(bell dinging) - 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 voice in your head that continuously comments on your life, on what's happening around you. It's the self-talk and everybody knows what the self-talk is in that you talk to yourself.

Sometimes you talk to yourself in the first person, I. Some people talk to themselves in the second person, you. (audience laughing) So you can get annoyed with yourself and then you say, "You shouldn't have done that."

(audience laughing) And then you have another thought is that, "Yes, but I couldn't help it." (Eckhart and audience laughing) And you might even get a third voice come in that whatever it says, "Why can't I get out of my self-talk?"

That's self-talk too. But it's an amazing. The 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 to you, mostly silently. If it talks out loud, then you're continuously
and there's nobody around, then you are considered insane. (audience laughing) And that's only if it's aloud, but most people have
that inside their heads

and they are not considered insane, it's considered normal. But there's not such a big
difference between the two. And sometimes when you listen to them, there might be a man walking
in the street, muttering. (Eckhart muttering)

And you say, "Oh, he's really insane." But it might be that
you are doing the same, but it's just not out
loud, it's in your head. (audience laughing) Why didn't I? I should have said that.

Why didn't I say that? Next time he does that, I'm going to exactly know
what I'm going to reply. (audience laughing) 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 on, and then you go
into it, you get drawn.

One thought leads to another
thought and another thought. Oh my God. And then the body,
(Eckhart clearing throat) the body cannot distinguish
between an actual reality, an event that's happening in 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 might... 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 at the... 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, a 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
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 them, 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 really should. "Why doesn't he?" You can go on for a long time dwelling on something negative much longer than dwelling on something positive. (Eckhart laughing)

It is though a seemingly negative event is much more food for
useless mind activity than a positive event. And this is life 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. (audience laughing) And I mean that because the, 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 one's, 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 and that somebody, several books that somebody
left with us when I was 17.

And, therefore, 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 saying, "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.
(Eckhart laughing) So you can discover first that the
spiritual awakening is to discover that there is
continuous mind activity.

And for some people it's a 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 called normal, is considered the normal human state.

And you, of course, you cannot abolish thinking. Of course, there will be thinking. But the question is, is there an awareness behind your thinking? And 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 10 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's all just, "I've had this thought for years. "It comes again and again and again." And so you are, there is an observing presence. And from there you can. And that observing
presence isn't a thought, 

it's just the ability to realize that there is a voice in your head and that 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 it goes. And wherever they meet somebody, and immediately certain judgments form.

And everything they feel they need to immediately
adopt a position towards it. Immediately say, "I'm
against it. I dislike it." (Eckhart muttering) Immediately adopt a mental position and being identified with
one's mental position, 

which is a thought. (soft relaxing music) So if you discover within yourself that a lot of the time you're in a state of
lack, 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, 

If 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.

How to Calm the Voice Inside | Eckhart Tolle Teachings

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