Eckhart Tolle explains how to live consciously by focusing on the present moment and reducing mental commentary. He argues that awareness and mindfulness are fundamental skills that reduce suffering and lead to a truly successful life.
Enormous power is suddenly arising in you, which is the power of the present moment, which is the power of unconditioned consciousness, also the power of dealing with the situation. If there's something that you need to do suddenly, right action, as the Buddha calls it, right action. So be aware of the conceptualizing your life and allowing an unhappy story in your head to make you unhappy. People think they are unhappy because of the circumstances of their lives. In most cases, they are unhappy because of what they are telling themselves or what the mind is saying about what's going on around you and has happened, will happen. So it's a suffering. The origin of suffering to a large extent is there. And even in extreme situations, having lost your home, for example, not knowing where to live, even there, it applies. You do not, in the face of a challenge, if you are present, you don't convert the challenge into suffering. You just be with what is. And you start experimenting with little things in your life that cause you irritation or a little bit of anger or some impatience. Situations that are very common every day. And you look at the situation, you become aware suddenly that there's irritation arising or anger arising, and you become aware that it doesn't actually feel very good. And the body knows it doesn't feel good, the body doesn't like it, there's irritation arising, and you think it's because of what's going on. But if you look more closely, you think, now, is this situation causing this? Or is what I'm saying about it causing this? What? My mind, the commentary of my mind. And in most cases, you will find it's the mental commentary that you had been identified with that causes the unhappiness. And then you say, let's experiment with removing the commentary. How would I experience this situation if I did not add the mental baggage to it? So in other words, you're just now with the isness of this moment without any mental stuff being added to it that says, this should not be happening, I don't want to be here, and many other things. Suddenly you're fine. A minute ago you were extremely irritated and angry, and you couldn't differentiate between the circumstances, external circumstances of your life, and the inner commentary about the circumstances. And this is the essence of unconsciousness, unable to differentiate between the circumstances and the commentary. So the circumstances and the commentary becomes single, is experienced as a single phenomenon. And then when you suddenly, you can separate. This is the isness of this moment. And it is as it is, enormous power is suddenly arising in you, which is the power of the Present moment, which is the power of unconditioned consciousness, also the power of dealing with the situation. If there's something that to do, suddenly right action, as the Buddha calls it, right action happens, or non action. If action is not possible, then right surrender happens. But you allow this moment to be as it is. But what does that mean? It means you don't add unnecessary mental baggage to it. That argues with the isness of this moment. There are millions of people, billions, who go through life in that dysfunctional state of consciousness, creating suffering for themselves. And anybody who creates suffering for themselves creates suffering for others around them. So you're spreading unhappiness. And it's called normal life. And it spreads, it spreads. Imagine a country of millions of people living like that. What is the collective state of consciousness of that country? And what do you expect? Then every human is trapped in their personal ego, and then the collective of the country develops a huge collective ego that's even more insane than the personal one. Crazy, but it's so easy to step out of that. Except it's not. Nobody has told people that it's possible. Well, not on a big scale. Not at school. What I'm talking about here and now should be the primary subject at school for children, how to live. Not the useless stuff they have to learn. Well, they can add this too, but that's fine. But what is primary? Primary is how to live in a sane way. I mean, you have to learn how to drive before you can get a license. They wouldn't let you go in a car without having learned the basic, because you would cause a lot of havoc, be a danger to yourself and others. But living is infinitely more than driving. And that of course implies also if you learn how to live, you spread it to your children, because you can infect your children in a good way with your consciousness. And you bring up your children in a conscious environment because you know how to live. You still make mistakes. Yes, you're not perfect, but you know the basics of how not to live in a way that is insane. And then your children grow up in that, and they don't have to go through the enormous learning process that you had to go through and I had to go through too. And that was originally the basic of the ancient Greek philosophers. The philosophy at that time was something totally different from what it is now. Basically. Yes, it was also an early form of science, but it was more fundamentally teaching how to live life, to be applied in everyday life. It.
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