Observing the Mind is the Key to Being Present | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

As I mentioned before, not that it's not challenging anymore, there will be challenges, but of a different kind. External challenges will continue to come. The challenges, the problems and difficulties of the unobserved mind, however, will no longer be there. And that's a huge percentage of suffering in a person's life. A huge percentage of suffering of unhappiness, to use a generic term, a huge percentage of unhappiness arises, not created by situations, but by the mind. You can verify that wherever you are and see, when you begin to feel upset, you begin to feel unhappy. What is it that causes you to feel upset or unhappy? Is it the situation? Or is it what your mind is telling you about the situation? What makes you unhappy? You can test it in the most seemingly insignificant situation, because the mechanism is the same, whether it's a big suffering or small suffering. You are in a queue in the supermarket, it's not moving. The person is so slow, the cashier, and so inefficient. And you have so much else to do. Why should you be standing here waiting when if they could only find people who are more efficient and just can't stand it anymore. I'm not going back here anymore. I really should. That's the beginning of suffering. It's unhappiness. And what's creating it? The situation or your mind? And when you suddenly, in that, and this is only a small example, you can take your almost your entire life when suffering arises, is it really the situation? In some cases it may be because there can be dreadful things that can happen. But if, then, if you're still unhappy several months later, then it's also your mind again. So observe how, when you become aware of what your mind is doing when you're upset, when unhappiness arises. See? Okay, is it the situation or is it my mind? And suddenly the awareness comes and your mind is no longer the unobserved mind. Now your mind becomes the observed mind. And then you realize what your mind is doing. And then you stand in the supermarket and nicu and okay, I don't really need all that. What would it be like to just accept this moment as it is without adding the mental stuff to it? Oh, not so bad. I'm just standing here breathing, looking at people. Okay, there's nothing wrong with it. If your mind doesn't tell you there's something wrong with it, it's actually okay. It's just the present moment. If I were not standing here, I would be standing somewhere else. Or if I wouldn't be standing, I would be Sitting somewhere else or walking somewhere else, not that different, but their mind tells you should be somewhere else, I shouldn't be. So you become, and you can tell the difference between situations where you can do something about it in a situation where you can't do anything about. But even if you can do something about it, make sure that you accept the present moment first and then you take action. Because if you don't accept the present moment, the action you take will be arising from upset or from anger. And this is karmic action. It creates more of the same stuff coming back at you. It might solve this particular situation, but in solving this particular situation through your angry reaction, you've created two or three other situations in the next moment that reflect back this karmically insane normal. This is why I say normal equals insane. So observe your mind. See how much of your unhappiness is not the situation that you lost your job, your marriage collapsed. Whatever it is, is that causing the unhappiness or the mental commentary, the story in the head that tells you how bad this is. Either by blaming somebody else or by blaming yourself, or blaming life or blaming God. You can choose whatever you want to blame. The mind is happy. Whatever the mind can blame is the egoic mind is happy with that. But that's the. That's all the. All those challenges or suffering or difficulties, those things begin to evaporate from your life. What remains, however, is certain challenges that come in wherever you are, through situations, through other people who are still unconscious. There are a few left you might have noticed who are still unconscious. And you can't remove yourself from that. So you're faced with certain situations that correspond to where humanity is at in their collective level of consciousness. You might have physical problems still. Although many illnesses are created by the unobserved mind, there are other factors too. And the body will eventually grow old. And that's a big problem if you make it into one. And a dreadful thing if you had completely identified with the body and now it's beginning to shrink or disappear or collapse. Who am I now? For the past few decades, your looking in the mirror gave you your most of your sense of who you are or taking selfies one day, a few years pass, then the selfies are not that satisfying to look at anymore. Who am I now? There's something wrong. I need to get a new iPhone. So that's the. Beware of what your mind is doing. And if you only get. There are many things from this evening that are potentially life transforming and even just taking One with you would be enough even if you took the one. The last thing we just mentioned. Whenever suffering arises, upset, angry reaction, unhappiness, be aware of where does it come from? My mind or the situation? And if it is your mind, do I want that? Who am I? Am I those thoughts? No. Well, who am I? Do I want those thoughts? Do I want that unhappiness? Is it my choice to think unhappy thoughts and feel unhappy year day after day, night after night. Every time I wake up in the middle of the night, the same thoughts come make me unhappy. And I think, this is the reality of my life. The thoughts that make me unhappy. People think that's the reality of my life. That's it's a total illusion. And so you step out of that into, oh, that's just things that happened and that's just life. Things come and go, you lose, you gain, and then you lose again and then you gain and loss. Impermanence can't hang on to anything. There's no security out there. No matter how many life insurances insurance you have or whatever. It's an illusion. Life insurance. I have a big life insurance. Well, to start with, it shouldn't be called life insurance, it should call death insurance. But that's not so attractive anymore. It would destroy the illusion. This mind made sense of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are beyond your history and your life situation.