Eckhart Tolle Presence Quotes & Sayings

Quality requires your Presence. — Eckhart Tolle

Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future. Don't judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don't make a personal problem out of them. You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher. — Eckhart Tolle

Presence is the key to freedom, so you can only be free now. — Eckhart Tolle

BEAUTY ARISES IN THE STILLNESS OF YOUR PRESENCE — Eckhart Tolle

Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life. — Eckhart Tolle

I've received more and more emails from teachers saying that they are beginning to teach presence in their classroom without necessarily calling it that or calling it anything, not as part of the official curriculum. It's like an underground movement not yet officially recognized by the educational authorities - at least not as far as I know! — Eckhart Tolle

Presence remains even amidst worldly activities. Stillness is there even when you're doing something quickly, like rushing to answer the phone. Otherwise you would be condemned to moving in slow motion. — Eckhart Tolle

In Zen, such a glimpse is called satori. Satori is a moment of Presence, a brief stepping out of the voice in your head, the thought processes, and their reflection in the body as emotion. — Eckhart Tolle

You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by "watching the thinker," which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence. — Eckhart Tolle

Awareness is conscious connection with universal intelligence. Another word for it is Presence: consciousness without thought. — Eckhart Tolle

Once there is a certain degree of Presence, of still and alert attention in human beings' perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form, recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves. Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of the inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify only with their own physical and psychological form. — Eckhart Tolle

So it is essential to bring more consciousness into your life in ordinary situations when everything is going relatively smoothly. In this way, you grow in presence power. It generates an energy field in you and around you of a high vibrational frequency. No unconsciousness , no negativity, no discord or violence can enter that field and survive, just as darkness cannot survive in the presence of light. — Eckhart Tolle

At the deepest level, an 'open heart' is spacious presence, in which the sense of separateness between yourself and the 'other' dissolves and there is the recognition of oneness, of shared consciousness. That recognition is love. Sensing the formless essence in another and recognizing it as one with your own essence - that's what love is. All this is an intrinsic part of the awakened consciousness and the revelation of the spiritual dimension of life. — Eckhart Tolle

If it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? Your degree of presence. So the only place where true change can occur and where the past can be dissolved is the Now. — Eckhart Tolle

When you get into your car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your breath. Become aware of a silent but powerful sense of presence. — Eckhart Tolle

If there isn't an emanation of love and joy, complete presence and openness toward all beings, then it is not enlightenment. — Eckhart Tolle

Awareness means Presence, and only Presence can dissolve the unconscious past in you. — Eckhart Tolle

The soul is your innermost being. The presence that you are beyond form. The consciousness that you are beyond form, that is the soul. That is who you are in essence. — Eckhart Tolle

Use whatever challenge comes into your life as a kind of fuel for the flame of consciousness. That is done through surrender to what is. Some people may need more of that than others. If you choose presence in your daily life you may not need the drastic challenges. — Eckhart Tolle

Recurring negative emotions do sometimes contain a message, as do illnesses. But any changes that you make, whether they have to do with your work, your relationships, or your surroundings, are ultimately only cosmetic unless they arise out of a change in your level of consciousness. And as far as that is concerned, it can only mean one thing: becoming more present. When you have reached a certain degree of presence, you don't need negativity anymore to tell you what is needed in your life situation. But as long as negativity is there, use it. Use it as a kind of signal that reminds you to be more present. WHENEVER YOU FEEL NEGATIVITY ARISING WITHIN YOU, whether caused by an external factor, a thought, or even nothing in particular that you are aware of, look on it as a voice saying, Attention. Here and Now. Wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present. — Eckhart Tolle

Sense your presence, the naked, unveiled, unclothed beingness. It is untouched by young or old, rich or poor, good or bad, or any other attributes. — Eckhart Tolle

In fact, the collective energy field of presence can be very helpful when people come together. It can give you an enormous boost. — Eckhart Tolle

The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God. Being, however, has the advantage that it is an open concept. It does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity. It is impossible to form a mental image of it. Nobody can claim exclusive possession of Being. It is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I am that. So it is only a small step from the word Being to the experience of Being. — Eckhart Tolle

Once you have had a glimpse of awareness or Presence, you know it firsthand. It is no longer just a concept in your mind. — Eckhart Tolle

Die to the past every moment. You don't need it. Only refer to it when it is absolutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this moment and the fullness of Being. Feel your presence. — Eckhart Tolle

Ego means self-identification with thinking, to be trapped in thought, which means to have a mental image of "me" based on thought and emotions. So ego is there in the absence of a witnessing presence. — Eckhart Tolle

The evolutionary impulse is towards disidentification from thinking and the arising of awareness or presence, but the gravitational pull of the old consciousness, or rather unconsciousness, is still quite heavy. It's been around for thousands of years. — Eckhart Tolle

Presence is a state of inner spaciousness — Eckhart Tolle

You are the light of Presence, the awareness that is prior to and deeper than any thoughts and emotions. — Eckhart Tolle

When you surrender to what is and so become fully present, the past ceases to have any power. You do not need it anymore. Presence is the key. Now is the key. — Eckhart Tolle

