Presence is the foundation for everything. In this podcast, Eckhart explains why

presence is the bedrock for our existence. He says without it, nothing would be

possible. He says most people define themselves through self-created labels

based on our past or on an imagined future. He says we must ask who am I right

now? Eckhart believes we won't know the answer fully because it remains a

mystery. He says hiding deep inside each of us is a sense of beingness that we

cannot define. Eckhart believes we derive our true self from presence and thus

life is synonymous with the now. Good morning to everyone. I haven't prepared

anything for this session. In fact I have no idea what I'm going to talk about.

Now in theory that could be very disconcerting, not knowing. And yes, not

knowing is disconcerting if you think that you should know. If you accept not

knowing then it's actually quite lovely. That could be called trust or face or

resting in being. There's even a little book written in medieval times in

England by an anonymous author which I highly recommend. And the title of the book

is The Cloud of Unknowing. And it talks of course in theistic terms about knowing

God and it tells you that you cannot know God through concepts. So you have to

remove concepts from your mind and have that space of clear awareness, although

that word is not used in the book. To know the modality of knowing through

concepts is of course necessary words, concepts. For many people that's all

there is, they relate to the world almost exclusively through concepts. But then

there's another possibility and that is not conceptual knowing but non-conceptual

unitive consciousness. And the term that I sometimes use is on the one hand you

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