Can We Trust Our Feelings and Intuition? with Eckhart Tolle

Can we trust our feelings? Can we trust our somatic reading of life? Are you able to say something about intuition which is not the same but interests me as well? Can we trust our feelings? Now, often you hear people say, trust your feelings. I would suggest, however, that that's not necessarily true. Acknowledge your feelings. Yes. Be there as the observing presence for your feelings. Yes. Be aware of your feelings. Accept that they are there. Trust which means to take them to be the truth or the truth for you, or using them as a guide to correct or skillful action. That may be doubtful because it depends where these feelings arise in you. A little anecdote from my life to illustrate that when I lived in England, in the country, in that alternative town, Glastonbury, for three years I lived in a cottage. And once a month I would travel to London or other cities in my beloved Russian made Lada car to do a workshop. And usually a weekend workshop called things like Transcending Time or Be Here Now. Nothing much has changed except that the average number of people I had was about 10. And since my income was not enough, I had to rent out a room upstairs my cottage. So I had, over these three years, a few people was a second room, which I also occasionally went out. Anyway, the room became vacant. I advertised in the local paper. Several people came to apply and finally chose a young woman who had just been offered a job in that town. She came, she moved in, and after the first night in her room, she came down for breakfast into the kitchen, which was a shared kitchen, and she said, I can't stay here. What's wrong? It's just a feeling. I always listen to my feelings. I just can't stay there. Something not right. I was very nervous and I said, okay, that's fine. And she found that very disconcerting because she had expected a more conventional response, which would have been what? I've interviewed all these people. I've chosen you. And now what? You're doing this to me? You're not getting your rent money back that you paid in advance. But I said, okay, I'll give you your money back, it's fine. So she was even more confused after that. And he said, I'll spend one more night, or two more nights. She spent the second night. And then in the morning she said, no, I think I'll stay. I have a different feeling now. And I said, oh, that's fine, that's good. And again, she was a little disconcerted because the conventional response would have been, which I did do. I just put another Ad in the paper. And now you're telling me this. This is how to make. The conventional responses are how to make life complicated for yourself and others. But it's normal. It's how the ego responds. And so whenever somebody does not respond in that way, life becomes simple. But when life becomes simple, people who expect the conventional responses become confused. What? This is a weird person. And so she decided to stay. And a few weeks later, when I got to know her better, she explained to me that that first night she was in her bedroom, and she said, I found you so weird that I thought you might creep in in the middle of the night. And mur. And later she said, living in the same house with you is like living in a float tank. I think she learned a lot, not so much through me explaining things to her, just by being there. Not that she didn't go through her episodes of neurotic reactivity, which is quite normal for most people, but that's fine. So feelings. Now, where did her. The initial feelings that she experienced that she then believed that they were a correct guide for action? Of course they were not, because they originated in fear. And they also originated in a misinterpretation of reality, which is so easy to do for the mind, to misinterpret another person. To misinterpret a situation, you misinterpret because you see it through the conditioning of your mind. You see it through your beliefs, your prior experiences in childhood. You see it through even other things that have conditioned your mind. Maybe even scary movies about weird people who don't say much. And then just when you're having a shower, they creep in. So therefore, it's not that easy often to say, where does this feeling that I have arise? Where does this feeling originate? Now, does it come from a deeper, the intuitive place? Intuition comes out of being present. Intuition does not come out of the conditioning of your mind. So if you have an intuition also, it is usually not tainted by negativity such as anger or fear. So there is something certain about it. There is a quiet strength behind your feeling. A quiet strength. There is not a nervous energy behind your feeling. There's more. You just know this is right. You may not be able to explain to yourself or others why, as a different quality, there's a more peaceful quality to it. Now, let's just imagine, to come back to the story that happened with this young woman. Of course, it could have been that, theoretically, I could have been a psycho and actually could not be trusted not to kill her. Theoretically, that's possible. So I don't know what the answer to this is, but the I know from my own life, whenever there is a deep realization of what the right course of action is, it is always there's a peace with it. And even if there's a cycle there, you know with absolute certainty that this is not right for you. There's an energetic imbalance which comes from a deeper place. But I cannot really explain in words. You have to through life experience. You have to find out for yourself what a deeper feeling that comes out of presence and is a true intuition. How it is different from something that is that arises from the conditioning of your mind. Now, a lot of the time people misinterpret reality because they look at reality through the veil of their conditioning. And that contributes to a huge amount of conflict in life, in relationships and so on. And not only they misinterpret, they add this, what I call unnecessary baggage to situations through their reactivity, which is an ego device in order to strengthen the ego's always deficient sense of identity. So coming back again to that story, what had happened if I had reacted in the normal way, becoming angry and accusing her when she said after one night she couldn't stay? That would have strengthened. It would have come from my ego. It would have strengthened my sense of self, the separate sense of self. And again the if the reaction had been when she finally decided just after the second night decided to stay, I could have again said now I've just spent. I mean it wasn't that much. An ad in a local paper is relatively cheap. But the ego would have dwelt on that and said now I've spent that. And all these people that already set the they couldn't come now they have already found accommodation. I would have again made somebody wrong. And the ego loves that to make somebody wrong. Because when you make somebody wrong and you would be the ego could even explain you are totally justified because that's not fair. The person shouldn't just change like that. She's just. But instead of saying how people should behave, you just this is what is. You can either accept it or you cannot. I could have said also in practical terms, after the