Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
A Summary of Additional Insights About Awareness & Enlightenment from
The New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
For greater insight, you are encouraged to read the entire book, in addition to this summary,
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Forms of Enlightenment vs the Egoic Mind
Could flowers be the enlightenment of plants, diamonds the enlightenment of carbon (coal), certain birds the enlightenment of reptiles? Could these forms be temporary manifestations of a universal connectedness to our underlying life? Is there an indwelling spirit, energy or life form at the quanta level in all forms (animal, mineral, plant, thought, etc)?
New born life forms – babies, puppies, kittens, lambs – shine through with an innocence, sweetness, beauty, not quite of this world. Then begins the process where we miss the mark, suffer, learn anger and disappointment, think without awareness, become I, identify with things, need more, and allow the ego to take control. It is all about the illusion of me and mine. Become aware as we continue …
The egoic mind is conditioned by the past, consisting of content (child’s toy = what) and structure (form = how). Content focuses on what or who, the object, the thing, the thought, the person). Structure focuses on how or why, the rules, the function, the meaning, the process, the format.
Identification With Things vs
The Kingdom of Heaven
The child identifies with a toy. The toy’s loss creates suffering. Later the toy becomes my car, my house, my child. As I identify with things, the things become who I am, my self-worth, my value. I suffer from their loss. My life blends the structure my with the content life, as if you owned your life. This is a false identity. You are worth so much more than the things that possess you or that you possess. You are connected to an infinite source of wealth.
Do your things make you superior? Do they provide a false sense of importance, security? Is your self-worth bound to your possessions? When someone takes your shirt and you give your coat also, you move beyond ego to where the conscious I am emerges. I am no longer a thing bound to my ego. I just Am.
Blessed are the poor in spirit … for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven. Poor in spirit = without inner baggage, without identifications, without being possessed. Kingdom of Heaven = inner realm of consciousness, profound simple joy of being.
You identify with your body – male or female, strong or weak, sick or healthy, handsome or ugly, skinny or fat, young or old. These are all outward forms. They are not who you are. They may be reasons you feel superior or inferior, but not who you are. You are an integral part of a connected universe (one song). Ego identifies with form, which is temporary. The ego with all its fossilized forms is destined to dissolve. Religious institutions, corporations, governments disintegrate from within.
Collective Insanity: Bad News vs The Good Within
Throughout history we have observed the cumulative expression of insanity – Fear, greed, anger, desire for power … 1914 WWI, 1939 WWII … Millions died for a few yards of sand, a hill, an island … 100 million died, mass extermination, genocide … Hitler’s German Holocaust, Stalin’s Soviet murder of 20 million, Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge … Christian Crusade, Shia vs Sunni, Israel vs Palestinians … Destroying oxygen producing forests, factory farms, poisoning air water river oceans farm land. If this history were a single person, the diagnosis would be chronic paranoid delusions with a propensity for murder, criminally insane. The expression of this insanity is the illusion of ego, not who we are. Religious teachings designed to point the way out of collective insanity are distorted and become part of the craziness. This is the bad news.
Now the good news. We do not become good by trying. We uncover the good already within us. Stop, read that again. It is not about what we do. It is about becoming aware. We allow goodness to emerge through fundamental/radical transformation in our state of consciousness. The good news is Hindu enlightenment, Christian Salvation, Buddhist end of suffering, liberation, awakening, a new dimension of consciousness that began with the first flower, as man was becoming.
Being religious, having a belief system with a rigid set of thoughts establishing “absolute truth” does not make you spiritual. Identification with thought is limiting. Rejecting, judging, excluding, treating with intolerance, killing those who don’t believe as you do painfully misses the profound truth that we are all universally connected.
Descartes said, “I think, therefore, I am” and discovered the root of the ego. Jean-Paul Sartre suddenly realized, “The consciousness that says ‘I am’ is not the consciousness that thinks.” Awareness knows I am. Thinking just thinks, very likely without awareness. Without awareness, you would not know you were thinking. Thinking is the dreamer. Being aware of the dream is who you are.
The Voice Within, Roles, Moving Toward Awareness
The voice in your head comes from the ego, frequently repetitive, not always coherent. When you identify with this voice and its accompanying emotions, you become lost in the power of the ego, forgetful of Being, in an illusion of separateness. Reality turns into a nightmare.
The three predominant states of egoic relationships are wanting, thwarted wanting (anger, resentment, etc), and indifference. In genuine relationships an outward flow of alert attention or Presence produces no wanting.
