How Do I Practice Presence When Taking Medications?

my question is with medications how do you practice presence when you are forced to take medication in particular for very painful ailments yes so you are do you take regular you're on regular medication and no I don't know I don't but you have been oh but I have taken medication who toothaches right I in particular and said to say when I was in Africa I had a toothache and when I took the medication because of my addiction conditioning even when the pain went away I kept on taking the codeine so for a full month and a half I was in this court in haze in Africa but then when I came back to the United Kingdom I did stop and I have enough presence not to take it if it wasn't for the trigger of the pain of the toothache so I just want to ask what do you do when you have a toothache I take medication I'll tell you this but what I take and it does not seem to affect my mind at all what I take I cannot get in North America United States or Canada so whenever I come to Europe England is it's made in England but I can also get it in Ireland and places like that and in Australia they sell it too so I always stock up because ok I do do get to things occasionally and sometimes I get headaches not very often these days but it can happen so the only medication I ever take and it's pretty rare to is this visit it's basically aspirin but but it's soluble aspirin because of the throat dysfunction I have I cannot swallow pills so I need to dissolve it's it's soluble aspirin installed this friend I highly recommended it's called this spring because it dissolves in water so in extreme cases of a tru-spec toothache or that I take that two of those in the glass of water I notice no difference strangely enough in in my consciousness when I take it but there may be other types of medication which if I took those like codeine I think it's what causes that might affect my consciousness in some way I don't know how also something that we need to also talk about is not just medication that are pain medications for the physical pain we also need to mention in this context medication that is prescribed to millions in millions of people for mental states such as antidepressants and tranquilizers which also of course affect your mind and may diminish your capacity to stay present because it may send you into a haze as you put it so now it's a terrible thing for example how many people I know that in some extreme cases I have to be careful with what I say because in the past I've made some doctors in the audience very angry and I don't mind making doctor very angry but I just wanted to be balanced what I say I know that in extreme cases medication for mental conditions can be helpful in extreme cases there's no doubt about that and there may be some people who saw our surviving big du trade but there are millions of people who don't really need it but the first thing the doctor or moment I just talked about the mental medication then I come to the physical but the doctors in millions of children are being prescribed certain types of medication that affect the mind and that is a huge mistake believe except in the men's aforementioned extreme cases so there's an addiction a huge huge massive mass addiction to prescribed drugs prescription drugs in addition to the addiction to so-called illegal drugs well one of them is now becoming more and more legal that's okay so but in a huge amount of dependency on and addiction to mind-altering drugs and so they are specifically there to alter real mental state and then there you have the physical drugs that are meant to do something else but have a side effect they affect your mind also so I'm often asked and I have often been asked what about antidepressants and tranquilizers until I get include now in this great certain types of pain medication should we take it or should we not take it can we can one still be present and that may vary from group there are many different types of medication whether or not you can still be present depends on two factors one is how deep or strong your presence is when your presence is shaky when it's just arising in you even one or two glasses of wine can affect your presence that's why I forgot on this retreat why I often recommend if possible don't don't drink alcohol body on this retreat because if your presence is not has not fully emerged yet it's still just a tender plant it can be affected by a small dosage of alcohol and you lose presence so you order a glass of wine and you say obviously I'm not going to have more than one glass and after one glass your wellness has already gone down so you don't remember anymore that you said that obviously I'm not going to have it more contrast and then because your awareness has gone down okay I'll have one more one more please and there you go I mean you know that you've been there yes now another interesting thing is when you're when so the extent to which you are affected by certain times medication partly depends on how powerfully the presence is a already active in you and through you that so if it's just attend a little plant it gets affected easily and immediately but if you're already firmly established in presence you will notice a change in your mind but strangely it will not affect your awareness I'm speaking from personal experience and I'm not telling you how and why okay I frequently I confess almost every evening with dinner I have a glass of wine and sometimes two but rarely more than two after 200 it's fine after the second glass I noticed a small change in my mind it's hard to describe it's a small you describe it as haziness I don't know if I would use that word in that particular case I know there is a slight difference in my mind but my awareness is there it's as before presence is there as before so there is a presence behind this this change in the mind another example a few years ago when we were in Amsterdam you know what's coming now I was persuaded I didn't choose it somebody persuaded me he said have you tried to smoke because that's what everybody does in Amsterdam I currently but nowadays they do it everywhere else too so I said well I tried it 20 years ago I didn't do anything I didn't like it and they said well you must not have inhaled properly so we got some got some and in the hotel room I tried it and I could notice that it certainly did affect my mind but the witnessing consciousness was untouched by it the witnessing Connie was was actually witnessing the haziness in my mind so and then I found that I don't need to do this again because my usual state of winter conscience is much more pleasant than the one after the smoke much more much more pleasant and peaceful without I don't need the haziness but I can see that a person who is tortured on a daily basis by his or her mind can find some relief in that haziness that comes with smoking and I would not necessarily outright condemn every use of this after all it's only a plant it's a so it for some people it gives them some relief it's not the way to go it's not the way you are till you want to go but it can have a little opening I also try to acid once but don't need to mention that because it's it's basically the same story so it did not affect the awareness in me but this is my personal experience now I have not experienced mind-altering drugs like prescription drugs as far as I remember so the question that is often asked of me when people say can one still be present when one man takes these drugs I can't really answer I would have to actually to be a truthful answer first of all it would be subjective because can I can only tell you if I can still be present when I take this drug I would have to try it and I would have to try every drug to give it to a small answer so only you can know if you cannot stay if it completely obscures your presence then of course it's best to refrain from taking this except in very extreme cases of toothache in your case but I used to suffer a lot from tooth aches because for many years in my life I couldn't afford to go to the dentist and I had a kind of phobia of dentists because I went to a very bad one months and the memory memory stayed in my mind and it with regular visits to dentists the likelihood of having to take diminishes so that's a helpful thing you have the in this United Kingdom hopefully up or you can probably afford it but it's free I suppose yes yeah so in extreme cases I would said to try let go of codeine and try this brain it's my spiritual advice to you [Applause]

Channel: Eckhart Tolle

Views: 146,326

Keywords: mind altering drugs, medication and presence, practicing spirituality on medication, drugs and presence, eckhart tolle presence, eckhart tolle thoughts and emotions, deeper into presence, practicing presence, power of now, mental fog, becoming present, presence, awakening, conciousness, eckhart tolle 2019, eckhart tolle

Id: v83MX0PuI0o

Length: 13min 39sec (819 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 23 2019