What do people here think of this teacher’s way of practice
Hey Snake,
I have just started reading it since Christmas and although only on page 70, think it contains amazingly insightful wisdom and truth. I find that it has been a great compliment to AYP and is helping me to operate more fully in the “here and now” than ever before. It is something we can do outside of practices and I feel a tremendous benefit from what I have read so far.
Anthem
Hello Snake,
My experiences are much the same as Anthem’s…
From another perspective, AYP is a great complement to Tolle’s book. Tolle’s book is weaker on meditation instruction.
-D
I am reading Tolle now and it is perfect timing! I seem to get hold of books describing my present state perfectly all the time. Now it is Tolle and his way of giving explanations of the eternal witness is brilliant. When I have been meditating I have always wondered how I could get rid of that “eye” that was there all the time. I thought one would try to get rid of EVERYTHING, but the consciousness was there and I felt I failed all the time. [:P]
Tolle is finally giving me the explanation of this!
His was the very first book I found after being touched by the spirit. I remembered seeing the power of now on an amazon web page, and had no idea what it meant at the time. But with my new perspective, I realized that book was about what I had been completely immersed into.
I got the audio version, and it is beautiful.
I don’t recommend the book, to be honest. I think his material is very powerful through the spoken word, and especially because it is done in Tolle’s voice.
A powerful expression of being, direct from the source.
Hi Kyman
I was introduced to Tolle’s book “The Power of Now” about six months ago. His and other non-dualist teachings really turn me on. Adyashanti, Ramana Maharishi, Papaj, and etc. A lot of present-day teachers and students of these teachers (Adyashanti, Tolle, etc.) hold “satsangs” where there is apparently some sharing of Presence wherein a lot of people claim to be spiritually awakening. It’s interesting what you say about the power of Tolle’s voice in his recordings. I’ve read that elsewhere. Apparently some of these satsangs are held over the phone. I’m curious about this. Perhaps Kirtanman might have something to say, being familiar with Adya’s ways.
Peace, Alan
Adya’s site is good. A friend mentioned him several times so I checked it out.
It seems like these individuals lend their sense of clarity to those of us who are wrapped up in automatic mind habits.
Reminds me of how you may think in a distorted way about something or someone, but when you are present in those situations you find that the mind was just doing its thing. Carrying out past programming.
I don’t listen to tolle much anymore, but after my awakening it was amazing to her my most intimate and real thoughts being said by another. A resonance or recognition, was a powerful way to expand my mind and open it to more change.
Familiarity might be slightly too strong a way to phrase it – but I “take your meaning”, as they say.
As far as I know, Adya doesn’t do phone satsangs as far as I know - his site gives full info on what he does offer, including live satsangs, now spread across a much broader geographical range than before, with home base still being the San Francisco Bay Area.
I will concur that A. Adya has helped to facilitate many awakenings, including my own (and that isn’t the same as an egoic “I” claiming to be enlightened; “Awakening”, as defined in Zen, and some other traditions, is more the initial taste (sometimes quite mind-blowing) of Reality - which then unfolds into full enlightenment (awareness of Reality as it is, over a period of strongly apparent time).
Through all this, I’ve learned, and these days continually experience, that genuinely realized teachers effectively give shaktipat continuously - by their sheer presence - which emanates most strongly from the general location of the physical form which represents them (i.e. Adya seems to be “shaktipatting” most powerfully, “live” - though the phenomenon is very powerful via videos and audio tapes as well - many of which are available on the web; his written words, too.
Ironically, Adya says this isn’t exactly what he’s doing, because it implies that the teacher is giving something to the student, which he’s not – because there’s only One, and we’re all in full possession and actualization of, and as, the One. Adya likens it more to: if he was sitting across from you, and plucked a guitar string, the corresponding string on your guitar would vibrate at the exact same frequency, even if you didn’t touch it.
Literal resonance.
I’ve had some strong experiences of this type with Eckhart Tolles audio CDs and DVDs, but have never had the privilege of attending satsang live, with him.
The last live satsang I did with Adya (a couple of weeks ago) was the most powerful instance of this (shaktipat-ish dynamic) - ever - for me. Adya doesn’t usually comment on it, but he did that night, saying something like, “Those of you who are sensitive can feel it - literally feel - the One.”
I can’t speak for anyone else (and someone might pass it off as suggestion) - but I know what the dynamic feels like - and I’m comfortably that it is facilitate by an emanation of higher energy from Adya - but only because I’ve experienced the dynamic too often, and too powerfully (from several highly conscious teachers) to see any reason to deny or diminish it.
Basically, subtle energies become apparent - Adya veritably radiates color, and you see the perfect synchronicity - perfect - in all of his movements; he’ll gesture with his hands in ways that could be someone just talking with their hands – but he’s actually blessing the attendees with a wide variety of sophisticated, intricate mudras.
