Copyrighted 2009
Questions about Eckhart Tolle
For thousands of years many meditating monks and mystics of different religious traditions have reached deeper states of consciousness. Eckhart Tolle brings a practical version of these meditative methods to people living in the modern world. He says we can live our normal lives and be spiritual too. He also has a hopeful vision of how these methods can save our civilization from eco-catastrophe. It would be great if his teaching can do these things as they are so important.
Can meditative methods developed for and by monks and mystics be applied to people in the modern world who have family and other social responsibilities? And will it help solve our civilization’s problems? These are the two important wonderings I have about Tolle’s spiritual teachings.
The first question I wonder about is whether his emphasis on oneness with the divine and being in the moment will totally take care of the problems normal people encounter in modern life. Being totally one with the divine obviously works for monks, especially Indian monks whose emphasis is on transcending the world and getting enlightened. But modern people with responsibilities have entirely different concerns like taking care of their children and making sure they keep their jobs. To understand my wondering, it is necessary to quickly look at Tolle’s teachings.
Tolle’s most basic emphasis is on the power of the present moment. He says we should “allow the present moment to be… Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.” (PN, p. 35-6) He extends this radical acceptance of the now to everything, even the death of those close to you. We think of death as tragic “but it is only tragic because you projected a separate self where there was none.” (PN, p. 100)
Being in the present does transform some things, as superfluous worldly things can be seen as trivial when one is in the spiritual present. But Tolle so emphasizes being in the now and how it will “miraculously transform your whole life.” He says we have to get out of the past and the future, and just be in the now as the “past and future obviously have no reality of their own.” (PN, p. 50)
Tolle is right that too many people get caught up in the future, thinking about how they are going to acquire material things or get a relationship, and this pulls them out of the joy of the present moment. The question is if he is going to other the extreme and neglecting the future and past totally? Could it be that if we are on our spiritual path, the future can give us energy to do things in the now because that future connects us to our spiritual path? For example, after I finished raising my three children fulltime and the youngest was enrolled in first grade, I intuited it was my spiritual path to get a scholarship to go to graduate school. To get this scholarship, I needed to intensively study for the Graduate Record Exam or GREs. In fact, to get a good score I would have to study eight hours a day for months. Even though I would ordinarily find it extremely boring to study such useless material, and a part of me wanted to just live in the now and enjoy the now by doing something else, I did not do that. I knew that if I did not intensely study for the GREs my future would be worse. This idea gave me energy in the now by connecting myself to the future. And because I was connected to my higher spiritual purpose and my future, I became energized when I studied and even felt joyful. This was something my mind helped do as it enlarged my present by connecting the present to the future. Only if I concentrated on how real the future was, could I be spiritually joyful in the present.
Tolle is right that if we are not on our spiritual path and are only concerned with ego things that we can get carried away with getting these things in the future. But if we are on our spiritual path, is it possible that a recognition of the future can be a part of making a better present – especially if we are not monks, and we have responsibilities to feed and house other people?
The same question can also be asked about the importance of the past. Tolle believes that a problem becomes a long-term problem because you keep dwelling on it, but if you would just let it go, then it would no longer reoccur. Any “problem solving” is just feeding the ego and thus feeding what he calls the pain-body, which will increase your own misery. (NE, pp. 139-140) If one is focused, like Tolle is, on a spirituality for monks whose main emphasis is on achieving enlightenment, this may make sense. The question is if the monastic technique can be applied to people living normal lives with normal responsibilities who are also trying to be spiritual in this world.
If I am overly critical of myself for no good reason, Tolle’s method will help me get over that. But what if I continually have the same pattern of behavior of treating my son in the wrong way because of some issue I have with self-centeredness? Will Tolle’s monastic mysticism of being in the present moment help me deal with that, or will it be brushing aside things I need to see? One of my friends tells me that it is very helpful for her to look at the times she messes up with her kids because she eventually notices a pattern of behavior. Once she notices this pattern, she can focus on why she does it and begin to change. Tolle continually focuses on living in the present and not focusing on the past, and so he does not seem to have a space for my friend’s learning process. Is he just sweeping the problems aside?
Jack Kornfield is a well-known American Buddhist who writes in many of his books about Buddhist meditators. He talks about many teachers who have spent decades meditating and being enlightened in the present moment similar to what Tolle describes. Especially in his book After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path, he says that all the spiritual teachers he knows come out of their enlightened meditative experiences of Oneness and still have big relationship problems. These people have great experiences of mystical Oneness, but when they come back to normal world, they have issues that still have to be dealt with like everyone else.
I worry that the meditative method developed by monks and for monks is not enough to solve normal everyday problems like Tolle thinks. Is Kornfield right that the kind of Oneness mysticism Tolle advocates is not as complete as Tolle thinks it is? And do people need other things like therapy (which is totally committed to the idea that the past exists in the present) to help them?
Tolle has a major difference from the monastic mystics: he wants to use their meditative methods to save our civilization from disaster. Traditionally, in India and in Buddhism, mystics meditate and are not much involved with saving the world. Tolle is to be praised for being so concerned with our civilization as it is so messed up. The question I wonder about is if his social activism is consistent with his meditative mysticism, or does he have to ignore important areas of his mysticism to develop his social activism?
To understand his solution to our civilization’s crisis, we need to understand his theory of cosmic evolution.
Tolle says that the start of the cosmos was when consciousness (something like an impersonal God) took on an outer form by creating and infusing itself in the physical cosmos. Over time, this consciousness lost awareness of itself as divine and humans identified themselves not with their inner divinity but with their outer physicalness. (PN, pp. 99-100) He says we then “started to perceive ourselves as meaningless fragments in an alien universe, unconnected to the Source.” (PN, p. 31) In a more Christian phrasing of the same theory, he says that humans “fell from the state of grace, entered the realm of time and mind, and lost awareness of Being.” (PN, p. 31)
Tolle does not claim his idea is an original insight, he says this view is what the Indian thinkers call lila, or a game God is playing. (PN, p. 100) Almost all Indian thinkers who believe in lila also say that humans should raise their consciousness and rise above worldly concerns through ascetic practices of bodily discipline and meditation. Tolle rejects this asceticism.
He says that even though over time humans lost most of their connection to the divine, they still had some connection through their bodies. Males however are generally more identified with their minds and females with their bodies. Tolle believes says that about five thousand years ago, “the mind took over and humans lost touch with the reality of their divine essence.” God was then conceived as a male. (PN, p. 165)
As this entity he calls the mind took over the world and males dominated, the sacred feminine was suppressed and demonized. This suppression was so widespread that during the witch hunts, Tolle says three to five million women were killed by the Catholic Church. (A New Earth, hereafter NE, p. 155-6) Tolle says the real problem was something called “the evolving ego,” which had a plan to take over the world. “What is it that suddenly made men feel threatened by the female? The evolving ego in them [men]. It knew it could gain full control of our planet only through the male form, and to do so, it had to render the female powerless.” (NE, p. 156) In other places he comes right out and says this evolving ego or egoic mind is an entity or being of some type: “the collective egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity ever to inhabit this planet.” (PN, p. 102) Tolle does not label this theory but it is very close to a worldview called ecofeminism. Ecofeminism similarly blames male energy for both keeping individual women oppressed and oppressing our environment.
