Eckhart Tolle Answers - Where do our thoughts come from?

Eckhart discusses the transpersonal nature of thought, and how awareness arises both individually and collectively. http://eckharttolletv.com

Transcending the world

Transcending the world does not mean to withdraw from the world, to no longer take action, or to stop interacting with people. Transcendence of the world is to act and to interact without any self-seeking. In other words, it means to act without seeking to enhance one's sense of self through one's actions or one's interactions with people. Ultimately, it means not needing the future anymore for one's fulfillment or for one's sense of self or being. There is no seeking through doing, seeking an enhanced, more fulfilled, or greater sense of self in the world. When that seeking isn't there anymore, then you can be in the world but not be of the world. You are no longer seeking for anything to identify with out there.

Eckhart Tolle

Inspirational Goals

Make sure your vision or goal is not an inflated image of yourself and therefore a concealed form of ego, such as wanting to become a movie star, a famous writer, or a wealthy entrepreneur. Also make sure your goal is not focused on having this or that, such as a mansion by the sea, your own company, or ten million dollars in the bank.

An enlarged image of yourself or a vision of yourself having this or that are all static goals and therefore don’t empower you. Instead, make sure your goals are dynamic, that is to say, point toward an activity that you are engaged in and through which you are connected to other human beings as well as to the whole.

Instead of seeing yourself as a famous actor or writer and so on, see yourself inspiring countless people with your work and enriching their lives. Feel how that activity enriches or deepens not only your life but that of countless others. Feel yourself being an opening through which energy flows from the unmanifested Source of all life through you for the benefit of all.

From: A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

What matters in life absolutely

Many things in your life matter, but only one thing matters absolutely.

It matters whether you succeed or fail in the eyes of the world. It matters whether you are healthy or not healthy, whether you are educated or not educated. It matter whether you are rich or poor — it certainly makes a difference in your life. Yes, all these things matter, relatively speaking, but they don't matter absolutely.

There is something that matters more than any of those things and that is finding the essence of who you are beyond that short-lived entity, that short-lived personalized sense of self.

Eckhart Tolle

Let go of excessive thinking

You don’t solve problems by thinking; you create problems by thinking. The solution always appears when you step out of thinking and become still and absolutely present, even if only for a moment. Then, a little later when thought comes back, you suddenly have a creative insight that wasn’t there before.

Let go of excessive thinking and see how everything changes. Your relationships change because you don’t demand that the other person should do something for you to enhance your sense of self. You don’t compare yourself to others or try to be more than someone else to strengthen your sense of identity.

Eckhart Tolle

You are the knowing, not the condition that is known.

The mind exists in a state of "not enough" and so is always greedy for more. When you are identified with mind, you get bored and restless very easily. Boredom means the mind is hungry for more stimulus, more food for thought, and its hunger is not being satisfied.

When you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind's hunger by picking up a magazine, making a phone call, switching on the TV, surfing the web, going shopping, or — and this is not uncommon — transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for more to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingesting more food.

Or you can stay bored and restless and observe what it feels like to be bored and restless. As you bring awareness to the feeling, there is suddenly some space and stillness around it, as it were. A little at first, but as the sense of inner space grows, the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in intensity and significance. So even boredom can teach you who you are and who you are not.

You discover that a "bored person" is not who you are. Boredom is simply a conditioned energy movement within you. Neither are you an angry, sad, or fearful person. Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not "yours," not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go.

Nothing that comes and goes is you.
"I am bored." Who knows this?
"I am angry, sad, afraid." Who knows this?
You are the knowing, not the condition that is known.

Eckhart Tolle

How much time and effort is required to realize "the power of now"?

The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you’re trying hard to get somewhere, and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.

Whereas it requires no time to awaken – you can only awaken now – it does take time before you can stay awake in all situations. Often you may find yourself being pulled back into old conditioned reactive patterns, particularly when faced with the challenges of daily living and of relationships. You lose the witnessing presence and become identified again with the "voice in the head," the continuous stream of thoughts, with its labels, judgments and opinions. You no longer know that they are only labels, judgments, and mental positions (opinions) – but completely believe in them. And so you create conflict. And then you suffer. And that suffering wakes you up again. Until presence becomes your predominant state, you may find yourself moving back and forth for a while between the old consciousness and the new, between mind identification and presence. "How long is it going to take?" is not a good question to ask. It makes you loose the now .

Eckhart Tolle

How much time and effort is required to realize "the power of now?

The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you’re trying hard to get somewhere, and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.

Whereas it requires no time to awaken – you can only awaken now – it does take time before you can stay awake in all situations. Often you may find yourself being pulled back into old conditioned reactive patterns, particularly when faced with the challenges of daily living and of relationships. You lose the witnessing presence and become identified again with the "voice in the head," the continuous stream of thoughts, with its labels, judgments and opinions. You no longer know that they are only labels, judgments, and mental positions (opinions) – but completely believe in them. And so you create conflict. And then you suffer. And that suffering wakes you up again. Until presence becomes your predominant state, you may find yourself moving back and forth for a while between the old consciousness and the new, between mind identification and presence. "How long is it going to take?" is not a good question to ask. It makes you lose the now.

Eckhart Tolle

Does it matter whether we succeed or fail in the world?

