How to Calm the Voice Inside | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

- Humans tend to overthink, which generates unnecessary and often destructive mind activity. Mindfulness is first of all discovering the simple fact that there is a voice in your head that continuously comments on your life or on what's happening around you. - Speaker A says it's easier to see how others are caught up in repetitive thought forms in themselves than it is to see it in others. Then Speaker B talks about the experience of a cluttered mind and explains that to transcend, one needs to go beyond the state of lack.

Speaker A: But what has happened through the gradual evolution of thinking is that now humans tend to overthink. There is a lot of not only unnecessary thinking that generates unnecessary and in many cases non existent problems, such as when you lie awake at night in bed and start worrying, it generates a lot of unnecessary unhappiness. So people don't realize that a significant part of the unhappiness in their lives is actually generated by unnecessary, negative, often destructive mind activity. And they don't even know it. Mindfulness is first of all discovering the simple fact that there is a. A voice in your head that continuously comments on your life or on what's happening around you. The self talk in there. Everybody knows what the self talk is in that you talk to yourself. Sometimes you talk to yourself in the first person. Some people talk to themselves, in the second person, you. So you can get annoyed with yourself. And then you just, you shouldn't have done that. And then you have another thought that says, yes, but I couldn't help it. And you might even get a third voice come in. And whatever it says, why can't I get out of my self talk? That's self talk too. But it's an amazing first thing. What I call the first awakening, spiritual awakening, is something very basic and something very simple. It's a discovery that there is a voice in your head that always talks, talks to you mostly silently. If it talks out aloud, then you are continuously and there's nobody around, then you are considered insane. But, and that's only if it's loud. But most people have that inside their heads and they are not considered insane. It is considered normal. But there's not such a big difference between the two. And sometimes when you, when you listen to, there might be a man walking in the street muttering, oh, and you say, oh, he's really insane. But it might be that you are doing the same, but it's just not out aloud, it's in your head. Why didn't I should have said that? Why didn't I say that? Next time he does it, I exactly know what I'm going to reply. And it goes on and on. Or you lie awake at night and start worrying, you wake up and oh my God, what's going to happen? What if that doesn't work and that goes wrong? And what if he does that? And then you go into, you get drawn, one thought leads to another thought and another thought, oh my God. And then the body, the body cannot distinguish between an actual reality, an event that's happening in the real life. And what your mind is saying. So when you have fearful thoughts, the body reacts to every fearful thought. And that's an emotion. The body reacts with an emotion, the emotion you feel in your body. The body cannot distinguish between an actual event and a thought. So when you think fearful thoughts, the emotions you feel are the emotions that are saying, I am in danger, there is an actual danger here. So you feel the emotion of fear, anxiety, you feel agitated. And it's not only not pleasant, if you indulge in that kind of useless, dysfunctional, destructive thinking year after year after year, it has its effect on the body and it decreases the ability of the body to have the energy to fight disease. Even mainstream medicine is discovering the connection between your state of mind and your state of health. And so gradually, we are seeing in the past, they denied it completely. They only looked at your body. And not only, they didn't just look at the totality of the body, even within the body, they just looked at one particular symptom, what's wrong with that particular organ. And you have, of course, in mainstream medicine, you have specialists. I'm a specialist for the liver and specialist for this and this and that. Not only not taking into account the totality of the body, but more importantly, not taking into account count the totality of the person, which includes the physical body and the mind. So it's vitally important to discover, first of all, that there is a voice in your head that indulges in self talk most of the time. And for many people, interestingly enough, that self talk for many people is not always negative, but for many people, it is more negative than positive. A good event that happened yesterday, a nice, you might have gone to a nice reunion, or you went out into nature and you witnessed a beautiful sunset, okay, you can remember it today and think, that was a beautiful sunset. Or, we had a nice talk yesterday, but you can't do that much thinking about a nice event. But the mind, when there's something negative that happens yesterday, somebody offended you or didn't give you the attention that you needed that you wanted from him, then you can start thinking of, oh my God, what he did. He's really, next time he does that, I'm going to say that, or he's really sure, why doesn't he? You can go on for a long time dwelling on something negative, much longer than dwelling on something positive. It is so seemingly a negative event is much more food for useless mind activity than a positive event. And this is why for many people, a significant percentage of their mind activity is negative for some people, it is almost 100% negative. But it is unlikely that these people would get a job in this company. And I mean that because your predominant state of consciousness, your predominant mental emotional state. There's a certain correlation between who you associate with, where you find yourself, and even what kind of things happen to you. There is a correlation which is not always immediately recognizable, but there is a correlation between once a person's predominant mental emotional state. And who they are with who their friends are, where they work, and even what happens to them. So if you are in a very negative state a long time, you tend to attract also negative events. But you can only have to find it out for yourself. I'm not saying, believe me, I know it from my own life. Because when I first discovered this, I was still very young. I discovered that there is a correlation between my mind activity and what happens to me. I found a book, several books that somebody left with us when I was 17. And there for the first time, I read about a person's mind. And I suddenly realized my mind was predominantly negative. Because I was a very unhappy child. And so my childhood was not pleasant. And so the initial conditioning of my life was that my mind was continuously commenting and saying how bad my life was. And whenever something bad happened to me, I had a phrase that would occur again in my mind. Of course, bad things always happen to you, don't they? They're bound to happen to you. It always happens to you. So I was talking to myself and saying that bad things would always happen to me. And they did. So you can discover first, the spiritual awakening is to discover that there is continuous mind activity. And for some people, it's the discovery that a significant part of their mind activity is negative. But the vital thing is to discover that there is this continuous talk in my head. Which is considered the normal human state. And of course, you cannot abolish thinking. Of course there will be thinking. But the question is, is there an awareness behind the thinking? If you can become aware that you are indulging or caught up in that useless mind activity. And you suddenly become aware of perhaps certain repetitive thoughts. That tend to reoccur in your mind again and again, you might see it in others too, more easily in others. When you go for your Thanksgiving dinner, I think, is it next week? You will meet your family members or relatives. And some of you may realize you already know what they are going to say this year. Because it's the same thing they said last year and five years and ten years ago. And if they have negative judgments about you or somebody else. Then it's the same thing you will hear again next week when you go to them. So it's easier to see how others are caught up in repetitive thought forms. Not as easy to see it in oneself. This is why there's a saying that self knowledge is the most difficult knowledge. It's easier to see others. But if you can discover, even in the midst, perhaps in the moment. Of a certain thought appearing in your mind, realizing, oh, that thought is. I've had this thought for years. It comes again and again and again. And so there is an observing presence. From there you get. And that observing presence isn't a thought. It's just the ability to realize that there is a voice in your head. And then there are thoughts. And you realize that some of those thoughts are negative. And many of those thoughts actually are not only unnecessary. But make your life very difficult, such as worry. So most people live with what I call a cluttered mind. A cluttered mind means they are completely unaware that there's a continuous stream of mental commentary. And wherever they meet somebody immediately. Certain judgments form and everything they feel they need to immediately adopt a position towards it. Immediately. I'm against it. I just. I like that. Immediately adapt a mental position. And being identified with one's mental position, which is a thought.

Speaker B: So if you discover within yourself. That a lot of the time you're in a state of lack or of insufficiency, of not enough. And you feel that the answer to the remedy is to be active in this world. And achieve and do as much as possible, then you'll probably find that ultimately that is not the answer to your state of lack. In order to transcend, to go beyond your state of lack of neediness, of not enough spiritual practice and spiritual realization is necessary. Focus on the realization of being. It's only there that you can go beyond that state of lack, which is ego. Go within and discover who or what you are beyond the person.