Tolle says this egoic mind or evolving ego is an entity that has wishes and desires. If it has wishes and desires, then it is something like a living being. Furthermore, by trying to stop humanity’s spiritual evolution and keep the sacred feminine down, it is trying to take over and control the world.
Tolle does not say much at all about this entity, but it sounds like an evil force much like the Christian devil. The conservative Christians are bold in stating they believe an evil being like the devil exists. Tolle’s egoic entity is similar to the devil or evil but by calling it an egoic entity, he gives it a more sophisticated sounding name. Thus many of his followers, who would probably laugh at the supposedly unsophisticated fundamentalist Christians for believing in the devil, have a very similar belief themselves. While serious Christians would never say “the devil made me do it,” Tolle actually comes close to saying this when he says the evolving ego, or another entity he calls the pain-body, takes us over and possesses us. (NE, p. 163)
Besides an Indian theory of cosmic evolution and an ecofeminist theory of the development of the modern world,
Tolle also has a New Age theory of a quantum leap in evolution.
Tolle says that in times of radical crisis, species either die or experience a radical leap in evolution. (NE, p. 20) He states that humans have killed over a hundred million people in the 20th century and “now they are engaged in destroying nature and the planet that sustains them. Unbelievable but true. Humans are a dangerously insane and very sick species.” (PN, p. 81) Because humans are now in such a radical crisis, we need now to evolve to a new consciousness or die. (NE, p. 21)
Instead of this message of our likely extinction being seen as a downer, he ends his second book with the hopeful sentence: “A new species is arising on the planet. It is arising now, and you are it!” (NE, p. 309) He says the change in our species will be so profound it will be similar to the start of flowering in plants. He even says we could become transparent to light as we lose the density of the mind. (NE, p. 5)
Tolle gives many people hope that there is a way out of our civilization’s current troubles. And I praise him for being concerned for our civilization’s problems and trying to use spiritual methods to solve them. The question is whether his concern for social activism fits with his monastic meditative mysticism and the power of now. His spiritual teachings rest on this monastic mysticism, but he is taking a big gamble going beyond traditional monastic concerns and applying them to social problems. It would be great if his ideas all fit together as then being spiritual would not only be the solution to an individual’s problems, it would also be the solution to society’s problems.
I am not so sure these two things fit together. Let me share some of my wonderings.
Tolle says that he has personal experience of all his teachings. He says his book “is not derived from external sources, but from the one true Source within, so it contains no theory or speculation. I speak from inner experience.” (PN, p. 10) The question is how could he have experienced his theory of cosmic evolution? I try to figure out ways someone could experience it, but nothing makes any sense to me. He could have experienced being burnt as a witch a couple hundred years ago in a previous lifetime and that would have been awful. But could he have in any way witnessed consciousness manifesting at the beginning of time and then losing its way?
Maybe I missed something in his writings or in one of his talks, but he never seems to deal with this question. He does emphasize the importance of feelings telling us what is true. (PN, p. 10) So maybe he never experienced these things as true, but he feels they are true.
Sometimes our feelings clearly do tell us things our minds cannot. For example our feelings may sense someone is dangerous without our minds having enough information to make that conclusion. I wonder though if Tolle’s theory of cosmic evolution fits into the kind of thing our feelings can know are true.
I know a son of a Roma (Gypsy) killed in the Holocaust. He scoffs at people who trust their feelings indicate truth. He says this ignores the problem that to Germans during Hitler’s time it rang very true that the Jews, Roma and other lesser races were the cause of all their problems. I can see my friend’s point that sometimes something might feel true because you have been conditioned to believe it or want to believe it. So I started to wonder if Tolle’s ideas of cosmic evolution were something that people wanted to believe in. [More on the idea that if it rings true, it is true is discussed on this site here.]
My Roma friend (who turned on his heritage and went “white”) said that scientists and mathematicians build great things like the internet because they get beyond their feelings to an empirically testable, intellectual understanding of the nature of the physical world. On the other hand, he snorted at alternative, spiritual people who trust their feelings and can’t even agree amongst themselves when the Age of Aquarius supposedly starts or might end. Some people feel it started in the 1960s; the psychologist Carl Jung says it started in 1940; others feel that it has not quite started yet. If we are entering into the Age of Aquarius, and this is why a new age is starting, I guess it would be nice to know when it starts and how long it lasts. My Roma friend made the same point for exactly how many chakras we have or where our reflexology points are. He said he noticed how much his girlfriend benefits from meditating and yoga, but he had trouble taking her friends seriously because the New Agers emphasize feelings so much to the detriment of intellectual understanding.
Another thing I wonder about is if Tolle’s idea that spiritual people accept the now fits with his theory of cosmic evolution. Central to his teaching in The Power of Now is the idea that “all that is, is holy.” (PN, p. 134) He continually makes statements affirming that “when you live in complete acceptance of what is – which is the only sane way to live – there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in your life anymore. There is only a higher good.” (PN, p. 178) He says a wise person has a “refusal to judge anything that happens.” (NE, p. 197) When someone questions this view, saying that the present moment seems unpleasant or even awful, he responds that the present moment “is as it is. Observe how the mind labels it and how this labeling process, this continuous sitting in judgment creates pain and unhappiness.” (PN, p. 35) He continually echoes this position throughout his book by saying that instead of judging, we should accept all.
Not only should we accept everything, we should “allow the present moment to be… Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.” (PN, p. 35-6) He extends this radical acceptance of the now to everything, even the death of those close to you. We think of death as tragic “but it is only tragic because you projected a separate self where there was none.” (PN, p. 100)
While on one hand he says we should accept all that is, on the other hand he continually talks about how humanity is insane and is a sick species. He says that humans have killed over a hundred million people in the 20th century and “now they are engaged in destroying nature and the planet that sustains them. Unbelievable but true. Humans are a dangerously insane and very sick species. That is not a judgment. It’s a fact.” (PN, p. 81) Tolle tries to get around his judgment of our civilization’s sickness by calling it a fact. It seems to me calling something a fact does not make it a fact or make it less of a judgment. Am I missing something here? Does he have a way out of this seeming contradiction, but I am on too low of a level of consciousness to see it?
While it might be true that humanity is insane and is destroying the earth, it is not easy to reconcile this view with his other view of how all that is, is holy. If everything that exists is holy that would seem to mean we should accept people who are destroying the world as holy as these people obviously exist. It would also seem to mean we should accept the mind and evolving ego as holy, since, according to Tolle, they also exist.
Tolle might say that people who don’t accept the now are causing all the problems because they are living in their minds and raping the earth. But in his basic insight of accepting the now, he says a person in the now does not judge the situation as wrong, but instead sees it from a higher perspective where everything is right. Tolle either has to give up his view of the now as leading to total acceptance of all that is (which comes from mysticism), or give up his condemnation of humanity as insane (which comes from social activism) and just accept the blissfulness of the now with the massive murdering of humans and raping of the Earth.
