Navigating Life’s Challenges with Spiritual Awareness | Eckhart Tolle

or by the way when you awaken spiritually it doesn't mean this is the end of challenges they don't stop the only difference is and it's a big difference you no longer unconsciously transform the challenges of life into unhappiness the entire psychological self that you think you are that your identity that is derived from whatever it is that your mind identifies with your past what happened to you in your past what you did what people did to you what you achieved your successes your failures your sufferings victories and defeats from your past they gradually a story forms in the mind and the story is thought certain thoughts they come together as a bundle and so after as you grow up and you become an adult and you grow this becomes more developed this th this mental image of who you are and that becomes who you sense yourself to be as a person that becomes the your personality your and that is uh the foundation for most people's sense of identity that is all they know and that is the unawakened State of Consciousness so you are confined to this ultimately mindmade sense of self that consists of a story line a narrative that you you think about and you call it my life me and my life and that exists in time this is where the time Dimension becomes very important because the the me and my life is me the person that I am now which is conditioned by my past all the things one the past that has that make up the person that I am now and then future becomes important for this me and my life because you can look to the Future as a destination a source of possible greater fulfillment because strange thing is the sense of self that is that arises from the past that is that consists of a bundle of uh um recurring thought forms plus emotional formations mental mental emotional entity that entity that you call me and my life is uh a lot of the time spends uh it time worrying about me and my life and considers itself problematic or you carry you as that entity you as that person you everybody here carries a life situation with him or herself you carry a life situation with you and everybody here has certain a certain set of problems in their life situation which whether they are related to your relationships whether they they related to your health situation whether they're related to your financial situation your work situation uh your any of these areas it's rare that the the you're totally you're free of perceiving yourself as being kind of almost burdened by problems and that many people uh have a view of the themselves of their identity as a problem to be solved unconsciously they don't they don't say they don't say I am a problem to be solved but there's a there's an underlying current of unspoken thought that says there's something that is not quite right here and you and then you look at others especially on Facebook and you see they don't don't have those problems so what's wrong with me what's wrong and even if you walk in the street they seem to be okay and you could perceive why am I always have all got that stuff going on and then of course you begin to pretend too you don't know that the others are pretending but you are pretending and then you start taking the Selfies for your Facebook post [Music] so this this mental image that people have we now have the technology is isn't it great to amplify this mental image and send it out into the world and we can polish it up so that it looks great out there but the greater it looks on your face which tast the worse you feel inside so the interesting fact is then that uh everybody carries the the burden of their life situation and whether it's a heavy burden for you at this time or whether it's a relatively light burden for you at this time as you sit here may vary from person to person but there is not a single person unless there's a baby here somewhere there's there's not a single person who does not carry this burden of their life situation whether it's heavy or light at the moment and it could change if it's heavy today it might not be heavy anymore tomorrow and but then it'll be heavy again and another time so and that's an interesting fact um and that is part of person's sense of identity is what I call the life situation what is me and my story and there's always and that's a strange fact there's always something missing there's always a sense an underlying sense of I am not enough I haven't arrived yet what there is a there's a search ultimately for greater fulfillment a search for yourself ultimately for a better version of yourself now there's nothing wrong with uh engaging in activities that help you learn a new skill or new acquire new knowledge and so so you gradually be you become a better version of your yourself you become let's say you acquire more better education whatever it is a skill dance whatever uh that's that's fine but whatever it is you acquire on one level you can improve yourself no doubt but on a deeper level that sense of dissatisfaction will resurface again and again and no matter what you achieve or attain for a little while sometimes it happens that a person is totally feeling now I'm fully myself I have arrived this happens it could happen when you win the lottery and there's been many things written about lottery winners many of them became more unhappy after winning the lottery there were just there's a moment of elation and then there was greater unhappiness so there's that sense of the underlying sense of not enough not enough yet I'm not enough and you never actually arrive and then you reach retirement age and you suddenly realize that you've always been waiting to start living uh and that's a pity you without knowing it you've always been lived for the next moment or some other future moment and thought I'm going to get there one day I'm going to make it whatever it's a weird expression what make it really make yourself I suppose that's one day I'm going to make it and ultimately several times you think you made it but then you realize the your life situation again sabotages you that's what it does you might have noticed you you do your best you you you do your best your best intentions and you should and but no matter how good your intention how well focused you are and how much positive thinking you do which which are all great things I'm not saying don't do them do them but even there you do not escape this fact that challenges come one after another and challenges sometimes come in the form of uh some form of uh chaos there's it's good to strive for order but no matter how good you are in bringing about order in your life and it's a great thing you will periodically encounter the eruption of disorder in your life whether it's an illness or some kind of loss or some huge drama in your relationship or toxic you might have noticed by the way uh a great source of challenge in your life one of the greatest apart from the fact that the as you grow older the body is being consumed that's