Improved Conscious Manifestation
Improved Conscious Manifestation
Improved Conscious Manifestation
Conscious
Manifestation
Question:
What is the fundamental difference between your teaching of presence and the current popular
teaching called The Law of Attraction? Behind that teaching is really a question about desire, and I
have always felt very drawn to the Sufi teaching, which says that hidden deeply behind my desire is
the desire of God. And yet, the proponents of The Law of Attraction are saying that you can have or do
or be anything that you want, if you think and feel in a certain way. I always see a red flag when I hear
that, because I think the ego could go wild with that approach. My question is, is there a deeper level
Eckhart Tolle:
The Sufis are right, of course, when they say that, ultimately, every desire is really a disguised
desire for God. It’s a disguised desire for ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment, and being completely
who you are. Basically, we’re talking about the Source, realizing he Source of all life. Everyone is
longing for that, but in most humans there is a longing for what I sometimes call “the return
journey”, to return to the very Source of life. It’s really only then, when you have discovered it, found
it, consciously, that there is a completion of life. That’s what the Universe wants. It wants two things,
which, if you observe yourself you’ll know are true. You are the Universe. You can learn a lot about
the Universe by observing yourself, because you are it and it is you. As above, so below.
Conscious Manifestation!
Conscious Manifestation
The human being has the tendency or the desire to create in the world of form, to give birth to
whatever it may be. It may be a material thing, it may be something else. There is a desire in humans
to participate in the act of creation. Of course, the act of creation is there even without humans.
Millions of life forms on this planet alone come into being every moment. Millions of life forms of
different kinds, it staggers the imagination how many life forms on this planet alone are being created
at every moment – and of course die at the same time. Birth and death, birth and death, continuously.
Humans are being created, every moment I can say a human being is being born, somewhere on the
planet, and a human being is dying. At this moment, somebody is dying on the planet, and again, and
again.
There’s the act of creation that the Universe is engaged in, and creation is increasing in complexity. If
you look at our planet alone, you see that there was a time when it was barren, there were only
minerals. Then came plant life, then other levels of life, in increasing complexity. Like a tree, first
there’s only one branch, a stem, and then smaller branches coming out of that. It goes into complexity.
Even human life forms; if you go back in human history, human society and the human being were
both fairly simple thousands of years ago, even a few hundred years ago compared to now. There
was much less complexity in people’s personal lives, what they had to deal with, and in the collective.
The Universe is growing in complexity, and is indulging in or wanting or delighting, perhaps, in the act
of creation. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be happening. It is a desire of the Universe to create, and that is
We participate in this wanting to give birth, the act of creation can happen to the human, the human
can create. In that sense we are different from animals because we can create all kinds of things that
are totally new – we can create music, science, and many other things. Art, philosophies, pictures,
movies, organizations, Wall Street. All kinds of things. And you can probably find, in yourself, there’s
part of you that would like to do and participate in the act of creation and bring something into this
world that wasn’t here before, in the world of form. Maybe it’s a book you want to write, or a piece of
music, or you want to create an enlightened organization that changes things in the world, or you
Conscious Manifestation!
Conscious Manifestation
You can create a structure that is helpful but there’s that desire to acquire something. Some people
who are very much in the egoic consciousness don’t see it so much as giving from your treasure and
then creating something. You must, to some extent, have gone beyond ego if the creation comes
through the fullness that you sense inside you, and from there you can truly create. In the egoic
consciousness, they are also very interested in the world of form, but the egoic consciousness does
not come so much from wanting to give, but wanting to have. So the ego goes, “What can I get?” and
from Presence, when you participate in the creation, it’s more “What can I give birth to?” – that’s
the difference.