I wonder how important are humans to consciousness/God? Tolle contends humans are very important to consciousness, saying, “You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are!” (PN, p. vii) However, the earth and its creatures existed very well before us and, considering how much we have raped the earth, it would seem they would exist even better without us. If I were the “spirit of the non-human creatures of the earth,” I would call for a worldwide grand celebration lasting decades or centuries if humans became extinct.
I also question whether his monastic mysticism, with its emphasis on oneness and thus getting beyond polarities, fits with his theory of cosmic evolution. Tolle says we need to get beyond “the mind with its resistance patterns that create the positive-negative polarities,” (PN, p. 178) yet he has an extremely negative view of the mind and males, and a very positive view of the body and females. Is he himself creating a dualistic, either/or way of thinking?
Tolle continually says extremely negative things about the mind. For example he says “ultimately, there is only one problem: the time-bound mind itself.” (PN, p. 61) He also says you are only in pain when you do not accept the present moment, and this resistance comes from the mind: “the mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer.” (PN, p. 33) Not only do individuals suffer because of the mind, humans as a race will be destroyed by using the mind. He says that if humans “do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it.” (PN, p. 102)
Tolle links the mind to males and the ego. He says “the ego can take root and grow more easily in the male form than in the female. This is because women are less mind-identified than men. They are more in touch with the inner body and the intelligence of the organism where the intuitive faculties originate. The female form is less rigidly encapsulated than the male, has greater openness and sensitivity toward other life-forms, and is more attuned to the natural world.” (NE, p. 155) He also says the human body is the doorway to presence (PN, p. 116) and women are closer to their bodies, so they are closer to being. (PN, p. 165) The mind, which is “essentially male…resists, fights for control, uses, manipulates, attacks, tries to grasp and possess, and so on. What we need are the opposite qualities of “surrender, non-judgment, an openness that allows life to be instead of resisting, the capacity to hold all things in the loving embrace of your knowing. All these qualities are much more closely related to the female.” (PN, p.165)
Occasionally he says positive things about the mind, but his deepest view is that we need to get beyond the mind to be in the moment. So to do his monastic mysticism, we have to turn off our mind as it gets in the way of being in the present.
In reading a spiritual thinker, one has to keep in mind that her intuition can be clouded by her personal experience. In Tolle’s case, he gives biographical details in his book that lend credence to the idea that he has personal issues with the mind. In his book A New Earth, he says that when he was young he was very intellectually oriented and thought all answers to human dilemmas could be found through thinking. “I looked upon the professors as sages who had all the answers and upon the university as the temple of knowledge.” (NE, p. 32) Then one day he met a “crazy” woman on the subway who talked continually in a very loud and angry voice. He followed her and was amazed to find she was going to the same place he was: the main library at the University of London. He then realized his mind was as continually active as hers, and he was full of emotion like her, and he was even starting to talk to himself. So he realized he was much like the crazy woman. After this realization, for the first time ever, he shifted to a deeper perspective on the nature of reality. Unfortunately for him this deeper perspective did not last very long and he said he “would spend the next three years in anxiety and depression, completely identified with my mind.” (NE, p. 33)
Looking at his biography, Tolle had identified himself with his mind when he was young and saw the mind as providing all the answers to life’s problems. I wonder if he now he goes to the opposite extreme and condemns the mind as the source of all of our problems. Maybe it was extremely positive for him to get out of his mind some, and maybe it is positive for some of his readers to hear this message, as they need to get out of their mind some too. But are they going to the opposite extreme? Is Tolle going against another insight he has about all polarities being resolved in the Oneness? I do not see how he can both be against polarizing dualities and then embrace a duality concerning the mind/males and the body/females. I am not a great spiritual teacher like Tolle is. Is he on a higher level of consciousness where these seeming contradictions fit together?
Another thing I do not understand is how he fits his continual disdain for thinking your life’s problems will be solved in the future with his idea that the solution to our current crisis is to evolve into a new species. Tolle is aware of this wondering, and he says he is not here going against his emphasis on the present moment because a new heaven and a new earth are not in the future as people in the moment are in the process of becoming a new species. (NE p. 308) If we were in the process of becoming a new species, then it would seem there should be some evidence we can see of this evolutionary leap. Am I stupid in thinking Tolle is either living in the future with his theory of an evolutionary leap solving our problems or should there be some evidence of it now? Or am I missing something that is obvious to him and his readers?
One of my friend’s nephews is an engineer and this nephew was often teased as a geek when he was in high school. He would work for years on problems, fiddling with solutions totally intent in geekland. He lived near the California redwood forests and his sister would tell him to go outside more and look at the beauty of nature and appreciate it. He would not listen and would keep fiddling with his computers. Eventually he created some geeky thing that I never understood but he was so excited about. It finally became a very small but important part of the iPod.
I used to laugh at my friend’s nephew for being so geeky and missing the outdoors like his sister, but after I used an iPod I felt so small for doing that. It was through his long, tremendously geeky work with no regard for nature or beauty or consciousness or good food or yoga or the present moment that helped create something so beautiful which gives so many people so much joy.
Now I worry that people like my friend’s nephew’s sister and Tolle have it wrong. If our civilization is in a time of dire trouble, it seems it will be the geeks who will set us free. To live even close to harmoniously on the Earth while having cool things like iPods or the internet, we need non-polluting sources of energy, more efficient water desalination and Star Trek-like teleportation. These problems will only be solved by geeks using their minds for years fiddling with problems because they are geeky or because they hope the hot cheerleaders who ignored them in school will date them once they get rich. While Tolle is right that some scientific insights come from deep intuitional insight, (PN, p. 24) most of the work on the internet and iPod and cell phones were done by geeks interested not in wholeness but just in being geeky or getting hotties.
In my bleakest moments of thinking of global catastrophe, I worry that Tolle’s preaching against the mind will hurt the chances that the geeks will save us. I worry that we need to have a worldwide pro-geek advertising campaign that thinking is good so that we encourage these skittish creatures. God forbid any of them read literature like Tolle’s or listen to their sisters telling them to get closer to nature or stop thinking so much, and they give up their geekiness. Then we might miss some important invention this geek would come up with that could truly benefit the world.
Tolle would respond that being in the moment helps everyone, and so a geek would make even better discoveries if he lived like that. I sure hope that is true as millions of his books have been bought. I doubt if many geek engineers buy them, but their sisters or uncles do. So the geeks might by osmosis pick up the idea to turn off their minds and accept being spiritual as the answer to all our problems. I worry that it would be a disaster if a geek who could have invented an essential part of a crucial desalinization process instead spent his time obtaining oneness with the divine.
As I type, a horrible thought just occurred to me: maybe the reason why we don’t have absolutely wonderful solar energy yet is that the geek who could have invented it had instead followed Tolle and stopped thinking so much and is meditating somewhere being spiritually in the now.
Tolle could respond that the new species of people that are evolving might not need or want the internet or iPods as they will be at a higher state of consciousness. But he distributes his teachings via pod casts on his web site, so he and his followers are not in this state yet. So wouldn’t it be living in the future to respond in this way?
Of course I may simply suffer from questionaphilia. If I had any sense I would turn off my mind now and get into deeper states of oneness with the Divine as Tolle and other meditative mystics advocate. So before any of my readers criticize me for thinking too much, I am going to beat them to it and stop writing.