When ego wants, it tends to play roles designed to fulfill its needs. You are a spouse, an employee, a parent, a dreamer, an anarchist, a gangster, an activist, a student, a victim. Many roles have beautiful moments, where awareness dawns. The role itself, however, is temporary. Behind the role waits a feeling of not being good enough, of being superior, of rejection, of failure, of winning. Once again the role is not who you are. Is Love te quierro (I want you) or te amo (true love without wanting)? With your children are you Present with them, alert, paying attention, attentive to their needs? Or, is your body there and your mind somewhere else? They know. They are aware. In your role you can be aware in the present moment or you can be playing a game, living in the past/future, trying to be someone you are not.
The ego seeks recognition, praise, attention. It wants or is indifferent. Formless Presence accepts, enjoys or is enthusiastic about the moment you are in, without wanting. Class systems, self-definitions, pre-established roles are part of the ego’s control mechanism. These mechanisms are irrelevant to who you are. As you become aware, you can move beyond their control, to be free, to be alive in the present moment.
As you move toward awareness, as you awaken, you may detect subtle changes in your speech, your attitude and behavior. At first you may observe these changes in others, before you detect them in yourself. You may speak differently to an adult than you do to a child. Recognize the role. Move toward true relationships, away from inauthentic roles. Use your new perceptual powers to be genuine.
Do you play the role of happiness or allow joy to flow through you? Seeking happiness is elusive. Being happy enables your inner peace. Being a parent is joyous. Playing the parent becomes excessive, overprotective, interfering, controlling, overbearing, without an authentic relationship of caring, nurturing and allowing your children the space they need to grow. Awareness is the greatest change agent. Allow mistakes and suffering. Be present when you are needed. Conscious suffering erodes identification, opening the door to awareness. Accepting suffering without complaint accelerates consciousness.
Ego is pathological, from pathos or suffering. Unhappiness is an emotional disease formed by the ego. The cold, rainy, dreadful day is just a day. Your reaction to it makes it dreadful. Anger and resentment strengthen ego’s hold on your emotions. Acceptance, joy and enthusiasm dissolve this hold. Ego shrinks. Awareness grows. Cleverness divides. Intelligence includes.
The collective ego of groups and nations can become an extreme collective paranoia, resulting in persecution, the Salem Witch trials, the Spanish Inquisition, McCarthyism, cold war, world war, Middle East conflict. Seek not truth. Cease to cherish opinions. You, beyond the mind, emerges. Walk in the other’s shoes until you understand. Then ask your brother, sister, friend and family to do the same. Attract success by welcoming it where ever you see it.
When you awake to find the collective you have associated with is actually insane, it can be painful. You could become cynical or bitter and run to another illusory belief system. A collective ego tends to be more unconscious than your individual ego. Crowds are capable of committing atrocities that individuals alone would never consider. As your new consciousness arises you may become part of an enlightened group. There will be strength and enough awareness to recognize ego as it tries to reassert itself; however, constant alertness is required as the ego seeks more subtle ways to regain power.
Peace is the end of ego. You become one with Life, making peace with the present moment. Life is the dancer. You are the dance. Awareness dis-identifies thoughts, emotions and reactions. Being aware of your thoughts and emotions is an alert seeing that shifts intelligence beyond ego’s cleverness.
Illness can either strengthen or weaken the ego. Do you complain, feel self-pity, seek sympathy, resent being ill? Your ego strengthens. When you are ill, your energy level weakens. You may not have the energy to feed your ego. Your intelligence takes over to heal your body. Perhaps a kinder, gentler, nicer person emerges. Allow this person to shine when your strength returns and ego tries to regain control.
Emotions Don’t Have to be Tied to
Ego and the Pain-Body
Thought is one dimension of ego. Another is emotion. All thought and all emotion are not tied to ego. They become ego when you identify with them. When they take control, when they become “I.” Some emotions are instinctive responses to a situation, like primordial anger or fear, which trigger a fight or flight response to danger and may save your life. They provide you strength you don’t normally have. An emotion can also be a response to thought, which filters an interpretation like good, bad, like, dislike, me, mine. There is likely little response when you read someone’s car is stolen; but a significant response when “my” car is stolen.
The body does not distinguish between a situation and a thought. Worry, a fearful thought, can trigger rapid breathing, muscle contractions, a faster heartbeat, a buildup of energy and danger. The danger may be fictitious, but without an outlet, the energy may turn toxic, interfering with harmonious function of the body.
