Eckhart Tolle argues that positive thinking can improve your circumstances but cannot prevent loss and pain. True freedom comes from conscious awareness and presence, not from escaping discomfort through substances or trying to eliminate life's inevitable opposites.
As such, you are a ripple on the surface of the ocean, a ripple that has forgotten its nature, not only its connectedness with the ocean, but its absolute oneness with the ocean. The ripple is the ocean, the ocean temporarily manifesting as a ripple. And the past, everything dissolves, and then it becomes the past, which is a memory of a present moment in the now. You talk about the past, you're remembering something that happened, but when it happened, it was a now. And it's still the now. So, but that absorbs human attention completely for most unawakened humans. My past is my life. And then you look back on your past and you come to some kind of conclusion about yourself, your identity, and your life. Hmm, well, that's my life. For many people, it's a mixed bag. They're not completely— it's not the greatest because there are things that are not going well in my life. It could be your financial situation, it could be your Relationship situation, your professional situation, your living situation, your health situation. Somewhere other people. Oh my God! Problems. You can look in your life. Where are the main problems in your life? There's somewhere there what I've mentioned. Hardly any human is free of experiences. This— one or two of these dimensions is problematic at any given moment in time. So it's either— and if you, for a moment, everything is going well, let's say you have achieved great professional success, your income is great, you have a wonderful place to live, your family is doing well, you have 2 healthy and intelligent and wonderful children, and your wife is perfect, and your health is just great, and your body looks fantastic. And you're great-looking. Is that possible? It may be possible for a brief moment, but not for long. So if that's the case with you, just wait a little. And something will pop up out of nowhere and challenge you and say, oh my God. And especially you just solve something here and then something pops up there. It's a— even if you practice positive thinking, which is a great thing to do, it will improve your life considerably, but it does not mean you will not be challenged by life again. You will still be— you will experience the opposite, that every situation contains opposites. You gain something here, but you lose something there, and you will experience— Pain. Being challenged by life, and you can't get away from it. That's the weird thing. So if all is going perfectly in your life right now, it's unlikely that there's anybody here to whom this is happening temporarily, because why would you come here? Everything is perfectly fine, so you get back into your Big car and have a big meal and drink, and then you go to your radiant family in your beautiful home. Everything is so satisfying. It doesn't work. It's not— so the being challenged does not stop even when you begin lucid living. Living, which means what we are talking about here, to bring consciousness into your daily life by not losing touch with the underlying awareness or presence within you, which we might call stillness. a field of highly— let's say, a field of highly intelligent presence that underlies it all. And that it is a stillness, but it's alive, vibrantly alive, a stillness within you. Underneath the personality, not separate from it, But underneath it. So one could almost say that— well, one could say that you as a person or the personality exists on the surface of being, so to speak, in the same way that a wave or ripple exists on the surface of the ocean. Ripples everywhere. And This— I often use this analogy because it's quite helpful, because that's actually how it is. You exist on the surface of being as a physical entity and a psychological entity, and as such, you are a ripple on the surface of the ocean, a ripple that has forgotten its nature. Not only its connectedness with the ocean, but its absolute oneness with the ocean. The ripple is the ocean, the ocean temporarily manifesting as a ripple. Look at me, says the ripple, and looks at other ripples, and fears other ripples, and complains about other ripples. And then seeking out some satisfaction on the surface of the ripple existence. Never, no, and never getting a feeling of home, of having arrived. Briefly, yes, briefly. But usually it means there's a lowering of consciousness. I mentioned drinking alcohol, for example. You drink a couple of glasses, you feel a little better. Why do you feel a little better? Because it slows down your thinking process, which sustains the person, the problematic entity. And so that slows down towards— Sleep. And you suddenly, you can observe it in people when they have a couple of drinks, not everybody, I come to, there's another possibility what could happen too, but let's stay with that for a moment. You have a couple of drinks and you feel life is suddenly lighter. Haha. You feel like singing, you might even sing. And then you say, I need another one because if 2 is good, 3 must be better. And if 3 is better, then 4 surely. And finally, you're moving more and more towards unconsciousness, and then you fall off the chair. So that's not the way to go. So you— yes, you, you, you, humans are longing to become free of the self, and then many of them, whether they It's unconscious. They go to drugs to experience a little bit of that, some release from this, their problematics and almost continuously unsatisfying existence, a continuous sense of lack, a continuous sense of not enough, something missing, of discontent, of restlessness. Even youngsters have that. Yeah. And they need some substance. They need to take something in to fill that there's something missing. And that slows down your— the apparatus of your thinking mind that creates continuous unease and discontent. And suddenly, if you— ah. Or you smoke a little bit. Ah, feels so much better. Yes, it is you becoming free of yourself temporarily, but I'm not necessarily saying never do this, but that's not the ultimate way. We're— it's not a regressive movement. We don't want to fall below thinking. We don't— because animals and plants, they are not burdened with this self. They are not burdened with incessant unconscious conceptual thinking. They are conscious. There's a consciousness there that operates.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
