Staying Conscious in the Face of Adversity | A Special Message From Eckhart Tolle (2023)

Introduction

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Eckhart Tolle is a spiritual teacher and author, born in Germany and educated at the Universities of London and Cambridge. At the age of 29 a profound inner transformation radically changed the course of his life. He devoted the next several years to understanding, integrating, and deepening that transformation. With his international bestsellers, The Power of Now and A New Earth—translated into over 52 languages—he has introduced millions to the joy and freedom of living life in the present moment. The New York Times has described him as “the most popular spiritual author in the United States”, and Watkins Review has named him “the most spiritually influential person in the world.”

Eckhart’s profound, yet simple teachings have helped countless people around the globe experience a state of vibrantly alive inner peace in their daily lives. His teachings focus on awakening consciousness, which transcends ego and discursive thinking, and can be seen as the next step in human evolution. In the awakened state of presence, we discover what Eckhart describes as our essential identity—who we are beneath the surface—and its power for transforming our selves and our world.

Content

- I'd like to share with you a short passage from the Bible.

It, doesn't happen very often that I read from the Bible as part of a teaching.

This is from the New Testament, and it is a parable that Jesus tells that is very profound and absolutely relevant to the present time.

So.

Here we go.

Everyone, who listens to these words of mine and does them Will be like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.

The rain fell, the floods, came, and the wind blew and beat against the house, but it did not.

Collapse.

It had been set solidly on rock, and everyone who listens to these words of mine, but does not do them, will be like a fool who built his house on sand.

The rain, fell, the floods, came, and the wind blew and beat against the house.

And.

It collapsed and was completely ruined.

So.

Let's understand the deeper meaning of this.

Everyone who listens to these words and does them, means.

Obviously anybody who listens to the teaching and practices the teaching.

And.

Of course, Jesus' teaching is find the Kingdom of Heaven that is within you, not anywhere else in space or time.

Find, the transcendent dimension, the Kingdom of Heaven, that is within you, which is a deeper dimension or higher dimension of consciousness, accessible to everyone.

And, the man that's building the house is you.

The house is you., The floods, come, the rain comes beating against the house, obviously means some form of adversity.

You encounter as you.

You inevitably will in your life.

Some form of fairly extreme adversity, whether it's at a personal level or as we're experiencing now, on a collective level.

Now.

If you haven't gone deep enough, because remember you are the house.

If, you haven't gone deep enough.

You have not found anything beyond the conceptual thinking: mind.

Then, the floods, the rain, the wind, the adversity, whatever it may be in this case.

We know what it is, will devastate you.

And.

Even if you do not fall ill or contract, the virus, the fear will consume you as it's consuming millions of humans at the present time.

And.

Why do you fear,? What is fear? Fear are certain thought forms you project yourself into some future moment.

And you're, not present.

Because.

If you were present, you would realize that in this moment, there's nothing to fear.

Only.

When you leave this moment, fear arises as a thought form, which then creates an emotion.

So.

What does it mean, then, to dig deep and to find the foundation on the rock? What? Is that rock? The foundation for the house that you are, you are that house.

And I'd like you to take into a little meditation now in order to illustrate and to enable you to experience it firsthand what it means to dig deep.

For a moment, just become aware that you're breathing.

Become, aware of yourself.

Not the conceptual self, not become aware of your personal history or become aware of some imagined future moment, but become aware of yourself as the conscious presence, a field of conscious, presence.

And thinking does not help you there, thinking is an obstacle.

So.

You go deeper than thinking, and you can be completely awake and present and yet, with very little mind activity.

And.

That is the beginning of the realization of your deep identity.

What I sometimes call your essence: identity.

And, your essence.

Identity is inseparable from the present moment.

It is the timeless, eternal present.

It is a deeper dimension of consciousness than the one that you, ordinarily identify with.

And, that is the meaning of digging deep and finding that unshakable foundation.

That is deep within you, within everyone.

Adversity is a wonderful opportunity, because adversity forces you to go deeper.

Adversity forces you to awaken to the deeper dimension of who you are.

Why does adversity force.

You? Because life becomes almost unbearable when you live only on the surface, the surface of sense perceptions and your conceptual mind.

And, then you listen to the newscasts, and you read all kinds of things.

And everybody's in state of fear.

That.

Is the house built on the sand, that when the floods come, the wind comes, the storms come, the house collapses.

Meaning,? Since you are the house.

In this parable.

You are devastated, in a state of extreme anxiety, extreme suffering, although nothing actually has happened.

Yet unless you contract a disease, and this is something we'll talk about next time, right? Is the house, your house, the house that you are, are you living on the surface? Is your house built on sand? Or are you able to dig and find the foundation within yourself that frees you from fear? Now, when things are going well, it's unlikely that, most humans can't be bothered with going deeper, what for? If these things out going okay, I'm looking forward to my next vacation, weekend is coming up and whatever it is, a nice meal is waiting for me.

