Realizing This Will End Your Suffering | Eckhart Tolle

The things in your life that seem to prevent you from flowering, the obstacles in your life, those things are actually the main motivation, the motivating force behind the awakening of consciousness. Now, suffering is actually— the greater amount of suffering is generated out of human unconsciousness. You do it to yourself, you do it to others. Another word for suffering could be unhappiness. It's a generic term. Unhappiness is from the start— the slightest thing like an irritation with something is already a form of unhappiness. An unease in the background of your life, which many people have. There's always a sense of not having arrived yet, and a sort of unease in the background, or it comes into the foreground, a sense of discontent and dissatisfaction with life. It could be quite overwhelming in some cases. Many, all different forms of suffering arise, but now suffering needs to be looked at. Suffering is the— surprisingly perhaps— is the thing that on the one hand is produced by unconscious living. Anybody who is not in touch with the being dimension will continuously experience suffering and cause suffering to themselves and others. So that's— the suffering is, although it is created by the unconscious, the egoic consciousness, it is the thing that eventually awakens you. So the, the ego has built into it a self-destruct mechanism. Through the grace of the Divine, the ego has built in a self-destruct mechanism. It applies to the individual, it applies to the collective. So I know many of you know, as I do, if you had not gone through a certain amount of suffering in your life, most of you— there may be some exceptions—

Yeah.

There are reasons for that also, but most of you, if you had not gone through a certain amount of suffering in your life, you would not have come here. It would be meaningless. So suffering does something to you. It seems to gradually begin to erode the egoic shell, the egoic identity. Uh, uh. Suffering is called— we call it— we could call it challenges. That's an interesting word. Challenges has already— has a somewhat almost positive connotation. Challenges, that's a— it's a good thing to have challenges, okay? So you're already looking at it on a somewhat positive angle. Another word for suffering would be adversity, or to use a somewhat biblical term, Old Testament, tribulation. Tribulation, oh. Adversity, suffering, everybody Let's call it challenges again. Everybody's being challenged from an early age onward with suffering. Many children begin to suffer because they're surrounded by unconscious parents. In my generation, virtually all parents were unconscious. Nowadays, I've come across, I've met quite a few conscious parents who are bringing up a child in a conscious— as many of you probably bringing up children in a conscious home, as much as possible in a conscious home. So children suffer, adults suffer. You have two types of suffering, we could say. You have this individual suffering, your individual challenges, And you have sometimes collective forms of suffering where millions of humans are affected at the same time by a particular form of suffering created collectively. So we have both. So this— the suffering is the thing that it provides the— The that fuels the awakening. Yes.

Yes.

I got confirmation from— So a little secret that many people don't know, but it's a very basic truth. The thing that in your life— the thing or the things that seem to prevent you from becoming fully conscious, or the things in your life that seem to prevent you from flowering, the obstacles in your life, Those things are actually the main motivation, the motivating force behind the awakening of consciousness. The thing that seems to prevent the awakening of consciousness eventually leads to the awakening of consciousness. What's in the way is the way.

Yeah.

That's an amazing realization. When you realize that, which by the way applies on every level of life, the obstacle, limitation, an obstacle is needed for the arising, additional influx of energy on whatever level. I often give the example of If you want to make your physical body stronger, sitting on your sofa and watching Netflix does not help, although the body may like it. So in order to strengthen the body, what do you do? You make the life of your body difficult, and that's called exercise. [LAUGHTER] And at first the body doesn't like it because this— you have to weightlift, or you start jogging.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

And so there's a gap that happens now, the gap between what is needed and what is there. There's a gap, there is a demand for more, an influx of more energy. This, this gap is the gap of suffering. And so there's a gap and the demand is there, and then at some point energy comes in. Here we're talking about everything is consciousness, by the way, and this is the physical energy, is a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness. So there's a demand that comes in, and at some point energy flows into the body, begins to strengthen the body, muscles and so on, and then the very activities that before were unpleasant, with the added energy, they become enjoyable.

Ah! Ah!

Ah! Energy that wasn't there before, but it only came because there was a desperate need for it. Without a desperate need for it. It doesn't— and so all the suffering in your life, the psychological suffering, there is, there's a need for the awakening so that you can be gone. A need for more consciousness because the suffering is self-generated. A lot of it is self-generated, although very often it seems to come from external sources. Just sometimes it does, but most of psychological suffering is self-generated out of unconsciousness. So you can verify that for yourself if you be very alert in any situation. If you find suffering arising in any situation in your life— let's— suffering, let's just call it unhappiness in whatever form, slightest irritation— how does it arise? Observe the mechanism behind it, you would get irritated with something happening in this world that shouldn't be happening, or something should be happening, but whatever, it's not happening. You're waiting in line at the airport to check in, but there's a delay, and then there's a cancellation, and then they, they say, no, you can't board, we have too many people on board. Whatever happens, You stand there waiting, or you're on the phone to your bank, can't get through to a person. Why can't I get through? Why are they saying, "Your call is important to us," when it's not? Obviously, it's not important. Why can't they? This is— I can't take any more of this. It's just awful. So you're beginning to— this is just slight irrita— it's not a big thing, but it's slight irritation. How does it arise? Well, it's because these people are so stupid. So I always— what I recommend is in any situation like that, and you start with relatively simple situations, then build up to bigger ones. In any situations that any form of unhappiness arises, ask yourself this moment, how would I experience this moment if I did not add any thought to to it, if I just let it be as it is without interpreting it in any way whatsoever, I just let it be, as the Beatles say in their song. If I just let this moment be as it is without adding any of the baggage of thought to it, okay, then you're in the same situation. It's still no one is answering. 'Your call is important to us.' And you sit there. Where's the suffering? You don't add any thought to it. It's actually not that bad sitting there. You're breathing, you're looking out of the window. Oh, there's a lovely flower. Is this moment so bad?

No.

Eh, but a minute ago it was terrible. So what is it that causes the suffering? It's what you're telling yourself. It's not the situation. In many, many cases, even in more extreme cases, it's not the situation, but it's what you are telling yourself mentally about the situation, the narrative in your mind that is part of my life. My life. Can't take anymore.