Most especially though, he becomes Still - and some of the rest of us are able to piggy-back on his Stillness (as opposed to a few years ago, when I just wondered when he’d start talking again!).
From this place of being Still - the two main things I noticed are:
*What I’ve come to think of as “surface reality” (people, buildings, etc.) - seems much more luminous and beautiful, but also, appears as a very thin layer over the infinite depths of THIS - That Which is Real. Being Still, and perceiving Life in this way, the fact that this is all One doesn’t seem like a sweet spiritual theory. Rather, it seems … obvious.
*Our tendency to have our monkey-minds caper everywhere at all times is not as strong as we think. Since that (literally) blessed satsang with Adya, I can step into being Still at any moment - and it instantly allows me to experience This from a place of what I would call “precognitive awareness”. I don’t think it’s literally precognitive - but compared to what I’m used to, it sure feels that way.
Thoughts stop, and I take in everything (all seemingly external stimuli) all at once, and I DON’T constantly label, as I usually do. I just tried it — I’m usually aware that I’m “typing” on the “keyboard”, looking at my “monitor”, and so on. In Stillness, the labeling and languaging drop away – and life is experienced with an is-ness that’s been absent in my life for so long, that I can’t remember if I’ve ever really experienced it — though have a sense that I may have, as a small child ---- or even smaller than that.
(And now, I’m a verbose 45 year old man, who doesn’t have the sense to go to bed at a sane hour … is that evolution, or what??)
Noooo … “what” was not an option …
Namaste & Good-Night
Kirtanman
Hi Kirtanman,
I experience it this way as well. Things become more “real” looking when I am more present, they become far more “fascinating” than usual. There is a vividness to objects that I enjoy observing.
I see it this way as well, thoughts stop the flow of life through us as we label and define our experience.
thanks for sharing,
A
Thanks Captain Kirt 
Very nice answers. And thorough too!
Hi Kirtanman
A cool synchronicity here… I was just posting this morning somewhere else on “Tangible Stillness” and I am came across your comments
I have noticed this with a couple of great teachers… but I have also noticed that they can “turn it off” too (to an extent) eg when in a social situation, “off duty” etc… Dont have an explanation for that observation altho’ from an energy perspective one can spread one’s energy wide or keep it self-contained.
Yeh right
I think the way I have observed it before is in the presence of a couple of meditation teachers (Burgs and Master Yap Soon-Yeong) who seem to have an ability to what I described as “flood the room with their meditative consciousness”… Another metaphor was, I felt, like going from swimming in plain water to swimming in the Dead Sea where the salinity is so high one cant sink…
I also recall being curious about this party-trick 
and wondering what the mechanism was… I like your (Adya’s?) idea of resonance. One of the two above described the process as “just expanding my self”. I do recall seeing something by Yogani in the AYP book but I put it aside to read later and then lost the place lol (obviously not the right time for me to read it yet )
Through these experiences I have come to be able to get some tangible feeling for stillness… My more recent observation is that in some times/places there seems to be “more” “tangible stillness” and sometimes “less”.
Eg recently in a crowded commuter train I tried “feeling” for the stillness but “there didnt seem ‘much’ there” or rather it was “overlaid by a lot of noise”. My words are probably unclear but as you know its all some sort of sensation so hard to describe.
Anyway, outside the presence of people with such realisation that they flood the vicinity, I was curious as to whether you or others have noticed “different amounts” of “stillness” [of course this could be an observer effect instead/as well (ie varying ability to spot it)].
Peace and thanks for scattering seed which bloomed for me on the day I was thinking about it 
Mike
Hi Mike
Those “parlor tricks” are interesting aren’t they? I’ve experienced that pervading (room filling) stillness in the presence of Sri Karunamayi, and more recently from the spiritual “teacher”, Brenda Morgan.
I have recently been able to feel beneath the sounds and sights (and other senses) on crowded buses and other places and experience stillness. Eckhart Tolle’s writings point to such practice of presence.
In Stillness, Alan
I listened to the “Power of Now” audio CD several times. And still listen to it at times. Very powerful teaching indeed. I was able to practice it to a certain extent for a while (to stay in the presnet instead of getting immersed in the thoughts of the past or future). But I realized it is very easy to forget this whole practice and get lost completely in our thoughts. That is where Pranayama and Meditation are really helping. It does help me to remember many times (though not always) during the day that I am replaying some past thoughts or worried about the future. But I still get lost often. Even though it sounds pretty easy when he says it on the book, it is practically not so easy to remain in the present always. Of course if I did remain in the present all the time then I would have been enlightened already, which I am not.