This essay was written by Joseph Waligore. He dedicated his life to following the will of the Universe when he was 20. Seven months later he received a message from his Higher Self or inner connection to the divine to quit Dartmouth College. Through following a deep intuition in a dream and after many synchronistic experiences, he met his soulmate and married her. He and his wife followed their spiritual intuitions in their daily lives, including receiving messages to have children. For twelve years he stayed at home and raised his three children while his wife worked. Then, his wife told him he needed to make some money, so he got a Ph. D. in philosophy from Syracuse University. He currently has a part-time job teaching philosophy and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. More information about him can be found at his MySpace profile. He also has a website with information about his own spiritual journey and his spiritual philosophy.
Many people reach this site through keyword advertisements. It might be of interest that Joseph got the money for these ads through his daytrading profits.
MY RESPONSE TO SOME OF THE COMMENTS (Jan. 5, 2010)
Tolle’s spirituality is a form of contemplative or Oneness mysticism. I consider contemplative mysticism to be over-emphasized and over-valued in contemporary spirituality. People are right to think I do not practice it. But it is not because I am stuck in my mind. I practice active mysticism. I discuss this point further here. I do think many people are helped in their life by his methods as he is presenting an accessible form of Oneness mysticism. But it is not trivial that he buys into superficial myths about history. It is also tremendously significant that he, and many other modern spiritual writers, breathlessly talk about spiritual evolution and can show no evidence for it. Tim Tebow does something marvelous: play football well and help other people. If all Tolle can show is that he can get into deeper states of consciousness, that is nice for him, but it does nothing for our society. Furthermore, it is no evidence of spiritual evolution as people have been doing that for thousands of years. I am not a Christian and I have no problem with the idea of evolution. I don’t think the road he is pointing to is such a good road for individuals and I think it is a very bad road for solving society’s problems. If all Tolle was talking about was helping individuals, I would not spend my time talking about his ideas. But he is also claiming that his approach will solve society’s problems and I think his approach is very misguided. Once he says his approach will help society, it is incumbent on us to think about whether this is true or not. I am not analyzing his behavior as much as wondering about his solution. I think the emphasis in modern spirituality about not judging is mistaken. We judge things all the time and that is necessary as well as good. We should just avoid stupid judgments.
Some people say they sense fear or jealousy in my writings. It is not obvious to me that people can sense my feelings rather than project things onto me. And even if I am fearful, does that mean my analysis of his road map to solve our civilization’s problems is wrong? Maybe I am fearful because I think so many people are going the wrong way listening to Tolle and that will screw us up more.
Tolle does occasionally say positive things about using our mind and rationality. But these occasional positive utterances are tremendously outweighed by the negative things he says about the mind and the deep structure of his philosophy which is built on denigration of the mind.
I do not think all spiritual teachings are saying the same thing and if you really listen to many teachers you will realize this is true as their teachings are very different.
All comments that are about my criticism of Tolle will be posted. Posts that are off topic, especially about other religions, will be deleted.
[i] Wolfgang Behringer, “Neun Millionen Hexen,” Geschicte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 49, 1998, 664-685, p. 673-677. It is available on his website. Behringer is Germany’s foremost expert on the witch persecutions.
[ii] See Lara Apps and Andrew Gow, Male Witches in early modern Europe (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003) and Rolf Schulte, Man as Witch: Male Witches in Central Europe, trans. Linda Froome-Doring (Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Copyrighted 2009
My name is Joseph Waligore. I currently have a part-time job teaching philosophy and religious studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. More information about me can be found at my MySpace profile or my Facebook profile.
This website is one of four websites I have. At makingyourconnections.com I have a posted a significant portion of a self-help book I am currently writing. This book helps people succeed in the world by making their connections, the special people in their lives. Another website, www.followingtheflow.com is for spiritually oriented people and discusses very similar ideas from a more spiritually oriented perspective. Another one, www.josephwaligore.com is for academically or intellectually oriented people. It has my writings about spiritual philosophies such as Stoicism, Socrates, the Deists, the Enlightenment period, and the rise of modern science.
There is a Facebook group called Flowing. People interested in meeting other people who are interested in these ideas and/or participating in discussions about these ideas are invited to join the group.
Many people reach this site through keyword advertisements. It might be of interest that Joseph got the money for these ads through his daytrading profits.
It really makes me sad to see what happened to Eckhart Tolle over the last decade. When I first encountered him in 2000, he seemed open, sincere and dedicated to service. Expose to his message led to deeper teachings like Non-Duality so I lost track of him for about a decade. Today when I visited his web site I saw the same problem that has afflicted so many: first insight, then sharing, then ego comes back at about 30 x normal, then making big bucks starts to match the big ego.
At his site he “only” charges $160 a year for his lectures on EckhartTV.
He made millions from his first few books so there is no real need, unless he now needs 3 private jets, to make millions more. Whatever happened to the wise sage who lives simply and in service to humanity?
For someone who can write rather long articles, you certainly have missed point after point. To just address one glaring misinterpretation you continually say that staying in the NOW will cause a person to apparently stop thinking and doing anything in their life. Big point missed here! Eckhart gives a great example of being stuck in the mud. First a person is best served by accepting that they are stuck in the mud, not complaining about how they always get stuck in the mud, and worrying that they will get stuck in the mud in the future. A person is best served if they accept the present situation, moment, without resistance and then they can better figure out how to get unstuck from their muddy situation. This idea that staying in the present now somehow means a person will become a monk and sit on a mountain top for the rest of their life is a total distortion of what Eckhart says, and really shows to me that you really haven’t got a clue as to what he is saying. For someone who teaches philosophy and religion I really wonder how you could miss such an elementary point. Well, since this is a very old post and probably won’t be read by anyone anyway, I won’t go into all the other points you’ve misinterpreted, but you really need to work on your reading comprehension…
He told me to stay calm and let the spell do it’s work, which indeed it did. Not even 3-4 days later, Anthony called me and asked me out for a drink. He apologized to me and sincerely begged me for forgiveness and to give him another chance. I loved this man so much, I could not say no. He now treats me like a princess better than before if I may add. Dr. Abu made a believer out of me. I wrote to him and apologized for my rudeness and lack of trust and patience. He also explained to me that magic is not like a push-button kind of thing. It sometimes takes longer than anticipated but it always works and he was right. You may also need help in your love life and i recommend him as he is a great spell caster. Contact him via: [email protected]
Sir,
It is not about any religion or class of people. Not anyone is denying the importance of mind. It is all about the removal of self created pain due to false identification of self with the mind. It is about false identity and the pain we create for protection of the same.
Enjoy the work ……the material wealth will come as a result. If you focus on material wealth you are left with pain without any enjoyment of work. Whether Eckhart makes money or not is irrelevant. Whether he enjoys the present or not is immaterial. Whether majority of the followers of various religion has understood the essence of religion is not important. The only point that we have to check is whether any words uttered by anyone( however ordinary he/she is ) can help us in elevation of our status for reduction of mind created pain.
