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埃克哈特談失業
問：對於我們這些目前失業並想找份工作的人，如何保持與源頭的聯結，與內在神性的聯結，同時還要面對現實情況和個人戲劇以及想要找份工作的痛苦？
埃克哈特：這很具有挑戰性。挑戰有可能變成好事 – 它們要麼喚醒你，要麼將你拖入更深的反應模式、無意識或者痛苦之中。每一個你生命中的挑戰都可以成為二者之一。挑戰具有潛在的幫助。挑戰意味著這樣或那樣的限制。我很感謝我生命中的挑戰。如果沒有它們，我將不是現在的我，你們很多人也意識到如果沒有挑戰，你也不會是現在的你。
對於這件事我有一點個人的經驗。或者可以說是很豐富的個人經驗 – 因為在我成年後的大多數時間裡，我也處於失業的狀態。在大部分的時間裡，我生活得相對來說很簡單，甚至在三十多歲的那幾年，我生活在貧困線以下。那時候我讀報，有一次報紙上提到某個人的收入水平被認為低於貧困線，然後我想：“我可比他低得多！”但是我並不覺得自己“貧窮”。我意識到有一些東西我買不起。我可以蕃茄醬，但是我買不起意麵醬。番茄醬更便宜，便宜多了。很多年我都吃蕃茄醬。甚至就在4年前，我發現自己仍然因為價錢便宜而選擇蕃茄不選意麵醬。
有一些現實的事情你需要重新調整和面對。你需要採取些行動以應對新的情況，所有這些都是在現實的層面。除此之外還有頭腦的層面。痛苦就是從頭腦的層面引發的，而不是現實的層面。蘸著少量的蕃茄醬，而不是精心烹制的特殊醬料，吃意大利麵，這並不痛苦 – 這只是個很小的例子，它可以代表很多事情。但是如果念頭突然升起：“事情變成這樣”，“我得吃這世上最便宜的毫無味道的醬”或者“我失敗了”，“我很可能再也找不到另一份工作了，因為有這麼多人在找工作，這毫無意義”或者“我明天還得吃一模一樣的食物”– 痛苦就是從這些念頭之中升起的。
痛苦也來自於降低了的自我價值感。它在哪兒呢？當然是在你的頭腦中。“我真沒用”，“我太老了，沒人會願意再雇用我”或者“我本應該接受更好的教育”– 無論這些念頭是什麼，它製造了低價值感。這是因為你從前的自我價值感來自於你在這個世界的作用 – 這很常見。但它並不是真正來自於你的作用，而是來自於你的頭腦所告訴你的，你在這個世界的作用。你從你的頭腦中的某些想法來提取你的自我價值感，也許有人給你一些反饋，他們告訴你你是有用的 – 你是這些有工作的人們之間互動的一部分。你有一個老闆，這個老闆也許告訴你你乾得很棒、你將獲得晉升、你的客戶們都很喜歡你，等等 – 於是你從你和其他人的思維之中建立起了你的自我價值感。
現在機會來了，當你的自我價值感被縮減，你有機會進入到一個更深的地方，在那裡，你的自我價值感與你在這個世界從事的工作毫無關聯。與任何人告訴你的關於你是誰也毫無關聯。這是一種與思維結構沒有任何關係的自我價值感。你可以利用這個挑戰來試試看你是否能找到什麼 – 在你內在更深的地方 – 那是比你能夠從思維中提取的要大得多的東西。
當你失去了工作，你的自我形象受到了損害。痛苦隨之升起。自我形象是由思維組成的。受損的自我形象會導致更多的痛苦，它會持續下去 – 它會將你拖入更深的痛苦之淵。也許它們還會說：“沒錯，你是對的”。或者，最終，你放棄在思考中提取你的自我感。你進入了本體的生命之中，進入了臨在。你意識到，你真正所是，比你所能想到的任何事物都要重要得多。
你頭腦中的念頭 – 那些關於你是誰和你的價值的想法 – 本質上都是虛幻的。無論這些想法是正面的還是負面的，它們都是虛幻的。當念頭變得負面並且帶來了痛苦，這虛幻的本質也許會更容易被認出。痛苦可以成為喚醒者。
利用這個自我價值感和自我形象縮減的機會，超越它。然後，也許你會找到一份工作 – 但是你的自我價值感不再依附於你所做的，或者你沒做的，你所達成的，或者你沒達成的。你將發現某種超越，你將這超越帶入下一份工作中。頭腦形象的依賴消失了。當這依賴不再存在，你會驚訝自己在下一份工作中表現得多麼好。
在那個意識狀態，你更有可能成功，但這個成功將不會成為你感到滿足的理由，因為這種滿足已經直接被發現，就在當下這一刻，就在你真正所是的深處。你不再從外在的情境中尋求滿足。奇跡就是，當你放棄從外在尋求滿足，外在的情境反而會變得使你滿足。這樣你就可以利用挑戰作為你的覺醒的一部分。
在現實事物中沒有痛苦。有一段時間我甚至沒有家，只是四處漂泊。幸運的是我已經從物質認同中走出來了。如果我仍然陷在頭腦的盒子裡，那將會是一段非常痛苦的時光，因為我的頭腦會告訴我關於我的一些事情，我很可能會完全相信它。“我失敗了”，“我拋棄了生命給我的所有機會”，“我畢業於一所著名大學”，“我本來可以做些偉大的事情”，“是我把它扔掉了”，“這為什麼會發生在我身上”，“我真沒用”，“沒人會雇我” – 這就是痛苦。
幸運的是，我已經從這之中走出來了，所以沒有痛苦，只有這一刻的情境。在這情境之中實際上蘊含著無限的美好和生命力。自我價值感不再依附於我在這個世界上做什麼。
任何挑戰，無論是這一類的挑戰，還是身體上的挑戰，無論它是什麼 – 它都可以被用作將無意識燃燒殆盡的火焰。
Question: For those of us who are unemployed and seeking employment, how do you stay connected to the Source, and to your own sense of divinity, and still deal with the reality and the drama and the pain of trying to find a job?
