- But this is almost an analogy for the rest of your life, too. If things don't get difficult, then there is no growth in consciousness. (bell chimes) So to become aware of
presence is not really it. You become aware of yourself as presence, that's a bit better, or perhaps even better, presence or consciousness
becomes aware of itself. That's kind of the closest you
can get, if you want to get, as far language is concerned. So it is important to experience awareness not in relation to, let's forget for a moment
our sense perceptions, because we talk about that also, how to perceive without conceptualization, unless conceptualization
is needed, then it's fine, and you bring it in, and so on, but now awareness, just awareness, which is, in essence, this is the essence of meditation. The essence of meditation is
not something that you do, because it's misleading to
think of meditation as a doing, because any kind of doing requires time. You can't do without time. It implies that there's something, you're moving towards something. So even the underlying
idea when you meditate, that you're doing meditation, can be an obstacle to true meditation. So meditation is not a doing, because meditation is
the realization of being. So you have these two dimensions, the doing dimension, which is to do with the world of form, and the transcendent dimension, which is the timeless being itself, the form of which is consciousness, if you want to give it a label. And you embody both, one could say. One could say there's two of you, almost. This is not the ultimate truth, but it's a way of putting it. There's two of you. There is the personal being,
the person, the personal self, the human, the human you, and you know that very well. The human you is not easy. Doesn't have an easy life. No human has an easy life. There may be one or two of you who were born into very
privileged circumstances, and you might say, "Oh, that's an easy. I'd like to have a life like that, to never need to worry
about making enough money, or it's all there already provided. There's a trust fund. You're born, and the baby, you'll be trust fund baby, and for the rest of your
life, do you have to worry? Do you have to worry about that. Okay. Ah, I'd love that." And then everything you want
is immediately given to you in your childhood, and then you go on, so it seems an easy life, and this very easy life will turn out to be
your greatest obstacle, and create the greatest
amount of suffering for you, because you will develop into a very superficial, egoic creature, that makes life difficult
for yourself and others, and then you suffer more and more, so you can't escape it. You can't escape the challenges of life, no matter how you imagine it to be. The human is here in
order to be challenged. The human is not here in order
to find ultimate happiness, ultimate satisfaction, or fulfillment on the level of the human. The level of the human
is not designed for that, and the world doesn't know that yet, because humans are looking for solutions, the real solutions, on the horizontal level
of the human dimension, and it's not there. You get challenged, and
whatever situation you go into, you will find the element of dukkha, the word mentioned last night, unsatisfactoriness, suffering, unhappiness, misery, will creep into whatever you
do somehow, sooner or later. If it hasn't crept in
yet, just wait a little, and you'll find, even if you meet the
most wonderful person, and then you get married,
or you don't, or whatever, but you start living together, and sooner or later you'll discover this most wonderful person that you thought is
going to make you happy, also makes you unhappy, because you hadn't seen
the full person yet. There was a something hidden
that only reveals itself when you start living together. (Eckhart laughs) (audience laughs) As long as you're only going
to have dates, it's fine. You can gaze into each other's eyes, (audience laughs) and it's wonderful. So you can't escape it on the human level. You get challenged, and that's fine. You need the challenge, and you need to challenge yourself, if you want to create something, if you want to bring about
some change in this world, you want to make your life,
your so-called life, better, you're looking to achieve this, or to learn this, or to acquire this, that's part of being human. We don't deny that. And if you don't want to
achieve anything, let's say, you have no ambition whatsoever and say, "Oh, it's all pointless," because you don't want
to challenge yourself, then life will challenge
you even more if you don't. Challenging yourself would be even to engage in
physical activity, and jogging. You're challenging yourself. Or you're lifting weights, or you're challenging the
body on a physical level. The only way you can
make the body stronger, the physical body, is by making, let's put it like this, it is a strange way of
putting it, but it's true. You have to make life
difficult for your body, otherwise it doesn't get stronger. Well to lift a weight is, I
mean, if you ask the body, "Would you rather have a good just relax, or lift this weight?" (audience laughs) (Eckhart laughs) "Oh, no, I just want to relax. I don't want to make
my life more difficult than it needs to be, so I just..." Okay, you don't get stronger without, but when you make life
difficult for the body, then more energy is demanded, and more energy comes flowing in. The energy doesn't come
until you demand it, there's a request or a demand for energy, because there's a gap
