In February of this year Eckart Tolle participated in a conversation hosted by Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Education and Research. In his dialogue with Dr. James Doty, Eckart made some interesting observations about René Descartes’ famous statement, “I think, therefore I am.”
Eckart suggested that Descartes came to this conclusion while pondering human nature, trying to figure out if there was anything about himself or the world that “he could not doubt,” that he could know is really true.
During this process of thinking and questioning and wondering, what Descartes finally concluded was:
We are always thinking.
Eckart observes:
“So he equated thinking with existence of beingness. If he had not stopped there and had waited a little longer, and come to the end of thinking — where he realized that the answer was not to be found through thinking — and then reached the state of thoughtless awareness, then he would have actually found the deeper truth of I am.”
One way of expressing that deeper truth, as Eckart has discussed in his book The Power of Now, is:
I am, therefore I think.
“I am” refers to the idea that we are pure consciousness. THAT is what is doing and observing the thinking.
Unfortunately, many of us are so entwined and enamored by our thinking process that we come to identify our “self” with this thinking. Descartes’ famous quote expresses precisely this mistaken identification.
If then, we want to free ourselves from mis-identification with thought and awaken to our true nature which is beyond all thought, what can we do?
I think the path of awakening is unique for each person. Some walk the path through prayer, some through meditation, some through psychotherapy, some through artistic expression, some through serving others, some through engaging fully in their calling. Often it is a combination of these things. A few, such as Eckart Tolle and Byron Katie, seem to have experienced a profound awakening spontaneously, with no prior effort or spiritual cultivation. Aren’t they lucky. 🙂
At present, in my own spiritual practice, I find a blend of meditation, body movement, prayer, and thought-based coaching to be the most helpful for me.
I’ve been learning and training in thought-based coaching with the wonderful Brooke Castillo at the Life Coach School for the past few months. (Update:I’m certified, baby!)
The Life Coach School emphasizes THOUGHTS…a LOT. And I love it.
Although the idea is to eventually disentangle our selves from our thoughts, this process requires becoming aware of our thoughts in the first place!
The more self-coaching and healing work I do with myself, the more I come to see that learning to become aware of our thoughts and then to consciously shift them is perhaps THE most important step toward creating positive changes in our life. It’s a pretty magical process.
The basic model at work in our daily life is this:
Our thoughts produce feelings in our body.
Our feelings prompt us to perform certain actions (in word and deed).
And finally, our actions create our results.
The results of our actions = our reality.
Simply put, our thoughts create our reality. Boom.
Simple, ey? Now go ahead and try changing your thoughts during a heated moment. Or try turning off those habitual thoughts (‘I have so much to do today’ ‘Why doesn’t anything go my way?’ ‘I hate my body’) that invade your mind first thing in the morning. Most likely you’ll be in for a serious and often painful mental battle.
Managing our thoughts takes constant practice and at times, guidance from others. In my opinion, it’s a process that never really ends — it only gets easier. Why? Because we will never, as human beings on this planet, be able to live without the functioning of thought. It is a basic and necessary tool for the co-creation of our reality.
And although thought does NOT lead to enlightenment, thought does NOT cease with the experience of enlightenment. Instead, we become more and more adept at identifying with our true self or higher self rather than with our thoughts.
The more we understand that we are not our thoughts but rather THAT which thinks them, the more we recognize our freedom to choose which thoughts to think, and thus our freedom to create the life (results) we want to experience.
A huge part of the human experience (and the human struggle) is about learning to think from that still and aware center of our being rather from than our fear-based ego.
The ego is not interested in serving us. I see the ego as an incessant and almost machine-like generator of thoughts. It is largely conditioned by previous experiences, memories, that have embedded themselves in our consciousness — and we tend to remember the negative, scary, and painful ones.
The higher self, on the other hand, is that part of us — some call it divine — which is limitlessly creative, boundless, loving, and free from notions of past and future. It is the transcendent aspect of our selves that we tend to access more easily during meditation, lovemaking, prayer, and uninhibited artistic expression.
I also think it’s the part of us that is able to experience joy and give and receive love freely. And it can be accessed at any time.
Even better news for us earthlings, we can learn to live from this place of freedom and love more and more effortlessly by simply choosing to do so more and more.
Practice.
Patience.
So, which part of yourself did you choose to live from today? 😉