Eckhart: It’s challenging. Challenges are good, potentially – they can either wake you up, or they can pull you into more reactivity, unconsciousness and suffering. Every challenge that comes into your life can go either this way, or that way. Potentially the challenge is very helpful. Challenge means limitation in one form or another. I’m certainly grateful for the challenges that came into my life. I wouldn’t be here, and many of you realize that without the challenges in your life, you wouldn’t be here either.
This is something I have a little bit of personal experience with also. Or maybe even quite a lot of personal experience – because for a large part of my adult life I was actually not employed, as such. For a large part I lived on relatively little, for quite a few years, even in my thirties, below the poverty line. At that time I read the paper, and it mentioned the income level for a single person, for what was considered to be below the poverty line, and I thought “I’m much below that!” But I didn’t realize I was “poor”. I realized that there were things I couldn’t afford to buy. I could buy tomato sauce but I couldn’t buy spaghetti sauce. Tomato sauce is cheaper, much cheaper. That stayed with me for many years. Even as recently as four years ago, I still find myself getting tomato sauce instead of spaghetti sauce because it’s cheaper.
There are practical things that you need to re-adjust and deal with. There’s some action you need to take, in order to adjust to the new situation; all that is in the practical realm. Then there is the mental realm. In the mental realm is where the suffering could arise, not in the practical realm. There’s no suffering in eating spaghetti with a thin tomato sauce – this is just one little example here, that stands for many things – rather than a nice, specially prepared sauce for pasta. But if, suddenly thought arises, and you think “this is what it has come to”, or “I have to eat this watery sauce, the cheapest food there is”, or “I’ve failed” or “I probably won’t find another job, because billions of people are now looking for jobs and it’s pointless” or “I’ll have to eat the same thing tomorrow” – and [these thoughts] are where the suffering comes from.
The suffering also comes from the diminished sense of self-worth, now where is that? Of course that’s in your head. “I’m useless”, or “I’m too old and nobody will employ me anymore” or “I should have had a better education”, whatever the thoughts are – it creates a diminished sense of self-worth. That is because your self-worth before was derived from your function in this world – which is a very normal thing. But it wasn’t really derived from your function, it was derived from what your mind told you about your function in this world. You derived your sense of self-worth from certain thoughts in your head, and you got perhaps some feedback from others who also told you that you were useful – you were part of all that interaction that people have when they have a job. You have a boss, the boss might tell you that you’re doing well, you’re getting a promotion, the clients love you, and so on – and you’ve built up your sense of self from your thoughts and the thoughts of others.
The opportunity now, when you have a diminished sense of self-worth, is to go to a deeper place where a sense of self-worth has nothing to do with what you are doing in this world. Nothing to do with what anybody tells you about yourself. It is a sense of self-worth or value that has nothing to do with the structure of thinking. You can use this challenge to see if you can find something – a deeper place in you – where there is something far greater than anything that could be derived from thinking about yourself.
When you lose your job, the self-image can be damaged. And that is where the suffering comes from. The self-image is made up of thinking. The damaged self-image can lead to more suffering, and it will just go on and on – and it can pull you deeper. And perhaps they will even say “yes, you’re right”. Or, you step out of deriving your sense of who you are – ultimately – from thinking. You go into the aliveness of Being, of Presence. And you realize that who you actually are is much more vitally there than anything you can think about.
The ideas in your head – the thoughts that tell you something about who you are and what you are worth – are ultimately illusory. It is illusory both when the thoughts are good, and when the thoughts are negative. The illusory nature can perhaps be more easily recognized when the thoughts become negative and cause suffering. Suffering can be an awakener.
Use that opportunity of a diminished sense of self-worth and self-image, and step beyond. Then, perhaps, you’ll find a job – but your sense of worth no longer depends on what you do there, or what you don’t do, or achieve or don’t achieve. You will find some transcendence, and you can bring that transcendence into your next job. The clinging to mental images is not there anymore. You’ll be surprised how well you’ll do, in your next job, when the clinging to images isn’t there anymore.
The success that you are more likely to encounter in that state of consciousness will not be the cause of your feeling of fulfillment because the fulfillment has already been found directly – in the present moment, in the depth of who you are. You no longer look to external situations to fulfill you. When you no longer look to external situations to fulfill you, the miracle is that external situations become quite fulfilling. That is where you can use this challenge as part of your awakening.
There is no suffering in the practical things. For a while I didn’t even have a home and I would just drift around. Fortunately, I had already stepped out of identification with money. If I had still been stuck in the mental box, it would have been a time of great suffering, because my mind would have told me certain things about myself, which I would have completely believed. “I have failed”, “I have thrown away all these opportunities that life has given me”, “I was a graduate student at a great university”, “I could have done great things”, “I’ve thrown it all away”, “Why did this happen to me”, “I’m useless”, “Nobody’s going to employ me” – that’s suffering.
Fortunately, I had already stepped out of that, so there was no suffering, just the situation of this moment. There was actually beauty and aliveness in it. Self-worth was no longer dependent on what I was doing in this world.
Any challenge, whether it’s that kind of challenge, or a physical challenge, whatever it may be – it can be used as the fire that burns up unconsciousness.
