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Here are some enlightening comments from Eckhart Tolle, author of A New Earth (and other books): – The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it.
– Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. There is the situation or the fact, and here are my thoughts about it. Instead of making up stories, stay with the facts. For example, “I am ruined,” is a story. It limits you and prevents you from taking effective action. “I have fifty cents in my bank account” is a fact. Facing facts is always empowering. Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel. See the link between your thinking and your emotions. Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.
– See if you can catch, that is to say, notice, the voice in the head, perhaps in the very moment it complains about something, and recognize it for what it is: the voice of the ego, no more than a conditioned mind-pattern, a thought. Whenever you notice that voice, you will also realize that you are not the voice, but the one who is aware of it. In fact, you are the awareness that is aware of the voice. In the background, there is the awareness. In the foreground, there is the voice, the thinker. In this way you are becoming free of the ego, free of the unobserved mind.
– The more you make your thoughts into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.
– Don’t seek happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by facing what is rather than making up stories about it.
What strikes me about this view of spirituality is its humanness and utility. To perceive the gospel and life in this way is freeing and differs greatly from the methods many use to box in their thinking and to label things “good” or “bad.” Elsewhere I have seen Tolle link sayings of Jesus with these insights, and they really turn it around in a way that I find useful.
That is so fantastic, hawk!! This is something I’ve been striving to do for a year now. Examining the genesis and provocation of thought. And, how it affects my emotional health. Staying present seems to me to be a way of actively pursuing this “awareness”.
And, not coincidentally, this last year has been the most joyous, contented and happy year of my life.
My mantra this whole year has been: “It is what it is”. (I know I’m not using the term “mantra” correctly but….
😳 )Like swimordie, I am focusing a lot this new year on my thoughts and how to think about my reality. I think differently now than I did in my Pre-Crisis life. Therefore, the way I lived the gospel before doesn’t seem to work for me now, which has led to my faith challenges.
This makes a lot of sense to me. If my thinking is different, than what I did before (read, go to church, pray, go to the temple) those things don’t spiritually uplift me now the way they did before, because of the changes in my thoughts. So I have to find my “new” way of thinking about spirituality and my reality.
This part has me confused, Hawkgrrrl:
Quote:Instead of making up stories, stay with the facts
Do we have “Facts” in religion?
Church membership is 13M, that is a fact, but not part of the gospel. Prayer is not a fact, neither is faith, spiritual witnesses, tithing, WoW, testimony, Jesus Christ, heaven or hell.
All gospel principles are based on ideas and teachings … none are based on facts, are they?
So do Tolle’s ideas apply to our religious journey at all? To me, it seems that all religion is is “story”
Heber13 – Whenever you are thinking about the past or the future, you are in your thoughts, not in the moment. Religious experience can be had in the moment. Theology, history, dogma, scripture, and hope of eternal reward – these are pretty much all stories. Another “story” is reliving past experiences (especially licking prior wounds which is very addictive) rather than living in the present moment. Many who are working through Stage 4 are living in these negative stories that create the ego, and the ego likes to complain about things that it doesn’t like. The ego is when you define yourself instead of just being. When you label yourself ( e.g. I’m a feminist, I’m a Mormon, I’m a mother), you also limit yourself ( e.g. I’m not a non-feminist, I’m not a non-Mormon, I’m not a non-mother), and you immediately start to judge things based on your self-definition ( e.g. I don’t like non-feminists or sexists, I don’t like things that threaten Mormonism, I don’t like people who don’t like kids). It’s fascinating to learn to hear the voice in your head and realize that you are not the voice but the awareness behind the voice. As to religions and facts, it’s true that there aren’t many “facts” as Tolle means, at least not ones that are relevant to being present in the moment – which is the only place you actually exist. Most religious “facts” are really stories – our own or cultural stories.
I reading “The Power of Now” by Tolle. Good stuff! Peaceandjoy wrote:I reading “The Power of Now” by Tolle. Good stuff!
That book changed my life more than any book I’ve read. Probably not as life-changinf for many younger types, but it simply taught me to live in the moment (amap) and stop living for the future, and feeling guilty about my past. I see “present living” as the true at-one-ment for me.
Chew on that one for a minute!
It is sooo hard to get out of my head. A New Earth and The Power of Now are both on my shelf to be read this year. I started New Earth about 6 months ago.
😆 Another book that was easier for me than A New Earth was Wake Up Now. I didn’t finish that one, either.
😳 Just to take this concept of Tolle’s enlightenment perspective as contrasted with religion, my own view is that religion is in the business of providing “useful” stories in exchange for “less useful” stories. That’s a very pragmatic approach. If you were God, it would be much easier to improve people that way than to tell them to quit living by stories altogether. Stories are how the human race makes sense of life and the world around us. But knowing that they are stories, to me at least, is more enlightening. Learning to suspend our stories is also useful. And we all could use some practice in living and being in the moment. It’s easy to forget how to just breathe and be. But you can hear this happening all through GC, for example, this notion that our “story” (the gospel is a story) is better than the world’s “story.” This is just a contrast of two different types of programs you can use to run your life, to filter your experiences, and to understand what happens to you and others.
OTOH, some of Jesus’ sayings are a little more Tolle-like than they are often given credit for being. Usually they are viewed as a saying like a proverb, but they can be viewed as much more provocative and challenging to our mindset itself – not just exchanging our story for His story, but literally awakening from the grip of our mind’s thinking patterns. This is especially evident in the Gospel of Thomas.
hawkgrrrl wrote:my own view is that religion is in the business of providing “useful” stories in exchange for “less useful” stories. That’s a very pragmatic approach.
