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.
Monks and householders have many things in common, including experiencing life through the human instrument. Monks are like Ph.D. students only they are studying themselves to perfect operating that human instrument. Tolle has only written about what he has learned in his journey to a greater understanding of how to operate the human instrument. He has started to transcend the level of mental masturbation called philosophy or theology and has approached a much more practical reality. Householders rarely get that deep in their understanding because they don’t take the time to seek understanding, just as most people will not seek the level of understanding of philosophy that a Ph.D. has undergone. Householders are people who really have no idea of why they are doing what they are doing; they don’t know what inspires them or what the spirit behind them is, they just unconsciously do what everybody else is doing. Monks and mystics seek that understanding, as has Tolle.
Eckart help me with his fantastic book AND I WAKE UP! and like he said in his book, I will not follow him or belive him, I am just living this way ,in present, by my self ! I am Catholic and now I understand the Bible and what Jesus told us, I understand his words and now I understand what mean the Holly Spirit, now I feel in grace ,in peace , full of love and if someone can teach you how to get here, is Tolle.( Sorry with my english my native lenguage is spanish)he is doing an amazing work:)
if by reading we get even one good thing which better our living.
why not acknowledge it? and respect it.
It helped or may not help, may be relative to one’s understanding and application of the knowledge. If one has not tasted the sugar how can you claim the taste of the sugar?
There is mention of a person as “a geeek” in the past and his little ipod invention in one of the comments and a continous criticism of Tolle’s work.
If the person has bothered about their comments as “the geek”, will he be able to reach his goal? he might have concentrated on that days present goal and forgot every others. likewise might have reached his ipod invention..
Anyway, its good: people have these kind of intellectual questions.. this will throw light on our understandings, that, there are many beyond our capabilities and we need to outgrow our limitations in everyway to understand them….can we all accept these fact..atleast.
Eckarht Tolle, for me is one of the rarest personalities living on this Earth. let his understandings help many on this Earth to outgrow our limitations.
…let us observe ourselves more than anything..correct ourselves than others….choose the best than commenting…the world will change for everyone..
Let the Light in all of us Shine…
I have been impressed with some of what Ekhart has said, but no more than what my sons have said in moments of wisdom unattached from ego. Time will tell how profound his words are. If people are living good lives in a few thousand years, down to following his teachings then he will be a great man. Thousands of years before Buddha and Jesus, Zoroastrians had three simple rules for us to follow. Think good thoughts. Speak good words and do good deeds! Love everybody and you cant go wrong, thats what me and my sons follow, though we adapt it to loving all life.
With the background of being a Hindu and spiritual I can only say that as our scriptures say – Being established in the connection between man and Divine, one stop reacting to things, places, people and situations in life which are the cause for most of our problems. once this happens, one is free to engage in any activity with full awareness of the present and enjoy even handling a tragedy which becomes just a circumstance i am in. i can remember the past, maybe analyse, and wonder about the future but I AM present only in the present. and everything HAPPENS only in the PRESENT, then becomes past. when the future unfolds it becomes present. so being in the present one may do anything one chooses to do but with full awareness of its consequent result and taking full responsibility for ones own actions in the present.
Ekhart Tolle is one who is Truely a modern Buddha or call him Osho or Tirthanker who takes you to higher level to understand this Life given to us For real purpose which need you to Drop Your false hood ‘EGO’as you delete a mark by eraser.Then you will have the Blissness or Ananda or Enlightenment.
I have intensively studied Eckhart and found out that he is right. I also understand my right is not right for others. Pople need to study and practice his teaching with open mind, then they can better grasp the essence of his teaching. Even if they don’t it’s fine becasue they may find more meanings in someone else teaching. However, the foundamentals of all spritual teaching are the same. People need to find their right for themselves.
Hi Joseph, Loved your observations and enquiring mind. There is in actual fact nothing new in what Tolle says or writes about. It all has been said before some 3000 years ago in the earlier buddhist teachings. Perhaps the masses who read his message have not been exposed to these philosophies of life , the human mind and human condition.
