Tolle on unconsciousness.

[Guest guest]

What do you mean by different levels of unconsciousness?

 

As you probably know, in sleep you constantly move between the

phases of dreamless sleep and the dream state. Similarly, in

wakefulness most people only shift between ordinary unconsciousness

and deep unconsciousness.

 

What I call ordinary unconsciousness means being identified with

your thought processes and emotions, your reactions, desires, and

aversions. It is most people's normal state. In that state, you are

run by the egoic mind, and you are unaware of Being. It is a state

not of acute pain or unhappiness but of an almost continuous low

level of unease, discontent, boredom, or nervousness - a kind of

background static. You may not realize this because it is so much a

part of " normal " living, just as you are not aware of a con-tinuous

low background noise, such as the hum of an air conditioner, until

it stops. When it suddenly does stop, there is a sense of relief.

 

Many people use alcohol, drugs, sex, food, work, television, or even

shopping as anesthetics in an unconscious attempt to remove the

basic unease. When this happens, an activity that might be very

enjoyable if used in moderation becomes imbued with a compulsive or

addictive quality, and all that is ever achieved through it is

extremely short-lived symptom relief.

 

The unease of ordinary unconsciousness turns into the pain of deep

unconsciousness - a state of more acute and more obvious suffering

or unhappiness - when things " go wrong, " when the ego is threatened

or there is a major challenge, threat, or loss, real or imagined, in

your life situation or conflict in a relationship. It is an

intensified version of ordinary unconsciousness, different from it

not in kind but in degree.

 

In ordinary unconsciousness, habitual resistance to or denial of

what is creates the unease and discontent that most people accept as

normal living. When this resistance becomes intensified through some

challenge or threat to the ego, it brings up intense negativity such

as anger, acute fear, aggression, depression, and so on. Deep

unconsciousness often means that the pain-body has been triggered

and that you have become identified with it.

 

Physical violence would be impossible without deep unconsciousness.

It can also occur easily whenever and wherever a crowd of people or

even an entire nation generates a negative collective energy field.

 

The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal

with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an

already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscions,

and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a

challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even

deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into

a nightmare. If you cannot be present even in normal circumstances,

such as when you are sitting alone in a room, walking in the woods,

or listening to someone, then you certainly won't be able to stay

conscious when something " goes wrong " or you are faced with

difficult people or situations, with loss or the threat of loss. You

will be taken over by a reaction, which ultimately is always some

form of fear, and pulled into deep unconsciousness.

 

Those challenges are your tests. Only the way in which you deal with

them will show you and others where you are at as far as your state

of consciousness is concerned, not how long you can sit with your

eyes closed or what visions you see. So it is essential to bring

more consciousness into your life in ordinary situations when

everything is going relatively smoothly.

 

In this way, you grow in presence power. It generates an energy

field in you and around you of a high vibrational frequency. No

unconsciousness, no negativity, no discord or violence can enter

that field and survive, just as darkness cannot survive in the

presence of light.

 

When you learn to be the witness of your thoughts and emotions,

which is an essential part of being present, you may be surprised

when you first become aware of the background " static " of ordinary

unconsciousness and realize how rarely, if ever, you are truly at

ease within yourself.

 

On the level of your thinking, you will find a great deal of

resistance in the form of judgment, discontent, and mental

projection away from the Now. On the emotional level, there will be

an undercurrent of unease, tension, boredom,or nervousness. Both are

aspects of the mind in its habitual resistance mode.

 

 

Carl Jung tells in one of his books of a conversation he had with a

Native American chief who pointed out to him that in his perception

most white people have tense faces, staring eyes, and a cruel

demeanor. He said: " They are always seeking something. What are they

seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy

and restless. We don't know what they want. We think they are mad. "

 

 

The undercurrent of constant unease started long before the rise of

Western industrial civilization, of course, but in Western

civilization, which now covers almost the entire globe, including

most of the East, it manifests in an unprecedentedly acute form. It

was already there at the time of Jesus, and it was there 600 years

before that at the time of Buddha, and long before that. Why are you

always anxious? Jesus asked his disciples. " Can anxious thought add

a single day to your life? "

 

And the Buddha taught that the root of suffering is to be found in

our constant wanting and craving. Resistance to the Now as a

collective dysfunction is intrinsically connected to loss of

awareness of Being and forms the basis of our dehumanized industrial

civilization. Freud, by the way, also recognized the existence of

this undercurrent of unease and wrote about it in his book

Civilization and Its Discontents, but he did not recognize the true

root of the unease and failed to realize that freedom from it is

possible. This collective dysfunction has created a very unhappy and

extraordinarily violent civilization that has become a threat not

only to itself but also to all life on the planet.