Staying Conscious in the Face of Adversity | A Special Message From Eckhart Tolle

I'd like to share with you a short passage from the Bible. Doesn't happen very often that I read from the Bible as part of a teaching. This is from the New Testament, and it is a parable that Jesus tells that is very profound and absolutely relevant to the present time. So here we go. Everyone who listens to these words of mine and does them will be like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against the house, but it did not collapse. It had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not do them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined. So let's understand the deeper meaning of this. Everyone who listens to these words and does them means obviously anybody who listens to the teaching and practices the teaching, and of course, Jesus teaching. Find the kingdom of heaven that is within you, not anywhere else in space or time. Find the transcendent dimension, the kingdom of heaven that is within you, which is a deeper dimension or higher dimension of consciousness accessible to everyone. And the man that's building the house is you. The house is you. The floods come, the rain comes. Beating against the house obviously means some form of adversity you encounter, as you inevitably will in your life, some form of fairly extreme adversity, whether it's a personal level or as we are experiencing now, on a collective level. Now, if you haven't gone deep enough, because remember, you are the house. If you haven't gone deep enough, you have not found anything beyond the conceptual thinking mind. Then, then the floods, the rain, the wind, the adversity, whatever it may be, in this case we know what it is, will devastate you. And even if you do not fall ill or contract the virus, the fear will consume you as it's consuming millions of humans at the present time. And why do you fear? What is fear? Fear are certain thought forms. You project yourself into some future moment, and you are not present. Because if you were present, you would realize that in this moment there is nothing to fear. Only when you leave this moment, fear arises as a thought form which then creates an emotion. So what does it mean then, to dig deep into and to find the foundation on the rock? What is that rock? The foundation for the house that you are. You are that house. And I'd like you to take into a little Meditation. Now, in order to illustrate and to enable you to experience at first hand what it means to dig deep for a moment. Just become aware that you're breathing. Become aware of yourself, not the conceptual self. Not become aware of your personal history or become aware of some imagined future moment. But become aware of yourself as the conscious presence, a field of conscious presence. And thinking does not help you there. Thinking is an obstacle. So you go deeper than thinking. And you can be completely awake and present and yet with very little mind activity. And that is the beginning of the realization of your deep identity, what I sometimes call your essence identity. And your essence identity is inseparable from the present moment. It is the timeless, eternal present. It is a deeper dimension of consciousness than the one that you ordinarily identify with. And that is the meaning of digging deep and finding that unshakable foundation that is deep within you, within everyone. Adversity is a wonderful opportunity because adversity forces you to go deeper. Adversity forces you to awaken to the deeper dimension of who you are. Why does adversity force you? Because life becomes almost unbearable when you live only on the surface, the surface of sense perceptions and your conceptual mind. And then you listen to the newscasts and you read all kinds of things, and everybody's in a state of fear. That is the house built on the sand, that when the floods come, the wind comes, the storms come, the house collapses. Meaning, since you are the house in this parable, you are devastated, in a state of extreme anxiety, extreme suffering, although nothing actually has happened yet unless you contract a disease. And this is something we'll talk about next time, right? Is the house your house? The house that you are? Are you living on the surface? Is your house built on sand? Or are you able to dig and find the foundation within yourself that frees you from fear? Now, when things are going well, it's unlikely that most humans can't be bothered with going deeper. What for things are going okay. I'm looking forward to my next vacation. Weekend is coming up and whatever it is, a nice meal is waiting for me. Everything is comfort zone. You're in your comfort zone. I've never heard of anybody who awakens in their comfort zone. There's nothing wrong with comfort zone. Enjoy them when they're there. They last for a while, and then some form of adversity arises, either on a personal level or on a collective level. Minor forms of adversity and occasionally huge forms of adversity. Potential calamities, whether it's you suddenly confronted with the fact of mortality, some great loss, serious illness, from a personal level or from a collective level. War, civil strife, civil