How to Break Free from Life's Repeating Patterns? Teaching by Eckhart Tolle

You awaken to something within you that is vaster than the personality that you think you are. Many people find that wherever they go and whoever they meet, they tend to recreate similar life experiences. And that's because the way in which you experience life is largely determined by the conditioning of your mind. But we are not here to improve your conditioning, to make it better so that you can function better in this world. There's nothing wrong with doing that. But this is not what this is about. This is about discovering. Or for many of you, it's not discovering. It's already deepening or accelerating something that's already happening in you. Discovering a dimension in you that is deeper than the conditioned mind. And that is the core of all spiritual teachings, no matter what words they use to point to it. And that is also the core of the essence of all religion. Although most religions have become burdened with all kinds of other baggage, cultural baggage, collective cultural baggage. So often you cannot perceive the essence anymore. But the essence of all that is that liberation from the conditioning of your mind. It doesn't mean that those things, all the things that have accumulated in your mind. It does not mean that you erase your mind completely. We are not. Don't need to do that, but discover something within you that is deeper and not conditioned. Whatever we want to call that dimension, it is there. All the ancient teachings and teachers point to it. And many of you already are undergoing this process of becoming more and more rooted and established in that dimension. So you are here to deepen or to accelerate what we could call the awakening. Because that's what it is. You awaken to something within you that is vaster than the personality that you think you are. I'd like to give in our first session here, which will maybe a little shorter than the other sessions, but who knows? I'm not planning anything. Just a few hints and suggestions on how to use the totality of our situation here as part of this shift in consciousness where you are no longer exclusively identified with the mind made sense of self that consists of continuous thinking and it's all conditioned. That's the baggage. So it's vital that don't just consider our sessions here as the teaching. Use the totality of the situation here. That every moment that you are here as part of the teaching and as part of your practice. And I'll make a few suggestions in a second on how so. I mentioned the baggage that you cannot so easily let go of that travels with you. That may come in the form of certain patterns that some very common Patterns. I'll mention a few. They may be familiar to some of you. Complaining or fault finding. A very favorite pattern of the egoic mind. Because when you complain something, the whole who you feel yourself to be can get a little bit bigger and stronger. You put yourself in a position of superiority. When you complain about another person or situation, you immediately become superior towards that. It's an unconscious pattern. I'm not saying do not tell people if something is wrong here in your room and the water, the tap doesn't work, or something wrong with the mattress and you cannot surrender to it. To point out to somebody that something needs to change if they can do it. This is not complaining, it's just telling people this is something. Can you put that right? That's fine. Some things can be put right. Other things perhaps not. So please use every moment of being here to step out of the conditioned mind by. And here comes the spiritual practice by using the present moment as a portal into a deeper state of consciousness, the unconditioned state of consciousness. So the present moment really is the device, so to speak, that you use. And the present moment has two dimensions to it, the surface dimension and the depth dimension. First, let's talk perhaps primarily right now, about beginning touching the present moment, the surface dimension of the present moment. And you do that by noticing whatever there is around you in a state of alertness, alert to sense perceptions. If you become alert to sense perceptions, you are beginning to touch the surface of the present moment. And that means your attention moves into visual perception. You're truly looking at whatever it is that you are looking at. And you are truly listening to the sounds of the trees and the birds, whatever natural sounds or human sounds, your attention moves into perception, auditory perception. You are listening, you are looking. And behind the listening and the looking, perhaps you are also smelling the air. Perhaps you are touching things too. But the predominant senses are, of course, visual and auditory. You are looking. And now the practice is. And don't say, don't believe your mind when it says you can't do that. You are looking without interpretation. And that's a practice. You can. You look at the flowers, the sky, the tree, the grass, the totality of the landscape. Or if you go for walks, which is highly recommended in nature, there are trails. And even if you travel here with friends or family members, I recommend that from time to time you take a solitary walk. Then you move about as an awareness presence through which all that beauty around you is being perceived, a state of alert presence. And as I speak about that right now, I hope that these words that are not just words because the words come out of them. State of alert presence, which is nobody's personal achievement. It's an evolutionary shift. I have not achieved alert presence. The me that I thought I was isn't even there when the alert presence arises. So it's nobody's achievement. And this is the arising of a deeper an essence in you.