How Do You React to the Things That Happen? | Eckhart Tolle

So your life is not determined by what happens to you, but by how you respond to what happens. And if you are unconscious, an ego, then every response or other reaction to what happens to you makes things worse or perpetuates the same problem, but in many cases makes it worse. It's a reaction of the ego. And that's what God. This is the wheel of Samsara, of karmic, karmic action and reaction. Action and reaction. So really karma is really to do with your. The unconscious conditioning of your mind. So it's not what happens to you is always secondary. How do you respond to it? Now we have react or respond. Usually the way we use these terms is you react out of the conditioning of your mind. And usually it creates, it doesn't resolve anything. It creates additional or further problems, reaction, reactivity, then there's response. So we use the term reaction, referring to the unconscious conditioning of your mind, forcing you to act. And response refer to the conscious responding to a situation or problem through conscious presence. And that's where wisdom arises there when you are. It's intelligence is not enough. What we conventionally call intelligence refers to the conceptual mind. The ability of the conceptual mind to categorize, memorize, analyze logical thinking. All that has its place. It's fine. This is what is valued in educational system, that conceptual mind accumulate knowledge, classify, break up into further fragments, examine the fragments. That's intelligence. Ability to do that. Wisdom is something deeper. Wisdom is the ability to see the totality of a situation rather than one particular thing. Wisdom doesn't fight anything out there. Wisdom starts always with acceptance of the present moment, acceptance of what is. Then, if action is called for, acceptance doesn't mean that you necessarily don't want any change. You can be in difficulty surroundings. Let's say you're homeless and you can accept that at this moment this is what is. But you don't live through a conceptual image of yourself as I am home, I'm a homeless person. Now that's a very painful mental conceptual identity, a conceptual identity, any conceptual identity, whatever it is, would make you unhappy. Some make you immediately unhappy, some it takes a little longer. If you have a conceptual identity of you as the greatest this or that, it'll take a little longer. Eventually it'll make you unhappy. The conceptual identity of yourself is I'm a homeless person. Now this is what I've come to, that's very unhappy. But if you're a homeless person, but you don't live through a conceptual identity of yourself as a homeless person because you're not longer trapped in a conceptual sense of self, but you are an alert presence, then what's left is you're sitting on a bench in the park, sitting on a bench in the park and there's the sky and the trees and you're breathing and people are walking past and there's no longer. Your identity is no longer derived from any concept become a presence. But you also know that perhaps some action is necessary. Perhaps you need to get up and look for somewhere to spend the night, and then you get up and find yourself walking there. There. And when you are in Strangely, the more present you are, which is aligned with the now, the more likely it is that circumstances will be helpful rather than antagonistic. That just the right thing you find that's the right thing as the right person or the right thing you stumble upon. Suddenly a helpful thing. There it is. It is. The more you're aligned with the present moment, the more you experience. Of course, yes, life will not be free of challenges, but there's a tendency for you to experience more helpful circumstances because you're friendly with life with the present moment, then it reflects back to you your inner state. If you're. If the present moment is your enemy, that means if that is your deeply unconscious state, then life is your enemy. It reflects back to you your inner state.