Why Do We Suffer? | Eckhart Tolle

You have your name and then you believe that that's who you are saying I am so and so, not realizing that you, the vocal cords are producing a sequence of sounds, whatever your name is, I am. Oh, now I know who I am. It's a thought form that begins, that is the receptacle. And it's also the beginning of your prison, of the mental prison in which your sense of self is reduced to something ultimately insignificant. And you are trapped in that. So next thing, possessions. This is mine. A child identifies with its toy and then another child takes a toy away. And that's the first moment of deep suffering because there was your first identification with the possession, the sense of ownership, identification with a possession. And another child takes it away. And the suffering of that child is incredible. The pain. A few minutes later, the toy becomes unimportant. It suddenly loses interest completely. It forgets that it, it was his until the mechanism starts again, but it's removed. And then enormous pain happens because the sense of self had become identified with the object and the object is removed. Enormous pain arises. And this, this is the most, on the most basic, this is the most basic level at which this operates. But throughout a person's life, that mechanism operates. The loss of an, the loss of something that was yours and then you lose it. And then it creates an injury in your sense of self because you had identified with it. It creates suffering again, then many things. So after this, then the child suddenly begins to identify with other things. Many other possessions and even abilities come in. I can do this, but you can't do that. I can jump over this ball, but can you do that? No, you can't. But I can do it. I, I. So abilities, possessions, anything. It's then a young person seeks a stronger identity. Every young person is searching for a stronger identity, something to identity. It's an unconscious process. And this is for example, if in very underprivileged backgrounds, if the gangs are phenomenon, young boys, teenagers become member of a gang because they're in desperate search of an identity and they don't have much else to identify with. So they need to a gang. And then you get your tattoos. That shows you what gang you belong to. And the others become your mortal enemies. That is how the ego operates. It needs its enemies. And this is on the most basic level. But it operates on all levels. The ego always needs the other because only by comparing itself to the other can it strengthen its sense of identity. So this applies whether we talked about physical appearance, possessions, I have this. You don't have it achievements, what I can do, but you can't do it. Comparison always operates. And the other is needed. The other is needed to sustain and feed your sense of self. And the ego needs to emphasize the otherness of others. It needs to really, because otherwise its sense of self would begin to evaporate. And that would be a dreadful thing. The ego loves. You can see how when discussions you have, you discuss something with someone, different viewpoint, different opinion, and suddenly people get very emotional. Why somebody questions their viewpoint or their opinion, and then suddenly a shift happens in them. Enormous amount of anger, negative emotion. They're in the grip of wave of emotion. And then they shout something back and the other one shouts something back. And if they're very unconscious. Unconscious, by the way, means completely identified with the egoic sense of self. That's spiritually speaking, unconscious. If they're very unconscious. Even physical violence can happen over a difference of opinion, which is two mental positions. Let's say it's politics or whatever it may be. Two mental positions, different, different viewpoints, different opinions. But. But because of total identification with a mental position, they feel threatened by anything that questions their men, their mental position. It is perceived as an attack on their very self. And it is an attack on their self because the self consisted of identification with that thought form. And so some people then come to blows. Physical violence happens. And all this is, spiritually speaking, you are unconscious. Just brief, before we go deeper, briefly mention. We've been talking about ego identifications on an individual level. But the part of every person's ego is some certain percentage of ego is also collective. So ego identification is also individual nature, possessions, achievements, body image, whatever. But it's also collective. For example, obviously a minor thing, the Oilers would be part of your collective ego, which you adopt. But there's more to collective ego can consist of anything cultural that surrounds you, that gives you your sense of self, even a simple thing like being a man or woman. And for some people, that is an important part of their sense of self. And there are some countries still in this world where, because they're very old patriarchal cultures. Well, the west used to be like that. Also mostly old patriarchal cultures. If you're born, if you're a man, you immediately in many ways superior to being a woman in the old patriarchy. So no matter how stupid you are, you are superior to 50% of the humanity, the others. So you can derive your sense of identity from this collective, your gender collective, I'm the man. And then in some countries, the woman is also conditioned to Behave in certain ways so that the collective image of how a woman should behave becomes part of her sense of identity and behavior. So in some countries, a woman is not supposed to laugh out loud. In the west we often see a woman laugh. But if you go to Japan, a woman wouldn't laugh like that. She goes, she's a woman. Now gradually there's a little bit of happening in the contemporary world. The men are becoming a little bit less men and the women a bit, they're approaching a bit more, which may be a good thing. In addition, you have now, if being a man or woman is not enough for you in the modern world, you have a, a growing choice of genders to choose from. So if you're not happy with one, you can adopt others and, and then identify with that. But it's fine. It's ultimately none of this is who or what you are. It's only who or what you are temporarily in your. I call this your form identity, your identity of form. Form means not only the physical form, but also the psychological form. This, this entity that you, when you say I or you talk about my life, you refer to this mind made entity and that you identify with. That's me. It's very much. And all this is conditioned by all by your upbringing, your surrounding culture and so on. It's a collection of conditioning, mental, emotional, conditioning. And that becomes what this is what people refer to when they say I. They refer to this mentally created entity which is ultimately a narrative in their mind, a story. They call it my life. Everybody has a life. So you call my life. What about my. All my life. Let me. When you start thinking about my. Your life, it gets really problematic because all kinds of things have already happened that perhaps shouldn't have happened, was, that wasn't meant to happen. And all kinds of strange things could still happen. There's hope and there's fear. As far as future is concerned, I could lose what I already have or I could gain all the things that I think I need to make me happy and fulfilled and complete. But the sense of self, the egoic self is never really fulfilled and complete. No matter what you achieve, no matter where you are, there's always something missing.