The Transformative Power of Gratitude and Non-Interference | Eckhart Tolle

And you become aligned with the isness of things. Thereby the ego diminishes. Now, most people only begin doing that when they. They realize that they've been unhappy for too long. The greater part of the unhappiness arose through the mental narrative about the situations they encounter in their life. The I that most people then refer to, this word, refers to is what I call the surface self. That is made up of your personal history, of course, all the things that you have experienced and all the things that from your past that you identify with, things that you have done, things that were done to you, things you have achieved, things you have experienced, the entire culture in which you grew up, the collective culture in your particular country, the familiar, the background of your family, how they behaved, all those things together leave traces. And all these, after a while, it begins at an early age. Of course, it begins already. When the first time you utter the word I, when you are whatever, two years old. As you probably know, very young children, when they first learn to speak, they often refer to themselves in the third person. And they might say, oh, John wants a drink. John. But who is John? I. Oh, that's interesting. After a while, they switch from the third person to the first person and they utter the word I. And that becomes the most fascinating word for them. And gradually things accumulate around this I, which at first is just a sound, I. And then over the years, things accumulate around that sound. But of course, it's not just a sound, but it's also a thought. It's a concept in your head. It's a thought, It's a primordial thought, the thought form of I. So it's not just a sound, it's a thought. And around that thought, gradually things. It's like things stick to, attracts things. So with a child, it starts with toys. There are certain toys, but this toy is not child very quickly learns this toy is not just any toy, it's mine. I have a relationship with this toy. It belongs to me. It's my toy. And that is how very often the child. Well, not very often. Always the child experiences for the first time the suffering that arises through egoic identification. Just remove that toy from here to there, or maybe just touch it. And the child goes dead, deep suffering. Oh, my good, my toe. And then of course, you put it back and then immediately goes, oh. And then another child comes, and again the same thing happens. And you can see how enormous suffering arises. Not because this toy has been removed from the child or moved from this point to that point by somebody that would be a very neutral event. But because something has happened in the mind of that child. The. The concept of I has attracted to itself this thing, which is another thought ultimately, because the toy is out there. But in my mind, the toy is a concept, this my toy. And that concept sticks to the primordial original concept of I, which is the surface I of who I think I am, the I. So, and then for the first time, the child experiences what 2500 years ago, the Buddha described as suffering. And the Buddha said, wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever situation you are in, you will encounter dukkha, which in the Pali language translated is suffering. Because the I that you think you are identifies with things that are unstable, that cannot last, things that do not have the capacity to make you happy or to fulfill you, or to tell you who you are. And so for the first time, the child at this early age experiences the truth of the utterance of the Buddha without knowing it, of course, and the suffering that arises when you identify with something. So when your feeling of identity becomes associated with things and concepts, and then, of course, you graduate from the. It's not just a toy. That was only the beginning. And of course, then the person grows up and identification comes with many other things. Your parents, what your parents have or don't have. All more and more concepts accumulate around the eye. What you are taught by the surrounding culture that you live in, who you are, the culture may tell you who you are. You belong to this particular culture. If you grow up in Australia, whatever sticks to the I will be very different from the collective culture, from what would stick to your concept of I if you grew up in Saudi Arabia would be very different, a very different I. And yet the basic mechanism behind it would be the same. The central concept, I identifies with certain things. And then your sense of who you are gradually develops, and it consists of things that ultimately you are not, but you don't know that. So you identified with a collective. You identify. In some countries, you still identify very strongly with your. Not only your family, but the history of your family, which are all mental concepts. How what your grandparents did and there what their parents did. And in some cases, you need that. People from some cultures who come to the west are surprised that many Western people know very little about their ancestors. And in other cultures, you have a very strong awareness of your ancestors. And again, that looks like a nice thing on one end, you could say, but unfortunately, these ancestors that you identify with, either in a positive or negative way, positive, hopefully positive. They have achieved this or that or they were the victims of those other people 300 years ago. And then that becomes part of your collective victim identity that you already taught, when you're six years old, that 300 years ago all these things happened to your people, inflicted by those people. And of course, immediate. All those concepts accumulate around the central concept of I. And without