayed dysfunctional behavior and distorted reality.
- One person, however, was peaceful while staying with the speaker but reverted to drama and violence after leaving.
- The speaker explains that humans are not a single being and have different conscious and unconscious aspects.
- Trusting others to always display conscious behavior is unrealistic, so the speaker suggests finding trust within oneself.
- By dropping into a deeper place of presence and relating to others from there, their behavior may become more conscious.
- Mistaking someone's unconsciousness for who they are can reinforce that behavior, so having faith in their potential for consciousness is important.
- Faith is a deep sense of connectedness with being and can be accessed by becoming still and directing attention to nothing in particular.

- Trust arises from knowing that you are consciousness and not dependent on external things for your sense of self.
- Trust and presence are interconnected, and they flow from the connectedness with beingness.
- Goodwill or benevolence towards others is hindered by the mind patterns and identities we create for them.
- Recognizing the deeper dimension of human beings allows for the outflow of goodwill and a more pleasant human interaction.
- Being a balanced combination of the human form and the transcendent being dimension leads to a more comfortable and pleasant existence for oneself and others.

Eckhart delivers an impactful talk on awakening our innermost being and achieving full humanity by trusting in ourselves throughout the journey.

Did you find this video helpful? Do you want more peace of mind? Or to bring more Presence into your days, your work, and other areas of your life? Join Eckhart Tolle Now, Eckhart’s online community, and get access to his new in-depth teachings every month, practical Q&A sessions with Eckhart, and member-only discounts on Eckhart’s online programs.

Enjoy a FREE 10-DAY TRIAL to Eckhart Tolle Now: https://members.eckharttolle.com/10-day-trial/

About Eckhart:

Eckhart Tolle is widely recognized as one of the most inspiring and visionary spiritual teachers in the world today. With his international bestsellers, The Power of Now and A New Earth—translated into more than 50 languages—he has introduced millions to the joy and freedom of living life in the present moment. The New York Times has described him as “the most popular spiritual author in the United States,” and in 2011, Watkins Review (now Watkins Mind Body Spirit) named him “the most spiritually influential person in the world.”

Eckhart’s profound yet simple teachings have helped countless people around the globe experience a state of vibrantly alive inner peace in their daily lives. His teachings focus on the significance and power of Presence, the awakened state of consciousness, which transcends ego and discursive thinking. Eckhart sees this awakening as the essential next step in human evolution.

And instead of then creating a thought in your mind and allowing this thought to survive and even proliferate in your mind and start complaining and so on, you can recognize that every human does that.

When I lived in England in the country, I had a cottage and there were 2 bedrooms, 3 bedrooms upstairs.

And because my income was low, I had to rent out 2 bedrooms.

And so I had a succession of people renting over a period of 3 years or so.

And probably about, it was a place where people would spend, come for a period of time and then move on.

And out of those, 8 out of 10, sooner or later developed when I got to know them, lived in the same house with them, relatively small place, displayed there were areas in their behavior that were quite dysfunctional, almost called insane.

And I don't just mean quirks of their personality, different ways of doing, no, some more than that.

Patterns that led to complete distortion of reality in certain areas of their lives.

And that wasn't just 1 person, it was 8 out of 10.

And only 1 person didn't fit into any of these.

2 people stayed relatively displayed, higher degree of presence.

There were certain variations also in them, but they didn't get taken over by personalities, temporary personas, sub personalities, they're sometimes called, whatever you want to call them.

They didn't get taken over completely, leading to almost total distortion of reality.

I had 1 person, however, that she came, stayed for 2 or 3 months and was quite peaceful.

And a friend told me that she had told him living at Eckhart's place is like living in a float tank.

And the moment she moved out, I heard secondhand accounts, she was involved in huge drama, including physical violence with men and other women.

And she was known for always generating huge drama in her life, except when she stayed with me.

I didn't know that, otherwise I probably wouldn't have invited her in.

So somehow in the energy field of presence, she was able to drop into or rise into presence.

But the moment she left, the old patterns came back.

Mostly you find humans are not 1 single being.

Once you know that you can, you no longer perhaps misinterpret when humans shift and then do display behavior that is not conscious.

So, and Instead of then creating a thought in your mind and allowing this thought to survive and even proliferate in your mind and start complaining and so on, you can recognize that every human does that, has that to a greater or lesser degree.

Okay, then that's a step forward, that realization.

And then you can allow them because you probably are the same.

There's a more conscious you and there's a more unconscious you.

And then the more unconscious you has many different facets to it, different sub, different ways of being unconscious.

And then you can see, okay, now we know that we can't trust people, except in the sense as Byron Katie said, I trust everybody, said I trust everybody to do what they do.

So you have to, You can't trust them to display consistently conscious behavior.

