Thanks for the inspiration!
I immensley ENJOY writing from here…
Katrine, people can indeed become clouded by opinions. They can also become clouded by the delusion that they don’t have opinions.
Minds can become very negatively ‘conditioned’, and they also can become negatively conditioned by the delusion that they are ‘unconditioned’.
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.
Perhaps yes, perhaps no. If you’re saying that the borg/non-borg metaphor isn’t too good for general use, well – that’s my own point; I don’t like the metaphor for the reasons mentioned.
If you’re saying though that Tolle is making no mistake, well, I can’t be sure. That thing he said pops out at me immediately as something that I would think I shouldn’t say.
Tolle has plenty of his own opinions and philosophies, and they are very present and freely expressed in his writings, and I don’t always find myself in general agreement with them.
Hi David
Yes. These are all opinions. I am always opinionated the way I see it. It is the resistance to this fact …and the full investment in the belief that it should be otherwise…that perpetuates the constant arguing with what is.
I wasn’t thinking about whether Eckhart made a mistake or not, David.
I just found what he said to be beautiful…a response fitted to the one that asked it.
If it didn’t come through like that to you - then there is beauty in that too. You would have said it differently…and your response would have been beautiful in a different way.
I understand that.
It is just that his writings inspired me. When I read them the first time…agreeing or disagreeing was not an issue. I mean - how could i know? I had never really been here. He shut me up…the shock of the possibility of Now…and then in this crack the joy seeped through.
I’m reading Power of Now. I am loving it!
It is an interesting companion to AYP. It causes a change in deep meditation where I am attaching a purpose to the mantra, which I’m not sure is right or wrong. I see the mantra now as giving the mind something to focus on and repeat. I can observe the mind repeating this mantra and because it is an intentional diversion for the mind I can easily identify the part of myself that is not the mind. I see this but do not get stuck on it as I remember YOgani stressing the simplicity of Deep Meditation, although the parallels are fascinating.
Hi Anthony,
The mantra is, as Tolle would say, another portal into the now. It is so great, for me, how it neutralizes the importance of some thoughts that just “must be thought” because they are “so important.” They become simply more mindstuff.
And the more personal the thoughts, the more important they seem. And the more pleasurable it is when you disengage from them.
Hi D,
That might even be an understatement. Does he teach it? I have never read it. I don’t think he teaches a formal practice of meditation because that is just more activity of “the mind made self, deriving its identity from the past and its salvation in the future.” Meditation is an action undertaken by the mind made self seeking some imagined future salvation. This is contradictory to what Eckhart teaches because it postpones the actual “achievement” of the now and makes it some future event. His spiritual practice is “the only one that does not involve time” as he likes to say.
To me, his portals are activities of the mind made self as well, but I get what he is getting at. My perception is that Tolle’s method is a form of self inquiry at the level of “not this, not this” in the AYP method and that is about it.
It is a kind of “shoot from the hip” method. And even tho, in a sense, it does not involve time, it is still turned into a temporal activity by the mind until the actual moment when the depth and breadth of ego activity in the unconscious mind ceases. He would say you are doing it wrong if you do this but how can you help it?
In other words, you could ask someone who uses Tolle’s method exclusively, “why are you doing this as you are continually going unconscious and becoming conscious again?” (which involves clock time) and their answer would reveal the mind made self saying, “yeah, but eventually if I keep it up I will get there, I will be completely now.”
“The mind made self, deriving its identity from the past and its salvation in the future.”
So perfectly put. So difficult to escape. Who is escaping?
Dittos, Katrine. He really helped me to understand some things.
Best, yb.
this is what I take from what eckhart is saying
if someone yells at you a borg would yell back because the “borg” is doing a reaction.
now to step out of it you can observe and then choose how to act. You can make the choice to keep quiet, ignore what was said, leave the room, talk to the person, or yell back at the person.
we are borgs when we react.
a commercial comes on tv we want that item we go buy that item.
an attractive woman comes into our life, we now become captive of our lust and only see her that way,
when we observe what is happening we can then make a decision of how to act instead of react. We may buy the item anyways, we may seek a relationship with the woman as well, but these would be done from a different level of awareness.
I could be off his point, but that is what I take from it
YB said:
That might even be an understatement. Does he teach it? I have never read it. I don’t think he teaches a formal practice of meditation because that is just more activity of “the mind made self, deriving its identity from the past and its salvation in the future.”
It’s an understatement in that his teaching on meditation is extremely sketchy indeed. But he teaches something, and it’s a matter of semantics whether it’s called meditation or not.
