Freedom from Thought and Excessive Thinking

beautiful sunshine but the fog is rolling in slowly that's beautiful too and quite often along the coast here you get fog and sunshine at the same time so as the fog reaches the beach it begins to dissolve and then see the Sun filtering through the fog quite magical so here we are an interesting thing to observe while you're here especially but the rest of your life also is where your attention is at any given time or more precisely in the present moment which is all there is where your attention is in the present moment and whether your attention is determined by all kinds of factors or whether you have some influence over where your attention goes now you've all noticed and experienced when you're walking in the street or you're sitting somewhere and suddenly there's some noise behind you or somebody shouts something or you're in a restaurant sitting in somewhere behind you some of these drops drops a plate and usually most people wouldn't go immediately it's an automatic thing and these days of course you have other not just plates breaking which happens relatively rarely but you have your your phones demanding your attention so you are having a wonderful conversation with a friend and then you suddenly hear you are just talking about it really connecting and suddenly your attention goes and it's a text message or some other sound which means it's an email and that demands your attention and people don't realize that they obey immediately that little device it's like a plate breaking except this happens all the time and or people starting behind you so you'll be it's all the attention is being pulled out continuously when I first got my iPhone two years ago then I got my first text messages quite miraculous and then often I didn't reply until the next day or two days later and then I was told this is not according to text message educate [Laughter] takes message etiquette dictates that you reply immediately so occasionally I do that now but even now I don't always reply immediately and I don't even look at it immediately at first I did when I got the iPhone it and I realized what it was doing and then apart from all these external things and of course the electronic devices they increase the demands that the external world makes upon your attention before you had all these electronic devices yes it's even then the boiled would make demands continuously on your attention but not as frequent as with all these devices they and and so people don't realize they are kind of they lose their freedom of choice and something even more pervasive that was already there before the electronic devices came is that certain thoughts in your mind also demanding your complete attention the little thought comes in about something that you can't do anything about now but you have to think about it now and the thought says give me your attention and you so what I'm talking about here is you begin to identify with every thought that arises it it has a pulling power it pulls you in and it's an energy formation everything a thought is an energy form everything is not physical energy it's probably halfway between physical and non-physical and the greatest scientists no matter what they tell you their ego may not allow them to admit it but if they're really honest and that the ego is not huge they will admit to you they don't they have examined the brain for a long time but they can't they don't know what a thought is you've looked at brain chemistry and examined it and examined it but what is it thoughts they just still don't know and so we don't need to know on that level here you just experience what a thought is and how it pulls your tension in and you follow it up if you follow it where it wants to take you it it leads to another Associated thought and another and before you know it you are dragged along by another mind stream out of the present moment into some conceptual reality because that's what thought is so you're drawn away into some conceptual reality which includes a conceptual sense of self a meaning an image of me a narrative of me and so that is then the reality that you inhabit most of the time and so whether your tension is pulled by some external thing or and different electronic cartridge or your thoughts it goes to all kinds of places in your head and outside and thing and so it's English you actually can choose to direct your attention to something rather than being at the mercy of all kinds of factors that determine where your attention is going to go so you can choose when you hear the ping of a text message or the bone of an email you can choose to not give it your attention but just remain still for three seconds and then you have a choice you can give it your attention or not give it your attention at least now you have a choice the same thing with when some of this salting behind you and obviously doesn't concern you why automatically go if you're really present when you can hear the noise and you don't go there it's not necessary it's just somebody dropped a plate or whatever in a restaurants all the time so you can choose to direct your attention for example right now you can choose to direct your attention of course it's in at the moment it's in visual perception and auditory perception in addition you can choose to direct your attention into your right hand which does not diminish the ability to listen and choose to listen and to see what's going on here so you can have your attention in your right hand and feel the energy as I can feel it right now can feel the energy in my right hands or the aliveness which does not diminish my ability to speak or to see you I can feel and I can feel the left hand also so you can direct attention into your feet you can direct attention to some object in this room any sensory perception you can choose to think a particular sort and then let go of the sort what am I going to have for dinner what are they going to serve for dinner tonight sort arises I'm feeling a little bit peckish it wants one daughter and then you can choose to let go of that thought and not to follow it and return your attention to visual and auditory perception and so that's it's you have a choice when you're this you realize that you have a choice where you're - you don't need to and to practice with the electronic gadgets particularly because they the commonly consensus is that you don't have a choice you have to immediately look and second reply or whatever immediately it used to be just telephones but the telephones had a line attached to them so that they're in a particular place they didn't follow you around [Music] but even when they had telephones people would interrupt any conversation just because the phone was ringing and at that time they didn't even have caller identification so you had to do you had to pick it up no matter who you had no idea what was going to call but you had it was ringing you had to pick up and give your attention to that call then the time came for slightly when there was caller Ids at least you could look and see who is called do I want to talk to this person so the choice in directing your attention and that is really the beginning of meditation or any meditation practice is to have some influence over where your attention goes and usually in meditation your attention is directed to a meditation object for a while and some people get stuck there for 20 years or the rest of their lives the attention may go to a mantra which really is a certain thought or certain sounds that you repeat in your head or you speak out aloud and so your it it becomes the focus for your attention and you choose to direct your attention there rather than useless thinking you directed your attention becomes focused or you can have an external object of your attention the candle flame a flower whatever it is and you keep your attention there for a few minutes 10 minutes 15 minutes and when it wanders away and you notice it's gone away you choose to redirect your attention to that the object of your meditation so that's a it's a practice you it's like a physical exercise you the muscle of choice is strengthened by realizing you you can practice you have a choice and then you reach cover you do not have to follow every thought where it wants to take you you can drop your thought or you can recognize your thought it's just another of those old thoughts not interesting and then it dissolves by itself [Applause] you you

Channel: Eckhart Tolle

Views: 242,749

Rating: 4.8101349 out of 5

Keywords: how to stop overthinking, stop excessive thinking, how to focus, freedom from thought, overthinking, focus my thoughts, overactive brain, excessive thinking, how to focus the mind, eckhart tolle thought, eckhart tolle 2019, thought process, eckhart tolle

Id: pPey7m4jNto

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2019