There’s an egoic aspect of increasing complexity in the world of form, where the egoic part is wanting
something. The ego comes not from fullness but from neediness, from a sense of “not enough”, and
that is the ego desire. The ego says, “I desire that car because I will really feel better when I am sitting
in that car and driving it – especially if other people see me in it”. Without other people, it doesn’t
really work. It only begins to work for the ego if other people have cars that are not like yours, the
same with a house or anything else that you acquire, any possession. You can perfectly enjoy a nice
house or nice car without the ego deriving any pleasure from it, or enhancing itself. I’m not saying
things cannot be enjoyed if you have no ego, you can still enjoy lovely things but not because they
add to your sense of self. It’s a simple enjoyment of a beautiful thing that perhaps a human has
created – a beautiful piece of furniture, a beautiful house. You would probably not want to acquire a
20-bedroom house for yourself when you are not coming from ego, it is unlikely that Presence would
There is both the egoic aspect of wanting to have, and the non-egoic desire of the Universe to give
birth to more forms and experience more forms. The Universe does it without the humans, but an
added dimension comes in when the greater intelligence, or consciousness, creates through the
humans. This is why we have the expression that we become “co-creators” with God. God creates the
fishes in the sea, and the plant life, and all the animals, and the human bodies. Then through the
human form, the human mind, including thought – the Universe can create things that wouldn’t be
there without the human. So desire as such is really an egoic phenomenon. When you create beyond
ego, it’s not so much a creation out of desire, because desire implies some kind of lack. Creation
comes as wanting to give, from the fullness that you sense within you.
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Conscious Manifestation
When I wrote the books, the books wanted to come out and I could feel it wanted to be created. It’s not
so much that I had a desire to write a book. The book wanted to come. That is creation when it does
not come from ego. The desire of the ego, as I mentioned earlier just now, if you look deeply it is a
disguised desire also for God, for spiritual realization. Those that are trapped in ego don’t know
that what they are really looking for is not the bank account or the house or the car or the
recognition for others, or the fame, or whatever it is that the ego thinks would give it fulfillment.
What they’re really looking for is themselves, a fuller version of themselves. And who are you
in your essence? You are the Source. Who you are in your essence is consciousness itself. If God
is the sun, so to speak, an analogy – consciousness is the light of the sun. God is the Source, the
unmanifested, of which you cannot speak because whatever you say is a distortion. It’s absurd to
speak of that mystery, as the Tao Te Ching says, you cannot speak of the Tao, and nevertheless we
are speaking. And nevertheless, the Tao Te Ching did get written in words.
The people who are impaled by egoic desire eventually experience frustration and suffering,
even if they attain whatever they desire. Then they realize it doesn’t seem to work, and they still
feel this unfulfillment, perhaps even more strongly than when they no longer have anything
that they could mentally project themselves with. When you have everything that this world
can offer you, you can realize the futility of desiring things that cannot give yourself ultimate
fulfillment, ultimate satisfaction, a sense of permanency, vibrantly alive inner peace. These
things cannot give that to you. But in the meantime, as long as people don’t come to that realization,
they are free to practice manifesting, they are free to practice manifesting the car, the house, and to
some extent it can work. You can be a little bit hampered when you are coming from ego
consciousness, so your powers of manifestation are limited, evertheless you have some.
In addition, what the ego also manifests is its own dysfunction that comes with the house and the car.
While the ego can manifest a house and a car and whatever else it wants, it can also manifest the
drama in the marriage that’s in the house as well. Because of its inbuilt dysfunction, it can also
manifest continuous conflict around whatever else it manifests. Eventually, you realize that this world
does not provide you with satisfaction, and then you begin to awaken.
Conscious Manifestation!
Conscious Manifestation
There are two means by which manifestation comes about. One is the ego’s neediness to manifest,
and another is out of the fullness of Presence, you can manifest. Even coming from the fullness
of Presence, Presence can use also the human mind. Presence can flow through the mind and can
energize your thoughts, and they are no longer dysfunctional. Whatever Presence wants to
manifest through you, it can use the power of thought to manifest. It will come from a giving,
there is a desire to give, not to get. Thought can be used and can be used more powerfully when
When the human becomes co-creator with God, then Presence can flow into the human mind and use
also human thought and create original things, and that’s a beautiful thing. When you create from
state of presence-You dont create to satisfy you – because you anyway ARE creating out of the
satisfaction and Joy, out of Presence. The reason for creating then, is the joy of the act of creation.
In the ego you do not have that, it’s not the joy of the creation, it’s the stress of the creation.
You may get moments of joy, when momentarily the ego subsides, but then it comes back in again.
It can be very stressful. Any endeavor that the ego undertakes becomes stress, and becomes conflict.
