Essential Teachings Special: Releasing Unconsciousness
Eckhart Tolle discusses how a
Nov 06, 2025•33 min
Eckhart Tolle: Essential Teachings
Oprah Winfrey is delighted to introduce a new weekly podcast series from one of the great spiritual thinkers of our time: Eckhart Tolle. Eckhart’s wisdom will help you learn to quiet your mind, separate your ego from your true self and live a fully present life. Essential Teachings by Eckhart will provide a path to discover an enlightened state of consciousness. Oprah says Eckhart transformed her life and hopes these Essential Teachings will inspire you to seek your own higher purpose.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Last refreshed:
Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Episodes
Essential Teachings Special: Transforming Our Suffering into Awakening
Eckhart talks with a live audience about the paradox of suffering and awakening. He says the ego, in its attempt to strengthen itself, creates distress and eventually brings about its own destruction. For many, this cycle can be the catalyst to awaken. Eckhart says If we had not suffered, we would not find transformation. He believes this paradox is an intrinsic part of the plan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 30, 2025•38 min
Essential Teachings Special: Forgiveness and Awakening
Eckhart discusses forgiveness. He says most of us carry resentments or grievances. Eckhart calls them internal dark spots that block consciousness from emerging and strengthen the ego. True forgiveness he says, is not something we make happen. It arises naturally when we’re connected to the deeper essence of who we are. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 23, 2025•24 min
Essential Teachings Special: Accessing the Dimension Beyond Thought
Eckhart explains why our goal is to learn to access the transcendent part of ourselves which is beyond thinking. Most people have no connection to this state until some crisis pushes them to dig deeper. Eckhart says we must find spaces of awareness between thoughts which will eventually lead us to a state of being that is connected to the soul of the universe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 16, 2025•35 min
Essential Teachings Special: Real Change Begins with Our State of Consciousness
Eckhart says the most important things we can do is transform our state of consciousness, realize our connection to the source and let go of our self-imposed limitations. He compares the transcendent realm to the sun. We are like a ray from that source, shining into this world. Eckhart believes everyone on the planet is a brief flicker of consciousness… here for a short time; but connected to the eternal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 09, 2025•31 min
Essential Teachings Special: Know Thyself: Remembering Who We Are
Eckhart quotes ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagorus who said, “Know thyself.” Eckhart says unfortunately our educational system is geared toward only one kind of knowledge: the intellectual. He explains how there is another knowledge based on wisdom and intuition. It’s that kind of inner-knowing he says we must embrace, not as a replacement for intellectual knowledge but as a much-needed addition. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 02, 2025•36 min
Essential Teachings Special: Rising Above Life’s Challenges
Eckhart asks, “When life’s challenges strike, how do we respond?” He questions do we rise above worn-out patterns with new awareness or do we spiral into the old unconsciousness. He says we shouldn’t blame ourselves when we relapse. Suffering and setbacks are a necessary and vital part of awakening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 25, 2025•40 min
Essential Teachings Special: Growing Up and Waking Up
Eckhart discusses the path to awakening. He says there are two stages to a person’s life: waking up and growing up. Many start to awaken, only to later discover large parts of their personality lag behind; they haven’t really grown up. To reach maturity Eckhart says spiritual practice must encompass all of who we are and become an integral part of our daily lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 18, 2025•35 min
Essential Teachings Special: Liberation from the Mind
Eckhart says the beginning of liberation is when you realize you are not the thinker. He says many people derive their identity from what the mind tells them. For those who have not yet awakened that is where they find their sense of self. We free ourselves when we begin to realize there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought and that the things which truly matter like joy, love and inner peace arise beyond the mind. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 11, 2025•34 min
Essential Teachings Special: The Joy of Being
Eckhart discusses discovering the joy of being. He says in any given moment we have the chance to remain open to life, align with what is and experience a natural sense of peace and aliveness. Eckhart helps us release past conditioning to experience ourselves and our lives with a fresh perspective and sense of delight. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 04, 2025•35 min
Essential Teachings Special: The Deep I
Eckhart takes listeners through a live meditation inspired by a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The wick of individual life runs deep into the oil of pure being." Eckhart says we have great depth within. He encourages listeners to reach beyond the limitations of their personality to find what he calls the Deep I. He describes it as that aspect of ourselves which transcends the ego and is connected to the ultimate source of universal consciousness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...
