Eckhart Tolle teaches how to stop being controlled by the ego and dissolve irritation by returning attention to the present moment and accepting the "isness" of current experience. He outlines a two-step approach: first align with the present moment so problems don't proliferate; if you miss that, notice and accept any irritation or mood as it arises (the "second chance"), which prevents feeding the emotion with thought. He also introduces the "pain body" — accumulated past emotional energy that seeks drama — and explains that witnessing/acceptance weakens such moods.
Chapters
How do we get to the point where we are not controlled by the ego, but handle every situation? Positive, negative, good, bad, easy heart. With wisdom and grace, Return your attention to the present moment. Continuously look at what is now so that problems don't proliferate in your mind. Bring it back to what is now. What's the situation now? Is there anything I can do? But before you do anything, become friendly with the present moment. That in itself is the beginning of the end of the ego. Become friendly with the present moment. Align yourself to it so that you won't have an argument with the isness of life. Can you imagine the insanity of arguing with what is? But it shouldn't be. But it is. But it shouldn't be. But it is. But of course, the moment you say it shouldn't be, this shouldn't be happening. He wouldn't behave like that. They should have done that. But of course they didn't. Many things should have happened. I shouldn't have to do this. I'm doing it. But I shouldn't have to do this. But I'm doing it. What a horrible way to live. So should the arguing with the isness of life. That's a form of insanity. But it's normal. Often in the past I've said normal equals insane. It's still basically true. So you come to an acceptance of whatever arises in your experience. Accept your experience of this moment. Don't argue with your experience of this moment. Accept that this is what you might experience. Irritation. Now, if you experience irritation about something that's happening at this moment, that means initially you were not totally aligned with the present moment. There was something in you that reacted. A thought probably would come in. Why is this? They should know better. Why do they keep people waiting here? Why do the irritation arises and so then irritation becomes your experience of this moment. So you missed your first chance of immediately accepting the isness of this moment. The situation you are in. Accepting doesn't mean you cannot take action. It means the basis for everything. Sometimes action is necessary or possible. But let the action come out of a prior oneness with the present moment, so that the action is not reactive but is a risk. An intelligent, wise response to the situation not coming out of the conditioning of your mind. So becoming friendly with the present moment. If you miss your first chance, some kind of emotion will arise. Certain thoughts will arise telling you how bad this situation is, that it shouldn't be, but it is all. All kinds of things. Then you have a second chance. Your second chance is to notice the irritation that has arisen in you. And to accept that you are irritated. Okay, let me be. Because that becomes. Then that becomes your experience of the present moment. Now what do you do with that? It's your second chance of accepting the present moment. See, except that you are irritated. Let me be irritated then. That's very. That means the irritation cannot survive very long in you. Especially if you don't feed it anymore with your thoughts. You just notice it living in you, has taken up temporary residence in you. And then you accept, you sit, you feel irritated. Acceptance dissolves negative states, unpleasant states, very quickly. It's a very strange thing. Let's say you're unhappy. Unhappy is a generic term. It could mean many, many things. But let's just use it. Let's say you're unhappy and you feel, oh, there's a mood, or whatever it is, an unhappy mood, you're taking over. It's amazing how humans get taken over by moods. They don't know where they come from. It could start with a thought in your mind about some negative thought about somebody that creates another. And then the mood arises. Or you may wake up with a mood. And the first thing you say to your family, don't talk to me. If you can say, I'm in a bad mood, that already means there's a little bit of consciousness there. At least you know that you're in a bad mood. The most unconscious people are so trapped in their bad mood that they don't know it. They simply act it out. That's horrible. So anybody can say, don't talk to me, I'm in a bad mood. At least there's some consciousness there in this person. You're not totally insane if you know that you're insane. But if you don't know you're insane, then you're truly insane. Knowing that you're insane means there is some awareness there, if only in the background. You're not totally lost. So a mood comes on and you're trapped. And then the question is, at what point does the witnessing faculty arise in you, the awareness that is able to witness or to observe the mood that you're in and knows, Rather than you becoming identified, being identified with the mood, the mood is recognized as an energy field in you of heaviness. And then you say, well, that's what I'm experiencing right now. And you accept that. And you would see if that's the case, how quickly it actually dissolves it for a while, I don't know how quickly. It depends how dense or heavy the mood is. But the important thing is, when you witness it, you no longer feed it with your thinking. In the absence of awareness, this mood, let's say it's some kind of dark mood today with the pain body. Pain body, as most of you probably know, means accumulated old emotion and energy that still lives in you from the past. And occasionally it resurfaces and tries to feed on further experience of pain, because it loves its pain. So it says to your partner, please give me pain. I'm going to make you so uncomfortable that you're going to give me pain. That's what I want. I love the drama. I want it, I need it. Please give me drama, says the pain body. And then it starts. That's another story. So the mood comes and you notice it, you witness it. Then it cannot rise up into your mind and control your thinking. Because in the absence of awareness, a mood comes upon you and immediately rises up into your mind and makes you think what it wants to think. And all thoughts will be deeply negative about yourself, about your life, about other people, about the world, everything in general, whatever it may be. It's all horrible. And so people get trapped in that. In the absence of awareness, energy fields can take you over. Emotional energy fields. You can even attract energy fields from the unseen that are deeply negative. In the absence of awareness, Sa.
