Learning to Suffer Consciously | Eckhart Tolle

All the things that I was so anxious about that were created, what was it that was so unnecessary and pointless? All the things that I'd been striving for were ultimately pointless. So suffering in your life, if it still arises, use it so that the ego gets burned up by the suffering, so to speak. The ego gets burned up in this fire of suffering. Now we can call this conscious suffering. That's very interesting concept, conscious suffering. When suffering arises, become aware of it and accept that it's there in the form of fear, anxiety, regret. You have self pity. You have unhappy sense of self complaining all your life. Many forms of suffering. You've lost things you don't know, things that you had identified with taken away from you. Who am I now? I'm nobody. I'm nobody. Well, that's great. Be nobody more completely realize fully your nobody list, your nobody mess. I don't know who I am anymore. I've lost everything. All the things I've worked for have begun. Everything is so pointless. Their mind is still talking. It's all been for nothing. It's all meaningless. Meaningless. This is your mind talking. Don't believe in the things it says, but it continues talking. Many humans in this world are suffering from what we could call nihilism. I don't know if you know that word, nihilism. Nihilism means the belief that everything is absolutely and utterly pointless. That's a deep form of suffering, nihilism. It doesn't make what's the point of it? Or just this awful life of mine. The whole world is pointless. It's so awful. And that's a very deep suffering, the total lack of meaning. Everything is arbitrary, random. And meaninglessness is a mental disease that is afflicting millions of humans because everybody, the mainstream culture still believes. It goes back to the 19th century. It goes back to Darwin, Origin of Species, that life evolved, which undoubtedly is true. But he said life evolved. But the evolution of life on this planet is an arbitrary random course of events. Molecules and atoms at random coming together and forming life forms over millions of years. Random. The idea of randomness in the theory of evolution put forward by Darwin and others, the idea of randomness means there's no purpose or intelligence behind it whatsoever. It's a random process. In other words, it's the belief that everything, that all life on this planet has no meaning. It just is a meaningless conglomeration of atoms and molecules. It's ultimately meaningless. That basically is the ultimate underlying assumption behind the theory of evolution that many people still believe. And it has, seeped into mainstream culture and even people who never even heard of Darwin, it has seeped into their belief system that we live in a meaningless universe. Before that happened, we had certain religious beliefs. So there was some meaning. And a lot of that perhaps was ideological and ego driven. Nevertheless, in the ancient religion there is access to the transcendent is still there, here and there. So there were still little openings into the transcendent. Even though many forms of religion developed into ideological belief systems that strengthened the ego, nevertheless, religion still carried and still carry the secret of transcendence is still they're hiding within the religions and that became inaccessible to many humans. So now we have the pandemic of nihilism. This is one of the pandemics far worse than any physical pandemic, that everything the beef that everything is meaningless and you can have a meaning in your life that is very limited. Like for many people have the meaning, okay, I want to have a career that gives you limited meaning in your personal life. Working for career, nothing wrong with that. I'm working to create a better life for myself and my family. That's also wonderful, great. I'm, I'm working to achieve recognition in this world, etc. Etc. That's fine too. But at some point, a meaning that is purely personal may begin to lose its power. So that, let's say you've spent two or three decades working for your career, which is nothing wrong with it. At some point you may arrive at a point where your career doesn't mean anything anymore, or you lose it, you lose your career and your status, or it consumes you so completely that you become ill with stress or in some other way turns into something that's not satisfying at all, that actually creates suffering. So something can give you limited meaning for a while, for years, and then suddenly turn out to be ultimately meaningless. So, and some people suddenly wake up and say, oh, my life. Some people fall ill, seriously ill, and then they look back on their life and see all this was so pointless. Accumulating possessions, why did I do that? What was the point in that? All the things that I was so anxious about when they're now, let's say they're seriously ill now. All the things that I was so anxious about that were created, what was it that was so unnecessary and pointless, all the things that I've been striving for are ultimately pointless. That can be an opening suddenly, wow. The limited personal meaning, which was fine. It's better than no meaning at all to have a personal meaning in your life. Better than no meaning at all. But ultimately that's not satisfying in the long term. You have to go deeper to a deeper meaning that transcends who you are as a person. And that is, am I aligned with the purpose of the universe? That is the ultimate true meaning. Am I aligned with the purpose? And what is the purpose of the universe? The purpose of the universe is consciousness. Bringing more consciousness into this dimension. That's the purpose of the universe. Bringing more consciousness into this dimension. Am I aligned with that? And then if that is the case, if you are aligned with that, you are a bringer of consciousness, a bringer of light. That is the ultimate true purpose. And it could be that your personal purpose and the deeper purpose can go together, that's fine. So you can, if you can have a career and yet it's not totally ego dominated. While you are active working, you bring in the light of consciousness, you do things in your work that bring more consciousness into this dimension. That's wonderful. So you can have. It is not necessarily a case of either having a career or, or being aligned with. With universal purpose, which is you can bring the two together. That's perfectly. That's. That's the balance between. The balance between being and doing, as I sometimes call it, the balance between being and doing. Bringing those two together. But so the, the purpose. There's only one true purpose in your life and that you have to discover that. And that is, am I aligned with the consciousness and am I a bringer of consciousness? So that's the end of nihilism, is that? And it no longer matters. Your entire power past becomes relatively unimportant when you realize the meaning of life is to. To be a bringer of consciousness. Let's say your entire past was one disaster after another. It happens. Some people, some people's life is like unfortunately was like that. Let's say you ended up in prison because you did one wrong and bad thing after another. But then you look back in your so called life and say, my God, that was a disaster. My entire life was just a disaster, okay? But at this moment I realize the consciousness that I am and all the suffering that I have created for myself and others, all the suffering I have created for myself and others was part of the egoic dream, the delusion, the egoic delusion and the conditioning that I came into this world with. And then you awaken at this moment if a totally disastrous life brings you to a point of awakening. Now, the whole thing was great because it suddenly has a purpose. Retrospectively. All the disasters brought you to this moment of awakening. So in retrospect, what was totally absurd and meaningless, suddenly it fulfilled a purpose. The past can suddenly be realized as having fulfilled its purpose by creating the suffering that led to your awakening. So. So there's no regret anymore about the past. It all made sense. So the meaning arises retrospectively. It only remains absurd and disastrous. If the awakening doesn't happen, then you all. You're trapped in the dreadful dream. Continue to be trapped in it. Wow. So be aligned with universal purpose. That is the ultimate birth. No matter what you do, no matter how it expresses itself through you, that doesn't matter. But realize that. And if you want to look at your life in terms of failure and success, as many people do, is my life a failure? Is my life a success? How do you. What criterion do you use for failure or success? Do you allow this world to tell you whether you're a failure or success? To a large extent, this world is insane. So are you allowing an insane world to tell you whether your last life is a failure or success? Well now, if this world cannot tell you, then what is it? Obviously, the only true criterion is whether you are conscious or not in this moment. If you are conscious in this moment, instead of being totally immersed in the dream of your conditioned unawareness, the fictitious person, if you are conscious in this moment, then that is the greatest and only true success there could be in this life.