I agree with you that anyone following Tolle’s instruction is no less engaging in an ‘activity of the mind-made self’ as anyone following other meditation methods. That’s a very good insight. Does Tolle share that insight? Unfortunately, I think probably not. He has said himself that sees his work as the continuation of Krishnamurti’s work, and Krishnamurti seemed to be short of some needed related insight which would have allowed Krishnamurtis teachings to play better with others.
The unfolding process of ‘enlightenment’ doesn’t reduce at all to any one thing, such as ‘being in the now’. And that specific thing, ‘being in the now’, when it arises, is as much a fruit of enlightenment as anything else… being in the now is chicken-and-egg with enlightenment, part cause, part effect… ( This is true of pretty much anything that you use to characterize the enlightened states… )
Tolle is no more able to offer any technique or practice where people are able to spontaneously be beyond the ‘activity of the mind-made self’ than he is able to offer instant (and permanent) enlightenment itself. So, like Krishnamurti before him, he over-reaches in the way he sees his approach as unique, or in the way he misperceives the other approaches as being limited in ways his own approach is not.
This is all part of a sort of ongoing problem with sudden-enlightenment/advaitists in their various forms. They cryptically (unseen even to themselves apparently) attach ‘enlightenment’ to the approach they recommend and cryptically attach ‘unenlightenment’ to other approaches, and think they are therefore presenting a superior approach. If it only were so simple, I’d be selling the Elixir of Life in the form of bottle of ordinary water with the instructions ‘Drink this in perfect health’ written on it.
His spiritual practice is “the only one that does not involve time” as he likes to say.
Fortunately, in contrast with Krishnamurti though, as far as I can tell, he’s not actively driving people away from useful meditation techniques by pooh-poohing them. He’s just over-reaching a bit in subtly reducing their status relative to his own proposed practice, for reasons that look plausible on the surface but fall apart on closer examination.
A clear description of ET as it is.
Re the " ongoing problem with sudden-enlightenment/advaitists in their various forms" one gets the feeling from listening or reading some of there
words an almost superior than thou sort of attitude to anyone who doesnt see “IT” as they do.
Good post David
Hi David and snake:
The thing about ET is that there is such an absense of self importance in him and so much truth in what he says that it is hard to argue with him on the vast majority of his teaching. He is not at all critical or haughty like Krishnamurti. He is not teaching Zen. He is not teaching Yoga. He is not teaching Christianity. He is not affiliated with any group. He is basically teaching mindfulness. He is just a simple guy expressing his own life experience and education for what ever it is worth to anyone. And it is worth a lot. I don’t sense any other agenda except to help. I don’t think I am alone in that. He is not controversial. He is very likeable. Therefore he can reach a large audience and help to open up many people.
That is my perception.
There is just one slight problem.
This I am not quite clear on. Are you saying that ‘being in the now” is both the means and the end?
Yes. I agree totally. The elements of self and time and effort being involved in evolving one’s consciousness are not acknowledged by ET or K and they should be. They are seen as the obstacles or enemies to transcendence rather than paradoxical allies. The only way that Tolle acknowledges their benefit is in that they cause you so much suffering that you spontaneously transcend them as a result. Of course, this is what happened to him. This invalidation of self and time and effort has the potential to “hamstring” or “hobble” the average practitioner. jmo.
When I read the above paragragh and quote, I think that ET and K would say that we are exactly wrong.
Their role (self, time and effort that is) in helping one achieve transcendence is pooh-poohed, as you say. Self, time and effort are necessary and can purposely set up conditions favorable for transcendence to occur. It needn’t be an inadvertent occurence as with ET. I.e., by the ego (you) having the goal of enlightenment and exerting the necessary effort which is fueled by desire to apply all the AYP tools (for example) on a regular basis over time, inner silence can rise in a gradual way. It doesn’t have to occur with a big bang.
I haven’t read it yet but I am assuming that this is going to be well explained in Yogani’s Bhakti and Karma Yoga book.
It is just this one point on which I disagree with ET. This invalidation of the role of self and time and effort. And all that follows from it. I think it can also set up a confusion in a person’s mind about identity when there doesn’t need to be one. Yogani’s book, Self Inquiry addresses these pitfalls and can help one avoid them.
Otherwise ET does a beautiful job of mapping out a lot of territory, like ego structure and function.
Best, yb.
Yogibear said:
Are you saying that ‘being in the now” is both the means and the end?
Yes. And so with any number of things which are used to characterize the ‘enlightened state’ – non-separation, Original Face, any of those buzz-words. They are chicken-and-egg with enlightenment.
The thing about ET is that there is such an absense of self importance in him and so much truth in what he says that it is hard to argue with him on the vast majority of his teaching. He is not at all critical or haughty like Krishnamurti.
