Eckhart Tolle

Tape 5 

(Continuation...)

[But you can easily concretetize what in Buddhism is sometimes called emptiness, which is your essence.]   

And they, on purpose, they use a word with which you can't do very much.  Not an encouraging word.  Not...it doesn't encourage you to form another identity around emptiness, you can't (laughs).

August 28th

The Absolute and the relative

Some non-duality teachings say there is nothing you can do to bring about enlightenment and no one to do anything.  They say that there are no seekers or teachers.  It is all a dream of thought.  That is true.

Other teachings say that there are methods that may help to bring about awakening including inquiry, noticing or watching thoughts and emotions, or keeping attention in the inner body.  That is also true.

How can both be true:  that there is nothing you can do and that there is something you can do? 
In the relative sense, which means within the dream of thought and time, there appears a person who engages in practices and who appears to be making progress towards awakening.

In the Absolute sense, there is only timeless awareness.  There is no control, no choice, and no cause and effect.  Everything is happening spontaneously and involuntarily in presence.  There are no separate people doing anything.  From that perspective, it is seen that the relative arises as a dream of thought in the Absolute.  Time arises from timelessness.  Form arises from formlessness.  The dream of a separate self arises from Oneness. 

A good spiritual method will help dissolve the belief that it is possible to do something in time to reach timelessness or that a separate self can reach Oneness.

Michael Brown

From PART V: 2. 

(Continuation...)

The level of facilitation we are examining here is therefore not necessarily the method used, for example, by this author, to carry out one-on-one facilitation with individuals personally guided through The Presence Process. For the purpose of The Presence Process, whether we move through it in a book, or through the personal guidance of this author, we are primarily pointed towards the task of opening ourselves to being facilitated by our Inner Presence, with the intent of evolving to a point where we become aware we are self-contained self-facilitators. This author, unless otherwise requested, stays true to the intent of The Presence Process; to at every opportunity place this responsibility of facilitation into our own hands.

Chapter 85

'I am': The Foundation of all Experience

(Continuation...)

Q: How do you know that you are the witness?

M: I do not know, I am. I am, because to be everything must be witnessed.

Q: Existence can also be accepted on hearsay.

M: Still, finally you come to the need of a direct witness. Witnessing, if not personal and actual, must at least be possible and feasible. Direct experience is the final proof.