Eckhart Tolle...

Eckhart Tolle

Touching the Eternal

(India Retreat 2002)


When I began to teach, when I began to understand the inner transformation
that had happened to this form, I began to see that it's intimately
connected with surrendering.

It's intimately connected with the surrendered state that is totally aligned
with now, and I began to teach that.

Of course, the state of non-surrender is the ultimate root cause of
suffering, which humans have been in for thousands and thousands of years.

So I began to teach that there's no need to suffer anymore, and gradually I
saw that even those who were able to totally surrender to now still
experienced wave movements of pain in their lives, even though they were
surrendering.

And then I began to learn about the human pain body as I observed that, and
realized that every human carries his or her share of collective human pain.


That's ultimately what the pain body is...it is the manifestation of human
unconsciousness.

And humans carry it in here...in the body.

It's an emotional energy field that is not flowing...life energy that is
stagnant, trapped, and manifests either as anger, or as great fear, or as
the heaviness of depression.

It's an energy field of pain that humans carry.

And sometimes they don't even know it's there.

It's dormant at times, and life works beautifully...you surrender to now.


And you might even think, "That's it.

I've come to the end of it (Pain body attack)."

And then suddenly a little trigger happens, a little thing goes wrong or
even a little thought comes into your head that proliferates and becomes a
trigger for an enormous influx of pain...in whatever form: anger, fear,
heaviness of sadness.

And suddenly you're completely overtaken by that.

It flows into your mind and it energizes all the mind structures of the ego.

It energizes and amplifies the story...all the identifications.


And so the me, the self, the mind-made self becomes extremely empowered.

The delusion becomes empowered through that human pain.

And you start thinking, all thoughts refracting the energy field of the pain
body.

So the pain body has moved into your mind and it's controlling your thought
processes and actually feeding on each thought.

You strengthen the pain body through those thought processes, because each
thought corresponds to the energy, the vibrational frequency of the pain
body.


If it's anger, it will be thoughts of anger.

And that's how the pain body renews itself.

And so, the pain body becomes 'self.'

You identify with it as the self.

It possesses you, so to speak, and it feeds on other people.

It wants to make somebody unhappy, and it wants somebody else to make me
even more unhappy.

And usually it succeeds, because one active pain body during its active
period, - once it's fed on your mind and other people's reactions - will
subside, it will go back to dormancy.


During the active period it will feed on your mind and on people around you,
and it will easily awaken other people's pain bodies if their pain bodies
are at a stage of readiness, to come out of the dormant stage.

And so, one pain body can easily awaken several pain bodies in its vicinity.

You can notice it in families.

It sometimes happens in your workplace, anywhere people gather.

One heavy pain body in a committee meeting can awaken every other pain body
that has been dormant in that committee.

And you get big drama.

It's wonderful to watch how it works.


If your pain body is active, it may be active for an hour, or it may be
active for a whole day, or even for several days...it varies a lot.

For some people it's only active for a few minutes, but those tend to be
people who are already becoming more conscious, so it cannot linger...it's
recognized before it can really get hold of your mind.

If you go outside and your pain body is active, you also attract other
active pain bodies, because active pain bodies attract each other.


You may walk into a situation with an active pain body, which you may be
hiding in the moment, (it's in your mind, it's active, it's using your
mind), but you're smiling, and suddenly someone attacks you in some way.

That was somebody whose pain body recognized yours, "Oh, here's food."

Then you go away from that person, go around the corner, and again someone
attacks you.

The whole world seems to be hostile.


Every pain-body recognizes you unless it's totally dormant, because it's
just gone through the active period and just doesn't want anymore pain--it
hasn't digested the pain yet.

They like to meet each other, and feed on each other.

For some people, the pain-body is associated also with the opposite
sex...that's a strange thing, but not that uncommon.

And that is often the case when you've had a painful relationship with a
parent and your relationship with a man or woman is associated with the pain
body.

It is not uncommon for people to choose their partner through their
pain-body, unconsciously of course.

When you fall in love, quite often, the pain-body has a part in that, and
the strong attraction you feel is partly the attraction through your
pain-body to someone else's pain-body, who perfectly complements yours.

So you feel drawn to that person, very strongly.

And we all know people (perhaps even ourselves), who are again and again
drawn to the same kind of person that creates the same kind of pain for
them.

And they say "This time I'm not choosing the partner with the pain-body
anymore.

