Eckhart Tolle explains how emotional thinking clouds judgment and how staying present can transform your relationships. He shows why we identify so strongly with our opinions and what happens when you step back from reactive patterns instead.
When you express an opinion, then already you can know whether you are completely identified with the opinion and then become defensive and angry when somebody has a different opinion. Or if you are totally completely identified. You get very emotional when somebody puts forward a different viewpoint or opinion so they are totally in the personality, the person or you may be able to discuss something. That means that is the art of living in a conscious way, living consciously. I highly recommend this practice. Whenever there's a discussion about whatever it may be in the discussion. The tendency to be drawn into mind identification is huge and it has a gravitational pull that immediately exerts itself and it draws you into mind completely. But if you are present enough then you can. You're able to discuss something, whatever it may be, without self identification. I mentioned it briefly before without self identification with your opinion. So here's the this is what I think, but that's not what I am. That is a mind formation. I think it's important that I state this is. And the reason why I think this is this and this and this. Another important thing is the. When you have a self identified it creates a lot of emotion, egoic emotion. And the emotion actually rises into your mind and makes you confused. Then you get emotional thinking, which very often is irrational. That's not uncommon. And once you're trapped in that gravitational pull of emotional thinking, you're basically. It always means you're defending yourself against this. That trying to enhance yourself diminish the other. Then once you're in it, it's not easy to get out. You may have to wait until the momentum exhausts itself as was mentioned in the Seinfeld episode. So then you will compulsively and emotionally talk about something in many cases totally insignificant. Like bathrooms, doors on bathroom doors, the doors on bathroom stalls as in the episode. And it becomes important to you because your sense of self is in it. And it can lead to a breakdown in relationship, a different opinion. Somebody has a different opinion because becomes your enemy because he or she has a different opinion. And as you're present you practice with putting forward your But. So you need to be able to sense this. The deeper dimension still present within yourself. The deep I and then the surface. I can discuss things so there's an alertness in the background while you are speaking. That's an enormous. That means there's a spaciousness even while you're discussing something. And you don't confuse the mental position of the other person with who the other person essentially is. That's a continuous practice every everyday life. Almost any situation that arises can become part of your spiritual practice. So that whatever you do in your life, any activity, anything you do, if you can realize from now on, the rest of your so called life, there's always a primary. There's always something that is of primary importance, although you may easily forget that for a while. And I mentioned before, your primary importance is the state of consciousness. Your state of consciousness at this moment. Not the sub, not whatever it is you are dealing with at this moment. Now it's very seductive. The world will try to tell you and your mind, which is inseparable from the world, will try to tell you that this is of primary importance. Now it could be that there's an emergency, somebody has fallen into the water and you are going to jump in to save him or her. Hopefully you can swim. There may not be time to sense the unconditioned within yourself. But what actually often happens in situations when people do courageous things where people afterwards say, oh, you're so you're a hero. And the person says, well, I just did it. So if there's a real emergency, it often happens that the thinking faculty is totally switched off and you may find yourself taking right action. And there's no. You may not sense the spaciousness, but it does come the thing. In a true emergency, the thinking function stops and you go, you cannot think about what am I going to do? This really is a problem because then you become paralyzed. If a wild animal comes through this door running towards me, let's say it's a bear because they are around here somewhere. It's a grizzly bear, they are huge. Then it's coming towards me, is that a problem? I really have a problem. I wonder what I should do. It's too late. So in such situations, you don't think, thinking stops and then nobody can predict what you will do. You can't predict what you will do. I can only guess that I might run away or I might try and make myself bigger than I am and make threatening sounds in the hope that it will think I'm stronger than it. Don't know if that will work. That's what is sometimes recommended. When you come across a bear while you're out hiking, make yourself bigger than you are and you go. They say, iver, it works with brown bears or black bears, but it doesn't work with grizzlies. The other option is you play dead. That's highly recommended. And that might be what I would do. And we could all do that. I don't know how I got to the bears. But so if it's not an emergency and most things are not an emergency situation, then the two dimensions. This is something you learn gradually. Many times you will forget. That's fine. But you are the two dimensions. So that there is some spaciousness remains in you while you're dealing with the things of this world. It.
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