How Do We Break The Habit Of Excessive Thinking?

I've read all your books and I listen to your recordings on a pretty much on a daily basis and I don't say that to build up a ego that doesn't exist it leads into my question what I find and trying to practice the power of now trying to be conscious without thought is a very heavy inner dialogue of all the principles and things that I've read like how should I do this what would Eckhart say and and and actually my thought process starts getting more active and I think I'm losing the presence by that thought process and then I think at a your latest book with the cartoons which I love which I think there's one with a little bird in the tree he's talking to the dog he's very upset and dogs is what's wrong and the birds as well you know I'm thinking about yesterday and this and that and I'm worried about what's gonna happen in a week two weeks about the future what do i do what do I do and a dog just looks at them and says stop thinking so how do I you know it seems you try to stop thinking but and you read all this and you try to practice it but yet in any given situation I find that in order to get closer to practicing it or even practice it it's causing a lot of thoughts to happen so it's a different kind of thoughts are those thoughts that I should break that kind of habit and if so how okay thank you thank you now the there's a lot of talk these days about not just talk actually it's happening addictions many people are dictated to all kinds of things substances but one of the greatest addictions or one of the greatest addiction never actually you never read about it in the papers because the people are addicted to it don't know it it's the addiction to thinking it's actually addictive can't stop thinking it's like can't stop drinking can't stop smoking can't stop eating can't stop thinking thinking is the greater addiction then any of these and it's an addiction because it's first it's been a drug I wants to has been around for so long and it's a pseudo sense of self so it's a great reluctance on the part of most people to let go of thinking because is equated with the state of sleep to let go of thinking there isn't that much to understand in this teaching there's a little bit to understand about how the ego works but even that is just mainly not self observation the main thing about it is presence presence and presence is a space of no thought but presence can also be there in the background even when thinking is happening you can still be not completely involved in the thinking thinking loses the ability to create havoc in your life and confuse you so in your choice then is not to understand more or to bring some intellectual analysis to the practice but to practice the state of not thinking which can be arrived at by various ways as you probably know if you don't think about it just do it it's becoming more aware of the present moment and accept it as it is slows down the overactive mind is one thing because a lot of the over activity of the mind is an attempt to get away from the isness simplicity of the present moment so to become more aware of the present moment as a practice have perhaps little pointers in your office at home in your car let's say present moment or whatever or a symbol for it and there are different entry points into the present moment present moment awareness means thinking subsides may not disappear completely but something else arises that is primary we call it presence or awareness Buddhists call it mindfulness which I don't use because it implies is empty of your mind is full of things but it isn't of course it's just a mistranslation so to be present first of all use the present moment to become but how do you become conscious of the present moment now when you get it after a while you can you can actually sense the presence of the present so to speak directly in there it is but helpful things our sense perceptions take you out of thinking if you're not judging the sense perceptions labeling naming looking around anywhere wherever you are look around practice sense perceptions without this compulsive interference of naming what what you are perceiving oh that's a beautiful flow I wonder what it's called I don't know what it's cultural that helps I can be free of thinking if I know what it's called I can say oh that's such-and-such and then drop that and see what it means to perceive without interference of concepts words at this moment for example you're looking at me now let's say between now and now were you thinking no okay and again between now and now where you're thinking or present no thought and while I speak do you need to think to understand what I'm saying or can you just listen and understand it and this is what you're doing and so let's part of the teaching and the function of the spiritual teacher imparting information is secondary what I'm telling you now is secondary what is primary is the underlying state of consciousness which is presence that's the teaching but you can't talk about that it's underlying but the a sign that it's working is that while you listen there's no thought it's just a dirt presence and when the so-called teacher stops speaking for a moment the alert presence remains it does not need to be filled with anything just like now what is there to think about nothing now if we do this for longer if we at some point your mind will probably start up and think how much longer is he going to sit there and when that happens you can allow your mind to say how much longer is he going to sit there and say nothing and then come back to presence and then some other thought will come what's this all about and then you can allow that sort arise and then be present again which means you're not really your priority is no longer to follow the thought where it wants to take you because the thought has a magnetic pole it wants more of your consciousness it wants to grow because it's a little entity it wants to grow so it wants to your tension in in subtle ways it tries to get your attention it says it might even use a bodily feeling says god I'm hungry suddenly why didn't I need to eat something and then you think of a rape what restaurant I'm going to afterwards and so the presence is gone you are gone you are looking for a restaurant in your mind which means the thought used as some bodily thing to make thoughts out of it completely pointless because you can't find a restaurant because you're standing here but it can use all kinds of things to manufacture most to get your attention and if you're not careful if you don't know the mechanism it's not so much an intellectual understanding but a simple realization that this is what the mind does it tries to pull you in it's fine that's what it does once you know that you can allow thought to arise without following it where it wants you to go which is into another bigger thought and a bigger one so then you become like like my dog when it finds a scent and then suddenly even the dope when the dog is off leash your leash is fine she just runs around you but suddenly she picks up a scent and then she goes off completely unaware of surroundings or anything you just follows it and she could get lot she goes off to the horizon sometimes just disappears and that's when you follow a thought it goes like that you can wake up 20 minutes later and it started with last being a little bit hungry and thinking of a restaurant and it ends up with thinking about how ungrateful your life is you

Channel: Eckhart Tolle

Views: 6,540,590

Rating: 4.8782768 out of 5

Keywords: Eckhart, Tolle, Eckharttolletv, ETTV, Spiritual, Awakening, Daily, life, liberating, liberation, mind, body, spirit, thinking, presence, excessive thinking, habits, break, stop, addiction

Id: dTFDfR47dl4

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 03 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Tolle is great. He has such an eloquent way of expressing the simplest ideas in an interesting way.

[u/TheCleansingFlame]

I spent a good amount of time trying to find weaknesses or inconsistencies in the power of now book, but it's actually really well written. I still question it from time to time though, just for the sake of challenging what my thoughts cling to.