Reflections on Eckhart Tolle’s concept of pain-body
First, there is the field of full consciousness.
This is then expressed in an organic form.
From here on, he loses himself in organizing the physical environment around him.
It starts to split into mind, and mind then splits into ego, and ego then believes itself to be the origin of consciousness.
As the ego, arising from thoughts of limitations, fractures against obstacles, it develops what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain-body.
The pain-body then becomes an unconscious entity within. Seeks to feed on pain to survive. It causes a person to feel pain and causes this person to inflict pain on others.
After the pain-body attacks, it tends to spread. Soon armies are formed and war spreads. The mind itself now works in the service of the pain-body.
The last two world wars are an expression of the pain-body in complete domination.
The body’s liberation from pain comes from observing the mind; watching him take in a feeling, fully identify with it, and think and act on that feeling.
This witnessing is the separation from the body of pain, the disidentification of it. When this happens, the light of awareness begins to dissolve the pain. One sees this shadowy entity for what it is, an accumulation of past injuries, an expression of renegade life force particles.
Witnessing is recognizing that the self is distinct from the mental and emotional turbulence of the ego. It is a return to the recognition of the consciousness that propagates thought, which is a small part of consciousness.
Witnessing is placing awareness in the moment and observing how it expresses itself through mentation.
Recognizing yourself as the author of the mind and not the result of the mind eliminates the automation that accompanies the belief in determinism, which in turn arises because of the belief that mind arises from matter.
This is the movement referred to as spirituality, and it is a movement towards wholeness.
Spirituality itself can be confusing because of the elaborate expressions about what it is; but, in its essence, it is an attempt to return to the whole.
The whole, it will be discovered, canâEUR(TM)t be fragmented.
Totality is a return to identification with the origin of creation; a return to the contemplation of the own field of consciousness; a return to what is known as God, Being or Spirit.
Our life path is a path towards freedom, identifying ourselves with the real, which arises from pure subjectivity, the implicate order. Our entrapment in the order of explanation is due to the unconsciousness of the pain-body.