Dealing With Conflicting Thoughts | Q&A Eckhart Tolle

Okay. So I always have this desire to know, which I know may not be very correct all the time, like based on what you have been saying. But still, I always feel comfortable if I know what's going to happen, especially about important things in my life. And whenever there is a situation, let's say at work or like an emotional relationship, one side of my mind is like, this is not going to work out, blah, blah. And the other side is, yes, it's going to work out. No. Yes, no. And all day long, seriously, I'm doing something, and in my mind. They're going to lay you off. No, they're not going to lay her off. No, they're going to lay her off.

No. No.

But it seriously comes to a point of losing my. Sometimes. But sometimes I know it so strongly so I can calm myself down. So I just wanted to ask you, how can I know? What's the right answer? What's the voice of intuition? Like, how do I know the voice of intuition instead of this fighting.

Okay, okay. Well, I believe many people recognize your question. It's a pattern in the human mind and perhaps in you. It's stronger than in some. Who knows? But it's in many people's minds. So it's. Of course the answer is in. And this is. Your challenge is not trying to figure out which of these voices is the right one. That's not it. It's to discover within yourself that space that is not the voice, that space of awareness. So that can only. You can only practice that while it happens. There's that voice and then there's the other voice. And who is aware of these voices? You don't need to answer that question. I'm just putting it out. Don't answer it because there's no answer. There's only a direct realization of it within yourself. There's no external answer, because if you give an answer, that's another voice. So this is a question that you should not answer in words. So I'm asking again. Who is it in you? Who or what? There is something in you that is aware of these different conflicting voices. There is an awareness. Otherwise you wouldn't know that there is a voice. Now, the voice is a. These are thought formations. These are energy. Every thought is an energy field. And each thought formation wants to draw your attention, suck it up into itself. Come here. The other one says, no, come here. These are like little. This may sound a little spooky, but it's not spooky. What you can regard as thought, almost as an entity, not A physical entity, but as an energetic entity. And that lives there. It has a lifespan. And some thoughts persist for a long time. And certain thought patterns are also entities that can shift, take on one form and then another form and another form. So you have every thought is a little entity or energy field. It wants your identification with it. It wants to draw all your attention in. Because the more tension get drawn in, the more it grows. It wants to grow. It wants to like everything. It doesn't want to disappear. So it's for you to know when this happens. Who am I? You are. Are you this voice or that voice? No. You are aware of the voice, all these voices. And that is the place where you go. So that from that place of aware presence, the voices are no longer disturbing you. You recognize them as only a voice. This is not important whether you go this way or that way, or whether something is going to work out or something is not going to work out. You don't know that. Your responsibility is to be present, which means to disidentify from the voices. And the first recommendation is when these conflicting voices come trying to figure out whether something is going to work out or not work. You don't know. And the voice doesn't know. It's just pretending to know. One voice pretends to know that it's not going to work out. The other one pretends to know that it is going to work out. They don't know. So once you know that they don't know, then you don't prefer play so much importance in these voices. They're just like people around you. Let's imagine that each voice is a person. One person stands on your left and tells you something. The other person stands on your right and tells you something. But they're just ignorant. They don't. They just try to come up with something. So if these people were around, you would say, go away. I don't. I don't need to listen to this. All I need is to embrace the only thing I ever have in my life, which is this moment. I need to honor and give my fullest attention to this moment. And if I honor and give my fullest attention to this moment, rather than to this voice that does that and the other voice that says that, then I can be sure that things are going to work out now, one way or another. So if there's a new relationship that you go into, it's of course it's going to work out. Either you'll stay together and you'll be happy for a while, or you won't. But even if you don't, you have learned something. You have learned that certain patterns don't work or certain humans that come into your life may not. Everything is a lesson in that sense, there's no failure. Everything works because everything is something you grow in consciousness. And to figure out, for example, what. What people ask of what am I supposed to do in life? I still don't know what is my real life mission? What am I supposed to do? So, and sometimes they become paralyzed because there's so many possibilities. And I just can't make up my mind which one will, which way am I going to go? This way or that way? And then you sit there for a long time. I could go that way. And then the mind brings up more thoughts. But if I go that way, then those things may happen. No, I better try that way. But if you just become present, then rather than looking for an answer through the movement of thought, there's never any real answer that you arrive at through the movement of thought. You have to become present first. Then at some point a thought may come that has a different energy field to it. A thought that you feel. Yes, that is. Then it's no longer a thought. This maybe, maybe not. There's a certain realization that comes. It may finally take the form of a thought. When I was living in Europe, in England, one morning I woke up and I felt for some reason I have to leave. Didn't know why, but the thought was so strong and it never went away. There wasn't another thought that said, no, maybe I should stay. And that thought came out of presence. So the question is, what really matters here is realizing that you are not this voice or that voice. You are something deeper. You are the awareness of the presence. And the awareness of the presence recognizes the voice as just a voice in the head, doesn't believe it's absolutely right, and sees it's relatively unimportant. Who am I? Is a vital question. And ask yourself that and that will drive you deeper. Who am I? You are the presence. But you can only realize that for yourself. One recommendation I have. When these voices start up again, consciously choose not to follow that voice or that voice, but to place your attention into the inner energy field of your body that frees you from the otherwise crazy self talk in the head. It's crazy, that self talk. It's nothing personal, it's a human thing. Almost everybody has it. But it's crazy. Especially when there's no aware presence underneath it or you don't know it. There Is. But you haven't discovered it. So when you get beginning of conf. When confusion arises in your mind, go realize there is no answer there. Place attention into the. Have you been able to do that? Placing attention into the inner energy field of the body?

