What's A Day Like In The Life Of Eckhart?

I was watching a talk with you and Neil Donoghue Walsh and he said, you know, we both wrote great books but the difference between him and you is that you live it. And so first I just got to thank you for being such an example for something that's truly missing in most of the world. But my question is, what's a day like in the life of Eckhart? It sounds like a bad reality TV show. It's not terribly interesting. It's very ordinary, unless when I'm traveling it gets a bit more interesting because there's a plane to catch and there's a hotel and so on. But when I'm not traveling, it's extremely ordinary. I love being, so there's always set aside time for just being still or walking in nature. And I'm notorious for not meeting deadlines. Everybody knows when they say there's a debt, this needs to be done, this thing needs to be done by so and so, well, we'll see. I love night times, so I sometimes don't go to bed until 1.30 or 2 and sleep about five hours. And I like little things, going to a cafe, have a coffee somewhere. Nature, as I said, love walking in nature. Reading occasionally, being, doing whatever needs to be done. People call, there's always things that need to be done. I do them quietly. Some things don't get done at all and then they disappear. Easier for you, right? Are you still able to go out in public, though? Still able to go out in public? Well, that is interesting. I go out usually with a baseball cap, which I never really liked, but I've been wearing them for years now. Because I love privacy, I love to be invisible, I love to be in a room and being able to just observe what goes on in the room without anybody being aware that I'm there. That's more difficult now. So often people come up, even with a baseball cap, they come up and usually it's lovely. They say some that it's been so wonderful, my life has changed. It happens almost every day. And that's wonderful. I prefer not to be recognized, but the moment it happens, I'm happy and I respond and there's a loving interaction. But my preference is not to be seen. I'm an introvert by nature, so even to go out and give talks was a very strange thing for me. I knew that this is what the universe wanted me to do, or the universe acting through me. So it's things that one surrenders into things and then they're fine. It's not my nature to go out on stage and talk. And so every situation brings its own challenges. The loss of privacy and so on could be seen as a challenge and requires then surrender to see in this world there are polarities. You gain something here, you lose something there. In the world of polarities on the surface level, you experience polarities. The gain here has to be paid for something. So the fact that the teaching has gone out to so many people, that's wonderful. Of course then, yes, privacy is lost. That you need to accept that. Before I had privacy, but very few people were reached by the teaching. I did workshops in the 80s and early 90s. There was one evening talk in England that had been scheduled, nobody turned up. I was alone, I just sat there. But I had my privacy. And then I had a workshop once scheduled. Usually I had about 7, 10, 12, 15 people for little workshops. One workshop had been, somebody had organized a workshop for me and I arrived for a weekend, Saturday and Sunday. One person turned up waiting at the door and said, okay, let's do it. So not that many people were reached, but wonderful privacy. So that's how it is, it's simple. I don't live in an ashram where some spiritual teachers live in an ashram where they're surrounded by people who go. And that can be, of course, comforting for a while to the ego, if you still have an ego, hopefully not to the spiritual teacher. But it's not good. I prefer to be in normal everyday life and go to the supermarket. So it's not interesting, unfortunately, and not even glamorous, except occasionally when I visit Oprah, then suddenly it's, ah, driving into the big, the gates open to the big mansion and you drive in, oh. But otherwise, not that much glamour, thank you.