Transforming Challenges into Growth with Eckhart Tolle

It is madness to argue with is it is intelligent action arises if the starting point is alignment with what is internally the nature and function of challenges and difficulties in the evolutionary process. We can use the term challenge, which is already has a positive spin to it. Something happens and you call it. It's a big challenge, but without the positive spin, you would say, it's really bad. Oh, it's so bad what has happened. Then you become more spiritual and say, I'm faced with a challenge. Okay, now, challenges come in many forms. There's no human life that is not profoundly challenged in one way or another. Some humans are challenged by physical. Physical challenges, difficulties. Other humans are usually challenged by dreadful psychological challenges and their own minds. Personal challenges in your personal life. Collective challenges that affect millions of people at the same time, although in various ways we've just had one. So it seems that many things are almost designed in one's life to stop you from evolving or becoming more conscious. And many people say, if I only had surroundings, if I lived in a place that was peaceful and calm, and my needs are met, my basic needs are met, and I got pure food and everything else, so I don't have to worry about things anymore. If I could only live in this perfect environment, I could really make spiritual progress if I only had that. But I don't. And, and no matter what stage you're at, always obstacles arise continuously. Sometimes things go well and then another obstacle goes, and then they go well again. Oh, obstacles come in many, many forms. Physical relationship, financial, home situation, all kinds of things. Pandemic is a collective one, and other collective ones most likely coming soon. The strange thing is, evolution happens only when faced with obstacles. That happens on every level, physical level, every level. It's only when an obstacle is encountered that there's a call for more energy. And then more energy flows in and whatever. The frequency of energy could even be physical. For example, if you want to have a stronger body, it's not going to happen. If you lie on your sofa every day drinking beer and watching Netflix, you can say, I want a stronger body. Yeah, well, it's not happening now. What do you have to do to have a stronger body? To put it in strange terms, you have to. At first, you have to make life difficult for your body. For example, you have to. You go jogging and you think, I wish I was watching Netflix on my sofa. The body doesn't like it, but you say, and then you lift a weight, but you're making life difficult for your body. Very difficult. But only then it happens. Your body then demands more energy, and an influx of energy comes that eventually is translated into muscle growth and so on. And then a point comes when actually more energy has come. Then you suddenly enjoy that. But the enjoyment is preceded by experiencing difficulty and obstacle on every level. Humans evolve many, many people here. I know that from what people have told me, it's always the case. Many of you would not be here if you had not encountered very difficult life situations, either through loss or breakdown of relationships, loss of loved ones, physical ill, serious physical illness, accident. Many people have told me I would never have come realize what this is about if I hadn't gone through this difficult period in my life. It's then there's an influx of energy that comes, and at the highest level, it is an increase in consciousness. As you're faced with difficulties, some difficulties can be removed. On a practical level, many other difficulties require an increase in consciousness for you to overcome them or transcend them. I've had correspondence from people in prison for many. Some are in prison for life. And they've said, I have awakened through coming into contact with this teaching. I have awakened and I am free in a prison cell. So they have. It is in your comfort zone. It is very unlikely that the awakening will happen to any human being as long as they remain in their comfort zone. Perhaps if they had this is the last incarnation, they've already gone through an almost amount of evolution in previous lifetimes. And then perhaps at a very early age, they can already awaken. But most humans, they do not awaken as long as they're in their comfort zones. Oh, good, good. Good enough. I mean, comfort zone is not all that happy, mostly, but at least it's not too bad. But when you're taken out of your comfort zone, that's where evolution happens, the evolution of consciousness. So in other words, you need the bad to evolve. Sorry. And life doesn't leave you alone even after awakening. You got challenges coming. Oh, my God. But what changes is, and this is important, that you no longer demand that the world should leave you alone and should make you happy. It can't, as long as you think it should. And there's always something wrong when you're being challenged by this or that. You think there's something deeply wrong with my life, I'm being challenged. Or in other words, I'm experiencing something. All these difficulties and. And then you realize, you drop the demands that the world should make you happy, because the world isn't here for that. It's here to make you conscious, to awaken You. And it does that by confronting you with difficulties one after another. Now, some difficulties are so bad that they kill you. That's true. That could happen. And then you get another chance after that. It was perhaps the philosopher Nietzsche said, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. There's some truth to that. So the. When challenges happen, the important thing is, how do I meet this challenge? With what state of consciousness do I meet this challenge? And that determines the further development of that particular situation. Also, if you're able to meet a challenge consciously instead of reactively, then quickly it becomes transformed also externally, as a challenge to meet it consciously means, in the first instance, to accept this moment as it is, no matter what it presents you with, no matter what this moment, what form this moment takes. You accept this moment as it is because you might as well, because it already is. It is madness to argue with is. It is, of course. Then what can you do about it? If you need to take action, or can take action, action, intelligent action arises. If the starting point is alignment with what is internally, this is what is. And then you act. If action is needed, right action will arise. But when. If immediately you go into reactivity, you make the situation worse than it is. It often amplifies something bad and becomes even worse and worse through reactivity. You can verify this when dealing with an unconscious human. If you react to their unconsciousness, then you yourself become more unconscious and you make them more unconscious, and you get huge drama. So. And again, collectively too, when faced with a difficulty, how aware can you be when you are prior to taking action, are you just reacting or are you able to be aware? Which means, is wisdom present? That's. We haven't mentioned this word before, but it's inseparable from what we're talking about. Wisdom is the higher intelligence that operates through you. When you're in touch with the vertical dimension, all you have. When you're not in touch with the vertical dimension, you might have the clever human mind that can work things out in a very limited way. But wisdom is not there. Wisdom can seize the totality of the situation, and in taking action, it considers immediately other possibility consequences of their action in the totality. And you do not through breaking things down. But there is the same way in which you remember we talked about the two modalities of knowing, conceptual and direct knowing through awareness. And that applies here too. When you look at a problem that needs solving, you look at is there wisdom in what you do, or just mental cleverness? And anything you do, when you react to a problem, then if you will make it worse, or you solve one problem and curate four or five others in the process of solving one. So the world drama gets amplified through the egoic reactivity that always says this should not be happening, not aligned with the present moment. So wisdom is what the world needs. And wisdom can only come through awareness. And that is the deeper modality of knowing. Intelligence is not enough. The world is full of intelligent people, so called, I mean really, if you really look, is that intelligence? And they're creating that, what are they doing? They got their university degrees, so I suppose in conventional terms we have to call it intelligence and then they're creating havoc on the planet. No, wisdom, an increase in intelligence will not save us on increasing knowledge. What most wisdom, only wisdom can. And wisdom is inseparable from awareness, the arising of awareness. It comes, it's from the dimension of the vertical dimension of depth, not through thinking. So when you, you look at a situation and you are able to be alert and still you look, and then the realization of what action is, the right action comes.