Aug 28, 2025•42 min
Essential Teachings Special: The Stillness Within
Eckhart takes listeners through two live meditations about the stillness within. He says finding the transcendent dimension is the only thing that will satisfy us. He believes it’s not something we can achieve, it’s something we discover in the here and now. Eckhart explains why becoming aware of ourselves in stillness is the essence of all identity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 21, 2025•44 min
Essential Teachings Special: Addiction to Thinking
Eckhart answers questions on several topics, including one about addiction. He says people are addicted to many substances. But the greatest addiction of all is thinking. It’s like a drug…and people can’t stop. They resist letting go because it shields them from the painful parts of their lives. Eckhart says the solution is presence. Becoming aware slows down an overactive mind. Our confusion dissipates…and thinking loses its ability to wreak havoc in our lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pr...
Aug 14, 2025•44 min
Essential Teachings Special: Surrendering the Ego
Eckhart addresses topics like surrendering the ego, what to do with anger and how to confront our fears. Eckhart says fear arises when we become drawn into negative thinking and project it into the future. He goes on to say that most of the time, fear has no basis in reality because when the future finally arrives, it’s actually the present moment again. And in the present there is usually nothing to fear. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 07, 2025•34 min
Essential Teachings Special: Liberation Through Stillness
Eckhart leads a meditation and then answers questions from a live audience. He says the most important thing to achieve in our lifetime is stillness because without it we feel frustrated, angry and discontent. He says stillness is the answer that brings the sense of aliveness we feel when we’re free of thought. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 31, 2025•50 min
Essential Teachings Special: You are the Light of Consciousness
Eckhart talks with a live audience about the new consciousness he sees emerging around the world. He says one of life’s great mysteries is that the universe is conscious. While scientists struggle to define it and we can’t see it under a microscope, consciousness exists. Eckhart says we are living proof of that and we have a role to play. He quotes an ancient aphorism: “You are the light of the world.” He says what that means is we are the light of consciousness manifesting in the world. Hosted ...
Jul 24, 2025•51 min
Essential Teachings Special: Beyond the Conceptual Self
Eckhart talks with a live audience about letting go of our false sense of self. He says when we base our identity on externals: our looks, what we do and where we live - that’s the ego. In that state, we’re either inferior or superior; never equal. True relationships become impossible. But when we’re grounded in essential being, the need to compare disappears and we discover we are infinitely precious. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 17, 2025•45 min
Essential Teachings Special: Presence: The Natural Path that Leads to Life
Eckhart talks with a live audience about freeing oneself from the mind to find presence. He says, we must become aware of the harmful thoughts that hold us hostage. Life’s crises need not drag us into unconsciousness. We can stay alert, and let the rough times take us to a deeper state of awareness. Eckhart says while the path to presence is narrow, it ultimately leads to life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 10, 2025•52 min
Essential Teachings Special: Accept Each Moment as if You Had Chosen It
Eckhart talks with a live audience about the process of becoming aware. When challenges arise, he says go with it. Learn to accept each moment as if we had chosen it. He explains that if you do this, what at first looks like an obstacle then becomes an opening into transcendence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 03, 2025•50 min
Essential Teachings Special: Bringing Consciousness to This World
Eckhart talks with a live audience about his belief that we are meant to bring consciousness to this world. To do that, we must keep the pathways clear. We rise above thought, not fall below it, which is what happens when we use substances like alcohol and drugs. Once we become free of that, Eckhart says we realize the essence behind the personality… which is pure presence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 26, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Essential Teachings Special: The Next Stage of Human Evolution
Original Air Date: September 30, 2021. Eckhart talks to a live audience. He says most of us are going through a transition in consciousness which he calls awakening. He sees that as the next stage of human evolution. There have been rare periods in history when collective awareness made great leaps forward. Eckhart sees a similar shift happening now. He says we must continue with our practice, release our inner turmoil and align ourselves with the inevitable now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/p...