Much of what Tolle writes seems to be taken from minds (words and books) like Krishnamurti’s… some lines are even identical, or from contemporary Buddhist teachers like Dhiravamsa, Jack Kornfield or even Ram Das who all started talking about Here and Now some 40 years ago.
The concept “pain body” is also a familiar concept in body mind therapy ( a modern practice) and perhaps not known to many, but discussed in the Ancient Buddhist teachings of Nama Rupa Interdependent Origin. Where the mind goes the body follows.
If finding Oneness and being in the Here and Now is as easy as buying /reading a book and providing the skills to truly practice what you have just read, we would be definitely blessed by (the teaching of ?) Tolle…… There is a famous saying though THERE ARE TWO DOORS TO HEAVEN, ONE SAYS; LECTURE TO HEAVEN AND THE OTHER HEAVEN…WE ALL LINE UP TO THE LECTURE …in the hope we can read ourself to enlightenment and oneness.
As one of the earlier comments expressed ; all appearances which are described internally through words, are simply the point-of-view of the perceiver in his/her latest conditioned state. Lets hope that the words written in Tolle’s books were the views of his conditioned states and not those of others. And for those that follow the teachings are doing so with a questioning mind. Like the Buddhas parting words; DONT BELIEVE ANYTHING WHAT ANYONE SAYS, NOT EVEN MY WORDS, ENQUIRE AND EXPERIENCE FOR YOURSELF.
What Tolle calls ‘the now’ , is in fact pure spirituality.
Because spiritual life can’t be lived in time , and out of time , only spirituality can be lived.
Time is a mind creation , a material concept.
Presence is wisdom in everyday life . This is solving all problems or better , creating no problems for oneself. Because all problems are problems of the mind, Karma and Thoughts.
At first we all must agree that this world is a creation of the mind. Even the followers of Western Philosophy could refer to Kant’s conclusion after his brilliant, hair-splitting paragraphs.
Tolle’s salvation in this ‘presence’ conforms to all major religions of humanity . What are those religions but the gift of God for our humanity . What is wisdom in everyday life . Isn’t it following the heavenly rules ?. The Torah , the Commandments , the Gospel , the highest philosophical principles , the wisdom of the books of the prophets . Yes it is , a life of wisdom is a life of principles.
But Tolle proposes , instead of carrying the library o the memory with us , to be online with the source of wisdom , this is his ‘now’. The now is ‘God be with us’, is Emmanuel. . We are on line with Him , because we live this thoughtless state, having removed ‘the mind’ the obstacle between us and Him.
What’s his ‘pain body’ ? it’s this energy , trapped from the bad thoughts . Every bad thought is a sin, thought annihilates faith. ‘Every thing done without faith is a sin’ . And ‘presence’ , being online with God, annihilates the ‘pain body’ , annihilates the devil .
Because what’s the devil but our bad thoughts ?. Presence is meditation state. Presence is the awareness of Christianity , ‘be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves’. The Presence of Tolle , the Faith of St. Paul , Meditation of India is but one and the same : contacting God , the solution of all problems of humanity. Because ‘ if God is with us , who can be against us ?’
Yeah to I walk through the Valley in the Shadow of Mankind’s inventions , and at times stand on the highest Mountain Peaks and see far off over it all ,and at other times sit in the quiet comfort of a single Candle’s Light in the Darkness, I have an inner strength , of the Intuitive Faith , for this strength is their for us all , it is the Gift of God , and is born within , lost lest we search for it , and once found , always carried in our Heart , and our Soul .
Search and Yee shall find it , ask and you shall receive when the time is right for truly it is within Us all , and present when embraced in true discernment . The place of Peace , Love , and understanding . Seeing and knowing . This is a personal journey , yet one that you may receive an inkling from another , or share with another , for there is Joy and happiness felt within , when we Love ,and Care , and Share , as the joy that is realized when we receive the Conscious state of being one with the Will of God
None , few , many , or All may embrace the teachings of One .
