No Challenges, No Growth, with Eckhart Tolle

And you could also say when you look at life and humans, life on this planet, probably many other planets, you would say, well, it's all very well. Sometimes it seems to work that through facing challenges and problems, we grow. We grow out of identification with mind, we grow out of the ego, we transcend our conditioned state of consciousness and a new consciousness arises. And if, I know, not actually speaking for myself, without facing difficulties and challenges, there would not have been any growth in consciousness and no awakening. If I had had a. What's the word? For example, a trust fund, where you know from a very early age your parents have already looked after your security. And you know from an early age, if you don't want to work or anything, you don't have to. You can have a comfortable life without ever doing anything. There are people like that. There may even be one or two here. But if you are here and you are a trust fund baby, then other things must have happened to you that created difficulties. It wasn't financial, but there were other things. And even eventually to a trust fund baby, other difficulties will happen. But for quite a while it could be that this person remains stagnant or might enjoy certain activities or indulge in sensory pleasures until it gets too much, it's no longer satisfying, and then reaches a critical stage. And sometimes. There was a man in. I met him many, many years ago. I was taken to a kind of cocktail party. I didn't move in those circles, but it just happened accidentally that I ended up there and somebody took me and says, you must come and look. This is. You're going to meet the sixth richest man in England or somebody, a friend of mine who was impressed by these things. So I met this man who became rich apparently because he invented one little thing. 1. He had one idea and became a billionaire. This is not uncommon these days, by the way, with the Internet. But this was before the Internet. He had one idea, and that's called Tetra Pack, the drinks that come in a carton. And it has a carton that has a particular kind of. Opens in a particular way so that you can pour out the liquid. It's called. It's a patent Tetra Pack. So he came up with that and he became a billionaire. I talked to him briefly and then had forgot about many, many years past and forgot about it. And two or three years ago I happened to read in the paper that his son, who was by now he was probably 40 years old, was a drug addict, seriously addicted to drugs and lost completely control of his life, adrift Completely. And he was, they arrested him. He was driving under the influence of some drugs. And when police entered his house they found in one of the bedrooms in big house in Belgravia in London, they found his wife. The dead body of his wife had been in that bed for several months and he just couldn't, he hadn't killed her, but she probably died of a drug overdose and he just couldn't face dealing with it. So he just closed the door all and there was a dead body. This can happen to the extreme cases of trust fund dysfunction. So in other words, when life gets too easy for you, things can quickly deteriorate, but that's your opportunity then because first life gets too easy, then because it gets too easy, it deteriorates and you lose more and more consciousness. And then it is possible that you encounter so much suffering and then finally experience the difficulty of life and then there's a possibility of growth. So this could happen to this man too. Now there's always the possibility of awakening. So you could say, of course, well, this is all very good, it works in some cases. In some cases physical exercise makes the body stronger. And in some cases encountering difficulties in life helps you to awaken. But you might say there are many other cases where all that happens is just seems to me just difficulties with no growth. That's at least that what it looks like on the surface. People who have not enough food, who are starving, odd diseases, not to mention human made difficulties, which probably like warfare and violence inflicted by humans and other humans, which probably has created far more suffering for humanity than man made disasters. The madness of humans who having not yet evolved into full humans because they lack benevolence and empathy and goodwill towards their fellow humans, at least those who don't fit into their mental concepts of us and them, so they inflicted enormous suffering. So part of the difficulties faced by humans have been inflicted by other unconscious humans. So when you look at life on the planet, many people use this as an argument to prove that God there can be no God, they say, this is a very common argument. They say look at the suffering. If there were God, how would he allow all that suffering to take place? And if there is a God, this is how the argument goes. If there is a God who allows that suffering, then that God, whether we call him he or she or it would be morally inferior to us because we see that this suffering is not just so. These are arguments that you often hear, people who want to prove that there is no God, there cannot be a God. And if there is a God. It's a malevolent God. But they may not be right. The premise from which they start may already be erroneous. And that premise is that there is a controlling figure somewhere who from somewhere looks at everything and who could, if he wanted to, change things here and there and arrange things so that there's absolutely everything is absolutely fine all the time. So there's a projection of a powerful figure who could exert, and sometimes does exert influence, and at other times withholds help and inflict suffering. Or of course, then you have to project, come up with another figure. If you don't want to have a malevolent God, you have to predict there's a devil. Okay, now we have to divide. We have two deities. Then the good one and the bad one gets very complicated. But it's quite possible, just as an alternative suggestion, that the basic premise is already erroneous. There is no controlling father figure. What about God? Let's call God now a universal intelligence, expressing him, her itself, through billions of life forms, taking form, incarnating into form, so to speak, throughout the universe. So gradually the universe becomes an expression of that underlying intelligence which comes from a dimension that has no time and space to it. But gradually, in this dimension, gradually brings about this multiplicity of life forms which at first is asleep, there's a dreamlike state, and then gradually there's an awakening in this dimension. I do not attempt, it would be presumptuous and absurd for me to attempt to explain the universe. So I'm going to stop right now. Because anybody who thinks they can explain the universe using a few sounds produced by the vocal cords, which after all, only consists of five vowels, A, E, I, O, U. And then you add a few. What are the other stiff tongues, whatever consonants. It's been a long time. Consonants are produced by air pressure in the mouth. So by combining the sound, these five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords with a little bit of air pressure here and there, and attempting to explain the universe is obviously absurd. But one can give little hints. It's a little bit more like a poetic image. It's a little bit like that. And then you go. And then you may find that on some deeper level, which is non conceptual, there can be a different kind of insight or understanding of what the universe is all about. But you may not be able to talk about it very much. And if you do talk about it, you might talk about it in the form of a poem or a poetic image, or just a little analogy. Or as Jesus used parables. So there's no ultimate explanation through words. It would be totally impossible. Words can point to something, give a little hint, and then they can also point to a state of consciousness where you can realize certain things. I don't want to say intuitively, but almost intuitively knowing, non conceptually certain the nature of reality, because you have looked deeply enough within yourself. And if you've looked deeply enough within yourself, then you understand, not conceptually, but on another level, many of the secrets of the universe. So because it's all in you, you are a microcosm of the entire universe. If you understand the universe, understand yourself, not conceptually. You can't go very far. Concept.