The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment and satisfaction - you don't look to it for salvation. Therefore, you are not attached to the results. Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being. You have found the life underneath your life situation. In — Eckhart Tolle

Music creates a bridge for people to move out of thinking and into presence. — Eckhart Tolle

If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future. — Eckhart Tolle

Guilt, regret, resentment, sadness & all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past & not enough presence. — Eckhart Tolle

You dissolve discord, heal pain, dispel unconsciousness - without doing anything - simply by being and holding that frequency of intense presence. — Eckhart Tolle

Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don't interpret. See the light, shapes, colors, textures. Be aware of the silent presence of each thing. Be aware of the space that allows everything to be. Listen to the sounds; don't judge them. Listen to the silence underneath the sounds. Touch something - anything - and feel and acknowledge its Being. Observe the rhythm of your breathing; feel the air flowing in and out, feel the life energy inside your body. Allow everything to be, within and without. Allow the "isness" of all things. Move deeply into the Now. — Eckhart Tolle

The state of presence is the only state in which creative energy is available to you. — Eckhart Tolle

Practice presence
embrace the place where life happens. — Eckhart Tolle

Enlightenment means choosing to dwell in a state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is. — Eckhart Tolle

THE ACCEPTANCE OF SUFFERING is a journey into death. Facing deep pain, allowing it to be, taking your attention into it, is to enter death consciously. When you have died this death, you realize that there is no death - and there is nothing to fear. Only the ego dies. Imagine a ray of sunlight that has forgotten it is an inseparable part of the sun and deludes itself into believing it has to fight for survival and create and cling to an identity other than the sun. Would the death of this delusion not be incredibly liberating? DO YOU WANT AN EASY DEATH? Would you rather die without pain, without agony? Then die to the past every moment, and let the light of your presence shine away the heavy, time-bound self you thought of as "you. — Eckhart Tolle

In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love. — Eckhart Tolle

Presence is when you're no longer waiting for the next moment, believing that the next moment will be more fulfilling than this one. — Eckhart Tolle

When your partner behaves unconsciously, relinquish all judgment. Judgment is either to confuse someone's unconscious behavior with who they are or to project your own unconsciousness onto another person and mistake that for who they are. To relinquish judgment does not mean that you do not recognize dysfunction and unconsciousness when you see it. It means "being the knowing" rather than "being the reaction" and the judge. You will then either be totally free of reaction or you may react and still be the knowing, the space in which the reaction is watched and allowed to be. Instead of fighting the darkness, you bring in the light. Instead of reacting to delusion, you see the delusion yet at the same time look through it. Being the knowing creates a clear space of loving presence that allows all things and all people to be as they are. No greater catalyst for transformation exists. If you practice this, your partner cannot stay with you and remain unconscious. — Eckhart Tolle

The other person's presence ultimately is the same as your presence, because it is in presence that there is true meeting. — Eckhart Tolle

When there's a teacher who embodies presence, then it seems to come for a while through that opening. The teacher is an opening to presence. — Eckhart Tolle

When there's somebody there who is transparent enough so that the stillness comes through unhindered, there's a reciprocal movement in you because the presence of stillness suddenly recognizes itself. — Eckhart Tolle

What is God? The eternal one life underneath all the forms of life. What is love? To feel the presence of the one life deep within yourself and all creatures; to be it! Therefore, all love is the love of God. — Eckhart Tolle

The energy form that lies behind hostility and attack finds the presence of love absolutely intolerable. If — Eckhart Tolle

You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present ... — Eckhart Tolle

Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don't think about it - don't let the feeling turn into thinking. Don't judge or analyze. Don't make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of "the one who observes," the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens. — Eckhart Tolle

Space really means the level of awareness or presence, not thinking. So, can you look at your partner and not think? Two conscious beings realize that the essence of the relationship is the space in it. Even when there is an egoic overlay, it is not too dense or heavy for you to sense the essence underneath it. You don't need to react to the egoic overlay. When you don't react to it you don't strengthen it. — Eckhart Tolle

I sometimes ask people, 'Can you be aware of your own presence? Not the thoughts that you're having, not the emotions that you're having, but the very presence of your very being?' You become aware of your own presence by sensing the entire energy field in your body that is alive. And that is the totality of your presence. — Eckhart Tolle

The past cannot survive in your presence. It can only survive in your absence. — Eckhart Tolle

Egos are drawn to bigger egos. Darkness cannot recognize light. Only light can recognize light. So don't believe that the light is outside you or that it can only come through one particular form. If only your master is an incarnation of God, then who are you? Any kind of exclusivity is identification with form, and identification with form means ego, no matter how well disguised. Use the master's presence to reflect your own identity beyond name and form back to you and to become more intensely present yourself. You will soon realize that there is no "mine" or "yours" in presence. Presence is one. — Eckhart Tolle

