Clearing the “Excess Baggage” of Unhappiness | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

Life is not meant to be continuously challenging. To bring up to pit obstacles in my path, so it seems quite often, and to say, what is wrong with life? And some people take it personally. They say, what's wrong with my life? There's something very wrong with me. Or they take it personally and say there's some God or God who must dislike me because I encounter one obstacle after another. And so that is an underlying assumption in many people's mind. But that is delusional, because these challenges are meant to be there. They are an essential part of being here for a little while in this dimension. And if it were not for the challenges of everyday life, big and small, there would be no awakening of consciousness. So through the pressure of challenges, we are being awakened. And not only humans. Every life form experiences life as precarious and fragile and often difficult. Many obstacles have to be overcome, not only for humans, but for all other life forms. Even a blade of grass has to be overcome obstacle until it finally comes up out of the soil. And it's every animal. So every bird can see how alert birds are. When you observe a bird, you could say the bird looks really present. And compared to many humans, not you, the bird is actually very present. When you observe a bird, you see the bird goes like the very present. But it's been like that for hundreds of thousands of million years. It has to be alert, because this alertness is there. It has survived. This has been generated over thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. That alertness. If the bird, all the birds that were not alert, they disappeared, they got eaten up. You have to. The bird was the livelihood. The survival of each individual bird is continuously precarious. And the bird has to be alert. So the bird is being forced into that state of alertness. This is just one little example. And I know from my own life, and many of you know from your life that you have gone through a certain amount of suffering in life. There were challenges, there were problems. You had to confront them. Unhappiness arose. And at some point, something shifted in you. At some point there was a deepening, there was an awakening. And at some point you realized that the greater part of, to use a generic term, suffering or unhappiness in your life, which is unhappiness, is huge in the human consciousness, a huge weight in human consciousness. The greater part of unhappiness actually arises through a dysfunctional use of your mind and not so much the circumstances of your life. And that's an interesting realization that it's the unhappiness that you experience, even if there are big challenges, small or big, the greater part of the unhappiness you experience arises through certain kinds of narrative in your mind. Certain stories that you tell yourself about life, other people or yourself. And that's an interesting realization which you can verify at any time tomorrow, if you haven't done it yet. And is the moment slightest irritation arises in a situation, anger arises, discomfort arises. Ask yourself what is causing this? And the first answer will be, well, obviously, this rude person causes me to be irritated and angry. Or this situation that I'm stuck in the place where I live causes me to be irritated or angry. Or a certain condition that my body is experiencing is causing me to be anxious or sad or angry that something has happened to me. And so there's always the first thing is, you see, the cause is there, there, there. That's the cause. And on the surface level, this is perfectly true. But that's only the surface level. And then, so next, tomorrow, when you encounter the first little thing that brings about a. Perhaps a minor form of unhappiness in whatever form, to be very alert, like the bird, and say, okay, where does it. Does it. Does it come from this situation? Let's say I'm stuck in the. I'm stuck at the airport. My flight's been canceled. This is a little situation, not a huge problem. But sometimes you might make it into a huge problem. The mind. So you're there, you feel anxious, angry, irritated, ultimately, you're suffering. It's a small form of suffering, but this situation is. Now ask yourself, if I did not add any narrative to this situation that I'm finding myself in, how would I experience this situation? Narrative, meaning certain thoughts that go through your mind that refer to the situation. Now, if I did not add the. Ultimately, since we are using an airport analogy or example, this narrative you could consider to be excess baggage that you carry around. And you carry it around in your life. You don't know it. And that becomes the burden of me. It becomes a burden of self, of a sense, of a heavy sense of self. And you start discovering it in a little situation like at the airport. You start discovering already the burden of yourself. How would I experience this situation without the excess baggage of my narrative with which I judge the situation? Okay, you have plenty of time because your flight has been cancelled. So you can experiment. Okay, now I'm here. Now I am letting go of the narrative. Nothing has changed in the situation. External situation is still the same. On the board it says cancelled. Or maybe you're standing. There's a huge lineup, hundred people or more, which before this was a terrible situation. You're finding yourself absolutely dreadful. This airline, awful, awful airline. That's all gone. Because now you're experimenting with experiencing this situation without the narrative. So you remove the narrative. What remains then is the. The naked so could speak the bare, naked isness of that moment. The isness. The simple isness of the present moment. And nothing has changed externally. But you have put down or let go of the excess baggage in your mind. And what is it that you're now experiencing? You're experiencing your body standing there. You experience your sense perceptions. You look around, you listen to whatever sounds may be there, whatever other sense perceptions may be there, and you realize that you're breathing. Oh, that's interesting. I'm breathing. And then you say, okay, this isn't as bad as I thought it was. Actually, without the narrative. I feel alive. I feel I'm breathing. And even beginning to feel a little bit of aliveness pervading my body in this moment. I can feel that there's an aliveness in every cell of the body that pervades. I feel alive. I'm breathing. And you don't even need to tell yourself that. You simply notice it. You notice whatever sense perception is here in the present moment, and suddenly you're experiencing the same situation as no longer something that causes you suffering because you have removed the mental narrative.