Rarely do All , to the detriment of so many .
And the teachings of One may provide the foundation upon which a Belief , a Truth , philosophy , or Wisdom is founded. Which may be good .
There have been many teachers for many purposes , both good and destructive . I think of Socrates, then The Free thinkers , the earliest Transcendentalists of the North American Founders .
Humanity has been here in the awakened state before , through all our history , and I think of Moses , Noah , and Christ .
I think of my own Epiphanies . God desires our intuitive inner self , our Essence , our Soul , to glorify his purpose , his Will . For we may sense the Spirit of God , as he may also sense our Essence , and suffer our foolishness and evil ways when we stray.
I would , that the Earth and the gloriousness of the Life prevail , and that it not become a wasteland .
However , even I can see that there is little hope . The Merchants , the Marketers ,the War Mongers and the impulsive Egos of the unawakened , undiscerning Ones threaten Us all . yet I believe in the promise of ” Eternal Life ” , God’s Glory !
Engaging in long arguments about Tolle can activate the mind and ego too much….some people think he is crazy and others that he is enlightened. In my case it has been liberating to read Tolle. I had read much about Buddhism, psychology and spirituality and nothing has resonated to me as much as Tolle’s books and dvds. He has opened my eyes to see that thinking is overated. And my meditation sessions are more silent now that I contact the inner body first. My advice to those that are not convinced by Tolle: look for another book or teacher, there are others too who speak on these matters, like Don Miguel Ruiz or Pema Chodron. Namaste to all.
bay eckhart,herşey herşeyle irtibat halindeyse,herşey herşeyden haberdardır.
Absolutely enlightening!!
Where Tolle got me was in his pointing out the very simple and self-evident (and very ancient) fact that the present moment is all there is and all there ever has been. That being the case, why are our minds continually dwelling on the past (usually with regret but not always) or imagining the future (usually with fear and anxiety [will the Tolle types or the geeks save us?..please, someone's got to save us?] but not always)? The present is all there is but we are always somewhere else in our minds. My mind has a very hard time focusing on the only thing that exists and I am sure it is not alone.
Question the reliability and “authority” of thoughts.
Please recognize that using words to communicate, by definition, means that the conditioned mind-structure is brought into play. Words can only express a conditioned thought-based source. Words expressed are therefore, also by definition, just a point-of-view of that *PARTICULAR* conditioned mind-structure. No words can ever express all points-of-view, which are infinite in number. Tolle invites you to recognize this limitation. Therfore, all appearances which are described internally through words, are simply the point-of-view of the perceiver in his/her latest conditioned state.
I am a practicing christian, that means i attend divine services regularly and participate in playing instruments and singing in the chorus. Despite this, I believe that the sacraments play a very important role for the salvation of our souls. Maybe sometimes the preachings are limited or the preacher is unpleasant (because we do judge with our mind always), which keeps us from experiencing what can be experienced. Therefore i believe that thoughts or teachings like the one of Eckhart Tolle (power of now) are very helpful in order to learn to understand and practice what I believe in. I have read that some religious people find this contradicting their faith, well i cannot agree to that. Many times Tolle refers to words Jesus said, and explains the deeper meaning of them.
I think it is not only about believing in something, but living it.
And here the practices of Tolle are a very big help.
We are thinking and feeling all the time anyway, so why not take control of it, instead of being controlled by it.
We want to find the truth, why not let it find us. And for this i guess we have to learn to shut up (thoughts of any kind) and listen.
We cannot even really listen to others without thinking or deciding to understand what they mean. Well I have often experienced that I tell something and something different is understood by the listener. This is because we are not open enough and too much focused on our limitations.
I personally find it very challenging to learn to really be able to listen. Which i guess is only possible if one is receptive to all there is.
I am very interested in all ways that can lead to that.
Smily
I thank you for your extensive essay on Tolle.