Emotions from the ego have opposites – praise leading to happiness turns to criticism/being ignored then dejection, anticipation becomes disappointment, a wild party pleasure to hungover bleakness. Good to bad. High to low. Deeper emotions are actually States of Being. They can be obscured, but have no opposite. Joy, peace, love emanate from your true nature. Two ducks fight briefly, then float off in opposite directions, flap their wings to release surplus energy, then float peacefully as if nothing happened. A lesson to learn?
Accumulation of emotional pain adds to the pain-body. Pain lodges within the body, triggering real aches and pains. A negative emotion, not fully faced, leaves behind a trace of pain. Too often we do not flap our wings and float peacefully away. People with a heavy pain-body frequently have a better chance to awaken spiritually, as they decide they can no longer live with their unhappiness. The pain-body is a semi-autonomous energy form that thrives on negative thinking and drama. It seeks emotional negativity and unhappiness. It can be active or a dormant volcano hibernating until a triggering event. Tai Chi, Qiaong and yoga weaken the pain-body. Becoming aware of the triggering causes can reduce or eliminate the pain-body.
Once you realize you have a pain-body, you can begin to break free. As you remain alert to the pain that your negative emotion activates, you can no longer pretend your ego is you. With recognition the pain-body begins to lose energy. Its tapped energy transmutes the vibrational frequency to Presence becoming fuel for consciousness. You can sense the energy field corresponding to your inner state, which emanates from you. Everyone exudes their own energy field, which you may feel subliminally and to which you may react unconsciously before words are exchanged. Words trigger roles. The felt energy field diminishes as egos play their parts. When negativity fuels the pain-body, suffering continues. When you can no longer stand the endless suffering, you awake. The subliminal recognition moves to consciousness. You have the opportunity to move to peace from pain.
A Story Beyond the Pain Body
And now a little story … You come to see a Chimorel Planner. You were physically abused as a child, which left a massively heavy pain-body. Your Planner directed your attention to your feelings inside your body, asking you to sense the emotion directly. At first you resisted and the emotion intensified. Again the Planner asked if you could completely accept what you felt right now. You said “No, I don’t want to accept this.” Gently the Planner said, “Can you see that this unhappiness about being unhappy, is just another layer of unhappiness?” You were quiet, and the Planner asked “Who is speaking, you or your unhappiness? You don’t need to do anything, just allow the feelings to be there. It sounds strange, but if you don’t mind being unhappy, what happens to the unhappiness? Don’t you want to find out?” After a moment of sitting quietly there was a shift in your energy field. You remarked, “Weird, I’m still unhappy, but now there’s space around it. It doesn’t matter as much.” The Planner was quiet. You put your attention on the emotion without resisting it. Your Unhappiness story was transcended by a new Presence dimension and faded. You realized that your emotion had to be combined with a story. As you faced the story, the pain-body began to disappear. A peace settled over you. By not fighting the pain, a light of consciousness dawned. By staying Present and alert your happiness grew. A few deep breaths. A new found smile and you were ready to walk into the sunshine.
But, the pain-body does not leave without a fight. After opening the windows to let out the heaviness in the room, the Planner goes to the grocery store. Watching in intense Presence, the Planner observes a woman struggling with items in her cart. She becomes upset, curses the clerk, shouting angrily. The manager comes over trying to be of assistance. Customers watch in horror as she spits on him. The police come, she quiets down, then leaves. With a quizzical look the manager spots the Planner. As he wipes off his hands and face, the manager asks, “Did you cause this?” The Planner smiles, saying “Not exactly” recognizing that at some level all pain bodies are connected.
Facing the Pain-Body
Moodiness, withdrawal being sullen, sucking a thumb, weeping, temper tantrums reveal a pain-body in children. A child’s pain-body may flow from a child’s share of the collective pain-body, may be taken from parents’ pain-bodies or living with unconscious parents, and may happen from the child’s suffering or thwarted wanting. During a child’s pain-body attack, stay present without being drawn into the emotional reaction or yielding to demands. When it’s over, ask questions. What happened yesterday? What did it feel like? Was it a good feeling? What would you call the feeling? Can you draw what it looked like? Where did it go? Did it go to sleep? Do you think it will come back? If it does, what do you want to do? Be curious without condemnation. The child will be aware (at least slightly) of your concern and presence. The awareness will grow. The pain-body will lessen.
