The Deepest Truth of Human Existence (2002)

Beside the Ganga River in Rishikesh, India, Eckhart Tolle talks about the deepest truth in human existence. Talks "about" is right - because words are not the truth, says Tolle. They can only be about the truth; they can only point to the truth. But they are not the truth, which is why Tolle asks us to listen to the gaps in his words as well as to the words themselves. Do we know ourselves? Some of us think we do. But what we really mean, says Tolle, is "I know a lot about myself." We know facts, information; we know the contents of our minds. But that does not mean we know ourselves. Tolle's meditation on the truth brings up the subjects of psychoanalysis, celebrity, the ego, the symbol of the Christian cross, overeating and other things. But no things are his true subject. Nothing is. The truth is not in the words, but the gaps between them.