I want somebody conscious." And so you choose somebody who practices
meditation, who's a vegetarian, and then surely he or she must be conscious!

And maybe you forgot that Hitler was a vegetarian too. (lots of laughter
thru this whole piece!


And then you start living together, and you realize that suddenly it's
happening again...."I've married the same man again." That's because the
attraction was there through the pain-body.

Many marriages are like that...made in 'heaven' and this one is made in
'hell'.

Pain-bodies recognize each other.

Pain-bodies do not want to be recognized in themselves for what they are.

They don't want the light of your attention on them.

They want to flow into your mind, to renew themselves by using your mind and
using other people.


They (pain-bodies) can only continue to renew themselves if you don't
recognize them for what they are...if the recognition isn't there each time
you get taken over totally.

Immediately it's become 'self', the 'me'... an unhappy 'me'.

So to break that is simply to be alert enough, and of course you cannot make
yourself be alert enough.

The alertness, the presence that is required to watch the pain body cannot
be attained through effort.

It's either there or it isn't there.

In your case it's there, because you're here (in India).

That is a clear sign that enough presence is there for you to meet the
pain-body with alertness, and watch it if possible, the moment it arises as
an enormous energy impulse.

Whoosh!

And to watch that...maybe you can't stop it yet, you don't need to stop it,
just watch.


If possible catch it (pain body attack) before it becomes a thought, catch
it on the energetic level just as it begins to move into your mind.

Now that is easier to do with certain pain-bodies than with others.

If your pain-body's frequency is predominately heavy, enormous heaviness and
density, so that when it takes you over you go, 'ooohhhh!'

You have slow and heavy thought processes about how dreadful everything is,
completely pointless and dreadful, and the whole world is just dreadful.

Now those are easier to catch because they arise more slowly.



Then there are other pain-bodies that contain a great deal of fire and
anger.

They come quickly and it's very hard to catch them because there's virtually
no gap.

They arise as an energy phenomenon, but before you know it's an energy
phenomenon it's already become a thought, and you're shouting at some body.
(lots more laughter)

Or if nobody is around, you're shouting in your head!

And so the pain-body has already taken over your mind.



The most difficult one to catch (pain-body) is if it's predominately angry.

You may not be able to catch it because the gap between seeing the pain-body
as an energy phenomenon and it becoming a thought and thereby a 'me', the
'self', is too short or almost non-existent.

In that case, all you can hope for is that in the middle of that, somewhere
an observing presence watches you in motion.

From underneath the pain body there is a witnessing presence, but it may not
happen yet.

It may be that you have to wait until it's subsided and then very quickly,
the awareness is there and suddenly you realize, "That was the pain-body.
There it was. It was just feeding on my mind and on this situation."


And the more consciousness there is the sooner you wake up after it has
subsided.

You can wake up as the anger subsides.

There is sometimes a gap when the energy field goes down.

The pain-body begins to leave your mind...begins to withdraw because it's
been feeding enough...it begins to withdraw from your mind and at this
point, you can sense it as an energy field.

You haven't failed...you're there now.

And any time you're there as the presence, it's fine.

You can catch other pain bodies as they arise as an energy phenomenon:
"There it is!" You watch it, you allow it to be.


This is the key...you allow it to be.

You cannot fight it.

The key is even here, even here, to bring in the 'yes', because it is.

It is.

What can you do?

It's right here.

It is.

It is the 'such-ness' of this moment.

And so you embrace it....this implies there is a witnessing presence.

You embrace it, you allow it to be.

And the amazing thing is you begin to realize that there can be a
spaciousness around it, even in the case of a pain body...even in the case
of an angry pain-body which fumes and shouts.

And suddenly you know it and allow that to be there...there is suddenly a
little bit of space around it.

You may find yourself in the midst of a shouting match with some body and
suddenly you see.

It's like looking at someone else going through the motions.

It's like looking at a pre-determined script which you are compelled to act
out.


Freedom arises when you see the non-personal nature of the pain-body, when
you see the non-personal nature of the emotional pain ultimately, or the
anger doesn't recognize itself as pain.

You see the non-personal nature of all those energy movements that we call
pain-body movements.

They are recognized as human pain.

They only become personal when they amplify and energize 'a story in my head
that is my story', and it is 'me', the fictitious self...the delusion that
it is a personal matter.

When you allow the pain-body to be there as an energy phenomenon it's no
longer a personal matter.

And you realize it's very similar in every other person.

It's basically the same.