We all seek peace. And there is only a present moment. The rest is philosophy. Does it work? If it did, over 3 Billion people in India, China, Japan and other Asian countries would not abandon Buddhism and Hinduism to pursue material wealth and pleasue. Instead they use their minds to produced things which everyone including E.Tolle benefit from. His website with pay-to-view features was developed by bright Canadian programmers who used their minds to create it. His very books and CD’s were written by his mind. So yes – to meditation, no – to contradictions.
ET’s teaching is all about negation of ego. The false identification of our self with our roles ( mother, father , teacher, administrator, knowledgeable, ignorant, poor , boss, servant , our body, our mind etc) is to be diluted first and ultimately dissolved. It is as relevant today as some thousand years ago.The root cause of all our suffering is this identification or attachment.
The present culture and society need change in collective thinking to support this total negation of ego .
Being in the present moment is never possible with the existence of mind. One can only be truly present when one goes beyond thinking.
From reading many of your reviews, I understand why some would say they “sense fear and jealousy” in what you write. I personally do not get that feeling when I read your essays. I feel as if you are doing your best to be fair and very complete in your evaluations and opinions. I think others may feel the negativity in your writings just because of the nature of your work. You are trying to be of service by critically evaluating the words and philosophies of others. Most of us are taught to be critical thinkers and, therefore, we become very good at being critical. In fact, most of us are extremely critical and judgmental of others as part of our existence. The more critical we are, the more critical we become. The more we judge on a daily basis, the more judgmental we become as an individual. We are creatures of habit. It is interesting that your response to their “criticism” of you is to brush it off as their psychological projection, rather than giving it any validity. That is a very typical human response to being criticized.
As I said earlier, we all regularly criticize and judge. In fact, I am sure you are well aware of the fact that in the academic community, one is often praised for becoming proficient at this habitual craft. We are taught critical thinking as part of our educational process. You have become very good at what you were taught to do. Being critical and judgmental of others, however, does come without a price. You open yourself up to being criticized and judged by others. None of us like to be criticized, and few of us can accept criticism in a graceful or honest manner.
In my opinion, being judgmental is one of the easiest things in life to do in life. That is why it is so difficult for one to be non-judgmental (as Jesus taught). I understand and appreciate that you see what you do as a value to the rest of us. I have learned some valuable lessons from your writings and I thank you for that. Please understand that when others perceive your work, they may be critical of it. Even though it may be obvious to you that you are bringing insight to the traditions of the spiritual ideas or philosophies you critique, it is not so obvious to all. I am sure you feel that you are part of a solution by evaluating and judging the works of others. To many of us, however, being so critical and judgmental (that you have actually built a business and lifestyle on it) is a very easy thing to do. It is easy to be critical. It is easy to find fault. It is very easy to critique another for making what you commonly refer to as a “jump” (when you actually do the same thing in some of your evaluations). In fact, it is just “TOO EASY” to do nothing but critique others who are dedicating their lives to making this world a better place to live. So, even though I do sincerely appreciate some of the value you provide, I feel your talent may be far better used in being more of a solution to our problems, rather than just a constant criticism of what others are doing. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Personally, I believe we need less judgment of others in this world. I feel that if we found avenues to express more love and respect of other’s opinions and beliefs, we would make it easier to solve many of today’s major issues. Being critical of others may be easy, or profitable, or well respected in society, but it is not a solution. Finding fault in another person who is sincerely trying to help others is not a solution. In fact, the title of your work, “Spiritual Critiques” is, in my opinion, an oxymoron. To me, being highly critical and judgmental of others actually goes against the basic tenet of spirituality.
Thank you for you writings.
What I’d like to know is this. If I blow a fart and it lingers for 5 minutes, is not my present moment still being affected by that fart which was exuded in the past?? In short, the past affects, and is connected to the present – there is no single ‘present’ as long as we live in the temporal, physical universe. Incidentally, I’m still smarting from that fart, with its strong methane and phosphorous attendances right NOW.
Great site. I read Tolle a few years ago and couldn’t really see what the big deal was. But after reading your comments, I realised that Tolle is writing about and critiquing himself. I have a high regard for my mind, but I don’t live there, as perhaps a physicist would, and probably as Tolle did or has as well. I do remember feeling confused by those statements when I read them, and the same with living in the Now. I agree with you: I don’t think we should stay there all of the time. It is also interesting as someone noted, that often spiritual people are not psychologically balanced. However, going or living beyond the personality does not mean that one’s neurosis or mental healthissues should be ignored either. It’s true that spiritual practice can be an effective adjunct to healing a personality but I don’t think it should exclude mental health intervention, either.
I have often wondered why these “spiritual progressives” leave so much unanswered in their books and lectures, etc. Their are some horrific abuses and tragedys that happen to people these days and I’m not sure one can meditate their way back to health without including the important psychological work that needs to be done. We can still practice our spirituality but not to the exclusion of other health-related measures. Your commentary helped clear up some important things for me, just by your raising the questions. I have had the same questions and still wonder why spiritual writers omit so many psychological issues for discussion…they all do and that doesn’t put you or me in a less-enlightened state by any means. They should welcome these questions but they don’t. Even Deepak has gotten ticked off when his application of physics was questioned. I was really surprised to see such a quick and reactive temper on his part. I think we all need to get more real here because I think a spiritual persons temprament is very much related to their level of enlightenment. Unfortunately, that is an area we rarely if ever get to see of them, and I guess there’s a reason for that. It would be an excellent lesson to see how spiritual principles are applied to everyday matters and they should be more open to that kind of exposure because it encompasses the whole, afterall.
Joseph,
I like your blog. You have summarize for me the history and principle of New Age and Neoplatonizm. I would like to thank you for it. I enjoy reading your Flow book as well.
I would like to comment though on your understanding of “being in now” in your explanation of Ekhard Tolle ideas. Your example with studying to GRE test is a good one – you wanted to do NOW (then) something else than study, and for your desire to escape reality of NOW your claim that ” being in now” is not a sound idea. If you ment it as joke, you have succeeded.
Being in NOW, as I understand, and believe it was Tolle’s intention, means to focus on what you are doing NOW and accepting this particular reality of the present moment. Being in Now does not eliminate understanding the future repercussions on our actions at the present, making plans for the future, or to tap wisdom from the past. Actually I found your interpretation quite silly, but you have made a good point, that New Age does not address natural urges of humans (sexual or other instincts).
I believe that your GRE epizode happened long time ago, and by now your understanding and appreciating being in NOW might change.
In such a case, please disreagard my comment.