I’m glad to hear that – that will be helpful for sure. The kind of mistakes I’m talking about though, don’t require any hauteur. ( And, maybe surprisingly, it’s possible to have and nurture a messianic self-mythology, with all the problems that are very likely to go with that eventually, without any hauteur or self-importance! )
I think that ET and K would say that we are exactly wrong.
If we were saying that these teachings were never right, they’d have a good claim that we’re exactly wrong. But it isn’t like that for me anyway – I know well that teachings of that kind can be very powerful. Sometimes, a person is ‘on the edge’ of something, and then a perspectival nudge is all that is needed to push them over.
This common problem which I’m talking about with Advaitist’s isn’t Advaita – Advaita is is fine and good. It’s a tendancy to see Advaita as THE tool, or the only tool, while it is really just A tool, like everything else. It’s power depends on any number of factors, and it’s power can critically depend not just on the person but on the timing in a person’s life.
One of the biggest questions, the big elephant-in-the-room question to anyone promoting an Advaita-like approach as supreme in some sense – the big question is, was that Ultimate Approach really all they needed themselves? Really? Was it really that simple?
Is Tolle saying that he didn’t powerfully benefit from other practices and approaches? Practices that he is now downplaying? If he isn’t saying it explicitly, is he suggesting it, creating a picture as if his enlightenment sort of arose out of the sky (or with the help of the Ultimate Approach) and yours can too? And how true is that picture?
If that picture is not quite accurate, who is served by it?
Eckhart Tolle was very unlucky, at the brink of suicide and then it happened during one night.
He didnt do any practice or appoach. Afterwards they told him that he was a spiritual teacher and in India he really found out what that was.
Same with Sri Aurobindo : he was a leader freedom-fighter in India. Had a very high education in England. He sat for a few days together wiht a yogi ( lolo ? dont remenber the name ). Then he suddenly changed, the yogi he sat with, was so scared that he thought the devil had entered Sri Aurobindo’s body. So his only practice or approach was sitting a few days wiht a yogi.
Both say the same thing : no need for meditation, every second of the day you meditate. Think what ET says about taking up a glas of water.
I am a bit jealous of ET but then again : he muss have suffered a lot.
Most meditations are kind of weird : you sit a while, then meditation is over and you do again the usual thing : no change.
Meditation here with AYP is different : has a lot to do with kundalini and is a must therefore.
To yogibear : you know the story about the ego, ego gets hurt, painbody start, mental noise and noise, ego satisfied for awhile .
Hi Thimus,
I have never felt that Sri Aurobindo had such a dramatic and sudden awakening after meeting that teacher. He certainly had a lot of success with the meditation technique that he learned from him. But to put things in perspective, he had already spent a year in solitary confinement in prison, spending most of his time in meditation. Then after he met this teacher, he spent many years practising very intense sadhana, including long periods in meditation every day. He kept a meditation diary for many years which has now been published.
He certainly was not an “instant enlightenment” case. In fact I think when you examine most “instant enlightenment cases” you find out pretty quickly that years of intense practice came before any good results. I suspect that Echart Tolle is another example of this if you examine what he did before his enlightenment. His teachings are pretty firmly rooted in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, which involves long periods of meditation.
Hi David,
I have never personally heard Tolle tell anyone not to meditate, or to put it down in any way. But I may have missed something there.
I can imagine he might put down other forms of spiritual practice such as prayer or pranayama or asana practice as this is quite common in Buddhist practices. In fact it is amazingly common in all religious and spiritual circles that teachers will warn of the dangers of doing any other spiritual practice other than the ones they are teaching.
It is probably for two reasons, firstly to preserve the purity of the system (which they know works without any additions), and secondly because they don’t know what will happen to people if they start messing around with other stuff.
I think you are right that most people won’t be able to get much benefit from Tolle’s teachings, but as far as advaita goes, it is quite gentle (be aware of what you are doing etc. and notice how selfish most of it is) and isn’t going to damage anyone.
Christi
Hi David,
How is that possible? It seems to me that self importance is implied in or inseparable from a messianic self mythology.
I haven’t seen where Tolle says that other teachings are never right. Maybe he says that but I don’t remember reading or hearing it anywhere. Just that his is the only one that doesn’t involve time. Because every time you return to the now you have performed the practice. In its pure sense, there is no thought of future achievement of some state of enlightment. It is all about being mindful now with no end in sight.
Yes. And ET’s stuff was just that for me a few years back. And now. Every time I listen it sinks in a little more
Probably ET has done a lot of work in his past lives.
