Is Your Awakening Taking Too Long? | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

Why is this process taking so long for me? I've been listening for years and I feel what you say, but sometimes I just lapse into my old self. The answer I know is that I lose the present moment. But can you elaborate why is this process taking so long for me?

If you consider that humanity has been in this particular state of consciousness for thousands of years, it's not very long. If you can actually go through the awakening process in one lifetime, it's quite amazing. It's an acceleration of the awakening process. Going through it in one lifetime, you are shedding, so to speak, thousands of years of collective conditioning. Thousands of years. It's an amazing thing that a human being can. And in the past it's always been very, very few isolated individuals. Not all of them we know of. We know only of some of them who have kind of created a teaching or spoken about, written about it. But it's now happening on a somewhat larger scale still. Of course, a minority of humans who are engaged in the awakening process and that's miraculous. There is a gravitational pull still there of the egoic consciousness, both in its personal and collective aspect. And this gravitational pull is quite heavy. It will attempt to pull you back. It will create all kinds of. It'll use situations and everything to pull you. It's. There's no need to regard it as an enemy, but just to realize that the habitual pull of the egoic consciousness of identification with thought is very, very strong. And of the ego, the, the ego, personal ego and collective ego. The. The ego is always identification with form consciousness, which is who we. Who or what you essentially are identifies with form. And then it becomes ego. And ego can take on many different forms. It can take on more subtle and refined forms than in a most basic form. An ego is. An ego wants power over others. It wants to be admired, it wants possessions, it wants be more special than somebody else. And if you cannot be more special in your power and your victorious pursuits, and then at least perhaps you can be more special in. In your victimhood. That's another big ego too. If you can be the victim of others and then it's again, it's a mind created identity, very powerful. The collective ego is even more, more creative, more insane than the personal ego. The cre. The collective, or once you identify with the collective, has perpetrated unspeakable acts of violence and dreadful things in this world through warfare and internal mass murder and holocausts and dreadful things in many countries. So the. What you are, this awakening process is actually quite miraculous. And don't. It's futile to ask yourself, how much longer before I'm completely awake? Oh, that's not a helpful question at all. Or even the question, am I going to be completely awake in this lifetime? That's not a helpful question either. The only helpful question is am I awake at this moment? Am I identified with thinking? Or am I able to think without being identified with the movement of thought? Am I even able to not think when I don't want to think? That's an amazing ability. Am I able to stop, not stop, but allow thinking to subside? Be just so present that the next thought doesn't come. And you may find that that can get interrupted by the thought that says, oh look, I'm so present that the next thought is not coming. But then you can come go back to being present again. It's just so don't ask yourself useless questions that are actually represent an obstacle on your journey of awakening. Ask yourself the only helpful question, this moment. What is my state of consciousness at this moment? And if it's unpleasant. If you are having anxious thoughts and you can't let go of anxious thoughts, in other words, you are in the grip anxious thoughts. Then if there's a little bit of awareness, then you can know that you're in the grip of anxious thought. Not everybody who is in the grip of anxious thought knows that they are in the grip of anxious thought. They are so much identified with the anxious thought that all they, they are filled with anxiety. There's not even a little bit of space that says, oh look, I'm so, I'm so identified with anxious thoughts. They are completely possessed by the anxious thought. In other words, the reincarnation, the incarnation of consciousness into the thought form is 100% no awareness left. In other words, consciousness is completely consumed by the every thought form. Thought gobbles up your consciousness and becomes thought continuous incarnation, reincarnation. But if there is a little bit of awareness, then you can suddenly realize, oh, this is what's happening. And that awareness gives you a space of freedom because from that events you can say, is this what I want? It's futile, isn't it? That arises, that realization arises out of awareness. And then you can choose to direct your attention somewhere else instead of following up every thought where it wants to take you. It's you take your attention into your body or to your breathing and then into the body. And then you can notice the pull of thought, the gravity. It wants all your. It wants you to reincarnate again into another and another you can feel it's pulling you and you and you. But you don't exert willpower. You cannot exert willpower against thought. You can only be present. So that thought cannot fill your space. When you're present enough, you're holding thought at bay. Interesting. You're so present outshines thought like a son of awareness, the sun of awareness outshining thought. And that's amazing thing. You discover that possibility. And once you that and then very progress is speeded up very closely very quickly. And you no longer ask yourself when is it going to happen? Because it's happening now. And you don't ask them why is it taking so long? Because it's not taking long. It's happening now. And then the question is yes, but I will I be able to sustain it? I know it's now, but really. Okay, it's gone already because you asked that question. You don't need to ask will I be able to sustain now? Direct your attention. Take responsibility for your state of consciousness in the present moment. That's enough.