In this monologue Eckhart Tolle examines the role of suffering in spiritual development. He begins by citing the Latin maxim “ad astra per aspera” (through adversity to the stars) and explains that many spiritual traditions have cultivated an ascetic practice in which practitioners deliberately seek hardship. He surveys historical examples: early and medieval Christian desert fathers and monastic cells, Indian ascetics living without possessions, Zen monks enduring austere, cold conditions, and Sufi wanderers. Tolle suggests that these traditions arose when individuals who had experienced spontaneous, natural suffering underwent a sudden awakening and then attempted to recreate that transformative pressure in a controlled environment. He cautions that such extreme paths are not suitable for most people. The core teaching is that genuine, external difficulties should be embraced as part of one’s spiritual practice, while problems generated solely by the ego‑mind—illustrated with a Seinfeld‑style example of a trivial bathroom‑stall concern—should be recognized as mental constructs and not mistaken for true challenges. He emphasizes the need to discern real adversity from ego‑created suffering, to incorporate authentic hardship into practice, and to avoid manufacturing problems for the sake of spiritual “growth.”
Chapters
You maybe have heard the Latin famous dictum, that's. I don't know who first created it, must be some Roman philosopher per aspira ad astra, which translates as through adversity to the stars. Adversity could also be translated as difficulty through adversity, through difficulty, through suffering, you could say through adversity to the stars. Which means of course, as obviously the wisdom embedded in this is that you only grow through adversity, through difficulties, just like the body and you don't have to seek it out. As I said before, some people do. And it is the. Is it a tradition? In many spiritual traditions in Christianity and many other religions, probably all. There is a very ancient tradition by which the practitioner seeks out suffering rather than tries to avoid suffering. That's the ascetic tradition in religions. It existed very strongly in early Christianity and in medieval Christianity and still exists in other religions. Still exist strongly in India. And that is sometimes it involves being homeless, having no possession, being totally at the mercy of what you are given by other people. Or it could involve doing something strange like sitting on top of a pillar or pole for years on end. Weirdest things. So it's, There's a, there's. I can see why they do it. Although Western people, when they look at it or they look back into their own past, the Middle Ages, they say, how could people be so crazy to do something like that? They starve themselves, they get close to death, they inflict suffering on their body. They shut themselves in a cell, as mid Christian medieval monks often did. They go to a cave. They were the desert fathers in very early Christianity in North Africa who lived out in the desert and would live on locusts. And they became, some of them became spiritual teachers. People would come to them. To some extent that still exists in India outside of the big cities, which are becoming, of course modernized. But that tradition is still very much alive in India. I can see why they do this. It's also in Zen, you go to a Zen monastery. It's pretty austere and harsh. The conditions are harsh and austere. The meditation practice is done by facing a wall. In many places you sit in front of a wall and you meditate. And in the winter they might even open the windows. You get really cold. And so it's a dreadful situation to be in. I mean, you wouldn't normally choose that for yourself, but they choose it. The idea behind was probably first, when humans first came up with this idea that imposing suffering on yourself can bring about a change in consciousness. That is the idea behind it that it becomes the spiritual practice. It probably arose in certain humans who had gone through suffering. Not they didn't choose it, but life gave it to them. And then they went into. They realized that at some point they experienced a spiritual awakening. And then they looked back and said, how did that happen? I suffered and suffered in life became so hard for me. And then something inside me suddenly switched and there was another dimension was suddenly there. Okay. So they began to understand the relationship between the suffering that was spontaneous, natural suffering arising in their life situation and what happened to them. And then they attracted naturally people who they could. People who could sense that they had something that other humans didn't have. So they attracted those. And then they came up with the idea of recreating what happened to them naturally in a more formal, artificial environment, so to speak. In other words, they created a spiritual center where they made people suffer. And so that became the spiritual tradition in many Christian and Hindu and the Sufis also in Islam. They wander from place to place wearing the simplest of clothes and have no home. I can see why, but it's not the path I would suggest that is right for most of you. Unless you absolutely feel that it's right for you and it's fine, then you probably wouldn't be here. You would be in meditation boot camp, or you would be in a Zen monastery. It would be your 10th year of suffering in a Zen monastery. And still asking the master. I haven't. I didn't quite get it. Can you explain again what this is all about? As one philosopher said, I think his name was Alan. His first name was Buddhi, is Bodhi. He said, life is full of heartache, misery and suffering, and it's over all too soon. So the important thing in all this is whenever you encounter difficulties, use them as part of. Incorporate them into your spiritual practice instead of resisting them. Just making sure that the difficulty is a true difficulty that you encounter, rather than a difficulty that is produced exclusively, almost inclusively, in your mind. Many problems only exist in your mind. You need to be able to tell the difference between something that is truly a challenge and something that is only something that's happening in your unconscious mind. By unconscious means, I mean thought, movement and no awareness. Like the guy, our friend from Seinfeld, that we saw last night, George, he gives the most wonderful examples throughout the episodes of Seinfeld of somebody who is totally in his ego. So he's experiencing problems that don't exist. What does it matter what bathroom stalls, what kind of doors there are on bathroom stalls. It doesn't matter whatsoever. But it becomes a problem for him. His ego is in it and it could even lead to the end of his relationship with his girlfriend. Totally insane, but it's actually very normal. That's why I showed it last night. You create a mental position and then you identify with it and then it regains. Its not even that you create, creates itself. And then you are possessed by a thought and then you are the thought and then you are fighting some other thought in somebody else. And by fighting it gets stronger.
