20 Thoughts That Can Change a Life – Eckhart Tolle

“People don’t realize that now is all there is, there is no past or future except as a memory or anticipation in our minds” (Eckhart Tolle).

Eckhart Tolle is often classified as a self-help author. Although we’ve already talked about the difference between psychology and self-help here on the site, I’d like to share some of this author’s thoughts that I found on this site in English.

The translation is mine and I justify the publication of Tolle’s thoughts by the fact that he can also be an author who helps us to think about Mindfulness Psychology, or the Psychology of Mindfulness, as well as the so-called Transpersonal Psychology (the psychology beyond the mind and the ego). That is, Mindfulness Psychology – one of the strands of cognitive psychology – teaches us in practice to turn the focus of our attention to the present moment, while transpersonal psychology encourages us to think of our being as far beyond reason and ego, that is, what we think we are through limiting words.

So let’s take a look at the author’s thoughts on The Power of Now and The Power of Silence? (Comments, as long as they are polite, are welcome at the end).

1) The present moment is the most precious thing there is

People don’t realize that now is all there is, there is no past or future except as a memory or anticipation in our minds.

The past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation or fulfillment in whatever form. In both cases what we have is illusory.

Time is not precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point beyond time: now. This is indeed precious. The more you are focused on time—past or future—the more you will miss the now, the most precious thing there is.

Don’t let a sick world tell you to succeed at anything other than the present moment.

Most people are never fully present in the now, because people subconsciously believe that the next moment should be more important than this one. But then you miss the whole life, which is never not-now.

Once you start honoring the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolves, and life begins to flow with contentment and ease. When you act from present-moment awareness, whatever you do is imbued with a feeling of quality, care, and love—even the simplest action.

2) Wherever you are, be fully present

Wherever you are, be fully present. If you believe that the here and now are intolerable and bring you unhappiness, you have three options: withdraw from the situation, change the situation, or accept it completely. If you want to be responsible for your life, you must choose one of these three options, you must choose now. So accept the consequences.

3) Always say yes to the present moment

Acceptance may seem like a passive state, but in reality it brings something entirely new into this world. This peace, this experience, is awareness.

Accept — then act. Whatever this present moment contains, accept it as if you chose it. Always work with momentum and not against momentum.

Always say yes to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane than creating an internal resistance to what already is? What could be more senseless than to oppose life itself, which is now and ever now? Surrender. Say yes to life — and see how life instantly starts working for you instead of against you.

4) Don’t take life too seriously

Life is not as serious as your mind would have you believe.

5) The more you attach yourself to things in a negative way, the more obsessed with negative things your mind will become.

People tend to focus more on the negative things than the positive things. Then your mind becomes obsessed with negative things, with prejudices. Guilt and anxiety are produced by thoughts about the future and so on.

6) When you complain, you put yourself in the victim role

Complaining is always a non-acceptance of what is. It inevitably carries a negative unconscious charge. When you complain, you become a victim. When you speak loudly, you are in power. Then change the situation and take some action, either leave the situation or accept it. Everything else is probably crazy.

7) There is a fine line between honoring the past and losing yourself in it.

There is a fine line between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can become aware and learn from the mistakes you’ve made, then move and shift your focus to now. This is called forgiving yourself.

Letting go requires strength and a lot of courage. Often times letting things go is a greater type of greatness than standing up for yourself or holding on to the situation.

8) You are a human being not a being-doing

In the rush of our everyday lives, we all think too much, desire too much, seek too much and forget to just appreciate being.

9) Stop defining yourself and defining others

To define yourself through thought is to limit yourself.

Stop defining yourself—to yourself or to others. You’re not going to die. You will open up to life. And don’t worry about others defining you. When they define themselves, they are limiting themselves, so that’s their problem. Whenever you interact with other people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but within present moment awareness. You can always lose something you have, but you can’t lose something you are.

Once you are identified with some form of negativity, you may not want to let go (the negative things) on a deep unconscious level, you don’t want positive change. This could threaten your identity as a depressed person, an angry or difficult person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive aspects of your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also something akin to madness.

10) Where there is true love, there is no ego

A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its ceaseless quest to create an image and definition of others. In a genuine relationship there is a state of openness, of alert attention to the other person in which there is no real seeking.

11) What you fight against will increase and what you resist will persist

To offer non-resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease and brilliance. That state is then no longer dependent on things turning out a certain way, good or bad. It may seem paradoxical, but the moment your dependence on form is gone, the general condition of your life, the external forms, tends to improve enormously. The things, the people, the conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you without struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy it — while it lasts. All these things, of course, will pass, cycles will come and go, but your non-addiction will try not to bring any more fear or loss. Life flow with ease.

12) Whatever You Fight In Others, You Will Strengthen In You

Whatever you recently struggled strongly with in another is also found in you.

13) Power over others is weakness disguised as strength

Power over others weakness disguised as strength. The real power is within, it’s available to you now.

14) Each and every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain

Any addiction starts from an unconscious refusal to face and deal with your own pain. Each and every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever substance you are addicted to — alcohol, food, legal and illegal drugs, or a person — you are using something or someone to cover up your pain.

15) Seek to live authentically

Authentic human interactions become impossible when you lose yourself in a role.

Living to maintain an image you have of yourself or an image others have of you is living an inauthentic life.

16) Desiring is the antithesis of happiness

Don’t wish for happiness. If you want it, you won’t find it, because wanting it is the antithesis of happiness.

Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yup. Happiness depends on conditions that are perceived as positive; and inner peace does not depend on these conditions.

17) The mind is an amazing instrument if used correctly

The mind is an amazing instrument if used correctly. If used incorrectly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more plainly, it’s not so much like you use your mind wrongly—you usually don’t use it at all. She who uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the illusion. The instrument has taken over you.

18) Worry is a waste of time.
Worry seems necessary but serves no purpose.

19) You are more than your mind

On a deep level you are already complete. When you realize this, there is a pleasurable energy behind everything you do.

To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation.

Knowing yourself as being beneath the thinker, the calm beneath the mental noise, the love and pleasure beneath the pain, is freedom.

Boredom, anger, sadness, fear are not your states, they are not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is yours.

20) The liberation of the rational animal

The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker”. The moment you start to observe the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes active. You then begin to realize that there is a vast field of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is just a small aspect of your intelligence. You also begin to realize that all the things that really matter—beauty, love, fertility, contentment, inner peace—appear beyond the mind. You start to wake up.

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