How to Feel Gratitude for the Present Moment | Eckhart Tolle

when I say give attention there's an element ofec appreciation of everything of the little things and you begin to realize that your entire life consists mainly of little things you're always going from here to there looking around handling things that is sometimes called um gratitude as you might have noticed it always takes a while before before it start to speak I often say it's good to start with a moment of Stillness and it is but the main reason is that I don't know what to say and that could be a very uncomfortable place or situation to be in some people have nightmares like that you're on stage curtain opens and suddenly you're facing an audience and you forgotten your lines but I don't have any lines so so he is the secret it's becoming comfortable with state of not knowing otherwise it would be awful my God what can I say now would be terrible and of course that is a kind of trust which I suggested the other day is a better word for Faith trust and that's incredibly important to become comfortable with not knowing but what you do when you become comfortable with not knowing you enter the state of non-conceptual [Music] knowing but you have to be comfortable with not knowing anything on a conceptual level thinking in other words so another way of putting it is to say that when I come on here and then I said I don't think because that's a state of not [Music] knowing and in the gaps between sentences or words I also don't think rather than there's no next sentence or word being prepared it just comes and that's for you I'm saying that because that also is a state of consciousness that you can enter and you're doing it just some extent when you don't label things when you step back from thought become comfortable with just being present and all all these questions of things like self-esteem which apparently is a problem for many people either they have low self-esteem or they have exaggerated self-esteem or it fluctuates and there are books written about how you can improve yourself team and probably workshops I don't know what they teach you maybe it's good maybe not but the simple thing is that in that state of no thought but alert presence all these questions about self esteem resolve themselves into nothingness because you're no longer looking for some perceived value in a conceptual sense of self the personality and you can sense the power that is within you that is nothing to do with a person and that's where your self-esteem comes from and it's not comparative in the normal State of Consciousness self-esteem is always comparative how do I rate myself relative to this person and that person and that and what on What level external appearance strength knowledge Beauty possessions status and of course there always you're always inferior to some in one or two or three areas and you may be superior to some in another one or two areas but that the power of Stillness that's another way of putting it the power of inner Stillness that is the true seed of self-esteem and it you can't really call it self-esteem anymore but the you realize the the infinite value that you not possess but are because that is the the essence that underlies the entire universe it is the light of the world and you don't compare yourself to others anymore you feel neither inferior nor Superior the ego is always either inferior or Superior so you might be surprised if I tell you even I'm a small guy even if I standing next to a big muscular guy towering above me with a big ego I'm not think of anybody in particular at the moment but it has happened in the past I don't feel inferior it's just nor do I feel Superior I'm I'm Spirit you might have a big body and muscles but I'm the spiritual guy that would of course is the ego talking and this is a very interesting strategy of the ego the spiritual ego can come in and without you knowing it you still have a conceptual sense of self but it's turned spiritual uh that's a trap that some spiritual teachers fall into too and you know it when they make certain pronouncements we touched on this before and that is they explain that they are superior to any other teacher for example I any other teacher alive now or I've seen one or two spiritual teachers or read about them who actually claimed and they are superior to any spiritual teacher that ever lived or ever will live well that should cover it here or any other Galaxy so the most important practice on your journey spiritual journey into the present moment the journey without our distance is to become comfortable with not knowing which means to become comfortable with not thinking you don't need to demand that there should be long periods when you're not thinking just moments when you're simply looking listening perceiving or being and you don't know anything in that moment not conceptually but but you access the source of all knowledge knowledge of all knowing and that is a way for the ego to gradually become uh weaker just gradually subside no longer runs your life which is the what is the ego the unobserved mind it may still come in here in there it probably will that's fine so part of this is of course to be give more attention to the present moment because the more you think the more future you generate and the more attention you give to the present moment the less thinking because to be really present you don't think about it you just are with it give it attention I recommend the little things of life to be more attentive to all the little things that make up every hour of every day every minute every every hour and give them more [Music] attention walking steps one step at a time objects that you're handling you're all the time you're handling objects in your life you're always touching something putting something here and there is everything that you handle just a means to an end or are you able to just appreciate the simple presence even of a so-called inanimate object contemplation also of all the lovely things that make up your environment part of your environment for example if I were sitting here alone let's say I'm waiting for everybody to arrive I might be sitting here looking of course at the flower sense the Stillness and then there's a glass table here and then there's a glass of water here and there's a clock and a bell and tissues and they all reflect the light in different ways there's a little bit of a rainbow effect in the glass of water here and then the the lights are reflected on the the belts almost like a mirror and there's the clock ticking away it's a beautiful scenes sometimes you go to an art gallery well not so much with modern art but it very favor favorite thing would be still Al artist and it took a while in art before they discovered the the artists in the history of art before they discovered the seemingly insignificant things and started to give attention to those before that happened they were very much interested in the huge things the Saints or the Kings or