How transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is essential to personal happiness.
In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle shows how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world.
Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence.
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
Animated Video By: The Journey
Key Takeaways
Even though it’s a spiritual book, the big ideas in a new earth can be applied in a practical way. the book itself is a journey from the first chapter to the last where eckhart tolle takes you step by step toward self discovery. he talks about many causes for unhappiness and unveils the ways to overcome them.
- You are seperate from your thoughts.
- Every moment of your life is transient– this too shall pass.
- Expect good and bad things to happen to you on a regular basis and you’re free from stress, because stress is a reflection of resistance toward reality. The moment you accept reality as it is, you’re free from negativity.
"I think therefor I am." -Descartes
Descartes was trying to prove his existence. he wanted to find the self. He ended up concluding that his incessant stream of thoughts was the only proof, thereby the source of self for him was thought. Is this 100% valid?
If we zoom in on our day to day thought patterns we will find this…bills, hunger, take out the trash, do this do that, i feel lonely etc. Thoughts are always changing and are conflicting most of the time.
If you identify yourself as thoughts you won’t be able to experience calmness and inner peace because your thoughts are constantly changing, so do your emotions. What you are looking for is a constant state of no change, calmness and stillness.
When your thoughts are changing every two seconds, your emotions are impermanent as well. Your feelings are constantly switching back and forth from negative to positive and this is the cause of mood swings, unease, and discontentment.
The human being is made up of two main components:
Form the body, the physical layer.
Formlessness the soul, the consciousness. the watcher as Eckhart Tolle calls it and the spiritual layer.
There is an actual space between the self and your thoughts. Your thoughts and emotions are objects just like any other external object and these forms are not permanent, they are stuck in a loop or alternation. The only thing that is constant is consciousness.
How to put this into practice
If you start perceiving yourself as constant consciousness, you detach yourself from these alternating thoughts, and when you do this, anytime a negative thought arises, you start seeing it no different than a car passing by while you are walking down the street because now you are aware that you are separate from your thoughts.
The point here is its ok to have thoughts, feel emotions, positive or negative. Be aware when you get lost in them. You shouldn’t be identifying yourself with them. The moment you remind yourself of the space that separates you from your thoughts, any negative emotion subsides.
"This, too, shall pass."
When something bad happens, before you call it good or bad, read this to yourself and you will always be at peace. Most people do not have the patience and the will to maintain their well-being, while going through adversity. The emotions are so intense that is why we tend to lose ourselves in the event. When we bring to mind that spaciousness and nothing is permanent, a great relief arises inside of us.
If you find yourself going through a hard time, do not resist. Let those emotions flow through you. Experience that sadness as if it were true joy. Keep in mind that every moment of your life is transient.
I do not deserve this. I deserve better.
You reject the reality in front of you and wish for something that isn’t. There is no such thing as a reality of no pain. Pain as an actual tool for growth. Pain isn’t something bad. If you accept that the world is full of paradoxes, and expect good and bad things to happen on a regular basis, you set yourself free from resistance, and you begin to see reality as it is.
Truth it, the world is black and white. Good emotions and bad emotions. Death and life. Pleasant experiences and unpleasant experiences. That is how its supposed to be. If you’re paranoid about what’s going to happen tomorrow or still mad about what happened today conveys that you did not accept reality as it is. You are still hoping for a reality of no pain. Living in a mental Utopian fantasy.