war, financial collapse, invasion of your country, all kinds of things can happen. And at the present time, we are experiencing the so called pandemic, collective adversity, not affecting just one person, now affecting millions at the same time. And this is an invitation to go deeper. Because if you don't, you suffer unnecessarily. Millions are in a state of fear and anxiety. But use this as an opportunity to either awaken out of the mind identified state of consciousness that continuously projects itself into the future that you have no control over. It is never present. This mind identified state of consciousness, it's the house built on the sand, or it's an opportunity to come to this realization that you are much deeper than you had known before. You are forced to go deeper because you can't stand the suffering anymore, the unhappiness or whatever you want to call it, the anxiety. And so the most vital thing in any situation is the state of consciousness with which you meet the situation. And you should pay more attention to that than to the newscasts and whatever it is that you listen to and watch. Yes, you can do that also. But what is your state of consciousness? That's something you can do something about. It's not very much that you can do about the external situation. You can take precautions, you can help other people to the extent to which it is possible. All that's good, you do all the things that you need to do. And perhaps many people are now forced to stay at home and suddenly you have to be suddenly on a private retreat at home. Now that's an opportunity. So use this precious time that is here because it is part of the awakening consciousness of humanity. It seems almost paradoxical to say that something that on the surface looks very negative and looks like an obstacle to the well being of humanity. And yes, it's an obstacle to the well being of humanity on a purely physical level, perhaps temporarily, yes. But something that looks like an obstacle from a conventional point of view is actually an opportunity for you to awaken to a deeper, or you could say higher level of consciousness. Humans don't awaken when they're in their comfort zone. They awaken when they are taken out of their comfort zone. Not everybody does. It's an opportunity. If you do not awaken when you are no longer in your comfort zone, you suffer, you are unhappy, you are anxious, you are fearful, you haven't found the rock. Now, the difference between this parable and actual life is in this parable, the man had already dug deep and he had already built his house on the rock. And then the floods came and so on in the house was unshakable in real life. Often it is the case that the wind, the floods, the rains beating against the house, which means adversity arising in your life. The adversity forces you. If you haven't already gone deeper, it forces you to go deeper. And so it's not too late to start digging now in the face of adversity. Many of you are already in the process of awakening, probably most of you listening to this and what's happening to us now is a wonderful opportunity for you to go deeper, a deepening of that, an acceleration of the awakening. So as much as possible, especially whenever you feel, you feel that way of drifting off into a fearful state of consciousness and a fearful emotional state. Whenever you realize that, realize that in this present moment there is nothing to fear. And you have to verify this for yourself. Whether this is true or not. When you fear something, it's of some imagined future moment. Am I going to catch this disease? Am I going to die? Is a loved one going to catch it? Is a loved one, my child? Are they going to die? Imagine it. It could happen. But right now it's not happening. So whenever you feel yourself drifting off into fear, realize, okay, I have lost the present moment. And I lost myself in my mind, in the thinking mind, and I went over, and then the emotion reflects that mind activity. So the moment you notice it, okay, I've lost the present moment. I am lost in the mind. Come back into the present moment. A few little things are helpful. Be aware of your breathing. Be aware of the inner energy field in your body. The body is alive. This energy, this life energy that pervades the body. You feel that you're breathing. You feel the aliveness in the body. You're aware of sense perceptions. You look around and then you become aware of that presence that is inseparable from who you are. That presence that is inseparable from who you are. That's an amazing realization. There's more to you than the person. That presence is deeper than the person. And you needed the adversity either to find it or to deepen that which you had already found it. But it was not yet a deep realization. So this is a time of great opportunity. Use it, don't waste it. There's a saying that goes, when the ego weeps for what it has lost, the spirit rejoices for what it has found. So what looks bad on the surface. Has an essential function. I will speak to you again soon. In the meantime, be here, be present. Don't lose yourself in the mind. Don't lose yourself in fear. Find and be rooted in this rock that is your essence. Identity. Thank you.