Reclaiming Your Consciousness: Eckhart Tolle on Breaking Free from Thought Streams

As you're awakening, many people at first have this binary experience you have. You're either you're present when you're out in nature, or you're sitting quietly in your room, or you're meditating. Then you're able to be present, be. Be the presence. So the thinking mind subsides. Although some thoughts may drift in and out, but primarily thinking subsides and awareness, or presence. Awareness is another word, right? Arises, thinking subsides. Presence, awareness arises and you can sense that, the reality of it, and it's beautiful. And then those quiet moments, the experienced as quiet moments come to an end because the world challenges you again. So you come back into challenging interactions with people, etc. Or you're just challenged. Even though you're still in your quiet, in your room, sitting quietly. The mind starts coming in. You're just meditating, it was going fine. But suddenly something, some thought comes in and leads to another thought and leads to another thought. And then you have trapped in a stream of thoughts. And again you're lost. In the same way that you can be lost in verbal interactions, you can be lost in the stream of thinking. So many people are awakening, experience that moments of presence. And then completely losing it again. Especially when being challenged. But challenge, as I said, is not necessarily an external challenge. Very often the challenge, your challenge by your own mind, your talents by. When the mind is creating all kinds of scenarios and creating monologues or dialogues, it splits itself into two. You have an argument with yourself, all kinds of things. Worry, what is normally conventionally called worry, arises in the middle of the night. You can't stop thinking about all these critical situations that you're going to encounter tomorrow or very soon. And all kinds of scenarios so that the. The important work is to it. It's still of course, wonderful to be able to be just in complete stillness and have moments when you're really at peace, that peaceful alertness that is presence. But eventually the daily life and presence have to merge. They have to come together. And the challenges of life can. I've said it before, but it's important to say it again. The challenges of life, whether they external challenges that are actual challenges or pseudo challenges, whatever the mind creates, they can either pull you back into complete unconsciousness or they can be your motivation for deepening the presence so that it becomes. You become really rooted in presence. And so whenever a challenge arises, it can go either way, completely lose yourself. Or the challenge contribute. Contributes to the awakening of consciousness. So when you. The moments of undisturbed presence are Important because during those moments, meditation periods, or just out in nature or wherever you may be, they're important because during autonomous presence power, as I sometimes put it, presence power grows in you. The power of presence is able to manifest more fully. Presence power is growing in you. And you need that presence power to face the challenges of life. And the challenges of life require you, unless they pull you into unconsciousness. They require you to, so to speak, to turn up the light as if it were a dimmer switch. And on the dimmer switch, you can turn up the light. And when you're being challenged, you have to turn up the light of presence. Let's say you're challenged by your own mind is often the case. Well, ultimately, everything happens is a mental event. But there are certain external challenges that are real challenges. Like, I've lost my job, I've lost my home, My partner has left me. I'm running out of money, My health is deteriorating, whatever it may be. Many kinds of challenges can come, real challenges, but the mind amplifies. Even if they're totally real challenges, the mind makes them much bigger than they need to be because the mind creates a stream of very painful thoughts, fearful thoughts, angry thoughts around those challenges which may be very real. And then there are the imaginary mental challenges. I might lose my money, I might lose my job. Is my partner betraying me? What all kinds of things that you can come up with. Is the stock market going to collapse? What am I going to do then? So that can be just as painful as somebody saying, I don't. I've only got a few dollars left. What am I going to live on? Tomorrow could be equally painful as a mental event. So the thing that saves you is knowing that you have lost yourself in the stream of mind. When you know that you've lost yourself in the stream of mind, then you. In that. In that moment, an element of choice has come in. When you don't know it, you have no choice because the thinking happens to you. You have no choice in the matter. It just happens to you. Thinking is actually you. The thoughts are using you. The thoughts are little energy fields that are using you, pretending to be you. This is why I've sometimes described them as parasitic entities or these useless thoughts. They're like parasitic entities. They live in your mind, pretend to be you. And using all your up. All their. All your consciousness, they're using them, using up all that. They are parasites, mental parasites. And when you're totally in the grip of a mental parasite, choice just doesn't come in. You have no choice because you are not even there. You have been replaced by the parasitic entities. Sounds like science fiction, but that's ultimately how it is. Energetically, choice comes in the moment you realize that this is what's happening to you. Because then that realization comes from the. The. That which is behind the mind. There's a little bit of presence. And from there you can realize, oh, I'm completely lost in the mind. I'm completely lost. There it is. Now, if you have to realize when you know that in that moment you have a choice. When, when you realize you've lost yourself, you have a choice and you're not completely lost anymore. But you have to know that. Because if you don't realize that. That you now have a choice, then this moment will pass very quickly and you're back again in the. In the stream of useless and ultimately destructive thinking. So realize that you have a choice in that moment. And your choice is to take your attention, let's use the word to reclaim consciousness from your mind, to take it back. And then you have to use something to help you as an anchor for presence. And I recommend inner body awareness or breathing. So your choice is instead of thinking, for example, becoming aware of your breathing. And then that can become one with becoming aware of the inner body. And when your attention moves into your breath and into the inner body, there's virtually nothing left for thinking. So you have reclaimed consciousness from these parasitic entities. You don't. You cannot fight the parasitic entities. You can only reclaim consciousness. And when you do that, they deflate like a balloon that is loose. The air comes out of the balloon and the parasitic entities suddenly go dissolve into nothingness. Ultimately, there were always nothingness but down, you know. So this is a miraculous process. When you reclaim, you realize you have a choice. And your choice is not to think right now. To reclaim consciousness from these entities that make your life miserable. And suddenly you're present. And when faced with raging thoughts, you need to be really present. You need to be intensely present in order to. So that these thoughts do not quickly reappear and pull you back into that stream of painful thinking. You have to be really present. Because they will come this little. They're still there in. In little. They have lost most of their energy. But potentially the little thought will come in. And you must think about this again. This is very bad situation, Very bad. Think about it. And then, then. And back you are. And then you may have. It may have to happen again. You realize you have a choice, okay, to take your attention elsewhere, away from the mind. So that's a very important practice, so that you don't lose yourself completely in their thoughts anymore. It.