Are You Aware of the Narrative in Your Mind? | Eckhart Tolle

Because you won't really enjoy the fruit of your labors if habitually you cannot be present in the moment. No matter what you achieve, the enjoyment will be short lived because of the habitual pattern of dissatisfaction in the background. It's always there, some obscure sense of lack. And often it comes into the foreground as real unhappiness, frustration. And then if you realize that there's always this waiting for the next thing, which is thought. When you're waiting for the next thing, you're trapped in thought because that's where the future happens. Now, the realization that this is happening to you is very important. First step is the beginning of something else arising. And in all of you that has already arisen. Or occasionally it still gets obscured, Perhaps, probably, I assume, something else has arisen that's not thought, that is beyond thought. The ability to recognize thought. The ability to recognize certain patterns that habitually arise in your mind, your mental emotional field, the ability to witness that which arises in your mental emotional field. That's an enormous leap in consciousness. Another dimension, one could say, has arisen. We could call it presence, we could call it awareness. It's not thought, but it's intelligence. So intelligence is not confined to thought. There is a dimension in you that is far greater, far more intelligence than any intelligent thought. It's the place from where all intelligence arises, place of where all creativity arises. So there's the ability to suddenly be aware of your inner states, to be aware of what your mind is saying. The narrative, the habitual narrative that you're telling yourself you're having a monologue. Or many people have a dialogue with themselves where they split themselves in two. And then this one argues with the other. Why aren't you good enough? Why did you do this? Why do you never get anything right? You shouldn't have. He shouldn't have said that. Yes, but on the other. So you can have a dialogue and you narrative or you can have a monologue, says, I am such a miserable creature. Because a lot of the time the narratives, the unconscious thought processes tend to be more negative than positive for many, many people. So to be aware that this is happening, that's an enormous gain in consciousness. It's the beginning of awakening. Spiritually speaking, something arises that is not part of the conditioned mind patterns. So there's the ability to observe your inner states. And that's a wonderful little pointer to ask yourself frequently, what's my inner state at this moment? And then look at it, direct your attention to it, the narratives. What have I been telling myself? And the emotion that accompanies the narrative. What am I feeling? What's the emotion? So in addition to being a story in your head and an emotion, there's a knowing behind it. There's a space behind it sometimes I call it inner space. There's an inner space from where you can be aware of what's happening on the level of the person, the personality. Because that inner space, the awareness, is not part of the personality. It's part is the being, the knowing that is inherent in the being. It.