{"id":47597,"date":"2022-07-31T12:30:28","date_gmt":"2022-07-31T12:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=47597"},"modified":"2022-07-31T12:30:32","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T12:30:32","slug":"what-eckhart-didnt-tell-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/07\/31\/what-eckhart-didnt-tell-us\/","title":{"rendered":"What Eckhart didn’t tell us."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I had one million plans.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of them didn\u2019t work out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of them did, sort of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there were a few who were almost exactly the way I wanted it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remembered those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest: not so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then things started to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pain, addiction, running around in confused circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when all of that became too much, the spiritual journey started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The person that wanted to get rid of the person, but had no idea what that would actually mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because: how do you deal with the vacuum between thinking it\u2019s all up to you, and knowing nothing really is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nobody fucking teaches you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so life goes on, and the thinking continues, just like the trying to figure it out anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You thought you knew how the game of life worked, and now you know you didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that what you really expected it to be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is my experience, now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tools That Make The Future have been taken away from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too many times I was shown that I\u2019m not really doing anything, that the personal results of all this perceived working my ass off are actually quite minimal, so it gradually stopped making sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And although it still seems like I DO shit all the time, the conviction that it\u2019s actually true has almost gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is a weird state to be in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not my choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not my fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing to do about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took away the hope, but it didn\u2019t make me hopeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just\u2026 practical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that the word?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing I always wanted and longed for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it takes time to get used to (at least in the story), and every time it seemed you did, something new will happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckhart Tolle never told us this awakening thing would be really confusing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ‘living in the now’ that sells so well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He forget to mention that we\u2019d be left with nothing, and more of that all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That we\u2019d lose a lot of crappy, but also many precious things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That we\u2019d have more innate wisdom, but less belief in personal ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s both exciting, and terrifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human being we thought we were, with all the options and the free will and the power and the Getting Things Done mentality, tumbles from its pedestal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now there\u2019s the realization that life will go on without you having to lift a finger, and your finger will still go up all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to do with that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you own not-owning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now there\u2019s a sense of how all the resistance, the dilemmas, the triumphant moments, and the doubts that were once happening and caused so much suffering, were created for you, as you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not by the person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not even to a person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you do with THAT?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you do when you know you don\u2019t really do anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, mostly the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chasing your tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or denying you even have a tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or trying to BE the tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever happens in the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life is very much going on, still, and technically the same, but experientially quite different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life still happens for the body-mind and for the apparent person, hope will flare up, plans will arise, measures will be taken, steps will be stepped, and failures will be recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will feel amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it will feel somewhat helpless and clueless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good feelings will be there, arrogance will arise, humility can come up, and the game just plays itself, including the now confused, seeking you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sometimes there\u2019s the urge and inspiration, the deep excitement, that results in blog after blog after blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, I didn\u2019t write this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t mind claiming it anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How about that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This must be love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @charlottelharrison, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had one million plans. Most of them didn\u2019t work out. Some of them did, sort of. And there were a few who were almost exactly the way I wanted it. I remembered those. The rest: not so much. Then things started to change. Pain, addiction, running around in confused circles. And when all of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[99,102,97,117,100,105,116,113,107,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47599,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47597\/revisions\/47599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}