Eckhart Tolle on Why We Make Other People "Wrong"

When you communicate with others, let's say about political situation or whatever it may be, we communicate verbally or in writing. Or just have a monologue in your head. People have monologues in their head. This is normal. The important thing to avoid, so that ego doesn't come in, is again, to make other human beings wrong. To make wrong who they are. I'm not talking about what they do, but to make wrong who they are. There is a difference. You can criticize what a person says or does, but if you then use whatever this person says or does and say that is his or her identity, then you've created an enemy in your mind. And that is a dangerous thing to do because it strengthens the unconsciousness in the collective energy field and produces a corresponding reactive effect in the other. And then there's a mutual strengthening of that. And that leads to huge conflict. And you get more and more trapped in your ego and in being right. So if you can take action and communicate, take action without having your sense of self invested in it. So that you point out your perspective, you explain it, you substantiate it, you illustrate it. This is how I see it. This is how the situation is. This is what we need to do. Or be careful of all this is fine. You can attack another person, point of view or perspective without attacking who that person is. You can attack, because that is the. And you don't. You attack it by presenting. By showing that it is not right and presenting an alternative. So that your communication is not just pointing out what in your view is wrong, but also suggesting an alternative. So that there is the positive and negative both coming in. It's extremely satisfying to the ego to make people wrong and entire groups of people wrong. So you have to be careful with that. But you can only really. The prerequisite for being able to do that is that you need to. And here we come again to the foundation for it all, for conscious living and conscious doing. The foundation is that you derive your sense of identity from that deeper place of consciousness of presence. You are the awareness, you are not the thought. The thought is fine. But if there is self seeking in the thought structures, that means you are identified with your thoughts, which being identified with your thoughts means seeking your sense of self in those thoughts. So then when you present your opinion or your viewpoint, you are so identified with it that anybody who quest, even questions, not even attack anybody who questions your viewpoint or perspective is, and this is unconscious, deeply unconscious ego. Anybody who questions your perspective or viewpoint, which you don't know is A perspective or viewpoint. To you, it is the absolute truth because you are identified with the thought. Anybody who questions it will be regarded as somebody who is attacking who you are. He is actually an enemy, your enemy. And this is the essence of unconsciousness, to be identified completely with your mental positions instead of. But how can you not be identified with your mental positions if you have never known that deeper place within yourself where your true un identity resides? So I cannot even tell if you tell somebody, don't be identified with your mental positions and your thoughts, your perspectives, your viewpoint. Don't mistake them for the absolute truth. They don't know what you're talking about and they can't do. What do you mean? That's all there is. So the foundation for being able to use your mind consciously instead of being used by your mind, which is the essence of unconsciousness, the foundation for that is find out who you are in the essence of your being. And that is here and now. The consciousness that you are, the awareness, the presence, that's what's left. When. Right now, you don't remember your history. Right now, you don't remember even your name. Unless I ask you, you're not thinking your name? No. Okay, so. So you can be yourself without remembering your name. And if I don't ask you about your history right at this moment, you probably don't remember any of your personal history unless you go there. You have to retrieve it in your mind, but you don't need it now. Now, does it mean you cannot be yourself? Now? Does it mean if you don't remember your telephone number and your email address and your personal history, you can't be yourself? No. These are just things that are added on to you. But even without remembering any of these things, I don't remember my email address, I don't remember my name. I don't remember my history, even. But here I am sitting and perceiving, and I get. Can you still. Can you feel yourself? Can you feel the essence of you right now without the memory of you? Yes. In fact, you can feel it more strongly, but you cannot define what exactly that is. You can sense this inherent presence that you are, and you can sense it. And that inherent presence is the same whether you are a huge success story in the eyes of the world. You are a big VIP and a celebrity. There may be one or two here, not that it makes much difference here, or you may be somebody who has failed in everything that he or she has done. A failed career, three failed marriages, many other failed relationships, bankruptcy gone to prison, then come out of prison and gone back into prison, made a mess of the whole thing, total failure. And yet, in the moment of not remembering your history, that sense of presence is exactly the same as that sense of presence of the VIP who has a big success story. That is the unconditioned consciousness, the presence that frees you from your personality in your person, and that is and also connects you to a much vaster intelligence, the intelligence that underlies the entire creation, that is behind everything. The organizing principle behind the physical universe, the intelligence that gradually expresses itself more and more into this world, the light. I call it the light of the source. Like the sun, the sun shines its light into this world. The sun is the source of the light. Now, the source of the world we could call. If God means anything, then God is the source of all life. And of course, the source of all life has no location in space or time. Obviously, it's not somewhere in the universe God lives. God is transcendent to the universe. It is the source. God is the source of all life in the same way that the sun is the source of all light. And so the relationship between your consciousness, which is not your consciousness, it is universal consciousness expressing itself through you. The relationship between that consciousness that you are and the source is the same as the sun and the sunlight. Sa.