I too have gained a lot from the Tolle books. The taking time to rest the mind, the true self behind the ego self, the listener, peace in silence beautiful. Helps stop the internal chaos.
This does not mean thet the active social work I do stops but the calling to stop and rest….. To see the distructiveness of thoughts in my life and others and the unnecessary damage they create.
It could be argued that a good dose of CBT would do the samebut somehow the beauty and simpicity of his message wipes a brow and quences the thirst of many a weary traveller.
It provides a spirituality to conneect with self and nature which many have lost in this material busy world.
While some of the concepts are a bit out there one only has to look at any religions to see legends, myths, visions, new earths, people in white, the new creation, the New Jerusalum but provided all is not taken literally to create fundamental zealots I’m ok with a bit of mystery and poetic licience/vision. The simple message
Not judgeing doesn’t mean not discerning, detachment and appreciation in this damaged wonderfull world, peace instead of war, thinking befor acting, alignment and focus, self control before glutony.
Tolle will not change the world because no prophet or god or religious leader has but some have had major good and bad impacts. Maybe the intelligent like yourself and others will help guide the sheep to peacefull pastures.
thank you
Peter
The Power of now can be of great help to anyone stuck in the past or worried about the future. Life is only lived from one point and the point is to be fully ware of it otherwise life is missed as we can dwell on things that really don’t matter. It is easy to read too much into it and ask too many questions as he says.The wisdom is in the space not in the thoughts which are tools. We all have to think otherwise nothing would get done so I would say don’t stop thinking but be aware of it and of Now, the point from which all life unfolds.
Hello! there are many differing opinions and i respect all of them. Tolle’s messages can be hard to understand and interpret at times but if you actually practice what he is saying you will probably be swayed. The witness that observes all, body sensations and mind are separate from the one who witnesses. I am still in the beginning of my spiritual journey but everyday i get progressively closer. After a few awakenings i know whats in store for me. the journey will be a amazing one.
Ekhart Tolle is a great spritual teacher of our time. His teachings can bring true change for the person who can understand his message. I have read the three books written by him and apperciate his knowledge which can bring solutions to our troubled World. I am from Africa – Ethiopia, and please people who recieve this message of me, I kindly request you to deliver my sincere admiration to Ekhart Tolle – who is truely dedicated to save humanity from all sufferings we are witnessing now.
Yours sincerely
Fikremariam from Ethiopia
I think Tolle escape people from their problem, not to face it this just making our world full of gratefull people not clever people with a solution. Better you read kiyosaki and friends. They will save you from bill and long term financial disasters. God give you brain for stress, whether you like or not, ruin your brain better dan you keep it peace. We live for solving problem, we live to stress. We deserve it because God has given us Big Brain compared with other animal. If you want to calm down better going to grave.
After reading a new earth life unravelled, spun out of control, i lied cheated, kind of woke up and went mad at the same time.And I am so glad. At the moment I dont know what to do where to go and you know what,its ok. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand the practical side of form. I dont identify with it so completely is all and so am cultivating a courage; though stumbling along the way; that I never knew. Often a lightness,empathy and real compassion accompany this beautiful existance that hasn’t been there for a long time. I appreciate the critique offered. My perception is that too much notice has been taken of the written word and therefore the essence of what ecky is telling may have been overlooked. In gratitude for starting to awake from the long slumber. Namaste. Philbo
coming from a hindu spiritual background. having abundance of knowledge about hindu scriptures and its teachings, tolle no doubt makes a lot of sense in his teachings bringing out the essence of the hindu teachings. for his teachings is the ultimate of all teachings from the east (buddism, hinduism, etc.
As a Christian I find nothing in Tolle that was not taught better and more clearly by Christ almost 2000 years ago
Today’s reading of the Parable of the Prodigal Son says it all. God finds us when we are ready to be found. Sadly some of us die before we are ready to be found.
With Best Wishes
If you put the same energy that you put to thinking and arguing in to meditation !!! you would be enlightened !!!… The mind is very cunnig, and I can see that your mind is very smart, just jump out of it !! you will never get to the answer by a mental analisys.. no matter how smart you are !!
