Eckhart Tolle on Responding to Life's Challenges

Life is difficult enough as it is for everybody. Life is not easy. Sometimes it's enjoyable, but you might have noticed it's full of challenges. And sometimes you're fine. You think, okay, I have finally arrived. You sort everything out. Your life professionally, work situation, where you live, relationship, family, health situation. Everything is working out fine. But it doesn't last that long. Something will go wrong somewhere. Life has this tendency to create difficulties for you. And some people take that personally and they become very angry. Why always me? Because everybody else seems to be okay. When I look at Instagram and Facebook, they are not suffering. Why am I suffering? And then you may find the inclination to pretend on Facebook and Instagram and so on and so on, pretend that you also are okay. And it's relatively easy to do with the modern technology. You can take a picture of yourself, and if you are not happy with it, because probably you're not, most people are not, then you apply technology to this picture, filters and Photoshop, and suddenly you're an amazing being. They did that to me too. A few years ago, people said, we need some professional photos of you. And the professional photographer came and took all kinds of photos. And later he submitted the photos, many, many. And I had to choose some. I reluctantly chose a few. And then I realized they don't really look like me. But they insisted we need the photos. And for quite a while they used these photos where I look like I could be, I don't know, 25 years old, some angelic looking creature. And finally, after two or three years of that, Stop it, I can't take this anymore. And I believe they did. But. So people project an image of who they are through modern technology that already existed. Of course, in the past, people projected an image, the Persona. The word person, as you may know, comes from Latin Persona, which is a Latin word that means mask. So a person is a mask that you present to the outside world. In the past, you didn't have the technology to help you with that, but now the technology can amplify that and you can present this mask to thousands of people, and you get lots of likes. They all like your mask. And then you feel better, your identity gets strengthened. But of course, it's a fiction. It's a complete fiction. But, well, better fiction than nothing at all. That's how the thinking goes. But let's go back now to what I wanted to demonstrate to you practically, here and now. Life is difficult enough even in normal times, because you have your personal difficulties. Life will bring up obstacles of one kind or another. Almost continuously. That's just how it is. And if you think there's something wrong when life brings up difficulties, then you will resent that. You will become very unhappy when things don't go the way they should go, no matter whether it's to do with your work or your relationships or your health, then you begin to complain mentally or out aloud about what life is doing to you. And as I said, you see on social media, the others seem to be happy. Of course, they are not. They are just as miserable. And so, in addition to your personal problems, life has brought up a collective challenge that affected millions of people all over the planet in the past two years. And when a challenge arises, big difficulty. What happens, whether it's on an individual level or on a collective level, a challenge, especially a big challenge on a personal level. It could be the loss of a loved one, somebody dies close to you, a sudden health situation. Your health is suddenly. There's a critical illness arising suddenly, or you lose your job or you lose your home. All kinds of things can happen, challenges big and small. And when you're being challenged, and challenge is still a kind of almost a positive term, perhaps a kind of new age term. But what challenge, really, something is going badly wrong, dreadfully wrong. So when life challenges you, you can either become less conscious or you become more conscious through the challenge. It depends where you are at, when life hits you with a challenge. And I have observed this over a long period of time, but especially the last two years, I have observed that many humans, perhaps the majority, have become less conscious through the challenge. In other words, they have gone into states of either anxiety and fear or anger. Those are the two that I have observed, the two predominant emotions that came up in human beings as a result of the pandemic. Many people entered a state of intense fear or anxiety. Others became angry. Depends where you are. Became even. Even politically, became even political. I'm not going there now, of course, if I go there 50, I will lose immediately 50% of you. So I've observed an increase in fear and anxiety in humans and also an increase in anger. And probably the majority. But then there's been a significant minority of humans who have become more conscious. Instead of reacting adversely to the events, they have been able to come more into the present moment, come into a state of acceptance of the isness of the present moment. Instead of mentally arguing with what is, they have come to be more present through age, through the challenge. So, and it's not even necessarily that a human being is. You either belong to one camp or you become less conscious, or to another camp, you become more conscious. In one human being, the states can arise. One human being can be relatively conscious and accepting one day, and the next day he or she falls back into a state of fear, fear, anxiety or anger. So these states can vary in one human being. Now, in case you carry a residue of either anxiety or anger, or anxiety, anger, or any other negative state inside you right here and now, perhaps as a residue from the past two years or a residue of what happened a few minutes ago when you were late coming here and you were getting upset about that, and now you sit here and it's quite possible that there is a residue of this energy still inside you. Or you could be carrying a residue of the past two years of anger about the world and what they are doing. If you are fearful, you are fearful usually about the catching something that you may die, or catch something or somebody close to you and die. If you are angry, you are angry about the mandates and the masks and the lockdowns and all this horrible, horrible they are doing. And the other, oh, my God, I may die. You may carry a residue of that. Humans carry residues of emotional fields, emotional states inside. Of course, it could go back many more years. Many humans carrying residues of things that happened in their childhood. Suffering, emotional suffering. Most children have some form of emotional suffering, even if the parents are relatively conscious. And if they are not conscious, then they have a lot of suffering and you carry residues of that inside you. So I call that the pain body. Pain body is old emotion that still lives in you as an energy field, is not perhaps always noticeable, but from time to time it comes up, and it tends to come up more quickly when a challenge. You're being triggered is another word. You're being triggered by an event or a person. So I'd like to invite you now to apply awareness, another key term on the road to consciousness. Apply awareness to see if there is a residue of that kind of emotion still in you, whatever it may be, some irritation, fear, anger, or could also be the heaviness of despondency, a sense of meaninglessness, which is a mental, emotional thing that's very common these days. Also, anything, in other words, become conscious of your inner state and that is right now, and just acknowledge that's there instead of thinking, oh, I shouldn't be angry, how do I get rid of this anger? Or I shouldn't be fearful, but how do I get rid of the fear? It may not be that easy to get rid of it, but we don't even need to do that right now. Just acknowledge it. Which means this is what is meant by becoming conscious.