Guided Meditation for Depth and Connection | Eckhart Tolle

and uh if possible make sure that you're not Disturbed while we're here and just give this time to yourself because really when meditation in a wider sense just means being with yourself and everybody should take time out every day even if it's only 10 minutes to be with themselves now you may ask am I not always with myself throughout the day and you might even say I'd rather get away from myself and my usual preoccupations worries anxieties fears so what does it mean when I say being with yourself I don't refer to your usual sense of self which I call the the surface self that's to do with all the thinking that goes through your mind throughout the day the emotions you experience all the things that happen in your life your memories of who you are in every human being there is a deeper d Dimension to who they are and getting in touch with that deeper Dimension within themselves that's really what meditation is and if you've never accessed the deeper dimension in yourself you'll always feel that something really vital is missing in your life even though you may have achieved many things on what I call the surface reality the surface level of your life maybe you can you have recognition maybe you have wealth you can buy whatever you like and yet you'll notice there's something that seems is still missing a a certain underlying dissatisfaction or discontent it may not be there all the time but it always resurfaces and many people I've met quite a few people who have achieved Fame and Fortune and they all told me that after a while after the initial Elion of being suddenly wealthy or famous recognized as important by the world and soon the old discontent came back a sense of insufficiency also to do with fear so no matter what you achieve on the surface level of life if you haven't found that deeper Dimension to who you are your life is not really fulfilled and there's so much frustration the frustration that people continuously experience in life is not really to do with the imperfection on the outer level of their life because on the outer level things can never be perfect or never perfect for very long things come and go you lose he here you gain something there you lose something here so the dissatisfaction is not realizing that there is something deeper within you that is more truly who you are than whatever happens on the surface of your life that really is the spiritual dimension and the Deeper Self also connects you with the underlying deeper dimension of the universe because just like you what we see in this world the universe the world whatever you call it it's all the surface of reality under that and the great teachers and philosophers since ancient times have said that realized it there is an unseen Dimension underneath that there is a universal intelligence underneath all the phenom phenomena that we experience through the senses and you are one with that Universal intelligence and the way to connect with that Universal intelligence that underlies all the manifold manifestations of life that continuously unfold around you it's miraculous underlying all that there is a an intelligence we can call it the other names we can use to talk about it but it's only in you that you can find it you can't find it out there but once you find it in yourself you recognize it out there you can sense that that intelligence or that Consciousness is in everything so how how do you connect with the deeper level within yourself it's deeper than thinking so you can't get there through thinking about it it's deeper than the emotions and yet it's always there it's always there and it's not that it's totally hidden from you it's that the thinking the thoughts the emotions and the sense perception draw all your attention to themselves so people are kind of hypnotized by those things especially thoughts so they no longer can sense the dimension of depths because every thought really demands your attention and you go you follow it with your attention and then it leads to another thought and another and so and every thought is a voice in the head it thinks and thinks think and you go and you think that's your life all the thoughts that come and talk to you about who you are and what other people who they are and and continuously your attention is being drawn into that mind activity and emotions go with it and that's that's the usual surface sense of self and it's it's frustrating if there's nothing else everybody has it has that selfish sense of self of course but if if there's nothing else in your life except that then your life is shallow and the spiritual dimension is missing so here we are because we want to find the dimension of depths within ourselves and it's already here we just need to become aware of it how well that's what traditionally what meditation methods are for but here I'd like to suggest you to just investigate without actually using any technique as such just investigate with your attention what it means to be yourself on the most essential level what does it feel like to be yourself what is that sense of self can you get a taste or a glimpse of that sense of self without thinking about yourself how is it possible that you can even think of about yourself and about your life and all the things that make up your life what makes that thinking possible what is the prerequisite for being able to think you need to be conscious if you're not conscious you can't think but usually this consciousness is completely absorbed by thinking and that is what keeps you on the surface level of reality and yourself so you only know yourself as defined by your mind you then have an image of who you are and really that is what ego means in the way we use use it you then have a mental image you have a self talk and you think that's who you are me but there is a more fundamental sense of self underneath all that and that is your simple sense of presence so I'm inviting you now to sense that there is more to you than all your thinking what does it feel like without the thinking to be yourself what is left when you're not thinking but you're not falling asleep let's see if we can if we can create a little Gap in the Stream of thinking to some extent me talking to you already does that so if there's a little Gap in the Stream of thinking like now you go and there's a moment of no thought but something is there a sense of presence or aliveness whatever you call it so can you sense now at this moment that inherent deeper sense of a live presence that has nothing to do with your personal history it has nothing to do with the past it has nothing to do with the future it has nothing to do with your situation in life or your name or your background it's beyond all that so another way of putting it can you sense that presence you can't Define it it has no content it's just space spacious presence and then you know in that you know that you are alive without having to tell yourself that you are ali