The present moment is pristine and did not have any particular color.It is we who give the tag to the present moment.If we dont give any interpretation to the present moment then it reveals what is in the store of present moment.But funny thing is hardly we have space in our brain to allow present moment to make it mark.Here mark not in the sense of leaving any memory of good and bad but beyond these criterea.To live present moment amounts to connecting with the cosmic energy.
We are so intelligente, we all use nice words , but can we understand what he wants to say ???, we don’t have to change our concepts , he is just teaching how to live without of thoughts that are making our mind so bussy, that we no longer stay here to solve the problems , or do things right now , so we don’t have to deal with that in our heads, all day and every day, thinking that will do that tomorrow , and tomorrow will never came because you will never be there, because now for us is always tomorrow.
There are so many holes in Tolle’s MIND ramblings it is like a badly knitted jumper. It is a sad state of the earth that people cannot just practise love and kindness to others, but rather have to come up with mad theories on how to cope with their busy empty lives with no God. I am personally so angry with people like Tolle who give desperate people, rubbish to meditate on and literally drive them mad. Thanks to Tolle and others like him, my own brother is now in a mental institution because he does not know which way is up any more. How does one excatly realign the mind with the soul once it has been ripped away? Phsyciatrist? Guru? Elecro-shock therapy? or Drugs? Can anyone help us? We are about to lose him.
They did not believe Jesus either. Be open minded to Tolle’s message, because his message helps people and does not alienate anyone except those who are attached to dogma which is killing the world.To live by a higher consciousness instead of limited personal intelligence and experience is empowering and a huge relief. It has helped me tremendously and I encourage you to try it yourself.
Correct – Incorrect, My way – Your Way, He says – I say, True – False, Supported – Unsupported.
It’s a personal thing, it can only be a personal thing.
None of us are able to express what it is that is important to us if it wasn’t from the rudimentry teachings at various points of our life.
Nature, what you see, feel, smell, taste, hear, think, holds the answers to your questions. Do you know what the question is and if you do, do you really really really want the answer?
If you agree or disagree, it’s none of my business.
Enjoy your journey.
we will never know exactly how many witches were killed
but that is not the point, is it?
if you were to try to practise what he recommends instead
of trying to write an academic paper about it, i believe
you would be surprised.
his teachings are very similar to buddhist’s emphasis on
awareness, instead of letting your mind run wild. try it!
If you had read a novel, such as Les Miserables, and later found out that it was fiction, does that mean you should discard anything you learned from it?
Tolle is describing the further development of subject-object differentiation that Piaget describes in developmental psychology. In Taoism, the yin represents acceptance and the yang represents desire, two opposites that are part of a greater whole. Because Tolle focuses on acceptance, he speaks best to those people who suffer from too much Yang. If you are a shy person, you could probably benefit from reading a book on how to become more assertive. But if you aren’t shy, the book wouldn’t do you much good, right?
So, why would anyone want to become enlightened? The answer is clear.
Tolle has no proof that consciousness is arising at a greater pace on Earth now than in the past. He is limited as we all are, and only knows it arose within him. Therefore he sees it wherever he looks.
His teachings are very useful if you are trapped in your mind, which many people seem to be.
Mindfulness collects up the dualities very neatly. It also simplifies. After reading the essay and comments, I think that is badly needed.
blessings***ho
Eckhart Tolle is a wonderful teacher.
I’ve been a follower for about 3 years now.
I’m open to criticism, since I know that no form is perfect.
Hope that he will open a spiritual center one day…
Thanks for posting +_+
try dancing
Thanks for putting all of this together, and even paying money to make sure all of us see your essay. I can sense the sincere spirit in what you are doing.
Tolle’s books are quite literally not for everyone. While many people may gain some insight from them, and for others the awakening process might be ignited by them, for the vast majority of people they will just be gibberish. That seems to be–on the level at which they can be understood–the category you fit into. There’s no shame in that, of course. As Eckhart says, and as you are well aware, “It is as it is.” But I don’t think he coined the phrase.
