Reconciling Eckhart Tolle

I speak a lot about Eckhart Tolle, mostly because he came into my life at a crucial time, when I was ending a one and a half year elation with being and was becoming, for lack of a better word, depressed. I was not happy with my life situation, I had broken up with my girlfriend, and even though I dumped her, I felt like shit about it. When I heard his words through my ipod for the first time, tears came to my eyes, and I knew he would change my life forever. I didn't know the road or how hard it would be at times, but it was a road I needed to walk.

One thing I did not know and was not prepared for was that everything that had previously motivated me would be ripped from me suddenly and completely. Before I devoted myself to Tolle's teachings, I had become a great student again (after being a C student for my first 3 semesters of college). Like, straight A's without even working that hard at a tough school. I was moving ahead in life, rather quickly. When I started adhering to Tolle's teachings, my grades suffered, drastically. Looking back now, this makes sense and is a very good thing. Plus, timing seemed to work out as I devoted myself to my studies right before finals and turned a B- semester into a B+, which is fine for my standards, especially considering where my head was at during this time.

I say this was a good thing because of what was previously motivating me. Essentially, I was blindly hurtling towards the future with the notion that good grades were my ticket to future happiness. Not exactly in line with Tolle's "happiness is now" mantra. I began to focus more on the present, on my breathing, on observing my thoughts and feeling the inner body. I simplified my life, finding value in the small things: sunlight, a warm breeze. Movement. The walls around me, the "empty" space that seemed to contain everything in our material world. And it began to amaze me. I was free from burden, free from my past, free from my shame. It was incredible, it was liberating, it was enlightening.

There is incredible value in flexing your mental muscles, in trying to control your thoughts, to cut off negative threads until they don't even bother to start. But it's tiring, and it pulls you away from your present situation to watch your thoughts all the time, it's almost counterproductive. Concepts like this need to be used in moderation, and I took it too far for too long and it fucked with me. I still see the value in his teachings, but you need to come to your own conclusions and realizations about the things he has to say in order for you to be happy.

To be happy, you must reconcile past, present, and future. Each has its place, and each has its value. We do not live in a world where somebody who only cares about the present strives for very long, it's too easy to identify with what you have and what you do to rely on not identifying with these things for happiness. To be blunt, it's easier to get your shit together and then blame that for your happiness than to let your shit fall apart and try to be happy in spite of it.

But, recently I realized that I needed to get back to Tolle's teachings, because I am once again striving towards the future, when all of my value will always be in the present moment. I can know what I want to do, what my purpose is, who I am and who I am meant to be. But I still need to relax and allow my attention to rest in the present moment. Not in what will be, but simply in what is. What I can do now. What I can offer now. That is where my power lies.

I think that I was drifting between extremes, and am currently looking for the happy medium. But, if you don't experience the extremes, you will not know the positive and negatives attached to them. When I am fully present, I am deeply content and the world fascinates me. Think of a car, of a lightbulb, of anything in your life and just how amazing it is that it is. (no typo, simple as that). When I am on my purpose, I am a productive machine, able to work endless hours for what I deem as valuable. Both of these are vitally important for an enlightened human being, but neither outlook suffices all the time. There is a time and a place for everything, and I went from completely emersing myself in Tolle's teachings to completely rejecting them, and now I am in the middle, finding value in both.

Need, desire, and outcome (in)dependence

This is a topic I've thought a lot about. Something that definitely needs to be reconciled if you want to be an enlightened individual but still live in and succeed in society. Because traditional social conditioning would have you work hard for the things that are supposed to be valuable to you (money, cars, houses, clothes, social standing). These things tend to be tied up into people's ego structures. That is to say that people in general tend to rate their own self worth based on how they stack up with the people around them in these specific areas. Not that these things aren't valuable or important, but your self worth needs to be seperate from what you have and how people respond to you.

Interestingly enough, when you feel good about yourself always, and can then choose what you want to add to your life or focus on, everything that you want seems to fall into line. This is the difference between desire and need. If you feel that you will not be whole, if you will not feel good about yourself or are afraid others will not think positively if you do or do not do something, you are coming from a place of lack. This is needy. This is outcome dependence. You need a certain outcome, a set of circumstances that is for the most part outside of your control, to end up working out so that you give yourself permission to feel good.