So you go to a deeper place and see what the real trust is not from doesn't come from people.

The Real trust is finding that place of depths within yourself that does not, and once you're there, then you can relate to humans from there and you no longer say, I demand that you are conscious all the time.

And if you're not, I'll hold it against you and then I'll never talk to you again.

So it all comes back to that place of dropping down into where the mind activity subsides.

And instead of always being trapped in your thoughts and relating to the world and to people through your thoughts, plus the emotions that accompany the thoughts, you go to that deeper place of just feel your own presence.

Feel the presence that you are, the beingness of you, the most, that deep level of I am-ness, the presence, the only thing that cannot be doubted, that it is absolutely real, that exists, that is the isness of you.

And If that is in the background of your life, then you can allow others to do what they do.

The likelihood is when you meet others from that deeper place, their behavior will become a little more conscious.

The very unconscious sub-personalities may manifest themselves less.

Because When you erroneously mistake a person's unconsciousness, unconscious sub-personality or whatever you want to call it.

When you erroneously mistake that for who they are and mentally focus on that, you also bring it out more in them every time you meet them because those are the expectations.

And quite often, unless humans are really present, they oblige and they give you what you expect them.

If you expect dishonesty, you're more likely to find dishonesty in humans.

When you expect violence, you're more likely to find it.

So trust really another word for it in spiritual terminology is faith because what is faith?

Belief means you have a story and you say, this story, I believe this story to be true.

And of course you'd have no idea whether it is true, but you say, If you knew it was true, then you wouldn't say believe anymore.

So belief would be belief in some abstract story or whatever it is.

It could be an ideology, something your mind tells you, but faith is very different.

In some languages, belief and faith unfortunately are the same word.

Faith is a sense of deep connectedness with being.

From that deep place of connectedness, you can also manifest things, but let's not talk about that right now.

That is the connect, conscious connection with source, the source of life, which is within you.

It's, you just become still and direct your attention to what?

You direct your attention to nothing in particular.

You're just aware of attention and that's it.

So if the attention is looking for your true self, it doesn't realize that it is your true self because it's consciousness.

And knowing that, that's trust suddenly because you're no longer dependent on the continuously shifting things out here for your sense of the beingness of who you are.

Because not only humans are continuously shifting, but even things around you, they come and go.

Situations continuously come and go, change.

Impermanence, as the Buddha called it, fleeting.

And so as long as you look to externals for any sense of security, including humans, can I trust him?

And usually when I would say, no, don't trust him or her, trust yourself.

But then you're no longer in a state of distrust.

No, trust then arises, but not from him or her.

Such essential teaching, but not many people seem to realize it yet.

Now at that deeper level, really many things that are different concepts on the external level, they really all, they merge into 1.

So when we speak of trust, or when we speak of presence, beingness, perhaps to put it more accurately, we'd say the connectedness with beingness is presence and out of the presence flows trust.

And out of the presence also flows, and that's also inseparable from trust, flows what you could call goodwill or benevolence towards other humans and other life forms.

Because when your mind is telling you something about another human and fixes, constructs an identity for that human by selecting the unconscious, 1 of the unconscious aspects of that human, by selecting that, then manufacturing a mental identity for that human, and then for the rest of your life, continue to relate to that human through that mind form, then you can, there is no, the goodwill cannot flow.

You can, there cannot be an outflow of goodwill anymore.

But if you no longer trap the other human and yourself in the mind pattern, then there is an openness for the outflow, let's put it like that, the outflow of benevolence towards the other person, the other human being.

Well, you could call it love, but it's not the conventional.

And that is a wonderful thing to experience in relation.

It makes human contact much more pleasant if you can feel an outflow of goodwill, even towards a human that you might not meet very briefly.

And even there, sense that for a moment when you're not, there's no thought, there's just a presence and you're looking at another human and you feel an energetic, 1 could say also an energetic connection for a moment and it's an outflow of goodwill, no matter who, what their function is at that particular moment in your life, there's always then an added dimension.

Otherwise you reduce other human beings to whatever their function have, whatever function they have in relation to you, the man who is selling you something.

Is he only the man who is selling you something?

Is that, are you reducing this person to the function that he or she performs at that moment in relation to you?

Or is there a deeper dimension so that there is a human being that you recognize?

And the way I, as you may, I don't know if you have heard me say that before, the way, how I interpret human being is you might notice that there are 2 words in the English language.

In a way at first I felt It's a pity that English doesn't have 1 word for human being.

It only has man and that's supposed to include women.

So when you, often when you read, when people say men, It's supposed to include women too, but it doesn't, but it still means men.

So some languages like German, they have a word that applies to man and woman, mensch.

But English language, you need to have 2 words.