second night she said I've decided to stay. I could have said oh it's too late, I've already found somebody else. Or it said no, maybe it's better if you do go because tomorrow night you might again after tomorrow you might again know what this day all these things are possible. But the situation remained simple because of non reactivity and this applies to so many cases. Whenever there's some kind of things do not go smoothly because a person does not do what they're supposed to do. And then immediately the ego constructs a narrative. And you know it. When you start telling other people about it, that strengthens it. So I could have picked up the phone and said, you know this girl, I rejected five other people for her, know what she's done to me? And listen and tell the story so satisfying to the ego. And then the person on the other end says, oh my God, you so sorry. And then of course the you. And I could have gone into thinking, oh, maybe she's totally neurotic, maybe she's a psycho. All spinning tails in the head, all kinds of things. There's a whole fictitious narratives that are taken from reality. How simple things can actually be if you don't add unnecessary reactivity to it. But in order to do that, it requires you to be present, not to be there as a person, because a person feels easily offended. So if you're there as a person, you get offended a lot. If you go on the Internet, you'll find that the world is full of people who are deeply offended and they can explain why. And it sounds totally reasonable. The ego loves being offended. I'm not denying that. There may be some remarks that are truly offensive, but that's a relatively small thing. And if it is something truly offensive, again, what could he have said that was truly. He could have said, I can't stay with you because you're too ugly. Now, to the ego, that would be offensive. Or she might have said, well, she happened to be white, but if he had not been white, he would have said, finally, I have this feeling. I cannot stay with a white male. Okay, vigilance is required in your interactions with people. Always the question, am I adding something to the interaction that is unnecessary? That is just there to strengthen my fictitious sense of self, to justify something, to make somebody wrong. Big thing for the ego. Because if I can make something wrong, there's always an element of victimhood. When I make somebody wrong in relation to myself, there's always an element of. It may not be the main focal point, but there's an element of me being the victim If I make you wrong. And the ego loves that because it strengthens itself through that. And if I make somebody wrong, you know what he said and what he did, then let me tell you about this. Wow. How can somebody do something like that? And this means unconsciously, I'm always superior to the Other, when this happens, when you're telling the story about what somebody did and said to you, you do it. Because the ego when you're telling. When you're making somebody wrong. Because when you are right now, you probably all know people in your life when they talk, when you tell, when they tell you things, is always others who are wrong. It's never them. It's very strange. Why is it that I am always right and others are always wrong? They never ask that question. But that is a mystery of human existence. One of the great mysteries of life is why I am always right and others are always wrong. I think philosophers haven't explored in detail enough. And nobody has resolved this mystery. And everybody should ask themselves, how is that? I must be really superior to everybody. Weird. So if you think back the last year or two or three in your life. Well, I'm actually talking to a group of people here who are much more conscious than the average human. But nevertheless, even here, some of you may find, if you look back the last few years, that whenever there was some kind of argument or conflict, perhaps it was. Was it always the others who were wrong? It's very easy to deny somebody's perspective if it conflicts with your own and make them totally wrong. You can also make a group of people totally wrong. An entire group, entire nation, an entire religion. You can make everybody wrong. It's great to feel stronger and morally superior. Now, does that mean there are not people who are deeply wrong? Because they might be people out to deceive you. You might go and want to. You might go and wise by a secondhand car, and the person is so friendly and kind, and he sells you something that just breaks down the next day and it clearly lied to you. What do you do then? And even then, it's important not to amplify what has happened by going into your mind and creating a whole string of narratives in your mind of what an awful person that is and coming to all kinds of conclusions about that. And tell the story to yourself and to others and amplify it in that way. And then you go back to him and then you tell him really what you think of him, rather than keep it simple. What action can I take to remedy this? Even if you go to court, you can do it in a detached way. I'm not necessarily saying never do anything, just put up with anything and anybody. That's not what it means. Even if you go to court in order to rectify a situation that is obviously wrong, you can do it in a way that is Detached and just keeps it to the just. The essentials of the situation practical without the whole superstructure of you are the evil one. You are wrong. I won't repeat it here, but I think you may all remember the story I told. I believe it's in A New Earth about the Zen master who was accused of having father to child and what his responses were at every stage of the process. Is that so? Now that's an interesting. So you may remember the parents accused him that he was the father of their daughter's child. And then the parents brought the baby to him. And at each stage when he was the parents told him something. You are the father. Is that so? You bring the now you look after the baby. We don't want it. You are the father. And he had lost his reputation, etc. People were commenting about him on the Internet and he did not participate in the story making. And he didn't defend himself and he didn't. He just said, okay, so it means a total refusal to go into any kind of story. Cut. Is that so? Yeah. Oh. Oh. And finally it all became resolved itself. The daughter confessed that he was not the father and so on. And the parents came, wanted a baby back. Please give us the baby back. We now know that, oh, you're not the father. Please forgive us. We did a terrible thing by accusing you. Terrible thing. Is that so? Okay, that is. That's whether this story actually ever happened. I don't know whether it's just a teaching story or actually happened, but it doesn't matter. It shows you an extreme form of not being engaged in a story. Not engaging in the story making, that is ego strengthening. So you can practice that in many, many situations in your life. Refrain from calling up people or telling up people what other people and tell them about what other people did wrong or how they failed, how they were deficient, how somebody lied to you, was dishonest or expressed an objectionable opin. And then conflict becomes almost eliminated from your life or 90% of it. Sam.