Best regards,
Margaret
RIch people who want to “discover themselves and become reborn” make me want to vomit. How wonderful to tap into the great stillness while the world is falling apart around you. How wonderful to have the resources to go to retreats and spend time and money on trying to find yourself when my child has a chronic illness that we can’t afford to medicate. Do these idiots realise that children are starving in the world and that childrens’ limbs are being blown off, children are being raped and sold, women are being abused, people are murdering one another and people are living in hovels and wondering where their next meal is coming from? Give me a break!
i discovered the teachings of ET a few days ago.
in my opinion i have been looking at some spiritual teachers on youtube like osho and see a common thread a fundamental truth that is spoken by many of them, also how very human they are and in the end most are unable to live up to what they truly believe(i say truly because they have the best of intentions)they are human and the structure of their brains is no different to yours or mine and how information is precisely laid down within that structure is not known,we are human all of us.
amongst humanity we have those that can see things more clearly,great physicists,philosophers and spiritual people.
theres much truth in what EK says but our learning and discovering about the precise nature of physical reality is based upon knowing that our theories or knowledge or “selves” are incomplete and by taking measurements calculating probabilities and statistics,using information from the past,present and future we add to our understanding and in adding we are rewarded with all that we take for granted today and our hopes and dreams and survival as a species may one day rely on that.
i believe there is a transition.our true consciousness is starting to awaken and we see that in people like EK and as time goes on more and more people and in “the future” probably people like EK and their teachings will be superceded by people with an even greater understanding and may be as different as newtonian mechanics is to quantum field theory though i am sure many truths that EK has spoken will remain in some “form” or another.
‘The geeks will set us free’!!! I love that. Thanks for writing this interesting piece.
“Oh, is that so?”
Regarding your example of preparing for the GRE and working toward the degree, Tolle addresses that in Power of Now. He uses ideas of Clock Time and Psychological Time. p56 “Clock time is not just making an appointment or planning a trip, it is also learning from the past so we don’t repeat the same mistakes…Setting goals and working toward them, predicting the future by means of patterns and laws, physical, mathematical, and so on.” Psychological time he says keeps us out of the present moment (the only place life ever happens) and associates it with our unconscious looking for happiness/fulfillment in the future or living in past. He says the mind is a wonderful tool to use for clock time, which working for a degree and doing many of the everyday tasks in “normal” life (non-monk life), but we should: “Learn to use time in practical aspects of your life, but immediately return to present moment awareness where those practical matters have to be dealt with.(p56)” ”But even here, within the sphere of practical living, where we cannot do without reference to past and future, the present moment remains the essential factor. (p56-57)” The whole idea is that working for that degree happens NOW, and only now, one step at a time. He talks about when we are present, every little thing we do is done with a higher quality because our being is present to give 100% focus/energy. Your being energized by thinking about finishing the degree in future involved enthusiasm. He also talks about that in A New Earth. I think the whole idea is that we don’t look to future for fulfillment…sure it can inspire us to think of finishing, but if that becomes our only source of joy, if the present moment is seen as ONLY a means to that end, then we will suffer.
“While on one hand he says we should accept all that is, on the other hand he continually talks about how humanity is insane and is a sick species.“ Good point.
Both of these ideas are found in ‘A Course in Miracles’ by the way, which Tolle quotes twice in the book. According to the Course, the Son of God questioned his Creator by imagining he could be separate from his source. He then went literally insane with guilt, and, following familiar principles explored by Freudian psychology, this guilt was projected out to create an imaginary world that we now inhabit. To make a long story short, to return to our Creator we need to forgive the world that we made in our insanity. The illusion of separation then ends and we wake up in our true reality, one with God.
It’s a philosophy very similar to early Christian Gnosticism, and has many similarities with Eastern philosophy. In this sense Tolle represents the latest mash-up of Eastern enlightenment and Christian Gnosticism. This should explain the apparent contradiction in Tolle’s philosophy of accepting everything non-judgmentally, while stating that human beings are insane.
I think you haven’t grasped where Tolle is coming from. His book is a watered down presentation of a profound spiritual experience of transcended consciousness as explored for centuries by Buddhist and Hindu mystics. Unfortunately in his book ‘being in the Now’ is discussed in an offhand way, as if you just refocus your attention and there you are in the ‘Now’. It is much more than that, as he ought to know. Any bone fide ‘enlightenment’ means the DEATH of the personal mind. That is, NO mind, a VOID, an ABYSS where ‘you’ were before. It isn’t just a matter of smelling roses and playing with your pets. When there is absolutely no sense of psychological time, then you cease to exist in the so-called physical universe. In fact what he describes is no different from schizophrenia except for one crucial point – schizophrenics are not peaceful all the time. In fact complete enlightenment in some eastern traditions means the immediate loss of all physical attributes.
Hello, I am informing the world that Eckhart Tolle is Satan manifested in the flesh.
my Proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urAs7KaE6ac&lc=On1kZ8f6YkHxwaQg6YxW8TUVPAjJ0RnvUH_1dszKFeI
Also, unscramble his name, it is “Taker To Hell.”
Thank you for writing this in-depth critique of the concepts created by Eckhart Tolle’s mind. I think many of the things Tolle says ring quite true, but that’s just my mind comparing them to other, much older, wisdom concepts I’ve read. I think the greatest thing about his teachings is his focus on mindfullness, and observation of our own motives with a desire to eliminate the chaffe. I believe that most of humanity currently wastes their entire lives in this odd sort of unconsciousness caught in this horrible loop of trying to amass as much physical wealth as they possibly can before they die so any pressure towards mindfullness has to be a positive step in changing that wasteful, destructive cycle. But I do agree with you in your criticisms that taking any of his concepts to their maximum ultimate conclusion would be equally bad.
He gives great value to society I think if he can get some of Oprah’s fans to stop being such shallow consumer zombies.
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Hey there,
You have invested intense and wasteful time to say so to critizise Eckart Tolle. This is called the mind insanity what Eckart is talking about..haha..
Well to make it short and smooth..I had my opening of awakening this year, not due to the teachings of Eckart Tolle, another so called spiritual teacher led me right to the bottom of truth even I was not mindwise looking for it. This teacher, like Tolle, all have the same message and this is what counts. Each one expressing it a little in different terms, cause I guess we are all indviduals.
I have been given Tolles book some years ago and I read in it but could not connect with it at that time. Now I can indeed!
As you are operating only from your intellect which is not an indicator for getting enlightened, you are missing out very much on all his writings.
So either it is not your time yet for any awakening as you still like to identify with your mind so much or you just should try out other teachings with the same content…and then another teaching might get through to you.
Believe me, there is a reality beyond mind and for us it means to reconnect with it as what we perceive as reality is mind reality, therefore you might call it illusion, dreamstate, unconsciousness, left brain living…but the mind as it is operating now for every individual is a pervertation of what the mind originally is when we have realized our true humanity…it will be serve as an instrument to live life, but for now Mind is living us!
Hope that helps as a signpost for you or anyone else reading this and still dwelling on ignorance…
LOVE rules and only!
I really appreciate the discussion here. Every spiritual experience is personal and once you go through these experiences then you try to understand in conventional terms what they are. It is like trying to understand the beauty of a flower; you can take a picture, discuss the evolution of the plant and come up with a theory which explains quite cleverly why that flower is so beautiful. These can be all very convincing but they are just convincing words– stories. MOst of the spiritual teachers are trying to save the world from something and historically this has been going on for centuries. But end of the day what liberated women, for example, are washing machines, dryers, contraceptives, scientific understanding of sexuality etc.
But this does not mean that spirituality is meaningless–it helps to keep you balanced and sane.