You hear the term outcome independence a lot. On the surface, it seems counterproductive. How can you want something and at the same time not care whether you get it? Seems paradoxical. But here's the thing: you are supposed to want things. You are supposed to chase happiness. If you want to make a lot of money, then work your ass off for it. If you want to get laid every night, then do what it takes to make that happen. Outcome dependence and neediness come from how you feel when you DO NOT GET WHAT YOU WANT.

Say you set the goal to be a millionaire within two years. You fall short. You made a small chunk of change, but you had your heart set on your goal, and you failed. Now the question becomes: how much did you need to complete your goal? How do you feel now that it was not accomplished. Do you give up trying? Do you wallow in your own misery? Or do you say, I gave it my best shot, or maybe I didn't, but it is what it is. Let's face the facts. A goal like that is very much outside of your control. Things don't always work out in your favor. Sure, if you really really wanted it you could probably do it. But the fact remains: you didn't do it.

Same thing with getting blown out. Of course you wanted a certain outcome. You do not lie to yourself or anybody else about what you want. But outcome independence does not arise from not wanting anything. You are outcome independent when you chase after an outcome with the whole of your being, pour every effort into it, and then allow the chips to fall where they may. You work as hard as you can work, and then surrender to circumstance. You no longer care whether you get what you want as long as you did exactly what you know it takes to get it.

Say you study your ass off to get an A. And I mean really study, longer and better than you ever have before. Does it really matter what the grade looks like when all is said and done? The grade is a nice scale to rate yourself on, but wouldn't it be better to tie your self worth into something more, I dunno, within your complete control? Such as the quality of the work you put into the exam? Allow yourself to feel good about the work that you put into yourself and what you want. But use external factors only to gauge your progress, not as a measure of your self worth.

If you get blown out of set consistently, does that make you less of a man? Less of a person, less whole? Or is it simply an external circumstance that you can rate your progress on, but ultimately has nothing to do with WHO YOU ARE or WHAT YOU ARE WORTH. Sure, your interactions with others tend to be an expression of who you are. But you need to ask yourself: when you have a bad interaction with somebody, does that mean you are bad or worthless? Or is it just something to think about, maybe if it goes really bad you pick it apart to find out why, so that you can improve the next time.

To sum up, outcome independence arises when your self esteem is not tied up in the outcomes of your actions, but rather in the quality of your preparations, in how much effort and attention you put into the process of getting what you want. Because let's face it: if you want an outcome really badly, and then do nothing to make it happen, you have a pretty good reason to feel bad about yourself. Even then you shouldn't. (I don't think there's any valid reason for anybody to feel bad about themselves. Furthermore, when you feel good, you tend to have the motivation needed to make positive changes, another story for another time). But back to my point: it is at least reasonable in my eyes to tie your self esteem into what you do, and how well you do what you want to do to achieve the outcomes you want to achieve. It is completely unreasonable to base how you feel on circumstances that are out of your control.

A completely solid approach can go horribly wrong, sometimes you just get unlucky. You can work your ass off for an exam just to bomb it because all the wrong things showed up. It happens. That's life. Recognize the difference between the outcome and the work you put in to get that outcome. Observe the space between what you can control and what you cannot. You can shape interactions, but you cannot control them. Likewise, you can shape your surroundings and what you get out of the world, but you cannot control them. There is a limit to your reach. Know that limit, and live on that edge to push yourself, but relax and realize when things are simply outside of your control, and that you cannot blame yourself for them.

You Are Whole

You are value at your very core. You are whole. You are complete. You know who you are. You know what you want. You are fulfilled and do not need validation. Since this is all true, why wouldn’t you want to be the best you could be? You only live once, so why not be the best you can be? Why not see how far you can go, how much you can get out of your life. Live to the fullest, because you know you can die. Not because you need to. Not because you won’t feel good if you don’t. But because you feel good, now. And you want to express that. Because you have nothing to lose. You are not risking that good feeling. You are simply expressing it. You are building the life you want, simply because you have the power to do it. You are achieving your fullest potential, simply because you have the power to do it. You know who you are, you know what you want, and you know what you are capable of.

Perception

"We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perception. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away."