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Eckhart Tolle: The Awakening of Consciousness

CC | tv-14
He's the man Oprah calls the "rockstar of the spiritual movement." In this enlightening Super Soul Session, author Eckhart Tolle explains the awakening of consciousness by taking on one of Oprah's signature questions: What do you know for sure?

"I know for sure that I'm sitting on a chair," Eckhart says. "That's the most surface level of things. I know for sure that this is a table."

His answer is simple enough, but Eckhart delves further. Even these seemingly simple truths, he says, are not concrete. "If you take it to a deeper level, if you really looked at the atomic and subatomic structure of this thing that I call chair and that I call table, then you would realize maybe it's not a table," he says. "It's atoms and molecules and 99 percent empty space in between."

Eckhart goes so far as to say that we can't know for sure that life is not a dream, a question that has been posed by many philosophers. But by asking the question, "Is life a dream?" Eckhart says we come to a realization. "There needs to be a light of consciousness for a dream to be experienced," he says. "So even if it's a dream, there is still a you that's experiencing the dream."

By understanding this, Eckhart says he can answer the question, "What do I know for sure?" "What I know for sure, and I speak for everyone, is that at this moment, I am conscious," he says.

Knowing this profound truth is just the first step. Eckhart goes on to explain the importance of becoming more present in our daily lives and why the ability to become still is essential. "Nothing can give you lasting happiness except the realization of the 'I am' presence," he says. "There is a peace in it and a joy. There's a very subtle joy in there and then the world is no longer such a frustrating place."

Of course, challenges in life will still arise. "But way you deal with them is more peaceful," he says. "You don't create drama out of little challenges. You don't create huge unhappiness when things go wrong."

"That's the shift," Eckhart says. "That's the awakening of consciousness."

Watch to see how you, too, can create this shift towards your life's greater purpose.