At first I felt, well, that's a pity, but then upon looking more closely at human being, I realized, oh, that's actually quite wonderful because there's a deep truth there.

You have the human and you have the being come together.

It's the physical vehicle and it's the psychological form, including all the imperfections and all the accumulations and the conditioning, the person, basically, the person who you think you are, the person who other people think you are, the person that you've been told you are, and the person you believe to be.

The person, ideas in your mind about who you are, that's the person and that's the human.

They don't realize that they are also the being.

But you have to know both really to be awakened in this dimension.

You need to be awakened to the being dimension in you so that you can be in the balance between form, physical, mental, emotional, psychological form, the form where you are, the person, and the transcendent dimension, the essence of who you are, which is the being.

And your identity to awaken spiritually means that your identity shifts from the human to the being.

And when your identity has shifted from the human to the being, the human becomes a more pleasant human.

And It's more comfortable for yourself to be this particular human in that life, this particular lifetime.

And it's more comfortable for others to be with you as that particular human.


Speaker 0: And instead of then creating a thought in your mind and allowing this thought to survive and even proliferate in your mind and start complaining and so on, you can recognize that every human does that. When I lived in England in the country, I had a cottage and there were 2 bedrooms, 3 bedrooms upstairs. And because my income was low, I had to rent out 2 bedrooms. And so I had a succession of people renting over a period of 3 years or so. And probably about, it was a place where people would spend, come for a period of time and then move on.

I had probably 10 or 11 people. And out of those, 8 out of 10, sooner or later developed when I got to know them, lived in the same house with them, relatively small place, displayed there were areas in their behavior that were quite dysfunctional, almost called insane. And I don't just mean quirks of their personality, different ways of doing, no, some more than that. Patterns that led to complete distortion of reality in certain areas of their lives. And that wasn't just 1 person, it was 8 out of 10.

And only 1 person didn't fit into any of these. 2 people stayed relatively displayed, higher degree of presence. There were certain variations also in them, but they didn't get taken over by personalities, temporary personas, sub personalities, they're sometimes called, whatever you want to call them. They didn't get taken over completely, leading to almost total distortion of reality. I had 1 person, however, that she came, stayed for 2 or 3 months and was quite peaceful.

And a friend told me that she had told him living at Eckhart's place is like living in a float tank. Float. Float. And the moment she moved out, I heard secondhand accounts, she was involved in huge drama, including physical violence with men and other women. And she was known for always generating huge drama in her life, except when she stayed with me.

I didn't know that, otherwise I probably wouldn't have invited her in. So somehow in the energy field of presence, she was able to drop into or rise into presence. But the moment she left, the old patterns came back. Now that was an unusual case. Mostly you find humans are not 1 single being.

This is the point of the story. Once you know that you can, you no longer perhaps misinterpret when humans shift and then do display behavior that is not conscious. So, and Instead of then creating a thought in your mind and allowing this thought to survive and even proliferate in your mind and start complaining and so on, you can recognize that every human does that, has that to a greater or lesser degree. Okay, then that's a step forward, that realization. And then you can allow them because you probably are the same.

There are different people in you. There's a more conscious you and there's a more unconscious you. And then the more unconscious you has many different facets to it, different sub, different ways of being unconscious. And then you can see, okay, now we know that we can't trust people, except in the sense as Byron Katie said, I trust everybody, said I trust everybody to do what they do. So you have to, You can't trust them to display consistently conscious behavior.

That would be absurd. So you go to a deeper place and see what the real trust is not from doesn't come from people. The Real trust is finding that place of depths within yourself that does not, and once you're there, then you can relate to humans from there and you no longer say, I demand that you are conscious all the time. And if you're not, I'll hold it against you and then I'll never talk to you again. So it all comes back to that place of dropping down into where the mind activity subsides.

And instead of always being trapped in your thoughts and relating to the world and to people through your thoughts, plus the emotions that accompany the thoughts, you go to that deeper place of just feel your own presence. Let's put it like that for a moment. Feel the presence that you are, the beingness of you, the most, that deep level of I am-ness, the presence, the only thing that cannot be doubted, that it is absolutely real, that exists, that is the isness of you. And If that is in the background of your life, then you can allow others to do what they do. The likelihood is when you meet others from that deeper place, their behavior will become a little more conscious.

The very unconscious sub-personalities may manifest themselves less. Because When you erroneously mistake a person's unconsciousness, unconscious sub-personality or whatever you want to call it. When you erroneously mistake that for who they are and mentally focus on that, you also bring it out more in them every time you meet them because those are the expectations. And quite often, unless humans are really present, they oblige and they give you what you expect them. If you expect dishonesty, you're more likely to find dishonesty in humans.