In other words, if I may speak frankly, though respectfully: you know not of what you speak.
For me, both The Power of Now and A New Earth made perfect “sense.” I put sense in quotes because I could sense as I was reading it that it was speaking to a deeper part of me, the part beyond my mind. I came across the books as a result of an odd, synchronistic encounter, and they were for me a voice for an awakening process that had already begun. In a phrase, I was really who this book was for and, again most respectfully, you were not.
I feel that your fears about Eckhart’s views on social change are unfounded. The only social change he advocates is that which takes place one soul at a time. I can tell you my life has been transformed by awakening, informed by Eckhart’s books, and the world around me has changed for the better. That’s social change and no one need fear it.
I would love it if you would visit my blog http://toddwrightnow.blogspot.com/ (where I found your ad, incidentally). As it happens, most of my posts are dedicated to explaining Tolle’s work. Perhaps we could start up a healthy dialogue, both here and there.
Again, thanks so much for your demonstrated sincerity. It really shines through, and I have greatly enjoyed my evening as a result. Hope to see you soon at my place! Todd
Some man-made words will not suffice to explain…Please do not forcefully take hold of the wrong end of the stick. Be patient and you may see that the words mean somthing much different.
DEAN…DECANUS…no…leader of 10 people….No! Man of the woods….Yes I like that!
I am a spititual person but am academic – I believe in no religion or god. I got interested in meditation and non devotional Buddhist ideas after being referred by my doctor to classes to combat extreme stress, anxiety and depression and have found a great deal of interest in the work of Tolle. I take all the religious aspects of the works to be metaphor for thought processes and phsychological traits and good/bad thinking (the Egoic mind for example is my bad thinking, not some universe devouring Satan wannabe). This work is all just good old common or garden cognitive behavioural stuff to modify the internal dialogue (oh no, not Dr Phil)that has a sound (as sound as any phychological technique can be anyway)basis in science. Forget the mumbo jumbo of gods, eternal life etc. as literal and view the work as a meditation technique. On those grounds, like Raj Yoga or CBT, it has value.
To make comments either way is difficult because any comment made springs from the bias perceiption.Oberver and observed phenomena implies duality while seeing is contineous happening phenemena in which `what is` is everchanging and to come to conclusion about it in anyway amounts to forming of an opinion as per past knowledge.In seeing,right and wrong do not spring from the memory bank and past experiences stored in mind.In such a situation silence is golden because any comment will give distorted meaning.And living is a ongoing process.
To make comments either way is difficult because any comment made springs from the bias perceiptionp.Oberver and observed phenomena implies duality while seeing is contineous happening phenemena in which `what is` is everchanging and to come to conclusion about it in anyway amounts to forming of an opinion as per past knowledge.In seeing right and wrong do not spring from the memory bank and past experiences stored in mind.In such a situation silence is golden because any comment will give distorted meaning.And living is a ongoing process.
You have nailed it Mac. Bravo! Direct experience is the key. Tolle says it all the time. Words are limited. Books are limited. They are useful but nothing beats BEING in the silent presence. The silent witness to our own mind. I work in the world of mental illness and criminality. Our EGO stuff is pretty crazy. I see evidence of it everyday.It takes daily ‘practice’ to go beyond that surface mind/ego state to reach who we really are. Tolle appears to live and practice what he writes, and for that I see him as an authentic and incredibly powerful teacher. The world stage is lucky to have him. Embrace your inner wisdom and love!
the 3 books helpd me 2 4get my povrty
Firstly, I hear all of the above, including Tolle’s realty. But I’d advise anyone to ‘test everything and keep only the good’, albeit through each of our own personal spiritual journeys. To his defence I resonate with some points:
- The avoidance of specific dogma, doctrine, relogion, ideology etc.
