The search for identity. In this episode, Eckhart talks with an audience in Prague. He explains that most people are searching for an identity, and for many that leads to disappointment. Eckhart uses the word... dukkha, which in Buddhism means suffering. He explains most of us
are consumed with thoughts about our problems which become part of our identity. He says, we also define ourselves through externals, our bodies, our possessions, and even our ancestry becomes an identity. Eckhart says many people... People don't realize they are unhappy because they think it's a normal state. Eckhart explains, we're looking in the wrong place because we discover our true identity when we awaken spiritually.
Well, we finally made it to this beautiful city It's taken a few years Everybody seems to be quite present already Present, of course, can have a conventional meaning. You are present physically, obviously. And then there's another meaning to presence. Is your attention fully in the present moment? Or is your attention being absorbed by the thinking mind?
And then you're only here peripherally. There's only a part of you that's here, but most of you is thinking about something. And then you're not, spiritually speaking, then you're not fully present. or you're not present at all. You could be sitting here. Maybe a friend or family member said you should come here. You need to listen to this man, but you don't really want to be here. And you're thinking about dinner you're going to have tonight or what's going to happen tomorrow.
Or some problem that you have. Everybody has problems. It's part of people's identity. And so your attention is absorbed mostly by... the thinking mind. And then spiritually speaking, you're not present or not fully present. One could say the essence of all spirituality is that state of consciousness that we could call presence. It is a state of consciousness. Most humans are only occasionally present and not never for very long. And there are still many humans who are almost never present.
Wherever they go, whatever they perceive, they perceive through a veil of mental conditioning, the judgments, the interpretations. of the mind the conditioned mind conditioned by the past so they never see anything as it is they see an interpretation of it Spiritual awakening, this is what this is all about, spiritual awakening, or we could call it the awakening of consciousness, is having the ability... to step out of the thinking mind without going to sleep.
That is one way of stepping out of the thinking mind. If you want to stop thinking, if you are very, very tired, then you can't think very much anymore. There is a moment before you go to sleep, usually, when your problems begin to disappear, the problems that are continuously playing themselves out in the mind.
And so it feels very good when you're moving towards sleep. It feels you're letting go of yourself, become free of yourself. And then there's a little... moment a brief moment when it feels good and then you go to sleep we are not here in to go in that direction another way of becoming free of the torture of the thinking mind, because for many humans, they don't realize they are tortured by their own minds. They have an unhappy...
Most of the time, if not unhappy, they feel discontent, unease, irritated, resentful. angry, there's always something. And they perceive the world through that conditioning and so they experience themselves. as an unhappy entity. The identity of humans, many humans, is a predominantly unhappy one. occasional moments when you feel okay. Physically, you've had a good meal, and you begin to think less. And it's always when thinking diminishes.
you begin to feel a little better. But in most cases, humans are moving below thinking. Their level of consciousness becomes lower than thinking. Alcohol can do it too. Have a glass, feel a little better. Have a second glass, feel even better. And you're not thinking that much anymore. And then if the second glass is better, the third one must be even better. And many humans drink alcohol or other drugs to experience these moments.
of becoming free of themselves free of the self this is unhappy person this entity but they don't realize that the unhappiness is created and sustained mostly by involuntary and unconscious thinking. All humans are longing to become free of the self.
as the buddha would talk about it to become free of this unhappy entity the me which humans carry as a burden they carry this burden of their personality which is never happy for very long there's always something missing here there's always something not quite right here they cannot relax fully into the now that they are not at home where they are they never feel they have arrived or brief moments yes i have arrived for example you win the lottery
All my problems are solved now. No, more problems arise, probably more than you had before. Or you fall in love. That's it. I found the person who is going to make me happy. And then you start living together. And then, oh, something went wrong again. The lottery win was supposed to make me happy. Falling in love was supposed to make me happy, and it did for brief moments. A certain period of the honeymoon was nice, and then you live together and daily life begins.
so humans carry as part of their identity without knowing it they carry this burden of what the buddha called dukkha which is usually translated as suffering. The Buddha said, wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever situation you find yourself in, Sooner or later, and usually sooner. By the way, that's a pre-translation of the Buddha. Sooner than later, and probably sooner, you will encounter dukkha. Suffering will.
appear again. No matter where you go, move house, find a new job, move to another country, exchange relationships. Another way of putting it, of course, is dukkha is suffering, or we can use the term unhappiness. It's a generic term. Unhappiness can manifest itself in many, many forms. And many humans don't even know that they are unhappy because it's their normal state. Their normal state is to be in a state of discontent or stress.