I like this thought, Hawkgrrrl.
This moves away from the “right” story verse all other stories being false, and just focuses on how stories help us…maybe different stories help different people…and like you said, God is just wanting us to learn by whichever story helps us individually.
I love this, I’ll have to read more Tolle. I do, however, believe that there are religious facts. Although I see most of scripture and history of our church as just stories, there are a few doctrines which I believe in which I personally know to work for me, therefore they are “facts” in my world. They work like electricity, my computer, the stove, etc. This is obviously subjective and unique to each person but really I don’t know exactly how electricity works. I don’t know the facts around it per say but I do know that it is a fact of life that I turn the switch and electricity travels through the wires and turns on my light. I also know that if I have hate inside of me I will be upset, angry, and in a bad mood. I know that I want to be happy so I try to put love and charity in my life. That might not be able to be proven by the scientific community but it is a formula proven by the sciences in my heart so to say. I think the only way that I can make morality real to me is if I consider morals as facts. This makes perfect sense in the LDS context because we believe that doctrines and morals are laws as true as gravity and that they aren’t just arbitrary rules invented by God but actually exist outside and even before God. The only difference is that at the present moment we can prove gravity scientifically, we can only prove morals and doctrines to ourselves. So applying this perspective back to what Tolle said if we look at morals as just arbitrary rules and regulations that we must follow to not make God mad at us then we create stories about how God struck down so and so for disobeying such and such and we’re in constant fear of displeasing God. But when we look at the doctrines as facts of life, God is real, I do have agency, Jesus is really there to help me, then we can do what Tolle is saying and be the awareness behind the facts – I am in a bad situation in life, therefore I will use Jesus’ atonement to get me out of it. Of course this causes the biggest problems in life as well when we have the wrong facts about say religion. If I really do think that it’s a fact God is telling me to destroy the Canaanites well that’s not very good for the Canaanites. Also if I really do think that gravity doesn’t exist and I can jump off any cliff and fly it’s not gonna be too good for me either. So getting the facts right is the real journey and it is pragmatic. Through trial and error we discover these things for ourselves just like Einstein found physical facts through trial and error.
jbelli21 wrote:there are a few doctrines which I believe in which I personally know to work for me, therefore they are “facts” in my world.
Great response. I think one can have facts proven to oneself, even if you can’t measure them scientifically. But that makes it difficult to explain them to others because then it turns into story. I guess that is why we each have to be converted…we have to prove these things to ourselves to have them make sense. I think there are some that I believe are facts to me, and there are some I used to accept as facts but have not held up to my personal scientific experiments, and although the church still teaches them as facts, I’m not so sure anymore.
Example of non-fact: Word of Wisdom – I think its a good story to keep healthy, but I don’t think it is a fact that avoiding alcohol, tea, coffee, and tobacco will lead to a blessed and healthy life.
Example of fact: Loving or having charity for others helps one become a better person.
I think perhaps over the history of the church, some things that were good stories became taught or accepted as facts. Maybe that has led to me losing sight of the real facts…and my thoughts have betrayed me, and I’m now need to learn to realize my thoughts aren’t me and I must again focus on the facts of the gospel, and let go of other things.
What do you think? What are some facts that we should keep our thoughts on?
Great thought Heber13, I totally agree and I have done a lot of the same things. Some things that were “facts” to me aren’t anymore and have been replaced by new ones and will probably be replaced again. I guess we just have to focus on the “facts” like you said of our own personal testimony and conviction. You said we need to be converted, convince ourselves of these facts and that’s really the only way. My “testimony”, if you can even call it that, has changed dramatically and constantly over the last few years. Although I’ve realized that for as long back as I can remember there is one thing that I’ve always believed and it’s the only thing I feel comfortable saying “I know” is true. I know that there is right and there is wrong. Morals do indeed exist. I don’t know all of them perfectly, perhaps I only know very few of them in part, but they do exist and if I discover them and follow them my life will be better. The one “right” that I’ve found works every time and in any situation is charity – thinking outside yourself and truly loving another individual despite their shortcomings or failings or how you think it will effect yourself. I have found that this is a fact. I don’t know if it will always produce immediate happiness, in fact I’ve found most of the time it’s extremely difficult but it always works (somehow) There are many other things that I believe in strongly or have strong opinions about but these two things, especially the first are absolute facts in my mind. This is what I try to focus on and when I don’t my life just doesn’t seem to go quite as well. jbelli – I think when you are saying “religious facts” you are referring to natural laws or morality, both of which may exist. I’m not sure whether Tolle would agree – he might say these are irrelevant to the present moment if they are merely a way to reflect on past experiences and what those experiences have taught us to believe about the future. He would probably also (rightly) say that what some people assume are moral laws are really just stories. Hawkgrrrl, I’ve started reading Tolle, and I’m really deeply impressed with his idea of the stillness and our being, which is beyond our thoughts (as you mentioned in the OP). I wasn’t sure what he meant by that at first, but I’m starting to grasp the thought (ironically). Reading this morning…he talked about how we have this compulsion to want “MORE”.
To me, that drives at the heart of my struggles. In a crisis, instead of just experiencing things, I want it to be “better” or I immediately want “More” (bigger house, more friends, more spiritual strength, more acceptance by family, more control of my future, more expectations met, etc).
If our LDS religion teaches us that life is a time to prepare to meet God, and that treasures await us in the afterlife…I have found it hard sometimes being “still” to live in the moment and be at peace.
I think there is importance in finding that peace in the “here” and “now”.
That reminded me of the scripture: “Be still, and know that I AM God.”
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