Eckhart Tolle explores what true happiness is and how it differs from ordinary joy. He argues that real peace transcends the ups and downs of happiness and unhappiness, and that personal transformation is how you end suffering and create goodwill around you.
So usually happiness exists as part of the play of opposites. You experience the happiness because something makes you happy. And then that thing that made you happy either leaves you, or the very thing that made you happy suddenly makes you unhappy. Marriage, for example. And for some reason, by some strange synchronistic event. I have two questions here, which may be by the same person. Are you happy? Then the other one. With so much sadness in the world, how can I feel joy and happy? Be happy? Am I happy? No, I wouldn't call it happy. Some people might use that word to. To talk about, to point to a very deeper state of connectedness with being. But conventionally, happy really is the opposite to unhappy. And so you go from happy to unhappy is. And then something happens. You know, the two masks that. For theater, comedy and tragedy. The two masks. One is a comedy and then there's a tragedy. So usually happiness exists as part of the play of opposites. You experience the happiness because something makes you happy, and then that thing that made you happy either leaves you, or the very thing that made you happy suddenly makes you unhappy. Marriage, for example, or a relationship. Before you start living together, you are happy. When you start living together, you are unhappy. So if it's not happy, what are we talking about? There's a. If you let go of thinking and remain as the awareness, then there is. In that. That awareness emanates a certain peace. Alive peace. Joy. Peace. A peaceful, joyful sense of aliveness. Inner peace may be a better word than happiness, but one would have to add to it. It's an alive peace. It's not the peace of having deadened yourself to emotions or anything like that. It's an alive, intensely alive peace. You can sense it, even if it's only just a glimpse. Right now. Surrender thought. And of course, right now, if you're not thinking about the problems of your life, there are no problems in this moment. There's only a sense of beingness or aliveness. And that is the connectedness with being. And so you transcend the opposites between happiness and unhappiness. I have a chapter in the Course, not in the Course in Marriage. I didn't write that. Well, in a way I did, because all books are written by the one consciousness. But anyway, let's just. In conventional terms, I didn't write it. I don't claim the authorship causing miracles, but in a deeper sense, of course, I did write it, and you did too, because we are the one consciousness. So in the Power of Now, there's a little chapter called Beyond Happiness and unhappiness, there is peace. So instead of being subject to the fluctuations of happiness and unhappiness, there's that peace where you realize the essence of who you are, and so you're no longer ego based. Form identity, yes, but not identification with form identity. So it doesn't turn into ego. And then you function in this world from that place of inner peace. And whatever you do or who you come into contact with, that your actions, your thoughts become a manifestation of that. And that if more people enter that place, then more people become peaceful human beings and do not contribute to conflict in the world. The madness of the world. Don't contribute to the madness of the world. Come back to the question, with so much sadness in the world, how can I feel joy and happy now? Yes, there is a huge amount of suffering in the world. Why is there suffering? Because humans are disconnected from the source of who they are. And that is the fundamental source of suffering. That's how it arises. So if you say, I refuse to be happy until there's no more suffering in this world, okay, so the end of suffering, then I'm waiting for it out there. And you might even become very active. I'm going to bring about the end of suffering. You do good things, but you haven't brought about the end of suffering in yourself. So how is the end of suffering going to happen? Even if you do good deeds, which is a wonderful thing, but if you are unhappy doing good deeds, then that unhappiness also flows into how you do those things and your interactions with other people. It has to. The shift in this world, the end of suffering, to use the Buddha's terminology. The Buddha described his teaching as pointing the way to the end of suffering. That's the Buddha's teaching. He never used. He used a negative term, end of suffering. Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven, which is within you. He used a positive term. They're both talking about the same thing. So the end of suffering has to begin with you, and then it spreads, because that changes the way in which you experience the world. It affects others, and then your relationship with other human beings changes fundamentally. Because only when you are in connectedness with the essence of who you are can you have harmonious relationships with others. And can you feel this deep sense of goodwill towards other human beings, not conditional upon whether they happen to agree with you or belong to the same political party, or belong to the same religion or belong to the same nation? It doesn't depend on that. The same tribe, no. To have a good will or benevolence towards all humans that you come into contact with, no matter what their conditioning is. That can only come from that deep connectedness with being and where you do not automatically and unconsciously judge others the moment you meet them, or even in an abstract way, judge an entire group of people as less than human, as evil. I mean, even in Europe, that was not that long ago. First half of the 20th century, entire nations came into violent conflict. And so there was unbelievable unconsciousness of collective ego on a massive scale. So it needs to start with you. Then this benevolence, this goodwill, changes the way in which you interact with other humans. And that changes on a small scale. And then gradually, others, other human beings here and there can also go to that place within and then start to live it. The end of suffering. And let's forget about happiness. Let's talk about peace. So it starts with you be the change. Somebody said it. Was it Nelson Mandela or Gandhi? I don't know. The one consciousness said it be the change that you want to see in the world. So if you want to see peace, you have to embody the peace. The end of suffering needs to start with you, your suffering. That's the end of suffering on the planet. And then you can show the way to others too. You don't necessarily have to become a spiritual teacher, but you may. But in some way, when you even. You don't even need to fully embody that shift in consciousness. Fully enlightened master, no, even just to be undergoing the transformational process, you already begin to teach, so to speak, even though you might not teach in the conventional sense of the word, but whoever you come into contact with, you affect with your state of consciousness. The course in miracle says you become a teacher of God.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