Yeah. That's why sometimes I know for sure, like you said. But then especially recently this argument started. Yes, I don't know why. Yes, now. So it's. It's very. And the thing is. But I don't know. I have to give this up. But I have this desire to know also, which is a bit annoying.

Yes, very good. I thank you. Very honest. Many humans have that also. Yes, it is annoying. But you have to be. On the one hand, of course, on one level you want to know. It's understandable and there is a place for that. But there is another dimension where you need to become comfortable with not knowing. That's the being dimension. Then in the doing dimension. Yes. Sometimes you need to figure things out, especially on the practical level of life. On the practical level of life, you can't figure out on that level, what is my destiny, who am I? Those things you cannot figure out on that level where you figure things out mentally. There you have to go into a place of not knowing. That's the being dimension. So don't move only in the dimension of trying to figure things out about your life, about situations you are in, about other people. There is a place for figuring things out, but a more important place is to embrace the state of not knowing, which of course implies the state of not thinking where there's simply an aware presence and there's a deeper knowing there that has nothing to do with working anything out mentally. That's the place of wisdom. So you need to be able to operate on the human level, which is a level of figuring things out mentally. Of course there are situations when you need that at work, etc. But you also need to have access to the deeper dimension. That's the most vital thing in a human life. To have found that dimension within. And that is not. Does not operate through figuring anything out mentally. It's actually the opposite of that. It's relinquishing thought. And that's almost frightening to the human self that relies on thought, that has built up an identity based on thought. It's sometimes frightening and it doesn't want to let you go there because it believes if you're not constantly trying to work out what your life is all about and figure things out mentally, it believes that your life is going to collapse if you don't even in the night. You wake up in the middle of the night and have to worry about your problems. And there's an underlying assumption, if I don't worry about my problems, I'm not taking responsibility for my life and things are going to collapse around me. Of course, the opposite is true. So you are creating a lot of unnecessary turmoil in your life and a lot of unnecessary unhappiness. Because 90% of human ability for my life and things are going to collapse around me. Of course, the opposite is true. So you are creating a lot of unnecessary turmoil in your life and a lot of unnecessary unhappiness. Because 90% of human unhappiness arises not because of situations around them, but because of what your mind is saying about situations in your life. So the unhappiness is caused by certain stories in your mind, not the situation that was already discovered 2000 years ago by certain philosophers in ancient Greece. It's not. And so a lot of unnecessary suffering arises there through the human mind. The two dimensions of life. You inhabit the human. As I said before, somewhere, you are a human being. I like that expression in English, in a way. The English language does not have a word that includes men and women. You can use human as a noun. But the English language, in the past, you would always read about man. And you were supposed to mentally include women in that. But it doesn't sound right. The destiny of man. Well, what about the destiny of woman? In the past, it was supposed to include women, but we don't do that anymore. So we have human being. And I love that because that shows the two dimensions of who you are. The human dimension, which is the mental, the working out, the physical form, and the being dimension, which is the formless, the stillness, the presence. The two come together. So your challenge is to take your attention away from the mind. Don't try to figure out, not even try to figure out how you can get rid of the voices. There's more voices suggesting how to get rid of the voices. So just easy step. But it needs a minimum of awareness when the voices start up again. That you don't want that. You have to have a minimum of awareness so that you're not immediately totally drawn into the thoughts, the voices. And then you realize it's pointless. I don't want it. And obviously it is, especially if it happens in the middle of the night. What can I possibly. What point could possibly be in worrying about anything in the middle of the night? So you don't want it. You don't need it. It's actually even harmful. So I'm getting out of there. You say, I'm out of here. And you place attention into the start with the hands, feel the energy in your hands. And immediately you're taking attention away from thinking. And there it is. Oh, the hands feel alive. Do the arms. My arms feel alive too. And you don't even need just comment on that. You just feel it. And then the rest of the body. There is a field of aliveness that's actually so much more pleasant than thinking. And that's where you go. And then it becomes an anchor for not thinking. And that is the whole body is participating in the arising of the state of awareness. One could almost say. One could say every cell is becoming conscious. It's participating in the process of becoming conscious. You can feel the aliveness in every cell of the body. So you don't just become conscious with your head. The presence, the state of presence involves the entire body become conscious. And it's beautiful. And you're out of the head quickly, easily. You just need to be aware that thoughts will try. After a minute or two or three thoughts will try. One thought will try and again try to tell you this is very important and you should think about this. So you need to be recognized that and say, okay, I let you go. You don't fight it. You can't. Don't fight a thought. Go away. I don't want you. That's another thought. So no, you just. They're like clouds that drift past. But you are the sky and this is the sky, the inner space. You're the sky and the clouds are fine. Let them pass. You don't have to go with every cloud that goes there. And the more you follow the cloud, the bigger the cloud gets. And then another one. No, no, come here. Get out of your mind. In other words, that's my answer. This mind made sense of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are beyond your history and your life situation. Go away. I don't want you. That's another thought. So no, you just. They are like clouds that drift past. But you are the sky and this is the sky, the inner space. You are the sky and the clouds are fine. Let them pass. You don't have to go with every cloud that goes there. And the. The more you follow the clouds, the bigger the cloud get. And then another. No, no, come here. Get out of your mind. In other words, that's my answer. This mind made sense. Of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are beyond your history and your life situation. Sa.