Eckhart Tolle explains why you shouldn't automatically trust your feelings. The ego distorts emotions into stories that feel true but aren't. Learning to observe what you feel without believing it reduces conflict and suffering.
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 rent 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's 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. 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. 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, 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, it was relatively cheap. But the ego would have dwelt on that and said, now I've spent that. And all these people that already said 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're 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 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 fathered a child and what his responses were at every stage of the process. Is that so? Now that's an interesting. So if 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 the parents told him something, you are the father. Is that so? 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 just. 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 the 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 opinion. And then conflict becomes almost eliminated from your life or 90% of it.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