I personally like Tolle’s humility and some part of his teachings which I can test myself but I keep an open mind about things like “thinking is not useful” and we can save the world by shifting our consciousness. It is more likely geeks among us will solve our problems while we enjoy Tolle’s teachings. “Bless are the geeks”
I have thorougly enjoyed reading many of the comments written here. Thank you all. Presently, I belong to a small group studying A NEW EARTH and today I rocked the boat by commenting that I found some of ET’s ” words” to be contradictory. I would have liked to add that I also found some of his “words” to be judgmental and ” labeling”. The response I received from some group members was that I was not ready… which in itself could be perceived as a judgment call… It could also be perceived as … although I find some semblance of ” TRUTH” in ET’s writings this does not entail that I have to swallow everything he writes as ” gospel truth.”
Many of us here have experienced our share of so called spiritual awakenings. WE “know” what we “know.” And this is our own experience & TRUTH; however, this does not mean that others who have not shared the same experiences will resonate with what we ” know.” Absolute TRUTH cannot be put into meaningful words. The second one attempts to convey the full meaning in words it changes. I would like to read about ET’s actual experiences of how he came by “his” inner ” knowing.” Because contrary to what he writes I intuit that he is still very much in his mind just like the majority of us.
And, I agree with the ones who wrote that he appears to have gone from one extreme to the other and that he does not write about anything not already written about. What is possibly ” new” in his writings is a more simplified version of practical application and the level of consciousness he wrote in. This does not necessarily entail that he is a super-guru. He seems to be one who has written of his own personal experiences in a theoretical manner versus opening his heart wide to share what he had to go through to attain this level of consciousness and what he has to go through to remain in a so called ” high” level of consciousness.
” Be still!–and KNOW–I AM–God.”
Tho what ekart says about present moment is told by many years ago, way he told in power of now is simplest Android moet effective.
Master writer. Accept totally. Do not get lost in critical evaluations.
are there any spiritual teachers that get to the point, or do they all wander around for years just hinting, so their bank accounts grow? All the truth is available…uh, was available…a few years ago when a web search actually gave results. I researched for ten years so I could write the truth and give it away free…but of course, the egoic world does not care about truth. So, even free, there are no takers…why? Because more than 99% of people are egoic and will stay that way. If anyone wants the ttuth without spending a penny, email me at [email protected]
I haven’t read all of the critique but just on the mother examining her past practices for education – being in the present makes one more likely to access or avail precisely whatever relevant information from ones history which is needed to address a current situation. Obviously thinking about the past may lead to a similar result but this is less dependable as the mind will certainly be clouded to some extent (by the very act of trying).
The Present… the Past… the Future
Our degree of Purity and Holiness Plus Spirituality plus Practicality of motive = wisdom?
Very interesting, but overdone, critique of Eckhart Tolle.His books can be skimmed and tossed aside, or studied to understand the difficult concepts he has put forth. All of the criticism offered here show a lack of depth of understanding the material.
The ego of the author is apparently strong. A more honest approach would have been to interview Tolle and ask the questions that he was unable to reconcile. Tolle would have been able to calmly, kindly and gently explain the points that Walligore had totally missed. But alas, it is usually easier to criticize than to open your mind and learn.
Dear Joseph:
Thanks for your well documented comments on some spiritual teachers, as I have read them also I notice That you have thoroughly studied them. I read your comments on Tolle, Chopra, Wilber and Ruiz.
I agree with you that we can receive information and messages from the higher world and flow with the intentions of God. But at the same time it is also true that we can experience oneness with God and having spouse and children as Lahiri Mahasaya showed while alive in india from 1860´s to 1890´s the problem is that is extremely difficult for the mayority of people to get that level so for the most people is better what you say about embracing connectedness with the divine instead of oneness with it as you pointed out.
In this topic is important that every individual measure his own state and tries to leave according to it and not to pretend to do something far beyond his present possibilities. The latter is the problem of some people who try to leave in oneness with God while they still have many wordly and personal duties in this world.
The other important matter about some self proclamed spiritual teachers is that because they have reach experiences of oneness with God they think after they descend from the experience that they are perfect. And for this reason they suffer from hubrys and commit a lot of mistakes on behalf of their spiritual experiences.
Arthur E. Powell wrote a book called “the causal body”where he explains the problem of geniuses that even though they have gained mastery over one skill still they have a lot of difficulties in their personalities and wordly life. This same happen with these spiritual teachers; they are great meditators and we can say they are spiritual geniuses that have rejected to clean their personalities of all their baggage, they have been overwhelmed by their spiritual experiences and they have problems to accept that their personalities are far behind their spiritual experiences.
There are very rare world known spiritual teachers who have attained oneness with God with a clean and purified personality and they are the ones who have attained liberation. Finally, we should remember that we as humans beings are evolving and we are subject to defects and imperfections and we need to be humble enough to recognize that we can be great in something while we are small in other areas.
In spite of the defects or mistakes in their teaching I like Ekhart Tolle for his humbleness and I think he has a clean personality in spite of his rejection to past and future that you refer in you comments and that I agree on in terms that the past and future are also important and necessary at times and according to each one´s level.
I also like Deepak Chopra because he has an integral life with wife and children and has the ability to express his ideas in a good way even though he may commit mistakes or be wrong in some aspects.
And I like ammachi, the indian saint for her loving approach to mankind, her selfess work and her amazing detachment to things in life.
I would like to thank you Joseph for sharing your ideas in the web about other spiritual teachers with education, good manners and good information of their work and life.
To Furous,
I’m so sorry for your brother. You posted quite a while ago, but I only read your entry today. I hope you read this reply. Has your brother improved since you entered your post?
I see you are sincerely looking for help for your brother and although I honestly don’t know why he is ill or what caused it I would like to think together with you and maybe it will help you find a solution.
Are you sure his mental illness was caused by Tolle and others like him?
If your brother was desperately looking for a way out in teachings like these, was it not because he already had problems? Maybe because of those problems he was unable to apply what the teachings said, maybe he misinterpreted, maybe he hoped for more than can be achieved.
Is it possible to talk with your brother? Does he still make some sense?
Maybe by listening to him without anger, without judgment, without any pre-conceived thought of how he came to be ill, you may find the source of his illness and thus help him get better. If it is true that the source of his illness lies in the teachings of Tolle, then listening carefully in this way may help you identify exactly in which part of the teaching the source of your brother’s illness lies and this in turn may help you help him.
I sincerely hope your brother will be better soon.
Best wishes.
Erika.
I see some people still have trouble marrying the concept of being NOW and having to deal with the future and past in daily life.
When I just started reading Tolle’s book I too got mixed up and thought that they couldn’t go together. However after reading Tolle’s book carefully and applying what I read, I soon discovered that they can easily be combined in daily life.
Tolle doesn’t say you should not think about the past or future, he even states it is often necessary to do so in order to survive in our society. What I think he does say is that we should be strongly anchored in the NOW when we think about past and future so that we don’t give it all kinds of meanings and emotional values which don’t actually exist.
When we look at the past to learn from it or at the future so we can make an appointment or study to pass an exam we do so at THIS MOMENT.
However, when we project ourselves in time, fearing that we will fail that exam in the future or miss the appointment, or suffering from wrong doings in the past or even rejoycing in happy memories, then we are no longer present and that is where a lot of suffering comes from. This is imaginary suffering, because right NOW, at this moment, nothing and no-one is hurting us, except our mind by it’s projection. This is even the case with happy memories, for automatically the present moment is painful in compairison.