knowing it, you become more and more trapped in a prison like identity. And finally you reach adulthood. And then you have an I that feels semi complete, but not by no means complete, because it is still looking out continuously for things to enhance its sense of self, its sense of identity, or who you are. Because your personal history, yes, it has done a lot to give you your sense of identity, but it's not enough. It feels unfulfilled. The sense of I. It feels not enough and it feels not clearly defined yet. So in order to be more clearly defined, in some cases, you might say, what I need is achievement. And there's nothing wrong with achievement. But in the service of I, achievement is something different. I need a possession, possessions, to tell me who I am. I need that. And once I have that, then I'll be okay. And then you spend a few years, 10, 20, 30, striving after accumulating this or that or recognition of other people. They need to recognize that I am the greatest. Or people need to recognize that nobody has been more victimized than me. I have been so victimized by life that I'm superior in my victimhood to most people. The I doesn't mind whether you have. When people talk about ego, people usually think that these are people who have a strong ego, who think they are better than everybody. I'm the greatest. I'm the master of the universe. I work on Wall street and I manipulate things behind the scenes. And so you feel great until your bank collapses or whatever, and then you have big suffering. But let's put that aside for a moment so you identify with that very strongly. And so this is usually what people associate with E when you say he has a big ego or she has a big ego, or if you're not on Wall street, maybe you have a wonderful body. I saw a man walking in the street this morning. He had taken off his shirt. It wasn't that warm, but he was the only one who walked around the streets by the harbor without his shirt. But of course, I immediately realized why he had taken off his shirt. Because he had the most fantastic physique, just masculine. Everybody looked at him. And some people tried not to look. Maybe he's even here tonight. In which case I congratulate you on your fantastic physique. And why not enjoy that, but realize that it's being used in the service of this service, identity. It becomes a mental concept that makes you feel superior to most others. And if you say my body is superior to most others, then, well, it probably is for a while. For a while. And then of course, a time will come when it no longer is superior. Just wait a little as the years pass. And then one day you look in the mirror and you realize that something has happened to the mirror and it's not good. But in the meantime, of course, you can be okay for a while. And the suffering comes later. The suffering is always just around the corner when you identify with things, concepts, things, because even that body is not really. It's not the body, but that makes up the ego. It is the mental concept of my body, of identification with that. Then it becomes ego. You can enjoy your body if it's strong. And I never had that. My body was never strong and great looking. So my ego didn't go that way. My ego said, no, leave the body alone, because this is for people who are not highly developed. So my ego said, but I have intelligence and knowledge. I've read more books than these people. They probably never read a single book in their lives. But I had all the more and more. I attempted to accumulate knowledge through reading and then I could feel and sound temporarily superior. When I met people with wonderful bodies, I could say clever things and make them feel inferior. So it was a struggle. Sometimes it worked, but it always meant there's an underlying feeling of unease. Am I really, I'm a superior or not other people? I lived in England for many years when I was young there. Of course, you still have identification with your social background less these days than it used to be. But the way it used to be in England, to some extent, perhaps still is. The moment you opened your mouth and uttered the words in English in England, people would immediately know what social class you belong to. Weird. And so people consciously emphasized their accent, upper class accent. And even the way you pronounce the word no would betray your social background. Or you were so good at imitating, and many people did that, that you sounded upper class just by saying you don't say no, you say no. And you could talk about your ancestors and their country mansion and whatever. Okay, that's great. The eye feel superior. I couldn't do that either because I didn't know, even though I know my grandparents, but nothing beyond that. So can't have been a very big story to identify with. So all incredible, all these things. As you know, the collective eye in some cultures is much stronger than the personalized I. In the Western world, it tends to be a bit more personalized for men, not for everybody. But in some countries you have very strong collective and often might have to do with your religion. And of course that was also the case in the west until not that long ago. So. And then you have a sense again of superiority. That's the. One of the key things to understand about the surface I is a feeling of superiority. It looks for that. It needs that. It looks and it always finds it. And even if you are, if you have nothing, if you can't think of anything, any way in which you are superior to anybody else, neither physically nor mentally, nor in possessions, nor in ancestry, what do you do then? You become a victim. And in your mind, what clings to the eye is you as either the personal victim or the collective victim. And this is becoming very fashionable these days, collective victimhood. Not to deny