Category: Eckhart Tolle

QUESTION: “What happens to the pain-body when we become conscious enough to break our identification with it?

ECKHART TOLLE: “Unconsciousness creates it; consciousness transmutes it into itself. St. Paul expressed this universal principle beautifully: “Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light.” Just as you cannot fight the darkness, you cannot fight the pain-body. Trying to do so would create inner conflict and thus further pain. Watching it is enough. Watching it implies accepting it as part of what is at that moment.

The pain-body consists of trapped life-energy that has split off from your total energy field and has temporarily become autonomous through the unnatural process of mind identification. It has turned in on itself and become anti-life, like an animal trying to devour its own tail. Why do you think our civilization has become so life-destructive? But even the life-destructive forces are still life-energy.

When you start to disidentify and become the watcher, the pain-body will continue to operate for a while and will try to trick you into identifying with it again. Although you are no longer energizing it “through your identification, it has a certain momentum, just like a spinning wheel that will keep turning for a while even when it is no longer being propelled. At this stage, it may also create physical aches and pains in different parts of the body, but they won’t last. Stay present, stay conscious. Be the ever-alert guardian of your inner space. You need to be present enough to be able to watch the pain-body directly and feel its energy. It then cannot control your thinking. The moment your thinking is aligned with the energy field of the pain-body, you are identified with it and again feeding it with your thoughts.”

“For example, if anger is the predominant energy vibration of the pain-body and you think angry thoughts, dwelling on what someone did to you or what you are going to do to him or her, then you have become unconscious, and the pain-body has become “you.” Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath. Or when a dark mood comes upon you and you start getting into a negative mind-pattern and thinking how dreadful your life is, your thinking has become aligned with the pain-body, and you have become unconscious and vulnerable to the pain-body’s attack. “Unconscious,” the way that I use the word here, means to be identified with some mental or emotional pattern. It implies a complete absence of the watcher.”

“Sustained conscious attention severs the link between the pain-body and your thought processes and brings about the process of transmutation. It is as if the pain becomes fuel for the flame of your consciousness, which then burns more brightly as a result. This is the esoteric meaning of the ancient art of alchemy: the transmutation of base metal into gold, of suffering into consciousness. The split within is healed, and you become whole again. Your responsibility then is not to create further pain.

”Let me summarize the process. Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don’t think about it — don’t let the feeling turn into thinking. Don’t judge or analyze. Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of “the one who observes,” the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle

As I listened to a Tolle CD I was struck by Eckhart’s insight on karma. I believe the following describes his teachings. As a child you become unconsciously conditioned by your environment and your genetic predisposition. This conditioning runs the rest of your life and creates a reality confirming your beliefs. This conditioning or unconscious reaction to stimuli (including your pain body) accounts for 90% of your karma. The other 10% is external events. “Time does not free you of karma. Presence frees you from karma.” Every time you identify with a thought or your sense of self you live out your karma so there is no escape as long as you remain unawakened. But an awakened consciousness is not part of karma. As you become the witness of your mind and body your karma diminishes because you do not identify with your old conditioning when it is triggered. Each time you are aware of your thoughts but choose not to identify with them your karma diminishes. You are Presence. “Spiritual awakening and stepping out of karma are the same thing.”

Continue reading “Eckhart Tolle on Karma” →

The voice in the head has a life of its own. Most people are at the mercy of that voice; they are possessed by thought, by the mind. And since the mind is conditioned by the past, you are then forced to reenact the past again and again.

The Eastern term for this is karma. When you are identified with that voice, you don’t know this, of course. If you knew it, you would no longer be possessed because you are only truly possessed when you mistake the possessing entity for who you are, that is to say, when you become it.

For thousands of years, humanity has been increasingly mind-possessed, failing to recognize the possessing entity as “not self.” Through complete identification with the mind, a false sense of self—the ego—came into existence. The density of the ego depends on the degree to which you—the consciousness—are identified with your mind, with thinking. Thinking is no more than a tiny aspect of the totality of consciousness, the totality of who you are.

The degree of identification with the mind differs from person to person. Some people enjoy periods of freedom from it, however brief, and the peace, joy, and aliveness they experience in those moments make life worth living. These are also the moments when creativity, love, and compassion arise.