Obviously not true. And best as I can tell, he is saying that. If it were true you could do what he says and be in his condition. ET was a total fluke from a one life perspective. He was a miserable intellectual at Cambridge University. One night in a fit of depression he had a shift in consciousness in which his entire ego structure collapsed and after that his thought process reduced by about 80% and most importantly, his thoughts no longer made him unhappy. I am using his terms.
I found that last statement, “my thoughts no longer make me unhappy” quite interesting seeing as how mine still seem to have this capability.
He defines enlightenment as “the end of suffering. No self, no suffering. “
It might be better to say: no identification, no suffering.
He spent several years trying to get a handle on what happened to him.
I would put him at least as firmly locked into the 4th stage of self inquiry as Yogani outlines it in his book.
I was listening to him on my way home from work last nite and he was saying how people experience this type of shift in moments of imminent danger, extreme physical exertion, intense beauty or misery, but it is most often temporary.
His point was that everybody experiences at least moments of stillness which they may not even be aware of and that stillness is not foreign to anybody.
But then the mind machines kicks back in and starts pasting and futuring again.
Allowing what is to be. Saying yes to what is. And the now is what is. That about sums up ET. He says that there is not really much more you can do. About all you can do beyond that is “mess it up” in his words.
He doesn’t get in to belief because beliefs like heaven or hell or reincarnation have nothing to do with the transformation of consciousness.
There is not much for most people to argue with ET. It is hard to pick a fight with him. Oprah loves him. Heck, even Sean Hannity likes him. His message has a mass appeal because so much of what he says relates to most everyone’s experience of their mental operations in everyday life and it is stripped bare of most anything that might push somebody’s buttons.
If that picture is not quite accurate, who is served by it?
Well, to me, he is an entry point like hatha Yoga is. It is a good first step for a lot of people to get familiar with spiritual thought of this type. And useful for other people more familiar as well. But the guiding principle of the “Guru is in you” must be there. Without that for reasons previously mentioned, it could cause problems for some people, too.
Best, yb.
Christi said:
I have never personally heard Tolle tell anyone not to meditate, or to put it down in any way. But I may have missed something there.
Yup. That’s a major strike in his favor.
YB said:
How is that possible? It seems to me that self importance is implied in or inseparable from a messianic self mythology.
I would say many well-known guru figures have or had a messianic self-mythology; it kind of goes with the whole guru territory. Let me say this much – if self-importance is there, the disciples or enthusiasts typically don’t see it at all – they are too bound up in playing the whole game around it. If something like that is not properly contained, its shadow usually arises eventually. If it is contained, it is OK. One of the worst ways it can play out if it isn’t contained is in a major straying from domain of competence in the teachings.
I’m not at all saying Tolle is heading down this path. He seems actually to have a lot in his favor, a lot of strengths which might keep him out of trouble. But celebrity is an enormous temptation. What I am saying is that no-one’s immune, and I hope he keeps it all healthy and truthful.
I haven’t seen where Tolle says that other teachings are never right.
That’s OK – I wasn’t saying Tolle was saying that either. We just have some communication problems here.
He doesn’t get in to belief because beliefs like heaven or hell or reincarnation have nothing to do with the transformation of consciousness. There is not much for most people to argue with ET. It is hard to pick a fight with him.
Actually, Tolle does sprinkle a number of beliefs of his here and there throughout his work, which sometimes bother the scientist, philosopher and historian in me. But while I find these things unfortunate, they don’t seem to be working out in a problemmatic manner, possibly partly because he isn’t making them important…
Thanks, all, for the discussion,
-D
Hi D,
Agreed.
Yes.
Thanks for saying that. It makes me stand back and take a closer look and do my best to be so myself. I appreciate your objectivity, insight and analytical ability.
Dittos, yb.
“…[P]eople ask sometimes, ‘How do I still my mind? I want to find the stillness.’ And then, yes, there are some good meditation methods… and eventually that also has to also be left behind. Otherwise it comes in between who you are. You put a method there to find yourself; that is, a space between you and yourself. And every method eventually needs to be left behind. You don’t need it. It’s the last thing you leave behind. And this particular teaching works without methods - but if you have a method, it’s beautiful, and you use it until you don’t need it anymore.”
from Eckhart Tolle’s Findhorn Retreat disc 1
Hi brushjw,
Thanks for finding that quote. He is inclusive. He doesn’t scoff at them like Krishnamurti. That is a huge difference.
But what he prefers to call a “teaching” is still “a method” that has has its effect over a period of “clock time” application by “someone” seeking salvation.
Thanks again, yb.
E.T., phone OM!
Ha ha Suryakant, very funny. 
When it comes to making good puns, apparently Suryakan.
Heh heh, well, you know what they say - OM is where Eck-HART is!