Saw this recently and thought it might fit here: 
Dear Eckhart, Do people really have the ability to choose? As an enlightened being, do you feel that your will and the will of God is the same? I worry that I will become like the Borg on Star Trek, just part of one collective. Thanks for your time, Eckhart. laughter
With love,
Gregory
Dear Gregory, You are already a Borg. You have already been assimilated. As long as you are unconscious (spiritually speaking), you ARE part of the collective, and the belief that your thoughts are “your” thoughts is an illusion, an illusory personal identity. Both the content and structure of your mind (i.e. what you think and how you think) are forms of conditioning. You don’t think: thinking happens to you. You are being thought by the collective mind. So it’s not a question of not being assimilated into the collective, but stepping out of the collective dream of unconscious thinking, that is to say stop being a Borg.
Blessings,
Eckhart
I strongly disagree with following statement:
“You are being thought by the collective mind.”
Definitely not my line of thought.
Wolfgang
[quote]
I strongly disagree with following statement:
“You are being thought by the collective mind.”
Definitely not my line of thought.
Wolfgang
[/quote]What’s your line of thought Wolfgang?
Well, for example, we/I do have the ability to choose,
and it is not the collective mind that decides for me.
There is the “collective mind” and there is Higher consciousness.
Higher consciousness however is quite something differnt from
“collective mind”.
The “collective mind” may advise me for or against a certain choice,
and Higher consciousness may advise me for or against a certain choice,
but the decision still lies with me (of course, I personally would
want to follow the advise of Higher consciousness, but then
I am not always aware of that advise).
I think Tolle’s metaphor fits to an extent, but I wouldn’t speak that way.
Because consciousness-improvements (on the individual as well as collective level) are incremental and many-faceted, for many reasons I prefer teachings that cultivate such an impression of consciousness-changes.
I don’t like the Borg / non-Borg dichotomy – I see it as overly-simplified, too Apocalyptic, and too grand, along with all that goes with that.
Hi David
I also agree with the metaphor…to an extent. But then, Eckhart wasn’t speaking to me. It is important to remember that Eckhart here responds to a particular individual asking for guidence. It was the individual that brought Borg into the equation. Eckhart turned it around in a way that I would guess induced a shift in the perspective of the individual. It is teaching at the level needed. It is responding - from and to - the moment at hand, not an opinion.
Hi Wolfgang
Well - all I can say is that many a time I may think i have the ability to choose, when in fact I am reacting in a conditioned way. And it is exactly this reaction that itself is the “me”. I then cannot see that my so called “free choice” often is motivated by a particular view…a limited persepctive. I am blind to this fact…because i am fully identified with the reaction. And this limited perspective is what I call the “collective mind”. It is the exact same dimness that constitutes all "me"s. It is non-spacious; reacting as opposed to responding; it is motivated by a belief…or a particular stand…all of it impressed in regular doses during the years we grow up…during the time when we are moulded into “shape”.
So how free is my choice…if it is a consequence of all that…rather than the moment at hand? Who is the “me” if not the colletive…the concepts?
The “collective mind” is always in conflict. How can it not be? It is so fragmented…so separated…all depending on which opinion we identify with at any given time. No wonder it incessantly speaks for and against…Its whole “life” depends on this!
Higher consciousness never meddles. Why should it? …I never receive any advise for or against something from the shine. On the contrary…it is forever quiet…it never translates…never transcribes. It simply allows and therefore illuminates everything. Everything is clear when I am as such home… So that I actually don’t have to choose. It is selfevident. This is…it is an immense relief (after eons of resistance… wanting things my own way) when I see that I am freed of the whole choice issue. Things are allowed to be what they already are. No decision has to be made. Because what happens is uncaused. The intention and the action are not two. It is not linear…everything is always new every single moment. Everything is always beginning. I therefore am freed of becoming…and that is such a JOY. I never, ever again have to be what I am not!
It never lay in the hands of the “me”. I just thought so! Life is spontaniously intelligent if allowed to flow freely…if unmeddled with. It is always like this…the implicit intelligence of the shine does not need a blue print. It is always explicitly effulgent…
So…to “step out of the collective dream” is really to stop arguing with reality. It is actually to stop the stepping (the inner activity)…so that what is evident can shine forth. And until the clarity is obvious I learn everything from the evident fact that I am clouded by opinions. Just the very acceptance of this fact frees enough space so that the possible transformation implicit in any moment can happen. And as such the understanding takes place.
I love Eckhart
He - silence embodied - manages to penetrate through the dullness…the wall… that is the me. It matters only to a degree if the theory could be more to the point…so long as the man himself is a walking light…
I was so …touched to the core…when I read “The power of Now” 10 years ago. For the first time in my life i understood that there was a preciousness…here. Inside the moment that I occupied.
He was the first to show me the guru within. Not waiting for me in some distant future.
NOW
Great reply Katrine, thank you