Are Your Thoughts Making You Unhappy? | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

most of the time there is a voice in your head that comments and has opinions and viewpoints and interpretations about what's going on in your life i call that the voice in the head for most humans that is completely involuntary they don't even know that they have a voice in the head that never stops talking most of the time silently in your head at other times it may even shout something out so it wants to be heard and so if you walk in the street you will find most people look fairly sane they're not talking to themselves it seems because they're not talking out aloud but if you listened into everybody's head you would be amazed of how noisy the inside of every human is it's like a raid you know these radio stations where the the people talk in an excited voice they go on and on if you go to a foreign country and you don't know what they're talking about you might think this must be extremely important but if you can understand what they are saying you realize it's it's completely meaningless it's just noise so a significant part of what happens in your mind the the larger part is actually just superfluous noise this thinking is a wonderful ability a wonderful tool if used rightly it is an instrument that causes dysfunction and misery for millions on the planet unhappiness for millions on the planet if thinking is not used but if you are used by thought so when humans say i think in most cases that's actually not true because they have no control over their thinking it's a compulsive and involuntary and they are so identified with these thought processes they don't even know that they are in the grip of their thought process is because they are so identified they become their thought processes so whatever comes into your head you completely believe in it and then you yeah that's how it is um leon just uh mentioned uh i don't know we were talking this morning about yesterday about when i was uh struggling to survive on a physical plane i often ate baked beans on toast i was living in england um this is uh [Music] there's a little bit of relevance here too and that could have been a very unhappy period in my life not being able what to live on the next day all day after and again now i'm able to have good meals occasionally and i haven't had baked beans on toast in a long time now but leon gave me a can yesterday now when i was reduced to eating baked beans on toast and again that's a wrong way of putting it it could have been very unhappy i was already in my 30s and so my mind my mental commentary the involuntary thought processes would normally have said this is your complete failure you you can't afford the rent you don't know you have no income you've made a mess out of your life and this is what you i'm reduced to baked beans and doors look at your contemporaries that are driving around in their bmws they've got all that and so this is what life has done to me or what i have done to mess up my life i could have had many kinds of narratives accompanying what was happening in the present moment that would have created unhappiness and i wouldn't even have known it that then this happens just a small example of how a narrative that you have that accompanies something that you are doing causes unhappiness and you can do the same thing without the narrative and you're free of unhappiness you're eating baked beans on toast and actually doesn't taste that bad at all and it's you smaller and it is nourishing and you don't even have to say that you can simply enjoy the sensory perceptions associated with that without make building a sense of self around it the sense of self that you build around it arises through involuntary and compulsive thinking me and the buddha was already talking about that so and this i'm saying this now in case you need to leave early or want to go across the street this does a simple if you only take this away from this evening but hopefully there will be much more if you want to take this away if you look at whenever you feel unhappiness this is a generic term unhappiness in whatever form unhappiness can arise as irritation can arise as anger can arise as even [Music] boredom is a form of unhappiness sadness all kinds of states that don't they don't feel pleasant they unhappiness and usually they are attributed to a life situation something that's going on in your life look so for example waiting at the airline counter and of course how often things don't go well there let's hope they don't drag you out of the plane but that could that could happen too whenever you feel irritation arising anger rising upset in whatever form ask yourself [Music] is this caused by the situation or is it caused by what my mind is telling me about the situation and in 95 of cases you will find that the mental commentary that argues and complains about something that's going on but should not be going on but it is but shouldn't be and the gap between what is and what the mind says should be or should not be that gap is the rising of unhappiness and misery or is the buddha called suffering it arises in the gap between the isness of things in this moment and the arguing with the is-ness of things in this moment imposing a narrative on it that says no this should not be i'm not talking about situation where you can take action to change it there are certain situations where action is possible and necessary fine but even if action is possible and necessary at this very moment it still is as it is then you can take action but this moment is as it is so when you leave when you allow this moment to be as it is because you recognize the inevitability of is this seems so obvious but it's not obvious to most humans the inevitability of what or is already the case now and if you can internally align yourself with this inevitable now the next moment is different thing but when the next woman comes it's now of course there's no next moment except there's a thought in the head where is the future [Music] you've never experienced it you can't impossible and yet humans think about it more than the present moment they want to get to the future because they don't want what is they they believe some kind of liberation or fulfillment will come next always missing the isness of things so if unhappiness arises examine does it come is it caused by the situation i'm in or is it caused by how my mind is interpreting the situation you

Channel: Eckhart Tolle

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Id: kgHttkEtVuo

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 05 2021