Jun 12, 2025•44 min
Essential Teachings Special: Awakening Right Where You Are
Original Air Date: September 23, 2021. Eckhart talks with a live audience and urges participants to wake up from the delusion that the things we think will make us happy… won’t. Even if we get everything on our wish-list: wealth, fame, a life of ease, we feel unsatisfied. But Eckhart says the world is not here to make us happy. It’s here to help us evolve. He says whatever our situation is, we can surrender to life’s challenges and awaken right where we are. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privac...
Jun 05, 2025•58 min
Essential Teachings Special: Releasing Barriers to Presence
Original Air Date: September 16, 2021 In this podcast, Eckhart talks with a live audience about clearing away the obstacles to presence. Eckhart says the entire universe is awakening and is in the early stages of something vast. We are a part of that. To be spiritually awake, means releasing barriers created by the mind. Eckhart says while the ability to think is a great evolutionary achievement, people have become so enmeshed in thought, they’ve lost touch with their deeper essence and their sp...
May 29, 2025•55 min
Essential Teachings Special: Presence, Healing and Wholeness
Original Air Date: September 9, 2021 Eckhart answers questions from a live audience including healthcare professionals: doctors, nurses, and therapists. They ask questions about how to deal with the expectations of their patients who yearn for healing and wholeness. He emphasizes the importance of tending to one’s state of consciousness and getting the ego out of the way, so the power of stillness and presence can shine through. He says only then can we truly be of service to others. Hosted on A...
May 22, 2025•50 min
Essential Teachings Special: Wisdom And Stillness
Eckhart talks with a live audience about the importance of cultivating wisdom. He says the first step is acknowledging the magnitude of all that we don’t know. Then we step out of our “thinking mind,” with its chronic judgments and interpretations, and step into what he calls aware stillness. It’s there that we have access to a much deeper intelligence, one connected to our higher purpose which Eckhart believes is to realize our oneness with the totality of the universe. Hosted on Acast. See aca...
May 15, 2025•53 min
Essential Teachings Special: Inner Spaciousness
Eckhart talks to a live audience about bringing meditation practice, inner spaciousness and what he calls presence, into our everyday lives. However, he cautions against making meditation one more chore on our “To-Do” list. He says so often there is the underlying assumption that we must become good at meditation or succeed at it. That in itself can actually become a hindrance. The idea is not to do, but to be. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 08, 2025•48 min
Essential Teachings Special: Love and Connection
Original Air Date: August 19, 2021 Eckhart talks with a live audience filled with both patients and healthcare professionals, about the new consciousness emerging in medicine. Eckhart explains why there has been a lack of compassion, time and care of patients. He offers solutions on how doctors can be more fully present with their patients and get to know them on an individual basis. Eckhart also explains how illness can become an awakening, pushing us out of our ego and into a connection with o...
May 01, 2025•52 min
Essential Teachings Special: Conscious Relationships
Original Air Date: August 12, 2021 Eckhart talks to an international audience in Greece. He brings his renowned wisdom to everyday concerns: like how to quiet an over-active mind, what is the best way to set boundaries with friends and family and how we can use the practice of presence to create conscious relationships. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 24, 2025•44 min
Essential Teachings Special: Love and Connection
Original Air Date: August 5, 2021 Eckhart Tolle meets with an international audience and answers questions on topics we can all relate to such as: are love and consciousness the same thing? Why do our egos drive us to be separate and define the people in our lives as “other?” He also addresses a subject that troubles parents everywhere…navigating screen time with our children and the overwhelming impact of technology. Eckhart says we can begin to help our children by tending to our own state of ...
Apr 17, 2025•49 min
Essential Teachings Special: Eckhart’s Inner Journey
Original Air Date: July 29, 2021 Eckhart Tolle shares the story of his own personal journey and the spiritual transformation that led to his groundbreaking work. He recalls his childhood in Germany and Spain, his parents’ tumultuous relationship and subsequent divorce. At the age of 29, he experienced a soul-crushing depression that pushed him to the brink of despair. Out of that pain, Eckhart says he experienced a profound awakening that changed the course of his life forever. He went on to sha...
Apr 10, 2025•48 min
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android