that, of course, things have been done to certain groups of people in the past. Things also have been done to individuals in the past that were very bad. But to use that history, that collective history or personal history in the service of an identity, that is a delusion and it is unconscious. And people don't know that this is what they are doing because everybody is seeking for a stronger sense of identity. So if they can't find it in a negative, in a positive way, they will happily have a negative identity as the greatest victims. So the this is the collective identity thing is identity is very fashionable these days. And it again, it's unfortunately an illusion because that is not. You get trapped in your surface identity. Enemies. It loves the surface identity. If it can't feel superior in any other way, it loves its enemies. We are surrounded by enemies. You can do it personally. Regard other people as wanting something from you or out to get you, or the whole collective does it in some ways, certain nations do it. Entire nations cannot survive without the collective concept of our enemies. For example, National Socialism was that in Germany. Communism was that especially in Soviet Russia. And nowadays we still have North Korea. North Korea can only be held together by this collective victim identity of we are surrounded by enemies and that keeps the collective ego going. Our identity is now so clearly defined because we are surrounded by enemies. Isn't that wonderful? They're all out to kill us. Now we know who we are, and let's kill them first so they don't kill us. You can see how the. It is a form of. It is a delusional identity. So that is, everybody walks with that sense of self. And it makes your life difficult. It creates an enormous amount of unnecessary conflict. It. When I talk about enemies, just one more thing. Almost everybody. The way in which there's one little function that one could call also creating enemies, I call that complaining. Complaining is when you can do it either in your mind or out loud. It doesn't matter. It works both ways. You can complain in your mind about where you are, something is not right about this situation, who you are with what you are doing, but don't want to be doing, but you're doing it, but it's terrible. Or you complain about something that should have happened it but didn't happen, or something that should not have happened, but it happened. And you can complain about how people behave. When you talk about how people behave towards you, for example, you have a normal, inexhaustible source of complaints because people tend to be difficult and not do things that they're supposed to do. So you have an enormous source of complaints. And every complaint in your mind, do you know what he did? You tell the story of what he did or didn't do. Or you all know people, wherever they go into a hotel, they're looking for something to complain about. And of course, invariably they find something. If you're looking for something to complain about, you will find something. You can come here to this talk. And if you are deeply trapped in the complaining pattern you're already in your mind complaining about, what is this guy saying? I shouldn't have come here. I knew I shouldn't have. Why did I listen to. Why did I listen to him? I always, always do that. Why do I complain? If you can catch yourself, and this is an egoic device which is really you making either a person or a situation or a location or an activity that you complain about mentally, you're basically making it into an enemy and thereby. And therefore it strengthens the illusory identity of the ego. So I recommend that as your spiritual practice, you catch yourself mentally whenever you have a complaining thought in your head. And when I say complaining, I'm not talking about something you can actually do something about. Obviously, if you move into a hotel, you got. You get into your room and the bed has not been. The sheets obviously not been changed, and it's dirty, the bathroom is dirty. I'm not telling you to be so spiritual that now you sit there and say, I'm not complaining, I'm Going to sleep in this dirty bed and feel really spiritual. No, by complaining, I mean the useless complaining that is not designed to and cannot change anything in the situation. So there, of course, you have an example of something you can take action. You can go down to the reception and you can say, the bed has not been, the sheets have not been changed and the bathroom is dirty. Could you please do something about it? And again, there are two ways of doing that and saying that one is in the service of making wrong, which is the ego way. So then you talk to the receptionist, or it's probably not the receptionist's fault, but you're making the receptionist wrong. How dare you put me in this room with a dirty bed? The ego loves that. And then the receptionist becomes your enemy. And in making the receptionist your enemy, you feel stronger in your identity. And then you look for something, maybe I can come in, but something else. Just wait until they serve you the soup or the food at dinner, it's not hot enough. But you can also go to the receptionist and say, without any kind of undertone of making wrong in a way that is free of ego, you can say, oh, I got in my room and I discovered that the seats have not been changed and the bathroom is still dirty. Can you please do something about it? No ego. So the situation is there. Not used in the service of the ego, not used to strengthen the illusory identity of ego. Therefore, in this situation, the second option I just gave you is not satisfying to the ego, it does not feed it. And this is why many egos don't like doing it that way. So complain is something very, very common in many people, even people who are already awakening.