Breaking Free from Thought Identification | Eckhart Tolle

by recognizing that there is let's say irritation anger or anxiety in you you are no longer completely identified with it whenever you are impatient trying to get somewhere waiting for something impatiently what's the next thing I have to do and now I have to do that and you're pulled in all kinds of directions what's now now I have to do that and that and that and there's always a pull to the what's the next thing uh that is I call that sometimes you lose yourself in doing doing is necessary obviously you need to do but

to lose yourself in continuous doing is a serious dysfunction but it's so normal that nobody realiz I izes it so what if you lose yourself in the doing there's always another and this is how stress arises what stress is the gap in the gap between now and later the projected then now and then in that Gap arises the stress arises so the mental projection towards future creates the the stresses between you where I'm here but I want to be there and for many humans that is their predominant State they are always they're here but they

don't they really want to be there either there in space or Time It's amazing And even you Awakening beings may still sometimes or often find yourself in that state where you'd suddenly realize that the whole day you've been stressed about this that and that and that this the world make so many demands upon you need to deal with this and this and this Amplified by the gadgets that we now use this is an amplification of the dysfunction through this uh and you lose yourself in the doing you become completely unentered and and basically lost there

many even happens even to Children already at an early age these days and many children are suffering from attention deficit disorder and so on which means that that their mind is being pulled always away from the present moment so lost in doing lost in doing really comes back to lost in thinking thinking underlies doing so you lost in your thoughts about the world and then you engage in all kinds of activities propelled by thought that now I need to do this now I need to do that so the basic condition still for most humans on

the planet so fundament mentally yes they are lost in doing they lose themselves in do but basically it means they are lost in their mind in the movement of thought what now you identify then they identify with every thoughts that arises and the many thoughts are about future or the past not that many thoughts are about the present moment and if they are about the present moment then it is an interpretation of the present moment that is completely determined and colored by your past conditioning so very interesting to observe in oneself this tendency to deny

devalue disregard reduce the present moment to a means to an end it's always a means to an end but it's never Rec recognized for what it is in itself and often it is not it is more than a means to an end for many humans this is a very dysfunctional way of being for many humans the present moment is actually regarded unconsciously as an obstacle that they need to get Beyond there's a continuous underlying unease and what's the next thing that's that's going to go go wrong I know it's going to happen lost lost in

the mind lost in thought there was an Indian teacher who described the essential human condition as lost in thought and of course that that's how it is you this is then this movement of thought gives you your sense of identity then then the the unease the the uneasy narrative the problematic Narrative of me in my life I have to think about this when I wake up in the middle of the night and I carry this heavy burden of my problematic life for many humans the identity is consciously regarded as a problem to be solved I

am a problem that I'm looking for a solution to this problem that I am and course then you go to a therapist now if the therapist is good he might be able to take you beyond that depends if he or she is not good and you get more deeply entrenched and 15 years later you are still undergoing psychoanalysis and find ever deeper layers of complexity in your past and there's no end to it so the present moment is devalue not recognized regarded either as a means to an end or an obstacle that is the for

many humans that is a predominant state of mental emotional state and the as I said their identity is derived from that so it's the the the error lies in identification with thought now the question arises who or what is it that ident identifies with thought if I am not the story that I tell myself about who I am if I am not ultimately that then who or what am I and what is it in me that that identifies with the story what is it that creates this sense of identity that is mostly exists mostly in

a state of unease or very often discontent because it it cannot acknowledge the present moment that is the ego by the way that's what we call it the the egoic sense of self as a very simple spiritual practice to get you to the realization of who or what it is that identifies I suggest at this moment that observe yourself internally right now to see if there's any lingering emotion in you perhaps from earlier today or an hour ago or yesterday or the past two years or the past 10 years is there any and can you

feel for example any is an irritation somewhere is there some kind of anxiety is there kind of heaviness a certain heavy mood a despondent mood perhaps is it lingering there is there anger anger big thing some residue of Anger from what happened earlier is that in you and then normally humans would say I am angry or they would say I am anxious I'm fearful I am in a bad mood now there's already a delusion when the moment you say I am angry or I am anxious that indicates already that you have identified with the emotion

of anger or the emotion of sadness or the emotion of fear you have identified you equate I with what arises in your field of Consciousness so you say I'm angry it would be more correct to say there is anger in me right now now it may sound a trivial difference between saying I am angry and there's anger in me but there's a significant difference which goes beyond mere syntax how you put words together because when you say I am you equate I with whatever condition is there in you this applies to emotion and it also

applies to thought when because anger is often is not just the anger as emotion the anger also exists as angry thoughts and then they they in they reinforce each other it's a vicious circle when you when they when you are trapped in irritation or anger the emotion feeds the thought and the thought feeds more energy to the emotion it's a vicious circle and you don't want to get out of it you might notice When You observe an angry person or or a despondent person or an anxious person they don't really want to be free of

the anger they don't want they're if you suggest it to an angry person you can be free you will will not get a a pleasant answer and you you've seen angry people who they are in the grip of anger or irritation they cannot help it then they shall sh at you and then they leave the room and a minute later the door opens they come back because they sort of something else to insult you with they they they are in the grip of it there is complete identification with thought and emotion they are lost in

thought they are Lost in Emotion but who or what is it that is lost if I'm not the thoughts and the notion who or what am I okay I just asked you to just have a look inside yourself and see what it is if there's anything there that's jarring and doesn't feel good but it's there and I'm not saying try to get rid of it no acknowledge the present moment the present moment is what is externally or internally that's what is but there's a huge difference now you've already by recognizing that there is let's say

irritation anger or anxiety in you an additional element or Dimension has come in and that Dimension we could call awareness or we could call it presence and the moment awar comes in you no longer completely identified with it one could say I sometimes describe it as let's say there's the anger and as your awareness of the anger comes in there's a little bit of space around it that's the awareness the awareness knows that there's anger the anger may still be there it may not immediately disappear but the awareness knows it's there or whatever else it

may be the arising of awareness is spiritual awakening the disidentification that happens when awareness arises that is the spiritual awakening or the arising of the Transcendent dimension of Consciousness Transcendent because it transcends who or what you are as a person yes you are still a person you have your personality you have your memories that hasn't changed you have still have a narrative in your mind but you call it your life but it's no longer it be there begins to be a shift a shift from identifying with that which arises either on the level of thinking

or on the level of the emotion to identifying with or being the observing conscious presence that is that is the Awakening out of identification with form thought forms emotional forms so there's this is where when you realize thought thoughts that go through your mind in the unconscious State you the thought has you in its grip the thought you don't think in the unconscious State thinking happens to you and you can't help it the thinking the thinking mind does what it wants to do and you don't even know that there's anything other than the movement of

thought in you because you you you're so in the grip of it that there's nothing beyond that so every thought that arises becomes the truth for you it it's it's it it has you in its grasp every you one way of putting is you say you believe in every thought that that comes into your head no matter how crazy that's something that's how it is and then you if you look on the internet where people communicate with each other on social media and so on you can easily see how a person's opinion becomes their identity

now an opinion is no more than a form of thought a movement of thought a certain mental position opinion turns into identity and then because opinion has turned into identity anybody who has a different opinion becomes threatening to you because you you it's it's your identity your sense of self it's a fiction but it this person becomes your enemy so when thought becomes identity then anybody who questions the thought that you had identified with is the enemy and that's a deeply unconscious thing for human beings to be trapped in a very unconscious State and it

wreaks havoc on the planet because it also happens collectively identities there's a collective identity too in groups of people Nations tribes religions or movements within religions and so on so the to free yourself from that that's the that is spiritual awakening