Break Free: How to Stop Living in the Shadow of Your Past | Eckhart Tolle

And you want to go back to this dangerous activity again and again, because this dangerous activity frees you, while you're engaged in it, from yourself. But then, of course, the moment you come back to your ordinary activities, the self reemerges. Undoubtedly, you are here as a person with a history, a historical person, and hopefully with a future. How much future depends to some extent on your age. But who knows? You never know. Even a young person can suddenly disappear like a soap bubble. So you undoubtedly your history that has made you into who you are. But if for a moment you forget your history and pretend that there is no past, we can do it now. I say pretend. The reality is there is no past. But I don't want to say something that you find too hard to accept. So I say pretend. Let's pretend that there is no past. Why do I say there is no past? Because you've never experienced the past. It was always the present moment. Whatever you remember from the past was the present moment when it happened. Otherwise it could not have happened, and you can only remember it now. In this moment, in the light of consciousness, you remember something that you call the past. Let's pretend a moment you don't have it. You don't have a past. And the most dreadful thing, let's pretend that also you don't have a future, you don't have a past. Okay, I'm okay with that. But don't take away my future, because that's a dreadful thing. If you went into a doctor's office and he says, I'm afraid you have little future left. So. But let's pretend there's no past and no future. There's only this moment. And you don't need to remember conceptually who you are. Why no need to remember the self concept, the image of who you are, no past. Who are you? How do you perceive yourself? What does it feel like to be you in this moment without past and future? Is there anything left of you in this moment? Without past and future, which means without concepts, which means without thoughts, but not without consciousness? Is there anything left of you in this moment? If you have no past and you have no future, who are you without past and future? And you cannot answer that question because any answer would be a concept. Concept is from the past. Who are you? So the answer to who are you without past and future? Cannot be conceptual words. No, the answer of who or what you are without past or future can only be a realization, a moment of ah, so who am I without past and future? What does it feel like to be me without memory, without memorizing who I am. And that's. Now you're getting there. There is something that is. We have to use words, of course, which distort it. But there is a strange sense of presence, of beingness. You know that you are, but without adding, you know I am, but you don't know what or who. Because that's conceptual. The bare sense of beingness or presence is left when there's no past or future. That's just a pure sense of beingness or presence. At first it seems to be nothing and you cannot analyze it. And that's very hard to talk about. But you know, there is something. Or you could even say there's just a spaciousness, a space. Perhaps that's what the Buddha meant when he talked about emptiness. There is a spaciousness and that's. And then if you're aware of that, it tends to deepen. Sometimes for brief moments. You can get it accidentally in certain situations in life, brief moments of liberation from the self. And you go, ah, perhaps you see something very beautiful. And for a moment you transported out of yourself. There's just a pure perception against the background of awareness. For a moment you are liberated from yourself or a dangerous activity that requires your absolute presence. You can't be thinking about your problems or your life situation. You have to be absolutely, totally there. And you feel so much more alive. And you want to go back to this dangerous activity again and again because this dangerous activity frees you while you're engaged in it, from yourself. But then, of course, the moment you come back to your ordinary activities, the self reemerges. Oh, I have to climb another mountain now. And that's good then. Going beyond the self. And as you know, I've often spoken about, there's a huge desire in every human to become free of themselves. They don't know, they cannot verbalize it. They wouldn't say it in this way, but there's a huge desire. There's even a lot. There's an obscure fascination that humans have, is both fear but also a pull about the end of the world. Everybody is fascinated by stories of the end of the world is coming. Oh, there's fear, but there's also a kind of longing, because the end of the world is also freedom from myself. And there are no taxes anymore to pay and no exams and no worries about careers. The end of the world, especially if the world is making you unhappy, the end of the world would be a great thing. Of course, the world is largely in your mind. So you don't need the end of the world to be free of yourself. It will happen soon enough. But of course you can lower your level of consciousness so that you fall below thinking by drugs. Taking drugs or alcohol. Large amounts. And they have the effect of pulling you below thinking. But they liberate you temporarily from yourself also. Not always. But often they liberate you from yourself and you feel. That's why people feel happy when they drink. Not everybody. Some people get even more aggressive when they drink. That's another story we might go into another day. Many feel happy because they don't remember their problems. And this is also. There are some humans who exist below the level of thinking, which is the level of egoic. The egoic mind. And in the past they used to be called fools or idiots. These words you must not use anymore. Nowadays people who live below thinking. And these people don't have a problematic sense of self because they haven't arrived at that yet. It's like the dog. Dog doesn't have a problematic sense of self. What problems does the dog have? Self esteem. Do you have a problem with self esteem? Do you have a weight problem? Are you anxious about the future? Yes. My next meal. I'm not looking for it. But that's all. Once the meal is there, it's fine. The fool is a mythical figure too. In mythology and literature. The fool can do things that highly developed humans cannot do. More recent manifestations of that in fiction. For example the Hobbit. He's not highly intelligent. He's Most other people the hobbit interacts with are more intelligent than the hobbit. Or it's a simple creature and yet only he can do certain tasks because he is still more deeply connected with being with the Source. Has not developed a conceptual sense of self and does not inhabit a conceptual reality. Forrest Gump, the Movie. Another character like that who does great things and is supported by life but doesn't claim credit because he has no ego yet, hasn't arrived at it yet. So you are not here to go that way. We are not attempting to regress from the thinking mind and fall below thinking. This is why this may be a good moment to mention it. I discourage certainly excessive consumption of intoxicating beverages while you're here. Even any consumption of intoxicating. Or if English is not your native language. I'm talking about alcohol. If you cannot enjoy a meal without a glass of wine, that's fine. But two or three or four can greatly interfere with the arising of awareness or presence. Unless you're really deeply rooted in it, then it doesn't matter anymore. But then you wouldn't want to drink a lot. So that's something to be aware of here because it will pull you below thought. And then you might think you're present, and you might even convince somebody sitting next to you at dinner that you are enlightened. So that's one thing that can pull you below thought. And we don't want to be pulled below thought. Naturally, you will go below thought. Every night when you become tired and you go to sleep, you will feel yourself moving below thought. And for that brief moment, you are free of yourself. Also, it's delicious to be tired at night and you're in bed. The pull is very strong. And there's a moment when there's a delicious feeling, but you can't have it for very long. And then you disappear. And then another reality emerges with the dream world. And then you're back in some other form and the problems continue. Another way of becoming addicted to a substance is. And again, this is important here, cell phones and other similar devices. It's a huge challenge. Humans have not realized yet how huge this challenge is of addiction to those devices. So my recommendation is here. If you want to take real advantage of this situation, engage as little as possible with these devices, perhaps briefly for 5, 10 minutes a day if you have to. And for the rest of the time, don't even leave it in your room or your safe. And if you carry it around, the temptation may be too great. You might not be able to resist. And you know it's in your pocket and some of your attention will move there. I wonder what's going on there. And it might even still be beeping. A message, a Facebook post. I wonder what they're saying. How many people liked my last post. So you may find certain withdrawal symptoms if you don't engage. But that's okay. Just observe it and you can say, oh, isn't that interesting? I can feel this wanting to get there, but saying, okay, I can feel it, but I'm not going there. And then it'll dissipate.