In the background, there's continuous irritation. And they're looking for the next problem. Wherever they go, they encounter it. Oh, that's not right. An inability to be. in the present moment and feel at home in it without needing to arrive at some future moment and this has been increasing this dysfunctional state in human beings has been increasing over the centuries many years ago i was reading the novels of franz kafka and they
express that state of consciousness that is in a state of threat or continuous unease. There is something wrong here, but I don't know what it is. In the trial, in the novel, he's accused of something, having done something, but nobody knows what. Even the judges that he goes to don't know what exactly his crime is. There is something deeply wrong, but I don't know what it is. This is such great literature.
In the novels you read that symbolically, if you could paraphrase the entire novel, you would say there is something very wrong, but I don't know what it is.
And I don't feel at home in this world. I feel as though I didn't belong here. Great authors ultimately talk about their own life experience. And you see, even in a beautiful city like... prague seemingly although it may be surprising even in this beautiful city it is possible to be unhappy how is that possible such a beautiful city wherever you go You carry with you the conditioning of your mind. So that is a, we could call that a dysfunctional state of consciousness.
And the reason for this is that humans are completely identified with the conditions. mind the conditioned mental emotional entity and they don't know anything else and here we come to the core of what this is all about We could say, let's explore this now. Identity. All humans are very interested in identity. Who am I? It's a very important question for humans. The first needs, the primordial needs of a human being are of course food and shelter and for a young child some love.
loving attention, but soon after that the next very very important thing comes up is identity. Who am I? A sense of self develops. And that begins in early childhood. In early childhood, the first thing a child learns is there's a sound that the parents pronounce. And at some point the child learns, that's me. John. Mary. Mary. Mary. Mary. Ah. It's me. I'm John. I'm Mary. Wow.
What arises is the beginning of a conceptual identity, a conceptual sense of self. And so the sound of your name... is the beginning of that because that name is a thought form that can also be expressed vocal through the vocal cords, but it is a thought form. And that's the beginning of it all. That's me. I am John. And then John looks at the body, and that's my body. And sometimes for a brief period of time a child talks about him or herself in the third person as John is hungry.
or mary is and then gradually it merges with john it's no longer he or him it's now i so and then i as the child loves to speak the most important word becomes the word I. And again, that's another step in developing a conceptual identity, I. Another concept in the mind, I, but you begin to identify with the concept. I is most people's favorite word.
In some languages, it's used more than in others, because in some languages, the first person is already built into the verb. But in English or German, I don't know how it is intersected. I is used a lot. Now the next step is John or Mary, they have contact with objects. Objects, they play with objects, toys. And then the parent gives the toy. And now the next step is the child answered, this is mine, my, my toy, mine.
And so another interesting thing was identity is the beginning of seeking identity in external objects. And that's the beginning of it all. And then further things happen, of course. The child grows up and more and more begins to identify with other things. Identity is not yet... complete is never it's never complete but identity seeks more to identify with because otherwise who am i so
The next very obvious thing is, of course, the body, the physical body, my body. Then the child grows, the body gets stronger, grows. And then the body, you compare the body mentally to other bodies and see is my body better or not as good as other bodies. Or can my body do more than other bodies? Another favorite thing for a child is the child can jump. I can jump this high. You can't do that, but I can do that. I can jump higher than you.
oh identity has grown a bit more i can jump higher than most other children and then gradually the child gets older than parents who are my parents your parents i remember when my parents were not very well off it was in the fifties the next thing turned and said what car does your dad have My dad didn't have any car. It was a terrible problem. My identity felt diminished because I couldn't say what car. So that determined.
the value of your parents. So I was afraid of the question, what car does your dad drive? He's going to get a Mercedes soon, I said. And that's okay. Any day now he's going to get it. He never did, but that's okay. And then it becomes more and more complex. Your identity seeks other things to add to itself. It seeks, yes, body, of course, is a very primordial one. social class, what your parents, this is a little bit connected with what I said about car, your parents have a nice house or not.
What social class do you belong to? In some countries that is still important. In other countries not so much. And gradually other things arise. Identification with things. identification with things which become concepts in the mind. We need to talk briefly about body because it's such an important identification for many people. Obviously, people identify with their physical body, and it is a source of great suffering for many people and for others.
It's a source of pride. It's a source of pride if your body is either stronger or better looking than other bodies. And you have... pride you feel your identity is enhanced or you you're ashamed so unhappy they're so unhappy with my body And that also isn't conceptual identity, but a negative one. So whatever becomes part of your conceptual identity, not everything is good.
There will be other things added to your identity that are very painful. What do you put on your body? Clothes, so that becomes an extension of your body. so you can what clothes you wear become part of your identity as everybody knows when you see advertisements for designer wear and so on they are not selling clothes They are selling identity. They're basically saying, if you buy this, you will have added something very positive to your sense of identity, to who you are.
Why this? Because it will make you bigger in your own eyes and in the eyes of others. You can have your social background. Let's say maybe you have... Ancestors that were famous or maybe you have ancestors going back. Maybe you're an aristocrat. In some places you can say you have an ancestry. It's very distinguished. And you can think about that and talk about it and you display it in the way you behave. And this is the home of my ancestors. There, there it is. Oh, oh. So the ego seeks more.
