What the part of you that looks ahead already knows | Eckhart Tolle

So the future is a two-edged sword. It promises fulfillment, but it really will kill you. That's time. Well, we are all suffering as a physical entity. We are all suffering, of course, from that disease. The prognosis is not good because we all have this virus called time. People sometimes kill each other because they can't agree on a subject. Why? Because you derive your sense of identity from thought. An opinion is a thought or a group of thoughts in your mind that you identify with. When you identify with it, it becomes part of the ego. So we're talking here, of course, I haven't used the word so far, we are talking about egoic consciousness. When you identify with thought completely, you are in egoic consciousness. The ego is operating in you and it pretends to be you. And so you are, spiritually speaking, Asleep, you are a totally conditioned entity. And so every opinion that you have, anybody should question it, that this person is questioning your very sense of identity, and that's how you react. You feel threatened in your sense of identity. It's, it's an absurd delusion, but millions live like that. So the identification with mental positions is is a very important part of the egoic consciousness. Now, does this mean as you awaken to the deeper levels, the transcendent dimension, does that mean you no longer have any opinions? No, it doesn't. You continue to have opinions and of course thoughts also, but you do not derive your sense of who you are from those thoughts or opinions. Why do you no longer derive your sense of who you are from those thoughts? Because you have found something much more real, much more fundamental than any thought that tells you who you are. A thought is, by the analogy they often use, is a ripple On the surface of the ocean. You as a personality, and the personality consists of the conditioning of your mind, you're like a ripple on the surface of the ocean, and you exist as this ripple. Some ripples are bigger than others, but it doesn't make that much difference. Some ripples are even waves. They might have a private jet, so they have a— there's a wave, I'm a wave, I'm not a ripple on the surface of the ocean. And so the ripple considers, it looks at other ripples and feels uneasy, and it's never complete, and deep down it knows that its existence is short-lived, so it hopes to become a little bigger ripple by looking to the future, Because if I get this, that, or that, I'll be a bigger ripple. But it also knows deep down that the future that it looks to for fulfillment will eventually kill it too. So the future is a two-edged sword. It promises fulfillment, but it really will kill you. That's time. Well, we are all suffering as a physical entity. We are all suffering, of course, from that disease. The prognosis is not good because we all have this virus called time, and it's already consuming our bodies. And you don't have to wait long, and finally it kills you. They haven't found a remedy yet against time. So the ripple lives an uneasy existence on the surface of the ocean. Looking for some kind of completion and fearing other ripples or wanting to use other ripples. Come, let's join, the two together we can kind of bigger ripple, but it probably won't work. And then let's say the ripple in a moment of complete dissatisfaction with life, when it says nothing makes sense anymore, it finally comes to a stop in its incessant search for fulfillment. And it comes to a stop in its incessant doing and looking to the next moment for some kind of fulfillment, and the ripple for a moment stops, and— but it doesn't stop because it has taken— I don't know if this analogy still works if I continue with the ripple, but— Oh. I talked about Transcending a sense of self through taking in a substance, it frees you for a moment from this sense of insufficiency. This— the ripple feels a little bit better and has taken something and, you know, doesn't think about his problems anymore. Ah. It doesn't always work because sometimes it can awaken the pain body. Certain substances like alcohol can awaken your pain body. In which case, because it lowers your level of consciousness to an even lower level than your normal level— not— I'm not talking to you personally. It lowers your level when you drink, lowers your level of consciousness to an even lower than the normal level, and then this gives the pain body an opportunity to completely take you over.