This passage, taken from the transcript of the “a new earth” online class on Oprah.com with Oprah and Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, and now A New Earth, is a beautiful way of describing and explaining what consciousness is – and the beginnings of how to achieve it.
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OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Well what’s very interesting to me about all of this is that when I read that the first time, I thought it was, you know, a beautiful passage. And then I read it a second time, and awakened a little bit more, and started to look at nature differently. You know, I have, you know, live in a lovely space where I’m surrounded by flowers, not in aChicago.
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): But in California, and you know, always just appreciated the garden. Aren’t they lovely in all the different colors, and the roses, and all that? And then I decided to move into the garden without naming it. What if I were like a babe?
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR “A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE”): Yes.
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): What if I were a babe, you know, learning what a flower was for the first time? What if I went out under the oaks that I love so much but I didn’t know it was an oak, I didn’t know what to call it. And I shared this at one of our after shows. That for the first time, and I’ve loved trees all of my life, and the sense of power and stillness they represent. But by not naming those things in nature, that I felt a magical presence. I felt a sense of majesty, and power, and strength, and connection that I’d never felt before.
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR “A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE”): Yes.
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Because I didn’t give it a name.
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR “A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE”): Yes, that’s the key.
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Yes. I didn’t give a name or have a reference for everything that a tree has meant in my life.
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR “A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE”): That’s right.
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Isn’t it?
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR “A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE”): That’s right. So being present with the perception. And this theme runs, it’s perhaps the main theme running through the whole book, is that state where the compulsive naming ofthings…
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Yes.
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR “A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE”): And you start with nature because that’s easier to let go of the naming. Later, we’ll be talking about that in some…
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Yeah. Stop labeling people and situations.
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR “A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE”): Yes, that’s more difficult because people invite the labels because there’s so much mind in everybody. And they label you and you label them. So, but with nature, this is the starting point to find a different relationship to nature. It doesn’t mean that you need to forget what you have learned about trees or about flowers. When it’s necessary, you can get that knowledge and you’d use it.
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Right
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR “A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE”): But not to be totally in the grip of what you have learned of mental labels, of interpreting mentally, but being able to perceive. One could call it, “perceive the flower.” See it through a background of just stillness.
OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Just stillness.
ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR “A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE”): Which is really consciousness.
————————————-The entire transcript and video downloads can be found on www.oprah.com/anewearth. You need to be a member of Oprah.com and the Oprah book club to access the information, but the registration takes two minutes. Its completely free and defiantly worth checking out, the transcripts alone are a fantastic read.