The more attention you give to the past, the more you energize it, and the more likely you are to make a "self" out of it. Don't misunderstand: Attention is essential, but not to the past as past. Give attention to the present; give attention to your behavior, to your reactions, moods, thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires as they occur in the present. There's the past in you. If you can be present enough to watch all those things, not critically or analytically but nonjudgmentally, then you are dealing with the past and dissolving it through the power of your presence. You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You find yourself by coming into the present. — Eckhart Tolle

I have spoken to many people who have begun to live in presence, and they find many changes come into their lives. Sometimes these changes happen as inner realizations - "This is what I have to do" - or they arise from the external when something suddenly happens. — Eckhart Tolle

Until presence becomes your predominant state, you may find yourself moving back and forth for a while between the old consciousness and the new, between mind identification and presence. — Eckhart Tolle

To experience anything fully and see it clearly there must be a moment of presence where conceptual thinking is not interfering with your experience of that moment. — Eckhart Tolle

Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don't interpret. See the light, shapes, colors, textures. Be aware of the silent presence of each thing. Be aware of the space that allows everything to be. — Eckhart Tolle

The whole world changes when there's presence - sunlight everywhere - because you're not separate from the world. — Eckhart Tolle

It is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I am that. — Eckhart Tolle

When you are present, when your attention is fully in the Now, Presence will flow into and transform what you do. There will be a quality and power in it. You are present when what you are doing is not primarily a means to an end (money, prestige, winning) but fulfilling in itself, when there is joy and aliveness in what you do. — Eckhart Tolle

Whenever you interact with people,don't be there primarily as a function or a role,But as a Field of conscious Presence — Eckhart Tolle

Creativity arises out of the state of thoughtless presence in which you are much more awake than when you are engrossed in thinking. — Eckhart Tolle

Whatever you want to achieve is secondary: the business, the exchange of information, whatever it may be. Yes, you do that also, but there is a deeper foundation - meeting that human being in a state of shared presence. — Eckhart Tolle

When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you're waiting for the elevator - instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence. — Eckhart Tolle

You can't think about presence, and the mind can't understand it. Understanding presence is being present. — Eckhart Tolle

Christ is your God-essence or the Self, as it is sometimes called in the East. The only difference between Christ and presence is that Christ refers to your indwelling divinity regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not, whereas presence means your awakened divinity or God-essence. — Eckhart Tolle

Be alert and present and see that your identity is not from your past story; who you truly are is the alert presence that is inseparable from the present moment. You are this, which has no name and no form. — Eckhart Tolle

To do everything in a sacred manner means to do everything fully in the state of presence. — Eckhart Tolle

You can always cope with the Now, but you can never cope with the future - nor do you have to. The answer, the strength, the right action or the resource will be there when you need it, not before, not after. — Eckhart Tolle

Whenever you meet anybody, it is a holy encounter. The primary event is the energy field of presence between you and the other human being that arises. You enjoy it. There is deep joy in the meeting. — Eckhart Tolle

There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. That realization is true forgiveness. With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges
the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light. — Eckhart Tolle

Even if you achieve your outer purpose, it will never satisfy you if you haven't found your inner purpose, which is awakening, being present, being in alignment with life. True power comes out of the presence; it is the presence. — Eckhart Tolle

IF THERE IS NO ACTION YOU CAN TAKE, and you cannot remove yourself from the situation either, then use the situation to make you go more deeply into surrender, more deeply into the Now, more deeply into Being. When you enter this timeless dimension of the present, change often comes about in strange ways without the need for a great deal of doing on your part. Life becomes helpful and cooperative. If inner factors such as fear, guilt, or inertia prevented you from taking action, they will dissolve in the light of your conscious presence. — Eckhart Tolle

Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. — Eckhart Tolle

Actually, the ability to choose presence depends on the degree of presence that's emerging in you. Ultimately, you are not choosing, there's nobody there to choose. When you think you are choosing, presence is simply emerging in that moment. — Eckhart Tolle

In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. — Eckhart Tolle

Through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future - which, of course, can only be experienced as the Now. — Eckhart Tolle

All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and
not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms
of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence. — Eckhart Tolle

The answer is, who you are cannot be defined through thinking or mental labels or definitions, because it's beyond that. It is the very sense of being, or presence, that is there when you become conscious of the present moment. In essence, you and what we call the present moment are, at the deepest level, one. — Eckhart Tolle

Presence is needed to become aware of the Beauty, the Majesty, the Sacredness of Nature — Eckhart Tolle

Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are. — Eckhart Tolle

When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what's around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without. — Eckhart Tolle

Whatever you do, whatever you're working with, whether it's manual work or talking to people or buying or selling, every little thing encompasses the power and simplicity of presence. — Eckhart Tolle

Words that arise spontaneously out of the state of presence are charged with spiritual power: the power to awaken. — Eckhart Tolle

Acceptance is the embracing of what happens. Acceptance is a way of getting in touch with the deeper, timeless dimension of aware presence, simply through accepting that this is what is happening or this is what I am feeling or thinking. — Eckhart Tolle

If you are in a state of intense presence you are free of thought, yet
highly alert. If your conscious attention sinks below a certain level, thought rushes in, the mental noise returns, stillness is lost, you're back in time. — Eckhart Tolle