Continue reading “Conditioned by the Past: Karma and Consciousness | by Eckhart Tolle” →

• The ego could be defined simply in this way: a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment.“
• “The density of the ego depends on the degree to which you – the consciousness – are identified with your mind, with thinking. Thinking is no more than a tiny aspect of the totality of consciousness, the totality of who you are.“
• “Until now, human intelligence, which is no more than a minute aspect of universal intelligence, has been distorted and misused by the ego. I call that ‘intelligence in the service of madness.’“
• “On our planet, the human ego represents the final stage of universal sleep, the identification of consciousness with form. It was a necessary stage in the evolution of consciousness.”
• “If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re­creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.”
• “Don’t take the ego too seriously. When you detect egoic behavior in yourself, smile. At times you may even laugh. How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long?“
• “The ego tends to equate having with Being: I have, therefore I am. And the more I have, the more I am. The ego lives through comparison. How you are seen by others turns into how you see yourself.”
• “The ego identifies with having, but its satisfaction in having is a relatively shallow and short-­lived one. Concealed within it remains a deep-­seated sense of dissatisfaction, of incompleteness, of ‘not enough.’ ‘I don’t have enough yet,’ by which the ego really means, ‘I am not enough yet.’“
• “The physical needs for food, water, shelter, clothing, and basic comforts could be easily met for all humans on the planet, were it not for the imbalance of resources created by the insane and rapacious need for more, the greed of the ego.”
• “Ego arises when your sense of Beingness, of ‘I Am,’ which is formless consciousness, gets mixed up with form. This is the meaning of identification. This is forgetfulness of Being, the primary error, the illusion of absolute separateness that turns reality into a nightmare.”
• “The ego may be clever, but it is not intelligent. Cleverness pursues its own little aims. Intelligence sees the larger whole in which all things are connected. Cleverness is motivated by self­ interest, and it is extremely short­sighted. Most politicians and businesspeople are clever. Very few are intelligent. Whatever is attained through cleverness is short-­lived and always turns out to be eventually self­ defeating. Cleverness divides; intelligence includes.“
• “Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist. The old mind­-pattern or mental habit may still survive and reoccur for a while because it has the momentum of thousands of years of collective human unconsciousness behind it, but every time it is recognized, it is weakened.”

Continue reading ““A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle | The Ego” →

We have all have pain-body. Are you familiar with yours?  Any trauma physical and mental can be helped by understanding the painbody and how to cope and release it. And anyone who has ever gone through heart break knows painbody. Heartbreak sucks.

(more on this excerpt here, worth reading the entire interview -trust me)

-all people

-in all races

-in all cultures

-in all religions

-across the world.

I’ve traveled with him so first hand I can say, his lessons are legit! They are on point! His lessons have helped me tremendously, daily. His teachings are woven in my words throughout my writing.

Although Eckhart’s books are top notch, (The Power of Now has been translated into at least 33 languages and has sold millions and millions of copies) my attempt at reading them or listening on audible didn’t work for me. They certainly work for a lot of people, so give it a try if that’s what speaks to you.  I love walking and listening to Audible, though personally I find Eckart’s voice extremely monotone, and I don’t do well reading books anymore. The world we live in these days has me too distracted to focus on the pages for too long. However the youtubes I watch over and over. Something about watching him, there is a calmness equivalent to that of watching an animal. (Side note: I just have to say, I think Eckhart has the most adorable laugh ever. He is so soft spoken and monotone that it always cracks me up when he laughs (hard to listen on Audible, but mesmerizing to watch)!

And his messages? oh his messages! So Good!

Click here to get started on his lessons….  Eckhart Tolle YouTube Channel 

Recently, I was pulled into some very unwelcome rare family drama. And I am all Ain’t Nobody Sweet Brown Got Time for That! Here I am in all my glory, happy, clear, content, discovering more about myself each day, excited for my journey. I don’t need to get unhinged. I can’t allow disturbances around me to bring me down. I watch Eckhart and I listen.

Bringing myself back to presence, giving it perspective, and reminding myself it’s not my issue, not my monkey, took that weight off rapidly. I needed that feeling to go because it was not serving me at all. I got triggered hearing about the family drama (not my drama/not my pain) and that quickly build into a feeling of rage that immediately stiffened in my body and felt like liquid lead was being poured down my throat hardening when it got to my lungs. Presence! Ahhhh here- Eckart is speaking to me, and he stays with me.

Free your mind and get present.

Being conscious, living consciously, in-between your thoughts — that gap, that pause, in between the noise; that is presence.

Awareness.

Stillness. Continue reading “The Pain-Body” →

For anyone dealing with depression or emotional pain, Eckhart discusses the importance of keeping our attention in the present and staying alert to the mind’s tendency to create further suffering.

How do you eliminate suffering when suffering is all that you have left?

Continue reading “How do you eliminate suffering when suffering is all that you have left?” →