This is not being negative. It is simply recognizing the nature
of things so that you don't pursue an illusion for the rest
of your life. Nor is it saying that you should no longer appreciate
pleasant or beautiful things or conditions. But to seek something
through them that they cannot give – an identity, a sense of
permanency and fulfillment – is a recipe for frustration and
suffering. The whole consumer society would collapse if people became
enlightened and no longer sought their identity through things.
The more you seek happiness this way, the more it will elude you.
Nothing out there will ever satisfy you, except temporarily and
superficially, but you may need to experience much disillusionment
before you realize that truth.
Things and conditions can give you pleasure, but they
will also give you pain. Things and conditions can give you pleasure,
but they cannot give you joy. Nothing can give you joy. Joy is uncaused
and arises from within as the joy of Being. It is an essential part
of the inner state of peace, the state that has been called the
peace of God. It is your natural state, not something you need to
struggle to attain.
Many people never realize that there can be no "salvation"
in anything they do, possess or attain. Those who do realize it
often become world-weary and depressed: If nothing can give you
true fulfillment, what is left to strive for? What is the point
in anything? The Old Testament prophet must have arrived at such
a realization when he wrote, "I have seen everything that is done
under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind."
When you reach this point, you are one step away from despair –
and one step away from enlightenment.
A Buddhist monk once told me, "All I have learned
in the 20 years that I have been a monk I can sum up in one sentence:
All that arises passes away. This I know." What he meant, of course,
was this: I have learned to offer no resistance to what is; I have
learned to allow the present moment to be and to accept the impermanent
nature of all things and conditions. Thus have I found peace.
To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state
of grace, ease and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent
upon things being a certain way. It seems almost paradoxical, yet
when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions
of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things,
people or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness
now come to you with no struggle on your part and you are free to
enjoy and appreciate them while they last. All those things, of
course, will still pass away; cycles will come and go, but with
dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with
ease.
The happiness that is derived from some secondary source
is never very deep. It is only a pale reflection of the joy of Being,
the vibrant peace you find within as you enter the state of non-resistance.
Being takes you beyond the polar opposites of the mind and frees
you from dependency on form. Even if everything were to collapse
and crumble all around you, you would still feel a deep inner core
of peace. You may not be happy, but you will be at peace.
Adapted from The Power of Now, copyright 1999 by Eckhart Tolle. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA, 800-972-6657 (ext. 52). Visit www.eckharttolle.com.