Everything, comfort zone, you're in your comfort zone.

I've never heard of anybody who awakens in their comfort zone.

There's nothing wrong with comfort.

Enjoy them when they are there.

They last for a while, and then some form of adversity.

Arises, either on a personal level or on a collective level.

Minor forms of adversity and occasionally huge forms of adversity, potential.

Calamities.

Whether, it's you're.

Suddenly, confronted with the fact of mortality, some great loss, serious illness on a personal level or on a collective level., War, civil strife, civil war, financial, collapse, invasion of your country, all kinds of things can happen.

And at the present time, we are experiencing the so-called pandemic.

Collective adversity, not affecting just one person, but now affecting millions at the same time.

And.

This is an invitation to go deeper, because if you don't, you suffer unnecessarily.

Millions are in a state of fear and anxiety.

But use this as an opportunity to either awaken out of the mind identified state of consciousness, that continuously projects itself into the future, that you have no control.

Over.

It is never present.

This mind identified state of consciousness.

It's.

The house built on the sand.

It's an opportunity to come to this realization that you are much deeper than you had known, before.

You're forced to go deeper because you can't stand the suffering anymore, the unhappiness, or whatever.

You want to call it, the anxiety.

And.

So the most vital thing in any situation is the state of consciousness with which you meet the situation.

And.

You should pay more attention to that than to the newscasts and whatever it is that you listen to and watch.

Yes.

You can do that also.

But.

What is your state of consciousness? That's, something you can do something about.

There's, not very much that you can do about the external situation.

You can take precautions.

You can help other people, to the extent which it is possible.

All, that's good.

You do all the things that you need to do.

And.

Perhaps many people are now forced to stay at home, and they have to.

You have to be suddenly on a private retreat at home.

Now, that's an opportunity.

Too.

So use this precious time.

That is here because it is part of the awakening consciousness of humanity.

It seems almost paradoxical to say that something that, on the surface, looks very negative and looks like an obstacle to the well-being of humanity.

And, yes.

It's an obstacle to the well-being of humanity on a purely physical level, perhaps temporarily, yes.

But, something that looks like an obstacle from a conventional point of view is actually an opportunity for you to awaken to a deeper, or we could say higher level of consciousness.

Humans, don't awaken when they're in their comfort, zone.

They awaken when they are taken out of their comfort, zone.

Not everybody does, it's an opportunity.

If.

You do not awaken when you're no longer in your comfort, zone, you suffer., You're, unhappy, you're, anxious, you're, fearful.

You haven't found the rock.

Now.

The difference between this parable and actual life is in this parable.

The man had already dug deep, and he had already built his house on the rock, and then the floods came and so on, and the house was unshakable.

In real life.

Often it is the case that the wind, the floods, the rains, all beating against the house, which means adversity arising in your life.

The adversity forces you.

If you haven't already gone deeper, it forces you to go deeper.

And.

So it's not too late to start digging.

Now, in the face of adversity.

Many of you already in the process of awakening, probably most of you listening to this.

And, what's happening to us now is a wonderful opportunity for you to go deeper, a deepening of that, an acceleration of the awakening.

So, as much as possible, especially whenever you feel yourself, drifting off into a fearful state of consciousness and a fearful emotional state.

Whenever.

You realize that, realize that in this present moment, there's nothing to fear.

And.

You have to verify this for yourself, whether this is true or not.

When.

You fear something.

It's of some imagined future moment.

Am I, going to catch this disease? Am I, going to die? Is a loved one going to catch it?, Is, a loved one, my child, my parent,! Are they going to die? You? Imagine it,! It could happen, but right now.

It's not happening.

So.

Whenever you feel yourself, drifting off into fear, realize, okay, I have lost the present moment.

And I lost myself in my mind, in the thinking, mind.

And, then the emotion reflects that mind.

Activity.

So the moment you notice, it, okay, I've lost the present moment.

I am lost in the mind.

Come back into the present moment.

A few little things that are helpful: Be, aware of your breathing.

Be, aware of the inner energy field in your body.

The body is alive, and this energy, this life energy that pervades the body, feel that.

You're breathing.

You feel the aliveness in the body, you're aware of sense, perceptions.

You, look around, yeah, present.

And.

Then you become aware of that presence.

That is inseparable from who you are.

That presence that is inseparable from who you are.

That's, an amazing realization., There's more to you than the person.

That presence is deeper than the person.

And.

You needed the adversity either to find it or to deepen that which you had already found it, but it was not yet a deep realization.

So.

This is a time of great opportunity.

Use it, don't waste it.

There's a saying that goes: When, the ego weeps for what it has lost, the spirit rejoices for what it has found.

So.

What looks bad on the surface has an essential function.

I will speak to you again: soon.

In, the meantime, be here, be present.

Don't lose yourself in the mind.

Don't lose yourself in fear.

Find and be rooted in this rock.

That is your essence.

Identity.

Thank you.