Transcending Conditioned Ways of Thinking | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

So if you go on the Internet, you can see a significant percentage of whatever people post there is angry and critical about others, to the point of saying, these are all awful people, awful. And so those are the patterns that come when you live for years and years and years and years and years identified with the conditioned mind. And then you grow old and you become a cranky old man or woman. But this has been going on for decades already. It just becomes more and more rigid. Anyway, you are not going that way. But we need to see what we are up against, which is your mind. It's not an enemy, but you need to see that it's been the momentum that is there. It's been there, been growing for thousands of years. And it's been a wonderful thing, a wonderful evolutionary development to have a thinking mind, except that it has absorbed almost everything into itself. Your entire consciousness has become absorbed by really is more than an instrument, an instrument for communication, instrument for dealing with things in this practical realm, an instrument for manifesting even, but nevertheless an instrument. So just as in the movie theatre, even much more so in the movie theater. Everything demands your attention, external things and your mind. And this is, we are here in order to deepen our ability to live from a different state of consciousness, where the thinking mind is transcended, can still operate, still does operate, but you have stepped beyond it. You, which is the consciousness, you are the consciousness. So the entire essence of spiritual life is not, one could say, is not to have your consciousness continuously being absorbed by primarily your mind and sense perceptions. In the Bhagavad Gita, there is the analogy of the wild horses that are drawing the carriage in which Arjuna travels. And Krishna, I think, and the horses represent the sensory organs which continuously take your attention out. Now, that was two or 2,000 years or more ago. Nowadays, what demands, what absorbs your attention even more than externals, is your mind. So as you walk around here, the our retreat place, outside or inside, look at you take everything in your sense perceptions, of course, but see if you can be aware of yourself in addition to being aware of whatever you happen to be aware of at that moment. People, nature, objects, you, your personal history or whatever is in your mind is still there. But let's use a Buddhist term, you recognize that it is not who you are. And the Buddhist term would be you recognize it as no, not self. And that's an enormous liberation. So we are not eliminating who you are as a person, we are just adding a dimension to it. Or rather we don't do anything, we don't add it. We discover that there is another dimension to you, and then you begin to live from that deeper dimension. Whereas the historical person and the person, the personality, still operates, but not as you anymore. It operates as a person. That means you become aware of your thoughts. You still have your opinions, but yourself isn't in your opinions, which means you hold them more lightly. You are not possessed by your opinions, because otherwise humans that have no awareness, they don't have opinions, the opinions have them. They don't even have thoughts. The thoughts have them. So the shift is the person remains, but there is suddenly a depth to you that was there all the time. But because of the seductive or hypnotic nature of sensory experience, and more importantly, mental experience, you didn't know it was there. You didn't know the dimension of depth. You had been seduced out of the depth of who you are onto just the surface level of life. Thoughts and perceptions surface, and it becomes a very unsatisfying experience to live on the surface of life. Only because on the surface of life, nothing is fulfilling for very long. So there's the continuous search. Now, because of the momentum that's behind the conditioned self, you may find that even here, from time to time, although the environment is conducive to awareness, to presence, to being, the unconditioned consciousness, nevertheless there's such momentum to the mind. It will from time to time take you over again, probably, or possibly some of you. And so even here, you may lose awareness and get totally absorbed again in the mind, not present, absent somewhere. And then the moment comes when you notice. Could be a moment when you feel restlessness, impatience, irritation with something upset, complaining, angry, all the usual things that accompany inevitably, the personal sense of self. All the things that many persons are addicted to because it strengthens their personal selfhood, their personal self. They are addicted to those patterns, addicted to being right, complaining, angry, which means somebody else has to be wrong. Otherwise, all the usual things that accompany because you can't be right. And you can go in the inevitably, the personal sense of self, all the things that Internet, if you have nothing else to do to strengthen your ego, no other great achievements. You feel I did that? Look at me. Okay, well, I can't think of anything that I did. Look at me. But I can go on the Internet and I can make a hundred people wrong and then wait for a response. Many persons are addicted to because it strengthens their personal selfhood, their personal self. They are addicted to those patterns, addicted to being right. They are so called trolls, trolls on the Internet, they leave posts that are offensive or extremely angry. And it's an ego device that didn't exist before the advent of the Internet. An ego device for those who have, which means somebody else has to be wrong, otherwise you can't be right. And you can go on the Internet if you have nothing else to do to strengthen your ego. No other great achievements, nothing else they can identify with, that's good enough. If I can make 10 people wrong a day as I sit behind my computer, that's good enough for my ego. It enhances itself every day through that. And then you feel I did that, look at me. Okay, well, I can't think of anything that I did. Look at me. But I can go on the Internet, more people respond, the better. And I can make a hundred people wrong and then wait for a response. I'm just giving examples of extreme forms of unconsciousness which are very common, of course, but little remnants of those things you may occasionally discover in yourself, even here. So there is a. There are so called trolls, trolls on the Internet. They leave posts that are offensive pull to the mind, you cannot fight it. You can only or extremely angry. And it's an ego, be aware of it. This mind made sense of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are. Your device that didn't exist before the advent of the Internet beyond your history and your life situation. An ego device for those who have nothing else they can identify with, that's good enough. If I can make 10 people wrong a day as I sit behind my computer, that's good enough for my ego. It enhances itself every day through that. And the more people respond, the better. I'm just giving examples of extreme forms of unconsciousness which are very common of course, but little remnants of those things you may occasionally discover in yourself, even here. So there is a pull to the mind. You cannot fight it, you can only be aware of it. This mind made sense of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive to be.