between what you want, and what, at the moment, the body doesn't have enough
energy, and suddenly it comes, and then you reach a point when
an influx of energy starts, then it's no longer perceived that you make life
difficult for your body. Once the energy starts flowing, the body enjoys this flow of energy, but before the energy starts flowing, life was difficult for the body, and so you always, you meet always, the threshold of life gets
difficult for the body, and then energy comes in, and then suddenly, not even
perceived as difficult anymore, and that you may experience it every day when you start exercising. But this is almost an analogy
for the rest of your life too. If things don't get difficult, then there is no growth in consciousness. We talked about the influx of
energy for the physical body, but energy can manifest
in many frequencies, and ultimately, it is consciousness, and so you cannot become a
more conscious human being, unless you experience
the challenges of life. And it's good to create, want to create this or that, so you are choosing, to some extent, you can choose the challenges
that you want to experience. Whenever you want to
bring about something new in this world, it's a challenge, but you created it, you say you want to create this, hopefully comes from a deeper level, not the ego that says, "I need this, otherwise I won't be happy and fulfilled, and I won't be completely myself. I need to achieve this in order to become happy, and recognized, and make it. I want to make it." Weird expression. Make what? (audience laughs) "Myself. I want to make myself." If you don't challenge yourself, life will challenge you, and you will encounter challenges, well, you certainly didn't want that. So you can't escape. It's good to challenge
yourself in a sane way, not in an insane way. And so partly, one part of the challenges of life is the challenges that
you yourself create, and that can be divided into conscious creation. You want to manifest something new, whatever it is that you
want in your career, or something you want to build up, and then there are challenges
that you create unconsciously through the conditioned mind, and that's a huge amount
of suffering for humans. They create their own challenges, but they perceive it as if the challenges were
coming at them from the outside, not knowing that a huge amount of problems,
difficulties, challenges, whatever you want to call it, are created by their unconsciousness in relation to other people, in relation to situations, the reactivity that amplifies
every little problem that comes from the outside, through other human beings, or situations, the reactivity, the unconscious
reactivity of the ego, amplifies the problem, and makes a drama out
of relatively little. It didn't need to become a drama, but it becomes a drama,
through reactivity. These are challenges that humans create
unconsciously for themselves, and it's a great moment of awakening when you realize that
many of your difficulties, you were a significant
contributing factor, let's put it like that, in the difficulties that
you seem to encounter in situations, and through
other people, and so on, when you discover your own
reactivity, for example, that's a huge discovery. And then there are the types of challenges that come at you seemingly out of nowhere. It could be that an
earthquake could happen here in a minute, oh, let's not manifest it, (audience laughs) and we don't know, it comes
out of nowhere, who knows? Or aliens suddenly land. Assorted challenges. Some challenges seem to come
out of nowhere, but you can't, there are so many different types of difficulties or challenges
that you encounter, but you cannot escape the
difficulties and the challenges, because it is not only on the human level, animals encounter their own challenges, even plants and trees
encounter their own challenges. Every life form encounters obstacles, opposition, every life form experiences
the fragility of life, that life is fleeting and uncertain, and that is how gradually
consciousness evolved, because consciousness needs to come in as a response to the challenges of life, and that is once we realize that life is meant to be challenges, challenging, or difficult, once you realize that, then you become free of the huge illusion that there's something wrong when your life becomes difficult. (Eckhart laughs) It's because these are all necessary. You need that. That's the good news, or bad news. The world isn't here to make you happy, this is how I put it. The world is not here to make you, this is the human level of this, it's not here to make you happy. It can't do that, no
matter how hard you try. It's here to make you
conscious by challenging you, by making your life difficult, and, of course, as I said, that great part of it may
be your own unconsciousness, but that's how you, if you make your own life difficult through your unconsciousness, you begin to suffer
more, and more, and more, and you don't even, for a long time, you don't know that you're
creating your own suffering. It's always like, "It's them. It's there.
It's there. It's there." The most unconscious people
are continuously projecting that all causes of their misery
and unhappiness are outside. It's all outside. When you listen to a
very unconscious person, you listen to the themes
that run through them, and their narrative, are
blaming, complaining. It's always, "It's them. Him. Her. Them." All the situations, all the places. (Eckhart laughs) (water cascading)