If you look at organizations, whenever egos come together, and they have some big enterprise. Even
well-intentioned egos are still egos. That’s why the proverb applies: “The road to hell is paved with
good intentions”. It’s talking about the ego. Look at the administration of hospitals – a place of healing,
potentially. Universities are a place of learning and wisdom, potentially. There’s nothing wrong with
manifestation. When you come from ego, eventually you will learn that you become dissatisfied with
whatever you create. I am not going to take away the pleasure or pain that the ego has in creating. I
would never dissuade anybody by saying, “Don’t strive after material things because it won’t do you
any good”. There’s no point in saying that. Humans have to taste the truth of it for themselves. More
humans are actually coming into this world now that may not need to go through the full-fledged
development of the egoic madness. There are more humans coming in now who perhaps will go
through the egoic phase in their adolescence, and then grow out of it when they become adults. That
perhaps would be a wonderful thing, because that’s really how it should be: a temporary stage of
immaturity, of delusion, that you go through as part of your growth into a fully conscious human being.
Conscious Manifestation!
Conscious Manifestation
The Universe wants to create. There’s nothing wrong with creation, especially the creation that comes
from the fullness of life. The Universe also wants deep inner peace. It also wants you to be, rather
than to do, to return to the Source. Really, this is what Presence is. Presence is conscious realization
of the Source of all life. That’s what the ego originally wanted, when it was looking for something
else. Ego really wanted to find the source of life. When you are consciously connected with the
Source of all life, then a miraculous thing can happen. You can actually be in balance between
dwelling in Source awareness, which is the Stillness, which is the Presence, which is the awareness.
Awareness is Source itself, the light of consciousness knowing itself as the light of consciousness.
You can contribute to this world of form and allow the Universe, the Source, to create through you,
and participate in the act of conscious creation if that’s what you want. Or you can stay in the
This happened to me to some extent, it happened to Ramana Maharshi, when he was a young
man. He went completely back to the Source, into what is called self-realization, knowing himself as
consciousness, as the self, and stopped speaking. He didn’t want to speak anymore, because that’s
doing, and there was nothing to do. There was just dwelling in the Source. He sat by the foot of a
temple, delighting in Source awareness. He didn’t eat anymore, because what was the point? Instead
of taking him to a mental home, as they would have done in the West, some pilgrims who regularly
visited the temple would put food in his mouth. After a few years, gradually, he came out again.
Gradually he began to interact again, and even words came back. There was an extreme form of the
return journey. He could have stayed there for the rest of his life.
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Conscious Manifestation
Cases like that have occurred, and that’s not for us to condemn or approve, but it can happen. I’m not
pointing this out to you as necessarily a desirable thing for you to do, in the West particularly. He
never lost connection with the Source, even when he began to speak. He was asked questions, and
he was relatively uneducated. They brought ancient scriptures, and asked “What does this mean?”
and immediately he could explain every scripture. He was dwelling in Source, and Presence itself
was speaking through him. So he became a great sage, and without doing anything as such, an
ashram grew up around him. Creation did happen to some extent, through him. The Universe, through
him, created the ashram. A spiritual teacher really points the way back to the Source. The spiritual
teacher is not primarily interested in showing you what you can do to improve your life out here in the
world of form. That’s why I rarely talk about how to manifest this or that, how to be a great success in
life. There’s something much deeper than being a great success out there.
There are two movements in the Universe, it wants to create but it also wants to know itself (want to
come back to the source). God, let’s use the word… God obviously delights in creation. Look out into
the Universe, at the infinite abundance of suns and galaxies and so on, billions and billions, the
infinite abundance of creation on this planet, the complexity of life forms. Obviously God delights in
the act of creation, and the dance of form. As we are here, we are part of that, we are form also. We
can also delight in the world of form, either by creating new forms, or if we are frequency-holders or
contemplatives, we can delight in the world of form by witnessing all the beauty that is already here
around us, and bringing this light of consciousness into the world of forms that are already here.
There are two ways you can delight in the world of form, as a co-creator and give birth to new forms,
whatever it may be. You can also, even at the same time, be the witness of the incredible multiplicity
of life forms that are continuously around you, and look in amazement at the miracle that surrounds
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Conscious Manifestation
I Was Very Uncomfortable With The Word "Manifestation." I Associated It With People Using Spiritual
But according to Eckhart Tolle's Teachings Conscious manifestation differs from manifesting from the
ego in some very significant ways. Here are the Four Ways.
