Eckhart Tolle on the True Purpose of Life: Beyond the Pursuit of Happiness

There is a fundamental misconception, often an unconscious misconception in human beings. And that misconception is they believe that the world has the ability to make them happy, but this is being withheld from them. And they regard that as a personal insult by life is doing. Why is life withholding happiness from me? Why all the things always happen to me? Because it's not happening to others. You read their Facebook posts and they're all happy. They're eating meals. You see pictures of meals. Look, I'm eating this. Oh, okay. And then you see their happy faces. And not only are they happy, they're also so good looking. Everybody's good looking. It's the technology of filters and stuff. Everyone can look beautiful. Even either. They did it to me too. So people watch that and think, wow, these people's lives are so great. My awful. And then maybe then you also pretend because everybody else is pretending. Okay, let's go to a restaurant, take a picture of a meal. This is what I'm eating right now. Oh. So the misconception is the world is here to make me happy, but it's not doing it. And this is a very serious misconception because it makes your whole life miserable. Because that really means that something that should be happening is not happening in my life. Something should. It's just not happening. But of course, that misconception is that the world is here to make you happy. And it can't do that. It's not here to make you happy. It's here to make you conscious, to awaken you. Oh, I see. I was wrong all along. I've been complaining uselessly for 40 years, or whatever your age is. I've been complaining uselessly for 40 years that there's something wrong with the world and my so called life. But there wasn't anything wrong at all. Because the world is here to awaken me. If humans are not challenged or not just humans, any life form only grows through being challenged, which means encounter obstacles and difficulties in their process of growth. Even plants and animals, they all encounter. Every life form is precarious. Its existence is precarious. And it encounters obstacles to its unfoldment. And that ultimately is how evolution happens, through encountering difficulties, obstacles, challenges. Because as you encounter obstacles and challenges, they seem to block you. And you think, life would be much better if I did not have these challenges. But it wouldn't, because you would go to sleep even more. So you have the challenges. And that brings about an influx of energy on whatever level, even if it's physical. Every Organism already encounters challenges on a physical level. And then it grows. It gains new strengths by attempting to overcome these limitations. I sometimes mention example if you want. Because it operates on every level. If you want to become physically stronger, you have to exercise. Unless you have a job that is already physically hard working forces you to exert yourself physically. Otherwise you have to exercise and you have to start doing. If you want to go stronger, you have to lift weights. I'm not doing it anymore, but I'm just demonstrating you lift weight now. How does that feel at first? What are you doing? The way I put it is are making life difficult for your body because your body is not going to grow stronger unless you make the body's life difficult. The same with jogging. The body doesn't really want to do it, but says no, no, you have to do it. Why are you making life difficult for your body? Your body would be so relaxed sitting on the sofa and watching Netflix. But it's not going stronger, it's actually getting weaker because it's not being challenged. But challenge it. And then there is a demand for added energy. And this is just operates on the physical level. In this demand for added, there's a moment when there's a gap. You're exerting yourself and the energy isn't there yet. So it's very hard. But at some point the energy comes flooding in because there was a demand for it. And in that point you may actually begin to enjoy the physical movement because the added energy and suddenly strength is increasing. And this is just on the physical level there's a demand. And it comes also on a psychological level it can operate. And on a spiritual level, when you become very unhappy in your life, then there is a possibility that the unhappiness could causes you to awaken. Because at some point you realize either because you've had a spiritual teacher or teaching or even some people, it happens spontaneously. The suffering, the psychological suffering that humans undergo can at some point bring about an awakening when you just can't stand it anymore and something snaps and suddenly it dissolves and you oh, suddenly an awakening has happened. But it would not have happened if you hadn't gone through those sometimes years of suffering. Quite often I have encountered people who tell me I would never have come to you or understood the books or been open to anything spiritual if I had not experienced. In some cases it's a serious, very serious illness or an accident or some deep loss in their personal lives. And they come. And perhaps some of you, with some of you, that is also the case there would not have been an opening if you had not gone through that suffering. And, and at some point the suffering awakens you. And that is really the ultimate purpose of suffering, is to awaken. And then you realize that most suffering is actually unnecessary. It's actually created by the conditioned entity. I'm talking about real psych. There's physical pain. Physical pain isn't suffering. Suffering is a psychological phenomenon. So this suffering can be transcended. If you awaken, you transcend that suffering. In other words, you transcend unhappiness. You are no longer unhappy. The mind loses its power to make you unhappy. Because most of your unhappiness is created by unconscious thought processes, not situations. Most of the unhappiness is created not by situations, difficult situations that you encounter, but what your mind is telling you about the difficult situations. The situation itself is as it is. Then you impose an interpretation on it. The interpretation says this should not be happening, this is awful. Why always to me, why did he do that? Etc. Etc. Interpretations, what causes the unhappiness and strengthens the fictitious self is the commentary, the interpretation. And that is an amazing realization that most of your unhappiness is created by your mind. And that's an amazing thing. And then as you become more present, unhappiness disappears from your life. Now, am I saying that you will then always be happy? No, it's not. Happiness is a little bit superficial, the way I use the term happiness, because it usually means it's so great, it's wonderful, it's feels a bit superficial. Although there are some spiritual teachers who use the term happiness and pointing to something deeper. For example, Ramana Maharshi says happiness is your true nature. But he's using it in a different sense. Obviously there are situations. Even as your unhappiness leaves you and you become more present, situations arise. You cannot say that you are happy. Somebody close to you dies. Your father, your mother, or even a child or somebody or something very bad, an accident happens to someone and you can't say, oh, I'm still happy, I'm so happy he died. No sadness will come if that happens, because that's the human on you. Still the sadness comes. And yet you are not consumed by the sadness when it comes. You are not consumed by comes as a wave. And you may weep because your father died, your mother died, your child died, or some recourse is going through suffering and you may weep. And yet underneath that there is still a substratum. This is a geological term. There's a substratum of peace underneath it. I don't call that happiness, but it's deeper than that. There is an all abiding peace underneath it. Although there may be tears on the surface, but then they disappear. And you don't perpetuate emotional pain by continuously thinking about it for months and years and years pass and you're still unhappy for years. No, it comes as a wave and then it subsides. And even when it's there, there is still a presence that you can sense underneath it.