Below my notes of the eye-opening Eckhart Tolle audio recording "Lasting Happiness". Enjoy.
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The collective is always looking to the next thing, the next moment in the hope that happiness will be found there or that I will find a more complete version of myself there. Seeking it/looking for a state that lies somewhere in the future. That becomes a pattern built into the very structure of the human mind. The seeking pattern.
Thats a very "normal" thing to be doing:
- The bank robber does that because he's not interested in the money but what promise the money holds.
- Spiritual seeker who is looking for the answer. Enlightenment perhaps. That will finally provide lasting happiness.
"The human seeking mode" - so normal for most human beings to be in the seeking mode that too many it hasn't even occured that they are in this mode or a different state of consciousness is possible. Wherever you watch (TV, media, films) almost everybody is in that seeking mode.
The present moment is regarded as insufficient. I am not yet enough. I am not happy. I can only be happy if I finally arrived at that sense of completion within myself. The bank robber seeks that through the money.
"I need more time to find it". Time-bound consciousness: whatever you do is governed by the notion of time. Unless you're very old it will be future that is greater importance to you. In older people the past assumes a greater importance. They remember it. Memory of me and my past. Think about it & talk about it. Because future has shrunk. Some of them haven't realized yet that they don't have too much future left so they are still looking for "more".
Mentally constructed image. Conceptualized me. Memories, conditioned patterns, experiences, all kinds of identifications which became thoughts make up a bundle of thoughts and emotions, and that mentally created bundle becames a sense of self in me. It is that mind made me a story, my story, my history, that most humans derive sense of self from. That self is in the seeking mode ("not enough"). "I am not fully myself yet". "If I could only be more then I could finally arrive at self completion".
The need for more becomes overriding in ones daily existence. More to add to who I think I am (to me). To a child (this mind-movement starting): claims possession of something (screaming "it's mine!"). It's not the toy. It's the word MY toy. I have invested the thought form of toy with the sense of self. We are all collectively conditioned to do that. It's the beginning of delusion. Fearing that something I regard as "me" will be removed from me. The child grows, the toy becomes the car, other possessions.
Suffering that is there whenever you have not really found yourself. That is built into the very structure of that mind-made identity because suffering is that sense of luck/not enough/fear that underlies that state of consciousness.
You've made it in the eyes of the world, yet, it doesn't seem to have worked. Then looking for explanations. If you make it: everybody tells you should be happy now. You still feel that pain. Some start drinking/take drugs. The illusion has been removed from them that the future will complete them.
Suddenly see the fiction of the self that the entire culture is emersed in and tells you this is how it is. Then you might be interested going beyond that. You realize that happiness on that level cannot be found. The illusion of happiness - yes. Many times.
That neediness expresses itself in many ways that create enormous amount of suffering--to others around you and to yourself. The need for more, to enhance me, the me that is never complete, the story of me, that hasn't quite worked the way it was supposed to work. Up till now. There are not many humans who feel that the story has gone very well indeed. The story of me. And if there are some, all you have to do is wait a little. And then the sense of incompleteness returns. People believe it to be a personal problem (everybody seems to be OK, except me).
Need for more = need for conflict in order to enhance ones seperate sense of existence. "this is the me and this is the other". The "need" for enemies: self-identification. A greedy entity is simply a magnification of that mind pattern.
Underneath the conceptualized me is deeper consciousness that is not conditioned in every human. Redemptive factor in human existence. Underneath there is a dimension of consciousness that we could describe as unconditioned, vast--but they don't know that. Most humans don't know it but more and more and waking up to it now.
Complaints in the head: every complaint is an attempt to be a little bit more of me. Seeing means you are no longer identified with the pattern.
The main ENEMY of the mind-made self is THIS MOMENT. Awake from self-identification of thought into now. A certain alertness comes with that. More aware of sense-perceptions. Moving out of the trap of compulsive conceptualized thinking. From being the thinker to being the awareness that is prior to thought.
Stillness. Unconscious? No. Consciousness, but not the labels, the thinking. Peace in the background.
"-I'm on my way. -Where to? -The future." You continually miss this moment.
The arising of spaciousness inside yourself is really what it is. Until you find some place in yourself. Without that space you can look for happiness for a hundred lifetimes, because you're only looking to objects in your consciousness believe that "when I've accumulated enough objects in my consciouness I'll be full and complete".
Discover in ones self that dimension of consciousness; realizing the fullness of being enough yourself that is already here. That's the end of seeking. Not the end of doing but the end of self-seeking through doing. Than doing becomes quite nice; it's a play; you participate in the game of universe; you cannot not do; so you might as well participate; you do; it's a dance. But self-seeking goes out of the doing because you've already found yourself. Not as a conceptual entity; as the depth, the still, spacious, field; within yourself. Future cannot help you to get there, it can only prevent you from finding it.
What is the quickest way to realizing the truth of this? Is there a shortcut? How can I know this without making it into a future state that I want to achieve? How? This is so simple. Secret of the universe (as far as humans are concerned in the present evolutionary stage).
The secret lies in simply no longer internally resisting, denying or running away from what IS at THIS moment. To find an inner alignment with the form that this moment takes. The conceptualized egoic entity can't do that. But you can do that.
The conceptualized egoic entity lives in the state of NO to what IS.
"But this current form of moment limits me so much!"--You can play around with different forms in your life and experiment and expand into other forms not expecting to find the limitless. It's in the nature of form to be limited.
Whatever may be happening in your life and be the greatest limitation, it is not only the limitation, it's also the opening, when it's not internally resisted. The opening into space. Space comes with the YES to WHAT IS. You are no longer bound to what is = the form. You know your self as the formless one life/one consciousness. That's the true happiness that lasts. Nothing needs to change for this transition to happen in your life.
Say yes to WHAT IS.
