Eckhart Tolle explains how identifying with your body creates suffering, especially as you age. He argues that transcending physical attachment lets you access a timeless consciousness beyond the ego's grip.
And then you can contemplate with detachment what time is doing to your body. Okay. Because your sense of identity is no longer derived from body who you are. Obviously that's sometimes a difficult step to take to go deeper, beyond. There are some people who have particularly body that is more beautiful or more well developed than normal bodies. Normal bodies are kind of not sure. And then there are other bodies that are definitely not great. You can't. But people still identify, makes them unhappy. For many years I had body identification too, but not in a proud way. It made me unhappy because it was less, much less good looking than other, most other bodies actually. And so if you have body identification, it can create pride and enhance your ego. Well, any identification enhances your ego, even a negative one. So I had body, negative body identification made me unhappy for quite a few years. And that's also ego, the ego, the negative prefect of ego. Egos are not always happy egos. Many egos are miserable egos just as strong as the happy ones that say I'm the greatest. And then the other ego, I'm the most miserable, just as strong as the other. So ego is not just me. You look at me also. He goes, oh no, why is all these horrible things always happening to me? I feel so miserable. I'm not. It's all still ego. It's the narratives. So anyway, I had ego identification, but I could see perhaps a little bit easier for if you have a negative identification with the body, it's perhaps easier to let go because you're more motivated to let go of that. But if you have a positive body identification, very good looking, whether man or woman or strength, if you look like Arnold in his younger years, how can you not identify with your body? If your body looks just like, just coming, just like some ancient Greek God or something. And so. Or you're very beautiful. And every time you look in the mirror you see how beautiful you are. And you continuously. These days, he continuously posts images of yourself into the world. Look at, look at me, look at me, look at me. And you have thousands of people who love you. They send love signs, Me, me. And so many people have this. Their strongest identification is with body. And the rest the psychological entities come secondary. That's also ego, of course, but psychological entity, whatever they are on the level of their personality becomes secondary. Or what they have achieved becomes even secondary. But the figure so prominently in their sense of identity that goes on for years. When I was in my 20s anyway, somebody had asked me, some God had come down and asked and said to Me, I offer you a deal. I take away. I'll give you a great body like Arnold or. Well, it doesn't have to be that extreme but just a good looking body. Some would say Arnold is going over the top a bit. That's a bit. But just a beautiful. I would have that. But you have to give up 20 years of your life. You are 20 years younger. But I'll give you a great body you can enjoy for a few decades. For three decades you can enjoy this. I would have said it's a deal and I would be dead now. I wouldn't be here. I would have enjoyed perhaps ego satisfaction during those years and sensory satisfaction through countless physical encounters with women and would have exhausted myself and would have. And would have died young as. As predicted by the God who came. We were walking or I was walking in on a waterfront I believe in Sydney, Australia. It was a lovely day. I believe it was perhaps a Sunday morning and not excessively hot, just very pleasant temperature. Everybody was enjoying themselves. And then I saw one man walking without a shirt on, just bare and he had fantastic body and everybody's kind of looking at him and I thought it strange that he was the only person who felt too hot. He had to take off his shirt. Strange. And then comes the time. The time eventually becomes your enemy when years you identified with your good looks. And then after a while you realize the same thing is happening to you. It just takes decades. That's happening. If you put a fresh apple on your windowsill and wait a few weeks and see what happens to the apple that you leave there. It kind of shrinks and becomes. It develops, it goes before it looked. After a few weeks the apple shrinks and it's is old, an old apple. It happens to all life forms and that can become a source of great suffering. There is still time for you when this suffering sets in. You realize you're no longer beautiful because old age is eroding your beauty. And then when you compare yourself to younger humans you begin to feel inferior and to get resentful. Look at these young and you feel diminished. And that's painful. So many humans who are identified with bodies as they get older, they move into a period of unhappiness, increasing unhappiness. Unless they can break through that and go to a deeper level. Some can, some cannot. It's I would advise to go to that deeper level before the time starts to erode you as soon as possible. But there's always a chance to go there to. So at the latest, shortly before you die, I would hope. But for many people when they reach old age, the patterns are so deep seated that associated with the ego identity, they have become so rigid and so deep seated that they're trapped in them. There's nothing you can do. We've all met old people like that instead. Old age is meant to be a flowering of consciousness when as the body begins to dissolve, something else emerges and it can be a beautiful thing. In many other cases this does not happen. And we've all met old people who are cranky and angry. And your grandfather, perhaps you're still in all that spiritual nonsense. Are you still enjoying that? It's all rubbish. Obviously. I know it all. I've seen it all. And I have an opinion about everything. I know everything. And it's all. It's all dreadful. They're all idiots, all of them. And then he dies. My God. So no matter where you are at in the movement of time, this moment is the best moment to step out of the movement of time, take your attention into the timeless, so that you learn to be connected with that consciously for the rest of your life in this form.
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