Eckhart Tolle on Freeing Yourself from the Source of Suffering

One could say that everything that you perceive is a surface phenomenon. It's the surface of reality. And underneath your perceptions there is a vastness like the ocean. And whatever you're seeing is the surface of the ocean. So underneath that there's a vastness of energy formations. Ultimately the one consciousness expressing itself in these very short lived forms. And the deeper you go, the stiller it becomes. And this is probably what Plato talked about, the ancient Greek philosopher, that there are ideas in the unseen realm. There's what is translated as ideas, but it's not a good translation. It said before, things exist as a physical thing and come into existence. They already exist on an unseen level in the world of consciousness. And then the consciousness manifests as something or someone. The universe manifests briefly as you, and as you become conscious. In you, it is the universe that is becoming conscious. You are not, I mean, you, you think you are a person. And of course, in conventional terms, you are a person, but ultimately you're not fascinate. It's absurd. What does it even mean? I mean, the word means a mask. Person comes from Latin. Persona means mask. I mean, you're not a mask, you're not a person. What are you? Who are you? You're not separate from the universe. So you are an expression of the universe. You haven't fallen into this universe from someone from somewhere. You've come out of this universe and then you go back into it, and then you come out again as something else. You die, you're born. What's this all about? And then you. And then you. Oh, that wasn't a very nice life. Oh, this one is better, but it doesn't last. So the one consciousness appearing as the multiplicity of beings. So you are the awareness of the universe. You are the consciousness of the universe. How could you not be? And you can realize that even if you are living in a prison cell and there may be someone at some point who listens to what I'm saying right now in a prison cell, you can realize this. And it may not be pleasant, but even if you're in a present cell, you can at least more fundamentally step out or become liberated from the prison of your mind. And that is a more fundamental prison than the present cell that you are in, even in the present cell. And I've had correspondence from people in prison who said they have, they feel free. Now you can become free of being prisoner of your mind. And that's a far worse prison cell than the physical prison cell. And other people perceive that they are imprisoned in A body that is no longer functioning well as your body began. If your body is not functioning properly anymore, then increasingly you may feel that you are trapped in your body. And that is for some humans that becomes an opportunity for going deeper and realizing that in essence they are the consciousness that animates the body, but they are not the body. And on the level of consciousness there's no handicap, there's no dysfunction. So we touched upon this last night when a great opportunity arises, when the world of form and the personal sense of self that identifies with the world of form becomes very dissatisfying. That's a great opportunity. In other words, taken completely out of your comfort zone. And then you are more motivated to awaken and to realize who you are in your essence. But the good thing is you don't have to wait for that anymore because you have consciously chosen well, with a little bit of help from suffering. Most of you. For most of you, your personal, so called personal suffering has been the motivating factor that brought you here. Or perhaps you've suffered in another life and have come back and said, oh, I did enough in my last lifetime, I'm ready to awaken already now, that's fine. And then most of you have reached the point of the end of suffering. And I'm speaking of the psychological suffering that is mind produced. There is no other suffering. There is physical pain that exists. But the term suffering, the way we use it, implies that there is a suffering entity. And it implies that there is mind, a mind made sense of self that is not surrendered to life. And as the way I put it, you actually humans need suffering to awaken. And suffering means they are confronted with the challenges of life, they're confronted with the problems of life. All the things that they dislike most in their lives are the most important thing in their lives. It's totally reversed. All the things that you think are these things are making my life miserable, those are the very things that are most helpful for your spiritual awakening. And then that includes your ex wife or ex husband and people like that. Because often life comes to you as people for making your life miserable. Dogs less so. You might get bitten by a dog, but it's unlikely that that you have lived with a dog that made your life miserable. But it's very likely that you've lived with a human who made your life miserable and probably with several. And then there are other things that were challenging. Accidents, illnesses, loss of security, so called there is no security, it's just loss of social function, profound job defeats, things that you tried and you were not successful. You did not succeed. And spiritually, failure is much more helpful than success, by the way. Or you succeeded greatly, and after a while it all collapsed. All the success remained, but it became totally empty and meaningless. You achieved fame and wealth, and suddenly you were more unhappy than before. So spiritually, the most helpful things are those things that the ego judges as the most awful things in my life. Sam.