When you expect violence, you're more likely to find it. So trust really another word for it in spiritual terminology is faith because what is faith? Faith is not belief. Belief means you have a story and you say, this story, I believe this story to be true. And of course you'd have no idea whether it is true, but you say, If you knew it was true, then you wouldn't say believe anymore.

You can't say I believe in this table. You don't need to, it's here. So belief would be belief in some abstract story or whatever it is. It could be an ideology, something your mind tells you, but faith is very different. In some languages, belief and faith unfortunately are the same word.

Faith is trust. Faith is a sense of deep connectedness with being. From that deep place of connectedness, you can also manifest things, but let's not talk about that right now. That is the connect, conscious connection with source, the source of life, which is within you. And it's so easy.

It's, you just become still and direct your attention to what? You direct your attention to nothing in particular. You're just aware of attention and that's it. So if the attention is looking for your true self, it doesn't realize that it is your true self because it's consciousness. You are consciousness.

And knowing that, that's trust suddenly because you're no longer dependent on the continuously shifting things out here for your sense of the beingness of who you are. Because not only humans are continuously shifting, but even things around you, they come and go. Situations continuously come and go, change. Impermanence, as the Buddha called it, fleeting. And so as long as you look to externals for any sense of security, including humans, can I trust him?

Can I trust her? That's very precarious. And usually when I would say, no, don't trust him or her, trust yourself. But then you're no longer in a state of distrust. No, trust then arises, but not from him or her.

Such essential teaching, but not many people seem to realize it yet. Ha ha. Now at that deeper level, really many things that are different concepts on the external level, they really all, they merge into 1. So when we speak of trust, or when we speak of presence, beingness, perhaps to put it more accurately, we'd say the connectedness with beingness is presence and out of the presence flows trust. And out of the presence also flows, and that's also inseparable from trust, flows what you could call goodwill or benevolence towards other humans and other life forms.

Because when your mind is telling you something about another human and fixes, constructs an identity for that human by selecting the unconscious, 1 of the unconscious aspects of that human, by selecting that, then manufacturing a mental identity for that human, and then for the rest of your life, continue to relate to that human through that mind form, then you can, there is no, the goodwill cannot flow. You can, there cannot be an outflow of goodwill anymore. It's blocked by the mind pattern. But if you no longer trap the other human and yourself in the mind pattern, then there is an openness for the outflow, let's put it like that, the outflow of benevolence towards the other person, the other human being. Well, you could call it love, but it's not the conventional.

Better maybe to call it loving kindness. And that is a wonderful thing to experience in relation. It makes human contact much more pleasant if you can feel an outflow of goodwill, even towards a human that you might not meet very briefly. And even there, sense that for a moment when you're not, there's no thought, there's just a presence and you're looking at another human and you feel an energetic, 1 could say also an energetic connection for a moment and it's an outflow of goodwill, no matter who, what their function is at that particular moment in your life, there's always then an added dimension. Otherwise you reduce other human beings to whatever their function have, whatever function they have in relation to you, the man who is selling you something.

Is he only the man who is selling you something? Is he only the man who is selling you something? Is that, are you reducing this person to the function that he or she performs at that moment in relation to you? Or is there a deeper dimension so that there is a human being that you recognize? And the way I, as you may, I don't know if you have heard me say that before, the way, how I interpret human being is you might notice that there are 2 words in the English language.

In a way at first I felt It's a pity that English doesn't have 1 word for human being. It only has man and that's supposed to include women. So when you, often when you read, when people say men, It's supposed to include women too, but it doesn't, but it still means men. So some languages like German, they have a word that applies to man and woman, mensch. So that would be mensch is man or woman.

But English language, you need to have 2 words. You have to say human being. At first I felt, well, that's a pity, but then upon looking more closely at human being, I realized, oh, that's actually quite wonderful because there's a deep truth there. You have the human and you have the being come together. The human is a form.

It's the physical vehicle and it's the psychological form, including all the imperfections and all the accumulations and the conditioning, the person, basically, the person who you think you are, the person who other people think you are, the person that you've been told you are, and the person you believe to be. The person, ideas in your mind about who you are, that's the person and that's the human. Now, most people only know the human. They think they are the human. They don't realize that they are also the being.

But you have to know both really to be awakened in this dimension. You need to be awakened to the being dimension in you so that you can be in the balance between form, physical, mental, emotional, psychological form, the form where you are, the person, and the transcendent dimension, the essence of who you are, which is the being. And your identity to awaken spiritually means that your identity shifts from the human to the being. And when your identity has shifted from the human to the being, the human becomes a more pleasant human. And It's more comfortable for yourself to be this particular human in that life, this particular lifetime.

And it's more comfortable for others to be with you as that particular human. And that's because you

See all Eckhart Tolle transcripts on Youtube

Confidence and Trusting in Yourself | Eckhart Tolle