The ego creates separation, and separation creates suffering. The ego
is therefore clearly pathological. Apart from the obvious ones such as
anger, hatred, and so on, there are other more subtle forms of
negativity that are so common they are usually not recognized as such,
for example, impatience, irritation, nervousness, and being “fed up.”
They constitute the background unhappiness that is many people’s
predominant inner state. You need to be extremely alert and absolutely
present to be able to detect them. Whenever you do, it is a moment of
awakening, of disidentification from the mind. Here is one of the most
common negative states that is easily overlooked, precisely because it
is so common, so normal. You may be familiar with it. Do you
often experience a feeling of discontent that could best be described as
a kind of background resentment? It may be either specific or
nonspecific. Many people spend a large part of their lives in that
state. They are so identified with it that they cannot stand back
and see it. Underlying that feeling are certain unconsciously held
beliefs, that is to say, thoughts. You think these thoughts in the same
way that you dream your dreams when you are asleep. In other words, you
don’t know you are thinking those thoughts, just as the dreamer doesn’t
know he is dreaming.
These are stories the ego creates to convince you that you cannot be
at peace now or cannot be fully yourself now. Being at peace and being
who you are, that is, being yourself, are one. The ego says: Maybe at
some point in the future, I can be at peace—if this, that, or the other
happens, or I obtain this or become that. Or it says: I can never be at
peace because of something that happened in the past. Listen to people’s
stories and they could all be entitled “Why I Cannot Be at Peace Now.”
The ego doesn’t know that your only opportunity for being at peace is
now. Or maybe it does know, and it is afraid that you may find this out.
Peace, after all, is the end of the ego. How to be at peace now? By
making peace with the present moment. The present moment is the field on
which the game of life happens. It cannot happen anywhere else.
Once you have made peace with the present moment, see what happens,
what you can do or choose to do, or rather what life does through you.
There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the
secret of all success and happiness: One With Life.
Being one with life
is being one with Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life,
but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.
Excerpted from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, pages 113-115.
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