6: Cultivating Awareness Through the Economic Crisis
On this episode of Living With Tolle:
We explore how Eckhart Tolle’s teachings can help us deal with the stresses and anxieties of our current economic situation.
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Key Highlights From Our Conversation:
Dealing with the News (3:30 – 11:30)
How can Eckhart’s teachings help us deal with the fear & anxiety created by “News Overload,” by the torrent of negativity behind the current “Economic Crisis.”
Cultivating Awareness From Our Real Life Economic Strains & Challenges (11:30 – 17:00)
There are real problems and hardships happening. People are having a hard time meeting their payments, dealing with rising costs of food and gas. How can deal with these real life strains? How can we use these situations to cultivate awareness, acceptance, and presence?
The “Return Movement” (17:10 – 22:45)
In Chapter 10 of A New Earth, Tolle discusses the concept of the Return Movement. Everything expands and then returns: age, health, friends, family, even the universe. There is a natural flow back and forth. It is a natural cycle. Our culture is obsessed with the expansion, not the returning side of this cycle. How can understanding this natural cycle help us deal with the retractions in our economic situation?
Returning to Presence and Enjoyment (22:45 – 27:50)
What things we can do to set aside the strains and stresses, the news and fear, and get back to being present, to acceptance, and to enjoyment?
Questions to our audience:
- How has the economic crisis affected you?
- Have Eckhart’s teachings helped you cope with the stress and anxiety of our economic situation?
- Have you found yourself overloaded with news? Have you been able to turn it off?
- Has our podcast helped you generate awareness and return to a state of presence?
- Is the concept of The Return a helpful one to help you accept the economic cycles of life?
- How have you found joy in your everyday life?
Please share your experiences and your feedback in the “Response” section below.
As we continue to develop our site, your comments on everything from content to design will be very valuable.
Comment by sandy on 14 November 2008:
Thanks. This was a good start to the day. This is the first podcast from you I’ve heard and I did enjoy it. It did seem to take quite awhile to get going on the topic. I think people who choose this website might be ready to jump in a little quicker, but generally, it was very good. I like the references to Tolle’s texts, the use of quotations, and the personal experience with the kids wanting to play while the TV called urgently.
Comment by Chris casady on 16 December 2008:
How does the “economic crisis” affect me? I LAUGH at it after reading Tolle (for the first time this summer)
What crisis? Where? I don’t see it! In this very moment right now I have no crisis. I doubt I’ll have one in the next moment either. This “crisis” is entirely a construct of mind, your mind, my mind, the collective global mind. We created it to have drama, conflict for our egos, negative energy for our pain-bodies to feed on. You will discover that you still rise every morning, still have breakfast, still [use the bathroom, eds.] and meditate, crisis or no crisis. The “crisis” makes us all feel separate from each other, separate from our money, separate from our power but all that’s illusion. The money was always phony money anyway, just numbers, a concept, an illusion, it was never there, it hasn’t been there for years, What changed? The collective “story” about it. We changed the story to “lack”: the money’s gone. Only the story changed. Any thought spent on the crisis is thought spent in the past or future, with regrets or fears, not spent in the Now where there is no crisis. If, worse comes to worse, the contents of my rice bowl becomes smaller and I begin to feel hunger I will make a space for that too.
Comment by Greg on 18 December 2008:
Thanks Chris for your comment. Yes, the “crisis” is a matter of perspective. More important though is to be aware of the energy driving those thoughts. As Eckhart states, “Its like the chief of police trying to track down the arsonist, when the arsonist is the chief of police.” Is the energy of your comment the same energy that drives the “crisis” perspective? Often times the ego slips in through the back door and complains about unconsciousness. You have to determine if this is true or not in your case. Just something to be aware of as you make space for all the various situations that can arise in life. All the best on your journey! Greg