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reaction paper 10

In Chapter 9, Tolle evokes the subject of happiness. It is similar to the ideas of “The Happiness Advantage” that we have previously read, but with the difference of Tolle going beyond the concept of happiness into the idea of “inner peace”. For Tolle, no one can really qualify what is positive and what is negative, and most things are neither because they exist outside of those concepts. Tolle argues that a lot of things that we consider as negative, such as loss, pain, illness, and other things have actually “benefited” the people that experienced them, and made them become a better person. I cannot really agree with things such as loss being in any way positive, to be completely honest, and I do not personally feel that the loss I have experienced in my life has somehow made me better. Tolle does say that happiness in these cases is impossible, and that we can be in state of inner peace instead. What blocks this mindset is what Tolle calls, “resistance patterns”, and forgivenes
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reaction paper 9

In Chapter 8, Tolle evokes the topic of enlightened relationships. He talks of the popular perception of romantic love between two people as what makes life “complete”, and that it is essential for reaching enlightenment. For the author, this is just another case of not living in the “Now” and always waiting for something that will make us happy. Often, we think that having a relationship is the ultimate goal that will rid us of insecurity, of loneliness and of pain, but a lot of the times relationships do not help, or even end up increasing the already-present emotions. Tolle reiterates that finding inner peace needs to come from within. He also talks of the dynamics of romantic relationships, and how these relationships essentially thrive on emotions and conflict. He refers to them as Love/Hate relationships, because they enjoy high levels of pleasure as much as high levels of pain. Feeling such as lust or affection can easily turn into anger and resentment.   That is because thes
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reaction paper 8

In Chapter 4, Tolle argues that there are different levels of unconsciousness. More specifically, people go back and forth between two levels of consciousness: ordinary unconsciousness and deep unconsciousness. Ordinary unconsciousness is the normal state that people usually are in, and that Tolle says does not involve a high level of pain or unhappiness, but rather a constant feeling of something not right, an unease that always stays with us in the background.   It is something that most people do not even realize is there until it stops, and relief is felt. Tolle compares this to the sound of an air conditioner that we do not realize is there until it stops. Deep unconsciousness is a state of deep pain that comes from the “worsening” of conditions felt in ordinary unconsciousness. Tolle calls it an “intensified” ordinary unconsciousness, as it is not different in symptoms but in the degree of which the symptoms are felt. This comes when the “ego” feels threatened by a major lif
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reaction paper 7

In The Power of Now, the author reiterates something that we have seen before, which is that our mind and our consciousness are not what makes us us , and thus that we should strive to liberate ourselves from our mind, and be a watcher instead, in order to reach enlightenment.   The author also explores the issues of pain and of the demands of the ego. Once you understand these concepts, the author claims that you can start the process of detachment and dive into the Now. What he means by this is that once you let go of those things, problems that plague us linked to past and future cease to matter, and the only thing that matters is the exact instant they you’re living. You can live with your mind and not be bothered by it. The first way to do that is to separate the mind from the concept of time, which is the main factor that pushes us to constantly relive past memories and to constantly worry about the future. Once the concept of time is disregarded, those worries cease to exist
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reaction paper 6

The last part of the Happiness Advantage talks about the Rippler Effect. The author starts by showing through a story that real change needs to start with ourselves first, and the best way to do is through following the 7 principles that he has described throughout the book, not individually or by applying some of them, but by adopting them all. They are all interconnected with each other, and following each principle makes following the others even easier. He claims that following the 7 principles is the ultimate way of reaching the Happiness Advantage, after which change will start to ripple out from ourselves to the world around us. He explains this by the simple fact of human nature that pushes us to mimic what we observe. He gives the example of a study, in which people were paired together with one given the instruction to smile at the other, and the latter was instructed to keep a neutral face. The result of that was that people overwhelmingly returned the smiles, no matter w
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reaction paper 5

Part 2 of the happiness advantage further explains the seven principles. The Tetris Effect is the third of those principles. The author begins this part of the chapter by giving the very simple analogy: someone who plays a game (the author gives a personal anecdote of his related to Grand Theft Auto) for hours and hours on end suddenly starts seeing it wherever they go and whatever they do. They start dreaming about it, working it around their daily lives, and become obsessive. Their brain makes everything connect somehow with the pattern they’re used to, the game in this case. In the same way, our brain can become stuck in a certain pattern that we are used to, and it becomes difficult to view the world in any other way that the one that it has been repeating incessantly. This pattern is not only the result of being obsessed with a game, but it can be caused by something as impactful as our profession. The author shares research that shows that people who have professions where t
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reaction paper 4

The Happiness Advantage ’s First Part speaks of the difference that happiness makes in our everyday life, and especially on our successes and failures. The author suggests that statistically, people who are happier are more successful, and not the other way around. His argument and his research is based on college students, with a case study at Harvard University, which showed that students that had not experienced excessive amounts of stress during their studies had the highest grades and were the most successful in their college careers. He then sets up the model for “success and achievement”, reducing it to seven elements: First, as the name of the book is called, “the Happiness Advantage”, which entails training the brain to focus on the positive to boost work efficiency; “The Fulcrum and the Lever”, which involves training our mindsets to see the world and experience things positively; the “Tetris Effect”, which stops the brain from focusing on stress and on what can go wrong
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