Unhappiness can result whenever you are out of alignment with the present moment. The pain-body likes to react out of proportion to an apparent cause, which makes it easier to recognize. Ego and the pain-body are close relatives, feeding each other, trying to create an impenetrable fog. This fog can trap you in your own hell.
Your strong, active pain-body carries its own unpleasant energy discharge, which others react to, especially when it triggers their intrinsic pain-body. A high degree of Presence is required to avoid reacting. Your firm Presence can bring about the miracle of a sudden awakening from another’s pain-body. You remain open, alert, very present, without thought, judgment or mental commentary, listening in stillness. A torrent of words will come. You do nothing. As if from nowhere the other may awaken suddenly with a changed energy field to dismiss their concern and their pain-body can evaporate. Being quietly present, in stillness, love and compassion, is always more potent than anything you can say or do.
A pain-body may be triggered by financial issues, abandonment, abuse, unfulfilled longing and many other forms of neediness. As you learn to perceive the rise of your own pain-body, you will also learn to recognize the triggers that activate it. You will notice the surge of emotional reaction, but in the state of alert Presence you will choose not to identify with it. You might say to a partner, “That triggered my pain-body.” Agree that when the pain body is triggered, you will mention it and thus avoid the potential drama. The pain-body cannot tolerate the light of Presence. When the voltage is too high, when the pain is intolerable, your pain-body can become your awakener. Identification with the pain-body forces you to relive past misery. Recognition of the pain-body terminates identification and begins transmutation. Face it directly. The emotion is not who you are. Allow your true nature to appear. Become one with God.
Know Yourself
Three ways to deal with good and bad: Maybe, is that so, I don’t mind what happens. When asked who they are, unconscious people tell you their name, occupation, personal history or another identity. Sometimes as they begin to awaken they move to a spiritual identity. Knowing yourself is rooted in Being, not lost in your mind.
You are more than your name, your job and the shape of your body. When confronted do you remain nonreactive, yet absolutely alert? Your reaction when challenged is a significant indicator of how well you know yourself. Do you look at or through the ego in others. As you become aware of your ego, you cease seeing a victim. You remove a great obstacle, when you know who you are not. Your potential should be valued at more than $100 million or whatever higher value you choose to acknowledge. Reread that sentence. Accept your value as true.
What matters may not be what you say. Instead how you act and react reveal what is important and serious to you. When small things disturb you, your unconscious belief is small. You may accuse, defend, blame, justify, attack on autopilot. When peace matters, you remain nonreactive, absolutely alert, when challenged. Look through the ego in others. Be aware of your own ego. Cease to be a victim.
Step one is knowing who you are not, thus you remove the greatest obstacle in knowing who you are. Belief, then can be an obstacle. Who you are requires no belief. Act as if you have it and it will come – praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, $1 million. in order to receive, begin to give. Whatever the world withholds from you, give to others. “Give and it will be given to you,. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over …”
Nothing you can know about you, is you. Whatever you learn about you through self-observation, or otherwise, is about you, content, not essence. What is there other than content? … The inner space of consciousness. Within you is a hidden harmony, a sacredness.
Decide what kind of relationship you want to have with the present moment. Make the first move. Become friendly toward the possibilities. Welcome the moment in whatever disguise it comes. The results will soon light your way. … life is friendly back, … people become helpful, … circumstances cooperate. One decision changes reality. Making the present moment your friend terminates ego.
Whatever you think the world withholds – praise, appreciation, love – give it to others. You already have whatever you seek. Allow it to flow from you to others and then return to you. Allow the inner space of your consciousness to flow.
The world is an indivisible whole. Every thing in the Universe is connected. Nothing exists in isolation. Decide that today, now, is your friend. Now make the first move. Develop a friendly relationship with Life. Your new friend will welcome you with open arms. The Universe is a powerful friend. Give, ask, receive.
Inner nonresistance unlocks the power of the Universe. What you resist persists. As you pursue growth, move to overcome limitations and acquire new skills/knowledge, you are present when what you do is fulfilling within itself, not a means to an end ($, fame, etc.). You rise above through uncompromising surrender to what is. You don’t resist.
The unhappiness disease is everywhere. Deep perfection is inherent in life itself, beyond what happens or does not happen. The joy of being flows through consciousness, an inner space that feels intensely alive. Consciously allow diminishment of ego, ie when provoked, do nothing, alert to your deepest feelings. Discomfort will shrink. You will feel an intensely alive inner spaciousness. With non-reaction less will become more. Being will come forward.
