Eckhart Tolle on the True Purpose of Life: Beyond the Pursuit of Happiness

there is a fundamental misconception an uncon often an unconscious misconception in human beings and that misconception is this they believe that the world has the ability to make them happy but this this is being withheld from them and they regard that as a personal insult by life is doing why is life withholding happiness from me why all the things always happen to me because it's not happening to others you read their Facebook posts and they're all happy they're eating meals you see pictures of meals look I'm eating this oh okay and then when you see

their happy faces and not only are they happy they're also so good-looking everybody's good-looking it's the technology of filters and stuff uh everyone can look beautiful even I they did it to me too so people watch that and think wow these people's lives are so great what my is so awful and then you maybe then you also pretend because everybody else is pretending okay let go to a restaurant and take a picture of a meal I'm this what I'm eating right now oh so the misconception is uh the world is here to make me happy

but it's not doing it and this is a very serious misconception because it can makes your whole life miserable because that Bally means that something that should be happening is not happening in my life something should it's just not happening but of course that misconception is that the world is here to make you happy and it can't do that it's not here to make you happy it's here to make you conscious to awaken you oh I see I was wrong all along I've been complaining uselessly for four 40 years or whatever your age is I've

been complaining uselessly for 40 years that that there's something wrong with the world and my so-called life but there wasn't anything wrong at all because the world is here to awaken me in all if humans are not challenged or not just humans any life form only grows through being challenged which means encounter obstacles and difficulties in their process of growth even plants and animals they all encoun every life form is precarious its existence is precarious and it encounters obstacles to its unfoldment and that ultimately is how Evolution happen through encountering difficulties obstacles challenges because as

you encounter the obstacles and challenges they seem to block you and you think life would be much better if I did not have these challenges but it wouldn't because you would go to sleep even more so you have the challenges and that brings about an influx of of energy on whatever level even if it's physical every organism already encounters Talent is on a physical level and then it grows it gains new strengths by come attempting to overcome these limitations I sometimes mention example if you want it because it operates on every level if you want

to become physically stronger you have to exercise unless you have a job that is already physically uh hardworking forces you to exert yourself physically otherwise you have to exercise and you have to start doing if you want to grow stronger uh you have to lift weights I'm not doing it anymore but I'm just demonstrating you lift away now what how does that feel at first what what are you doing the way I put it is this you are making life difficult for your body because your body is not going to grow stronger unless you make

your the body's life difficult the same with jogging you don't the body doesn't really want to do it but says no no you have to do it why are you making life difficult for your body your body would be so relaxed sitting on on the sofa and watching Netflix but it's not going stronger it's actually getting weaker because it's not being challenged but challenge it and then there is a demand for added energy and this and this is just operates on the physical level and this demand for added there's a there's a moment when there's

a gap you're exerting yourself and the energy isn't there yet so it's very hard but at some point the energy comes flooding in because there was a demand for it and at that point you may actually begin to enjoy the physical movement because there added energy and suddenly ah strength is increasing and this is just on the physical level there's a demand and it comes also on a psychological level it can operate and on a spiritual level when you become very unhappy in your life then there is the possibility that the unhappiness causes you to

awaken because at some point you realize either because you've had a spiritual teacher or teaching or even in some people it happens spontaneously the the suffering the psychological suffering that humans undergo can at some point bring about an awake it when you just can't stand it anymore and something snaps and suddenly you it dissolves and you're oh suddenly an Awakening has happened but it would not have happened if you hadn't gone through those the sometimes years of suffering quite often I have encounter people who tell me I would never have come to you or this

understood the books or been open to anything spiritual if I had not experienced in some cases it's a serious very serious illness or an accident or some deep loss in their personal lives and they come and perhaps some of you with some of you that is also the case there would not have been an opening if you had not gone through that suffering and at some point the suffering awakens you and that is really the ultimate purpose of suffering is to awaken and then you realize that most suffering is actually unnecessary it's actually created by

the condition entity I'm talking about real psych you there's physical pain physical pain isn't suffering suffering is a psychological phenomenon so and this this suffering can be transcended if you awaken you transcend that suffering you in other words you transcend unhappiness you are no longer unhappy the Mind loses its power to make you unhappy because most of your unhappiness is created by unconscious thought processes not situations most of unhappiness is created not by situations difficult situations that you encounter but but but what your mind is telling you about the difficult situations the situation itself is

as it is then you impose an interpretation on it the inter the interpretation says this should not be happening this is awful why Always to me why why did he do that etc etc interpretations what causes the unhappiness and strengthens the victitious self is the commentary the interpretation and that is an amazing realization that most of your unhappiness is created by your mind and that's an amazing thing and then as you become more present unhappiness disappears from your life now am I saying that you'll then always be happy no it's not happiness is a a

little bit superficial to the way I use the term happiness because it usually means yeah ah so it's so great it's wonderful it's a feels a bit superficial although there are some spiritual teachers who use the term happiness and pointing to something deeper uh for example Raman mahashi says happiness is your true nature but he's using it in a different sense obviously there are situations even as your unhappiness leaves you and you become more present situations arise where you cannot say that you're happy somebody close to you dies your father your mother or even a

child or somebody something very bad an accident happens to someone you and you can't say oh I'm still happy I'm still happy he died no there's there sadness will come if that happens because that's the human on you still the sadness comes and yet you are not consumed by the sadness when it comes you are not consumed by it it comes as a wave and you may weep because your father died your mother died your child died or some Rec is going to some suffering and you you may weep and yet underneath that there is

still a substratum this is geological term there's a substratum of Peace underneath it I don't call that happiness but it's deeper than that there is an all abiding peace underneath it although there may be tears on the surface but then they disappear and you don't you don't perpetuate emotional Pain by continuously thinking about it for months and years and and years pass and you're still unhappy for years no it comes as a wave and then it subsides and even when it's there there is still a presence that you can sense underneath it