Eckhart Tolle

so you become aware this was discovered by the way uh two thousand years ago by a not very well-known ancient greek philosopher epictetus and he said uh the the the most of your suffering is derived from what your mind is telling you about a situation but not from the situation itself

And that's an enormous realization.

And that can be the beginning of an awakening to see that the narrative in your mind is mostly what causes the suffering.

It is possible, of course, that an external situation may cause physical discomfort, obviously.

Yes.

That's possible.

Your legs are hurting or back is hurting or it's too cold or too hot.

Physical discomfort, of course, that's possible.

But that is not suffering in the sense in which we use this term right here.

That is.

No.

The psychological suffering, unhappiness is another word you could use.

It's a generic term for any form of negativity inside yourself, unhappiness, suffering.

So you begin to realize that most of that arises from a mental narrative about a situation or about your circumstances, but not from the circumstances themselves.

And then you can begin to practice every time you feel

upset is arising, some form of anger is arising, some form of negativity, blaming people in situations and saying, this shouldn't be happening, or something is not happening, but it should be happening, or they should do this, or they shouldn't do it, all kinds of narratives in your mind.

So your spiritual awakening is

you're beginning to be aware of what your mind is saying.

The stories that you're telling yourself about situations, but also the stories you're telling yourself about what you call your life.

So because people, there are millions of people in this world