I think that this is what Tolle means when he tells us not to create time, when he says to be presnt at this moment. Use present and past because they are necessary in our daily life, but don’t let them govern your mind and cause all kinds of unnecessary suffering.
I personally knew Eckhart Tolle before he became famous. He was teaching “A Course in Miracles” to six people, I was one of those six. I new him as a close friend for 4 years and lived in his house for four months. He was sweet gentle and kind, sharing freely of his experience and knowledge.
I met him again three years into his rise into the status of New Age Guru and he had changed.
He always wanted to be a Spiritual Teacher when I was with him, he often stated there was nothing else to do. I believe the people around him who promote him and have helped cause his rise to the current mega Guru are not doing his personal growth and evolution any favours. When one surrounds oneself with only sychophants and yes men/women, there is little to challenge ones perceptions.
I do not criticise him, I feel somewhat sad that he has allowed this circus around him to escalate. He may say he controls nothing, but I have never seen him decline exposure to celebrity spiritual guruship.
I agree with Greg-the Ipod builders are not what we have to be worried about losing. Eckhart is focusing on a release from the brain noise that most of us are all afflicted with. In a high paced world of multi-tasking where people are eating,smoking,talking,
texting,and driving at the same time while listening to the mindless yapping of DJ’s, commercials and music lyrics-is it any wonder that our minds have taken over us?
How many of you can sing at the drop of a dime, the theme songs to many of the silly sitcoms that we all have been consumed by?
Forget the geeks that can sit for hours pondering a complex set of equations. I’m glad that they can escape the mental nonsence that most of us are enslaved to. I have found Eckhart to be beneficial in eliminating the mindless noise that the majority of us are entrenched in.
Insomnia is a huge problem in our developed world-and is it any wonder? Thee brain noise never seems to stop! People do not know what to do-nor do the doctors-they prescribe addictive drugs that are only a band-aid, at best. Nobody seems to really understand why are brains are the way they are. Atleast Eckhart offers some hope for peace and presence in a chaotic world! I am grateful that I have been able to achieve some moments of stillness.
I still struggle with an unending stream of silly musical lyrics! I very rarely think of the past or contemplate the future. I do not watch television or listen to the radio, which I am happy to say that I do not miss. But when I shop at any local store, before I know it-the sound system is blaring the dumbest song ever written- and the idiotic song is stuck in my mind for hours or even days! My mind and maybe yours too, will still burst into the musical lyrics to “Green Acres”,”Meet the Flintstones”,or even “Spongebob”! Eckhart HELP!!I am sick of this lack of self-control with my own mind. I am glad that like so few others- I am aware of this mental garbage that I so gladly want to dispose of! Thanks to spiritual leaders like, Eckhart Tolle, I have learned how to find absolute stillness and peace.
More importantly than ridding my brain of annoying noise and nonsence, is the learning of being present in the mode of being watchful of the “thinker”-yourself. When under attack by someone close, I have learned to watch my emotional response, instead of reacting out of an ego centered state. This could be extremely helpful in marriage! I was able to listen to a partner who was out of control, on a viscious verbal attack-and not react out of defense-but rather make a choice about where this was going to go. I was amazed at myself-for not allowing my ego driven core to decide! I calmly stated that I did not agree with their perspective and that if I had been the one to say those exact hurtful nasty statements to them- I may well be the victim of some ugly physical violence.
I have enjoyed the peace of absolute stillness and it is a beautiful thing! I believe that we all could benefit from this simple and pure state of grace. I have always considered myself to be a “high-strung” person-NOT anymore! I was like Woody Allen in “Ants”- as Azteca said to Zee, “You think too much!!”
He says we have to get out of the past and the future, and just be in the now as the “past and future obviously have no reality of their own.” (PN, p. 50)
He is simply quoting what Lord Krishna said to Arjuna in the Geeta- the hindu text.
There is nothing new about his teachings, and though personally I don’t like the fellow, sometimes stuff needs to be packaged and presented according to the people it aims to get the attention of.
Rita- maybe he wanted be a superstar in his own right without giving Barry any credit. What amazes me is the amount of money these guys charge for stuff that is supposed to be beneficial to humanity- why not make it affordable?
Hi.. wckharts work is from a stream of great human endevour.. he never states that he has inveneted it ..it comes from the discoveries of the buddha and lao Tsu, krishnamurti and many other great human beings..
to be quiet frank. I dont think inventions like the ipod are really such wonderful things.. they allow humans to escape from the present moment and are rarely of any use in solving the real concrete prblems of human exiostance.. so geeks arent going to save us.. they will invent more things like ipads ..playthings for wealthy human beings( a tiny % on the planet)
“A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.” Emerson.
Imagination is more important than knowledge, said Einstein. Einstein knew that his creativity came from the stillness.
Runners call it ‘the zone’.
The geeky nephew you mention was in the zone when he created his ipod part. He wasn’t sitting around thinking about the meaning of life, pretending to be a monk or hugging a tree. He probably isn’t aware that he was in the zone because he definitely wasn’t ‘thinking’ about it at the time.
‘You are unconsciously identified with the mind, so you don’t even know that you are its slave. All the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind.’
You can access the stillness when you are doing the washing up.
Civilization lacks cosmology it has little depth and appears to have become more shallow alongside our technological evolution, with it’s corresponding detachment from the natural law of our earth.
To find harmony and unification we need both
receptive passive & receptive active
In the pursuit of self-expression we suffer the danger of loosing our love of life, first love life and then that love will express itself as simply as receiving the breath of the entire universe.
Thank you for your healthy scepticism of Tolle’s work.
dear fraind
i wrote a book about shadow and light.i mean the shadow of men ,everything .it is about effect of ego in this world.iwrot same as story to understand it easily. would you please help me to published it there.thank you
th presnt movement hepls to enjow now nd evry thing is in now bcz th th next movement wil also pas frm now only just live in now nd u hv al th power………..
I just can’t grasp why Ekhart is made into a superstar for packaging and sharing an experience that wheras it is not common, has been and continues to be, expereineced by many many people. It is great that he has the clarity and dicipline and eloquence to shape these insights of higher consciousness and explain how the human mind is so loaded with noise and endless streams of non connected thoughts and ideas, opinions, judgments, wants and likes and every other dividing human thought that acts as a barrier to accessing this naturally occuring place inside each and every one of us. He also offers simple techniques to people to quieten the mind, people searching for a way out of the overloaded, noisy everyday mind that seperates them from exactly what they are looking for: their essential being, essence, spirit whatever name you wish to call it- it is who we are. It’s all great the only thing is that he fails to acknowledge a teacher who he has based much of his book on and I do not understand why. It contradicts the very information he so freely shares ( well quite costly really… the talks at least- and why is that?). After wondering this for ten long years I finally saw an interview where he does mention this teachers name as an influence but no acknowledgment in his book and anyone who was with Barry Long all those years can read almost verbatim many referneces in the Power of Now. Now I realise you will think I am trying to undermine Ekhart. I love the Power of Now. It so concisley sums up the experience of awakening and that is a great thing just mystifying why he never acknowledged the source of much of his book.