- Getting in touch with the very moment of feeling, sensing, non-judgementalism, or non-thinking as he puts it.
- Posing this state of being as truly creative.
I have many unresolved issues about Mr Tolle’s theory (spot the irony in the term ‘theory’). Perhaps I find a void in my present moments. Maybe I need a practical How-To guide such as the ones provided by so many religions/ doctrines. Perhaps I’m ‘not exactly covered’ in the realities of his now(s):
- How do I resolve past hurts/ negative belief systems in the now?
- How does someone like myself suddely become ‘mindless’ when my brain has always been my only strong point/ survival tool in this world?
- Why does Mr Tolle never refer to emotion as a basic human trait and tool?;
- Subsequently, is there supposed to be no affirmation/ meditation on positive outcomes, induced by strong emotions?
Please let me know before 2012
if you have any answers
I think it is very easy to live in now if you’re loaded with money. You don’t have to think about bills, food and other stuff. Live in now and the rent will go away, right? Tolle is telling you not to think, which is maybe possible when you’re on holiday, in nature, you just shut down the mind and live in now. I think I’ll go with Dr.Phil, created by the same priestess, but with more good advices about how can I make my life better. Bee.
Joseph, I enjoyed your critique. As you mentioned many people have had spiritual experiences over the centuries. The insights we discover are probably useful only to ourselves and, if mentioned, are recognized only by those who have also had similar experiences. I spent years trying to comfort others who had fear of death by sharing my memories of birth into this life and the death that immediately preceded it. I was able to check the validity of the memory of the death experience by describing the room and people present to someone who’s life began while that person lived and who was still alive during my existence. Her response when I asked her if that was the room where her mother had died was: ” Why yes, but how do you know?” I was born two weeks after that death – as we reckon time. The memory of the death experience occurred when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I never told anyone about it but I knew that it was important and never forgot it either. I was an adult in my 30′s when the memory of my birth experience came up. It was then that I realized that I had experienced reincarnation and that reincarnation is true – at least for me. I am sure that I have many more lessons to learn and I am content to keep living and learning. I will influence those around me for the better as much as I can but I have no illusions about changing the external world to any great extent. I think we are here to learn, so that is what I will continue to do…learn about my self (Self) and also about the beautiful external world with all its problems as well.
I am thankful to see the many perspectives on Eckart and his writings. Reading his book brought about some experiences within me. This is not a claim that his insight need to be verbatim for each of us. There are nevertheless some useful insights. Perhaps then we may become wise enough to glean some of our needs (for the want of a better term) from them. “Hold on to that which is good.”
“I Am” sent Moses to free Israel from captivity.Perhaps “I Am” can free some of us from some of our misconceptions using people like Eckart.
Thanks for this thread Joseph. A little overcritical for my poor little ego.lol. You have inspired some insightful replies.
TO THE CRITIC.
its very difficult to understand concepts. at times,one can grasp a certain concept and at other times cannot. the evolution of human species, whether according to Charles Darwin or Eckhart Tolle is an ongoing process. whether we come from apes and NOW in our new skin of humans, or we will as humans turn into another species( eg,become transparent, as stated in the book and misinterpreted by thousands due to limitation of experiencing THE BEING part of human and due to over and above unecessary IMAGINATION, the result of a never stoping mind.)is clearly a very talked about subject and no one has ever come with A ONE CORRECT EXPLANATION as to who we are in our physical forms and why we are here as a human race?
how can you come to A “ONE CERTAIN” EXPLANATION TO THE DESCRIPTION OF WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND YOU AND WITHIN YOU IF YOU, YOURSELF ALONG WITH YOUR UNIVERSE, ARE EVERCHANGING> all you can, THEN, describe is, the continous change, growth, progress OR EVOLUTION of your form and the forms around you.
physical evolution and spiritual evolution.
——–a mix of science, spirituality and ofcourse DIVINE GRACE IN A BALANCED PROPORTION is the right recipie for understanding, knowing, TRUTHS!!!!!!….NOT CONCEPTS.