1. When we manifest from ego, we tend to have a feeling of lack or scarcity. With conscious
manifestation, we create from a feeling of abundance, rooted in the fullness and richness of
2. When we manifest from ego, we tend to ask, “How can I get what I want?” With conscious
3. When we manifest from ego, we rely on our personal willpower. With conscious
4. When we manifest from ego, we become angry and anxious, when any situation or person
arises as an obstacle. Ego treats every obstacle/ hindrance as an enemy. When we are creating
from awareness, the obstacle is not regarded as an enemy. In fact, you will yield to that
obstacle. Meaning you surrender and become ONE with it and transform that
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Conscious Manifestation
Eckhart Tolle: Often people ask questions about manifesting and the power of intention, and
how that relates to the power of Now. One person asked me about the difference between the
continuous wanting that I write about in A New Earth and intention - the intention to create something.
What is the importance of manifesting things in your life, or creating, or is that counter-productive?
There are many exciting books these days about creating and manifesting: The Secret, the teachings
of Abraham, and so on. Often people ask, how does that relate to Stillness and inner peace? And
acceptance of what is? And surrender to the Present Moment? And living in alignment with Now? Is
This is an important question for almost everybody. Your own life is a microcosm of the macrocosm. If
you look at the Universe, the first thing you will see is that it likes to create, and it likes to manifest. On
this planet alone, the Universe is continuously creating and manifesting countless life forms. And in
outer space, we can only assume – we don't know what exactly is there – but there is a vastness of
life out there, and probably many more life forms than we have on this planet. The life forms, both in
the sea, and on land, including humans, they seem to enjoy a dance of coming into being and
By just looking at life, you can see that the Universe loves to manifest. Also it seems to be the case
that life forms, over periods of time, become more differentiated. Many more come. And even human
societies become more complex. We have had ancient civilizations that were very complex, but our
present civilization is the most complex. This of course includes problem-ridden. That goes with
complexity. Every individual who is part of this civilization has a life that is full of problems. But
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The Universe likes to create, to manifest, to experience the play of form. That's one movement. And
you can see it in yourself, at some level. There is something else in humans, you can only really see
in yourself, an inner phenomenon. The Universe wants not only to experience that manifested life, it
also wants to experience peace and something that is not touched by the continuously fluctuating
forms. It wants to know itself deeply, directly, in its essence. That really is the root of spirituality. The
Universe not only wants the outward movement, but it also wants the inward – the return movement to
the One. Every human being also embodies these two movements. It seems that you are torn
sometimes between the outward movement into form, and the inward return movement to the Source
where it all started. The Source that was never really lost, it is always there because it is timeless, and
it is within you. You feel drawn back to that, and that is the pull toward spirituality, peace, Stillness.
Not one or the other is right or wrong. It's only perhaps if you totally lose yourself in one or the other –
maybe that's not quite it. Perhaps this is the challenge of the Universe here on this planet, and
perhaps on other planets. The challenge to reconcile the two movements, rather than to have them be
separate. Is it possible to reconcile the inner movement toward Stillness and Being, and the
outer toward action, and doing? I would say it is, and that is our challenge at this time.
Traditionally, it's been very unconscious what humans have manifested in this world. They have been
identified with doing, and identified with form. That has been going on for as long as anyone can
remember – since recorded history and beyond. And we call that ‘ego'. The One consciousness that
underlies everything moves into form, assumes forms, and enjoys the play of form but it's not enough
for the one consciousness to enjoy the play of form, it needs to completely believe in it to make it
Every human believes that they have a life of their own, and that means they are identified with the
form of that life. This particular physical body, this particular psychological life form, the accumulation
of thoughts and the emotions that go with these thoughts; it all becomes part of that form-identity.
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Conscious Manifestation
Consciousness is trapped, or believes itself to be trapped in that. We could say that in that state, the
Universe or Consciousness has entered a "dream-like" state. It wants to do that, it must enjoy that
dream, up to a point. Consciousness has entered that "dream-like" state where it is completely
identified with form. It doesn't realize that every other form is an aspect of itself. Of course, then you
are just an isolated entity. It becomes quite unpleasant after a while. So you have to get together with
other entities and instead of having an "I" form, you have a "We" form, an "Us".
For a while, the Universe seems to be okay with that, to have Consciousness identified completely
with form. Then the "movie" goes on. Reading through history, you can see what happens when
Consciousness is identified completely with form. Then it comes time for another stage to arise, when
Consciousness is beginning to awaken from complete identification with form. This is beginning to
happen at many stages, this is why human beings are drawn to spiritual teachings. It is the
"Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visit to the Now, have your dwelling place in
the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects
"Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is
eternal." Life was there before birth and Life will be there after death.
Conscious Manifestation!