Living Consciously

In most instances people are living their lives totally unconsciously. By that I mean that they are so absorbed in their inner dialogue that they overlook their essential nature, which is pure consciousness. They take that inner dialogue and so identify with it that this dialogue gets weaved into the "story of me", which is then taken to be their life, or so they think.

When you catch yourself retelling your "story" as it's happening and realize it's only a story in the mind, then you have separated yourself from the "story of me" and its attendant thoughts and emotional connections. You have opened up a space between the story and your essential nature - in fact, that opening IS your essential nature. Now that story can be watched dispassionately without getting involved and trapped within it. You have "identified the story" for what it really is, just thought playing itself in the mind, and thus are momentarily free of it. When you are free of all stories life is then lived "consciously", no longer reacting in conditioned ways, no longer trapped by the mind and the stories that run through it.

From an Eckhart Tolle Fan