(bell rings) - As I mentioned before, not that it's not challenging anymore, there will be challenges,
but of a different kind. External challenges will continue to come. The challenges, the
problems and difficulties of the unobserved mind, however, will no longer be there. And that's a huge percentage of suffering in a person's life, a huge
percentage of suffering, of unhappiness, to use a generic term. A huge percentage of unhappiness arises not created by situations, but by the mind. You can verify that wherever you are and see when you begin to feel upset, you begin to feel unhappy. What is it that causes you
to feel upset or unhappy? Is it the situation, or is it what your mind is
telling you about the situation? What makes you unhappy? You can test it in the most seemingly
insignificant situation because the mechanism is the same whether it's a big suffering
or small suffering. You're in a queue in the supermarket, it's not moving. The person is so slow, the cashier, and so inefficient and you have so much else to do. Why should you be standing here waiting when if they could only find
people who are more efficient and you just can't stand it anymore. I'm not going back here anymore. I really should...
(audience laughs) That's the beginning of suffering. It's unhappiness, and what's creating it? The situation or your mind? And when you suddenly... And this is only a small example. You could take your almost entire life. When suffering arises, is it really the situation? In some cases it may be because there can be dreadful
things that can happen. But if then, if you're still unhappy several months later, then
it's also your mind again. So observe how when you
become aware of what your mind is doing when you're upset,
when unhappiness arises, see, okay, is it the
situation or is it my mind? And suddenly the awareness comes, and your mind is no longer
the unobserved mind. Now your mind becomes the observed mind. And then you realize
what your mind is doing. And then you stand in the supermarket, and say, "Okay, I don't
really need all that. "What would it be like to
just accept this moment "as it is without adding
the mental stuff to it? "Oh, not so bad. "I'm just standing here. "Breathing, looking at people." There's nothing wrong with it if your mind doesn't tell you there's something wrong with it. It's actually okay, it's
just the present moment. If I were not standing here, I would be standing somewhere else. (audience laughs) Or if I wouldn't be standing, I would be sitting somewhere else, or walking somewhere
else, not that different. But the mind tells you, "You
should be somewhere else. "I shouldn't be..." So you become, and you
can tell the difference in situations where you
can do something about it and situations where you
can't do anything about. But even if you can do something about it, make sure that you accept
the present moment first and then you take action. Because if you don't
accept the present moment, the action you take will be
action arising from upset or from anger. (growls) And this is karmic action. It creates more of the same
stuff coming back at you. (Eckhart laughs) It might solve this particular situation, but in solving this particular situation through your angry reaction, you've created two or
three other situations in the next moment that
reflect back this karmically. (Eckhart laughs) Insane. (audience laughs) Normal.
(audience laughs) This is why I say normal equals insane. So observe your mind. See how much of your
unhappiness is not the situation that you lost your job, your marriage collapsed, whatever it is. Is that causing the unhappiness or the mental commentary,
the story in the head that tells you how bad this is? Either by blaming somebody else or by blaming yourself or blaming life or blaming God. You can choose it,
whatever you want to blame. The mind is happy, whatever
the mind can blame, the ego and mind is happy with that. But all those challenges or
suffering or difficulties, those things begin to
evaporate from your life. What remains however is certain challenges that
come in wherever you are through situations, through other people who are still unconscious. There are a few left,
you might have noticed, who are still unconscious. And you can't remove yourself from that so you're faced with certain situations that correspond to where humanity is at in their collective
level of consciousness. You might have physical problems still, although many illnesses are created by the unobserved mind. There are other factors too. And the body will eventually grow old, and that's a big problem
if you make it into one. And a dreadful thing if you
had completely identified with the body, and now it's beginning to shrink or disappear or collapse. Who am I now, if for the past few decades you're looking in the mirror gave you most of your
sense of who you are? Or taking selfies.
(audience laughs) One day, a few years pass, then the selfies are not that satisfying to look at anymore.
(audience laughs) Who am I now? There's something wrong. I need to get a new iPhone.
(audience laughs) So that's the... beware of what your mind is doing. And if you only get, there are many things from this evening that are potentially life transforming. And even just taking one with you would be enough. Even if you took the one, the last thing we just mentioned. Whenever suffering arises, upset, angry reaction, unhappiness, be aware of, where does it come from, my mind or the situation? And if it is your mind, do I want that? Who am I? Am I those thoughts? No, well, who am I? Do I want those thoughts? Do I want that unhappiness? Is that my choice, to
think unhappy thoughts and feel unhappy, day after day, night after night? every time I wake up in
the middle of the night, the same thoughts come
and make me unhappy. And I think this is
the reality of my life. (chuckles) The thoughts
that make me unhappy, people think, "That's
the reality of my life." (groans) It's a total illusion. And so you step out of that into, oh, that's just things that happened. And that's just life, things come and go. You lose, you gain. And then you lose again, and then you... gain and loss. Impermanence, you can't
hang onto anything. There's no security out there, no matter how many life
insurance you have or whatever. It's an illusion. Life insurance, I have
a big life insurance. Well, to start with, it shouldn't
be called life insurance. It should be called death insurance. (audience laughs) But that's not so attractive anymore. It would destroy the illusion. (audience laughs)
(Eckhart laughs) (gentle music) This mind made sense of self
is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are beyond your history and your life situation. (uplifting music) (water rushing)