It will matter to you so long as you haven't realized your inner purpose .After that , the outer purpose is just a game that you many continue to play simply because you enjoy it .It is also possible to fail completely in your outer purpose and at the same time totally succeed in your inner purpose .Or the other way around ,which is actually more common : outer riches and inner poverty , or to " gain the world and lose your soul ," as Jesus puts it .Ultimately , of course every outer purpose is doomed to "fail" sooner or later , simply because it is subject to the law of impermanence of all things .The sooner you realize that your outer purpose cannot give you lasting fulfillment , the better .When you have seen the limitations of your outer purpose , you give up your unrealistic expectation that it should make you happy , and you make it subservient to your inner purpose .

Eckhart Tolle from the Power of Now .

Going Beyond Thought

The human condition : lost in thought .

Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts .They never go beyond a narrow , mind-made , personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past .

In you , as in each human being , there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought .It is the very essence of who you are .We may call it presence , awareness , the unconditioned consciousness .In the ancient teachings , it is the Christ within , or your Buddha nature .

Eckhart Tolle

Learn to disidentify from your mind

The single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this : learn to disidentify from your mind .Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind , the light of your consciousness grows stronger .One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head , as you would smile at the antics of a child .This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously ,as your sense of self does not depend on it .

Eckhart Tolle

Awakened Doing

Awakened doing is the alignment of your outer purpose- what you do-with your inner purpose-awakening and staying awake .Through awakened doing , you become one with the outgoing purpose of the universe .Consciousness flows through you into this world .It flows into your thoughts and inspires them .It flows into what you do and guides and empowers it .

Eckhart Tolle

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

The Silent Watcher

Be present as the watcher of your mind -- of your thoughts and emotions as well as your reactions in various situations. Be at least as interested in your reactions as in the situation or person that causes you to react. Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future. Don't judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don't make a personal problem out of them. You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.

Eckhart Tolle

Difference in attitude of enlightened and unenlightened people to the world

To the unenlightened, the world is all there is. There is nothing else. This time-bound mode of consciousness clings to the past for its identity and desperately needs the world for its happiness and fulfillment. Therefore, the world holds enormous promise but poses a great threat at the same time. That is the dilemma of the unenlightened consciousness: it is torn between seeking fulfillment in and through the world and being threatened by it continuously. A person hopes that they will find themselves in it, and at the same time they fear that the world is going to kill them, as it will. That is the state of continuous conflict that the unenlightened consciousness is condemned to—being torn continuously between desire and fear. It's a dreadful fate.
The enlightened consciousness is rooted in the unmanifested, and ultimately is one with it. It knows itself to be that. One could almost say it is the unmanifested looking out. Even with a simple thing like visually perceiving a form—a flower or a tree—if you are perceiving it in a state of great alertness and deep stillness, free of past and future, then at that moment already it is the unmanifested. You are not a person anymore at that moment. The unmanifested is perceiving itself in form. And there is always a sense of goodness in that perception.
So then all action arises out of that, and has a completely different quality from action that arises out of the unenlightened consciousness, which needs something and seeks to protect itself. That is really where those intangible and precious qualities come in that we call love, joy, and peace. They are all one with the unmanifested. They arise out of that. A human being who lives in connectedness with that and then acts and interacts becomes a blessing on the planet, whereas the unenlightened human is very heavy on the planet. There is a heaviness to the unenlightened. And the planet is suffering from millions of unenlightened humans. The burden on the planet is almost too much to bear. I can sometimes feel it as the planet saying, "Oh, no more, please.

EckhartTolle

How can one drop into the Now?

Whenever you are observing what your mind emotions are doing, witnessing what is going on inside you, the state of presence is already arising. You can watch all of this, how noisy your mind is. When you’re suddenly aware of it, that ability to watch means you’ve dropped out of the time-bound state. Something has arisen that is very different. I call it the state of presence.

So, again, one could almost say there is no how. That state of consciousness, which I call the state of presence, being fully present in the Now, is the state of high alertness. Some people have experienced it in certain situations of great danger accidentally. That can be good if one remembers being in a state of intense aliveness where there was also absence of thinking and of mental noise, just a state of intense alert presence.

People who climb mountains or engage in other dangerous activities love that state. It’s the only time when they can be in that state. If they were in past or future climbing a steep wall they wouldn’t survive for very long. So, in some situations you’re forced into a state of presence and it’s so alive and fulfilling that the old state becomes very unsatisfying.

Eckhart Tolle

Spiritual Practice

There may be a place for spiritual practice. The difficulty with spiritual practice is again that most practices give you "time." They are based on time and on becoming, or "getting good at" something. In the end every practice will have to be left behind. No practice can take you to liberation. That is important to know. It can be a little step that is useful until you realize you don't need it anymore, because after a certain point it becomes a hindrance.

Now if a teacher gives you a practice, he or she would perhaps point out when you don't need it anymore or you realize yourself when you don’t need it anymore. No technique can take you there. That is the important thing.

Eckhart Tolle

Transcending the world

Transcending the world does not mean to withdraw from the world, to no longer take action, or to stop interacting with people. Transcendence of the world is to act and to interact without any self-seeking. In other words, it means to act without seeking to enhance one's sense of self through one's actions or one's interactions with people. Ultimately, it means not needing the future anymore for one's fulfillment or for one's sense of self or being. There is no seeking through doing, seeking an enhanced, more fulfilled, or greater sense of self in the world. When that seeking isn't there anymore, then you can be in the world but not be of the world. You are no longer seeking for anything to identify with out there.

Eckhart Tolle

Awareness behind the voice

When you recognize that there is a voice in your head that pretends to be you and never stops speaking, you are awakening out of your unconscious identification with the stream of thinking. When you notice that voice, you realize that who you are is not the voice — the thinker — but the one who is aware of it.
Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom.

Eckhart Tolle