Truth just is.
concepts are a million out of which 3-4 are the best figured out ones. a certain number of population chooses to familiarize themselves with concept-1 and a certain number chooses concept2, 3 or 4, and then there are a certain number who know nothing about Truth or Concepts.
our unawareness, itself is limited. by sitting quietly and observing one’s own thoughts is NOT something they teach us in school. if at all, one does pay attention to thoughts and the kind they are, positive or negative, one can come to atlest a certain amount of sanity. you cannot learn the entire schooling in one day. we require TIME to learn. we take 12-13 years to get educated. JUST ONE VIRTUE ,sometimes, takes us an ENTIRE LIFETIME to live and understand and to make it a part of our own substance.
HENCE we are given TIME in that sense. and whatever we DO learn, we learn TODAY. thats what it means by NOW.
cosmic evolution is a scientific thought. there is nothing wrong in thinking about it. afterall the MAIN issue at hand is US. WE have been in our quest of knowing who we are, how we are growing and whats around us, whether it is stagnant or does it grow?
its all energy, we know that now. the new age thought is nothing entirely NEW, the awareness of it, is what is NEW.
spiritually you can contemplate on this scientific thought TOO!
by thinking and wondering and being amazed by the power and vastness of the intelligence behind this great ART. you can be humbled by the infinite space around us, by the silence, by the accuracy with which everything in this universe is balanced in and out. you can be amazed by the knowing, that there is EXISTENCE. you can still believe in santa claus. you can vote and you can help others in need. you can pray for those who are ill, you can give alms to the poor. then come back and think again if a book you read makes sense to you. have you unlocked the key to the mystery of the why, how and who we are.
cosmic evolution is happening. we are a part of it. look at the caterpillar and the butterfly. humans are so immensely intelligent and have an inbuilt ability of a magical sort to bring things to life. say for example: TIME. you cant bottle it up. but its there. humans have made it come to life!..you can look at it through your watches and clocks. its THERE. we grow from infants into adults. there were viruses and bacterias, they’ve changed too!..now you have superbugs!..
you’ve come from NOTHING To the birth of a computer and the internet. uv tapped into the energy all around you. but i dont know why you make a big deal of everything??
you know why? because you cant PUT A STOPPER TO YOUR MIND.make it rest and then renew yourself. its that difficult!!
cosmic growth should sound better than cosmic dissolution.
and sometimes even dissolution is required for growth.
dissolution could also be of the EGO. EGOLESS does not mean A MUTANT SPECIES.that you turn from human to an egg shapped vacuole. it means, you argue less, you boast less, you honor more and you succeed well as a species or whatever you want to address a colony filled with people who did not even succeed to find a different, brand new exciting question!.
we all have the same troubles. whose best, who wins, who stood first. EQUALITY isnt popular amongst us, is it? equality in treating humans alike. do we practice this. WE CAN ARGUE AND TRY TO MAKE SENSE OUT OF SOMETHING MENTALLY, FOREVER. CEASELESSLY.
but we cannot sit in silence and contemplate.
basically the book by Mr. Tolle actually tells us how to live a life as a human, how to technically get a grip over ourselves by realising that there has to be something dysfunctional that is giving rise to US, not being able to live a peaceful, happier and an ordinary simple life. the book is telling us that there is definitely something within us that opposes all our wanting to live peacefully. and in recognising that we DO have a mental makeup whihc is running us incessantly, the book is only helping us slowly come out of an almost neurotic sense of self.
the CRUX OF THE MATTER IS THIS——
you now know there is an eternal ENERGY that you are.
you know it cannot be made or destroyed. you also know that in the physical world, everthing comes and goes. leaves grow and fall. we have history books telling us about past empires. YOU ARE LIVING A CERTAIN CIVILISATION TODAY and tomorow there will be another. BIG DEAL.
its in the nature of things to be and not to be.
but the question is?
have you realised your true nature?? have you come to the realisation of that essence within you?
all change first starts within.