Do not invite abuse or become a victim. Occasionally, you may need to tell an unconscious person “to back off” firmly. There will be no reactive force. There will be power in your words, a high quality NO, free from all negativity. You align yourself with the power of the Universe. What appears weak is true strength. You are not the mountain. You are the valley, where all things flow to you.
Stare into space without labeling what you see. Soon you see just objects and space. Perhaps you become aware of the totality to which you are connected, with a sense of awe and reverence. You become aware of the vastness, the depth. Through you the Universe becomes aware of itself, the Universe, a Divine matrix. There is what you can feel, see, hear touch and think about … and then there is the Kingdom of Heaven.
“This too shall pass.” “Is that so?” “Maybe.” … speak to the inevitability of change. With detachment you gain a higher vantage point. With nonjudgement and inner nonresistance, you move to a higher level. There is a freedom, a stillness, a subtle peace deep within that is not of this world.
Stillness is the language God speaks.
Discover Your Inner Space
There is an object consciousness, which must be balanced by a space consciousness for sanity to return. Take a deep breath. Now let the truth of that statement fill your awareness. You are, of course, conscious of things, objects, sense perceptions, thoughts, emotions. Awareness suggests you are conscious of things, and may become conscious of being conscious. Can you sense an alert inner stillness in the background, while things happen in the foreground? Can you feel your presence?
When I am tired, I may relax. My thinking may subside. As I walk in the valley beside a majestic mountain, I may ask my Zen master, “How do I enter Zen?” After perhaps five minutes, the master focuses on me. He raises his finger and asks, “Do you hear the mountain stream?” As my thinking gives way to a heightened alertness, the distant barely perceptible gurgle of a small stream enters my awareness. With a piercing gentle look, he says “Enter from there.” With a flash of enlightenment, I know what Zen is without knowing that I know. We continue our journey in silence. I am amazed at the aliveness of the world around me. Gradually, I start thinking again. The alert stillness begins to cloud with my thinking. I ask, “If I could not hear the stream, what would you say? The master looks at me with compassion, raises his finger and says, “Enter from there.” When I am tired, my thinking and my ego may subside. Then I may become aware of … Zen?
You experience sense objects, things with names, what you hear, see, taste, touch and smell. These are experiencing objects, not the experiencing subject. Every experience has three possible ingredients: sense perceptions, mental images (thoughts) and emotions. You are the experiencer, consciousness, not the experience. Defining consciousness is a little more complicated, like impossible, because as soon as you define/name consciousness it becomes another object. You, the subject, are thus unknowable. You just are, part of the Divine matrix of energy., timeless, eternal, the space of life, I am. You cannot know consciousness, but you can become conscious of yourself. You can sense your Presence, your inner space, the I am substratum, the underlying background to every experience, thought and feeling.
Deep breath in, slowly let it out. Become aware of your breathing. Being aware of your breathing, suspends thinking. Your thinking has gaps, brief moments when it is suspended. a few seconds is enough. The gaps will expand in length and frequency. More often is superior to longer. Now an enhancement strategy: Be aware of your breathing as often as possible. Notice the sensation. Feel the air move in and out. Heed the expansion and contraction of your chest. Being aware of your breathing creates space, takes attention away from thinking, impels you into the present moment, key to inner transformation. Breath is associated with spirit. the Germen atmen (breathing) is derived from the Sandskrit Atman (indwelling spirit).
Let’s break an addiction, a compulsive behavior – chocolate cake, smoking, over eating, TV watching, drinking, any compulsive urge. When you notice the urge, stop, take three deep conscious breaths. Be aware of the energy field inside you, the compulsive urge. Feel the physical need, the mental push. Consciously take a few more deep breaths. Allow the urge to dissipate. Don’t resist, just allow peace to indwell. Allow your mind to travel away from the urge. More conscious deep breaths. Slowly in. Slowly out. Peaceful, calm, quiet. Alert to the urge, without resistance. In. Out. Mind floating free. Breaking a powerful addiction is not a one time effort, but it is possible. Perhaps with some assistance from something to quiet the chemical tug. Especially, with support from others.
Deep breath in … the subtle rise and fall of your chest … awareness of the inner body. Feel the aliveness within. The doorway to inner space is intensely alive. Notice the gaps … See or hear something unfamiliar. Just before you name it there is a perception gap, a brief cessation in the thought stream, perhaps a speachless moment. The frequency and duration of these gaps trigger enjoyment, inner connectedness to others and nature, freedom from ego. Become aware of these brief spaces. They will lengthen. Stillness is the language God speaks.