It fears to be less. It seeks more. And then other things become part of identity that are painful because you compare yourself to others, conceptual identity, and then... others have more than you or are better at this than you or with higher status than you and that's very painful What I'm talking about is the ego, the human ego, the egoic identity. And what the human ego is, a conceptual sense of self.
conceptual sense of self that you carry around with you and that you call it I. When you say I, the word I, you refer to this conceptual sense of self. And so as the adult builds up identifications that form the identity. And unfortunately, it's never quite enough. There's always something missing, and quite often it is painful to compare yourself to others. Do I have more or less than the others? So the ego is to do with what I can do, how I look, what I have, my possessions, abilities.
Playing an instrument, sports, good at this, good at that, whatever it may be. For a long time I struggled with an identity because I had an unhappy sense of identity. I couldn't identify with possessions because my parents didn't have any possessions or just basic ones. so i was struggling i felt diminished as i compared to others i felt diminished it's been very painful and so
After many years, I suddenly realized, ah, I got it. I know what I can do. I can be more knowledgeable than others. I can read books. And then I can talk about these books intelligently and I can show others that I know more than they do. It worked. But it didn't make me happy. I was still very insecure. and basically unhappy trying to show off what a great intellectual i was dropping names of famous authors i just dropped kafka but that was for another reason
That was not for egoic reasons, I can assure you. And so you live in a precarious way. Feeling my identity is not complete yet. I need something. There's something missing. That's a very fundamental feeling for humans who are trapped in their own ego. There is something missing. There's something not right. And so they are seeking, seeking, seeking, seeking to add something to who I am or who I think I am.
It's always conceptual. And so the ego also needs boundaries. The ego needs a boundary. It needs to say, this is I, me. and this is the other. Without the boundary, it cannot sustain its sense of identity. So it needs to feel... better than or superior to somebody else. Or the boundary around the ego needs some kind of enemy, the other. I forgot to mention. An important part of conceptual identity for many people is also collective identity. It's not just personal.
You also take things from the collective, the country where you live, or your religion, whatever it may be, or your political persuasion, and that becomes... part of your identity called your conceptual identity of a collective identity it could also be race if you are a racist then you identify with your race as superior than another race, another conceptual identity. Religion can be an important part of your conceptual identity too. And what it usually means,
My religion is the only one that is true and all the others are false. When you hear that, it's the ego speaking. We are the only ones who are going to heaven. Well, that's very satisfying to the ego. Wow. I am one of the few chosen ones. Look at me. It's wonderful. But then... You need others that disagree with you, because without the others, you cannot sustain your conceptual identity. If the others don't disagree, then your identity becomes fluid and dissolves.
So you need the others who have opposite interpretations of your same religion or some other religion, and they are your enemy because they are probably controlled by the devil. so there that's them politically you can do it too you have a political system that pronounces the other as not just inferior as actually All kinds of collective identities. Any kind of prejudice that people have is to do with conceptual identity.
Race is one that many people have. If you don't have much else in your life, you could identify with your race. and see okay our race is the greatest and all the others are inferior and then that gives you your sense of identity now you can see how you need the other In an imaginary scenario, one morning he or she wakes up, suddenly finds himself on another planet, and then begins to realize that everybody on this planet...
is exactly the same race as me. There is no other race. In fact, on this planet where this person suddenly finds himself, the word race does not even exist. Because if everybody is the same race and the same skin color, you will not even have a word for race. So the entire identity that was built up on race would collapse immediately. Without the other, it cannot be sustained. You could also say, you can take any example. Let's say you have a...
a noisy Italian sports car because Italian sports cars are meant to be noisy to attract attention. So you have a Lamborghini and it's painted red to attract even more attention. And it gives your ego boost. And then in another imaginary scenario, the next day you wake up in another dimension. And in this dimension... Every human being has the same red Lamborghini or whatever it is. Immediately, your ego cannot use it anymore. It becomes totally meaningless.
so then the your conceptual identity will then collapse without the the other the egoic identity desperately needs the other the enemy It loves its enemies. That's actually how many wars even start like that. You demonize an entire group of people, make them into an enemy, and then you feel. a much stronger sense of identity. So I've been talking about the ego, the human ego. One could talk about it for hours, but I won't go on and on. You're all familiar with the ego because...
At some point, before you went through a spiritual awakening, you also had an ego. It all comes back to conceptual identity. Is that who I am? Is that all there is to me? Or is there maybe a dimension? to who i am that i have never known i'm not aware of at all is there more or am i just this eagle entity the i
I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Eckhart Tolle Essential Teachings, the podcast. You can follow these essential teachings on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you haven't yet, go to Spotify and follow this podcast. Join us next week for more enlightened teachings from Eckhart Tolle. Thank you for listening.