There's many times, as a 25 year old male, I found reading/listening to Tolle difficult as he can get wafty. As many older people do. I can also tell Tolle has not been an avid martial artist. With all due respect, I would pertain him as the calm, shallow ends of the water. Perhaps that is my naivety and the general tone he sets. Oprah and Tolle make a synergistic partnership (most of the time) as she amplifies Tolle's messages' deliverance; more engaging through relatability. Anyway.
An interesting concept is that at the end of the day, Tolle believes that the necessities to life is fundamentally invisible and abstract. While we do need physical affirmations such as intimacy, the inevitability of life is the mind that we live with, every microsecond of the day. That is NOT to say we need to take control over the mind every second of the day. That's not humanly possible. What we need to recognise is that polarity of life goes both ways. We cannot control without a lack of control. We cannot have order without disorder, which is what the whole yin and yang principle is all about.
Think about every significant moment in life; your happiest moment, your most upsetting moment.
Think also about every 'average' moment we had. We probably have to think to today's events. We COLOUR the world with our mind. We can associate a colour/a vibe/a general feeling to each moment. Yes, life is comprised of many moments! We materialise life through the way our MIND projects a feeling to moments. In essence, with a negative mindset we are trapping ourselves. With a positive mindset, we are opening ourselves up to the beauty of the world. It's all relative. The more I harp on, the more I realise that these understandings can only be understood when it is understood. You will know yourself. I only hope to facilitate such a spark. Once you feel that spark, you must pursue it. Not relentlessly though. Organically. Let it come, day by day.
Tolle says it is impossible to evade disorderliness. It is impossible to avoid chaos. Deaths, breakups, debts, taxes etc. We should not be avoiding this as the rule of polarity states that the more we try to avoid something, the more it comes to us. Bad things do not come magically because of a bad mindset. It only becomes more APPARENT and subsequently affects us emotionally because our mind spotlights the event/incident/occurrence.
I understand that I should have probably written two separate posts about the pain body and order vs. disorder! Woops.
Oprah's anecdote about her grandmother hitting her as a child and suppressing her immediate reactions of pain/sadness and suppression of any form of autonomy resonated beyond an incidental point of view. The impact of this resulted in her wanting to subconsciously impress people as that is all she knew at the time; to impress her power wielding grandmother to stop her from inflicting her pain. Being a huge people pleaser growing up resulting from a similar childhood experience, I understand this is destructive as people pleasing is not always met by positive people. People can take advantage of you. People can also be similar 'people pleasers' by law of attraction and that is dangerous as you are all 'pleasing' each other without breaking the cycle of ingenuity and averting conflict. As Oprah says, you learn to not stand up for yourself. And this is the interesting concept of the pain body. It is a beast deep within that feeds off of negativity and trauma. It lives and strengthens from processing negative thoughts. At times like this, negative thoughts must go two ways: 1) tapped out immediately if you cannot deal with it at the time, 2) sat with, internalised and rationalised (this is very difficult and I've seen many people require much more intensive therapy to even scratch the surface). By no means am I speaking for other people here. Negativity that is not dealt with, stays with us. Mostly unconsciously.
Another thing to note as I touched on 'people pleasers' pleasing each other, earlier. Law of attraction/birds of a feather, flock together. Tolle speaks about the 'collective ego' at times. Going to raves, parties and that whole scene. Rap/drill etc. While I can appreciate that for many people, there are many positive elements that can enhance the quality of life, there is definitely a large amount of unconscious 'group' mentality of a collective ego. "It's us against them". This is divisive and unnecessary, in my opinion.
I think such thoughts of a collective ego is strengthened through similar attitudes of 'ceebs' and other similar forms of nihilism (what's the point to life?). Lesser versions but definitely related in many ways is the 'weekend warriors'. We live for the weekend. What about the other 5 days? I'm not trying to throw an attack here as I too have thought and still at times, do think this way. But we must be aware of why we do what we do in the week days. Tolle talks about the 'conscious suffering'. There must be meaning behind why we suffer. This can be seen on a simple level like, "I'm going to eat cup noodles so I can save to buy a PC." Apply this mentality to every aspect of life. Be conscious daily as to why we suffer for a greater purpose. Let's try not to be so short sighted. I don't agree with every single thing Tolle says but I do resonate with the attitude that we don't know everything. And as Tolle says, don't practice faint modesty. As someone who has recently finished tertiary education, I can say there's people out there who fish for compliments (I've been in those shoes too), "I'm dumb/I didn't study/I'm gaining weight." That is not a lack of ego, in fact, that is a deeper level of an ego.
Man, life is beautiful.
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