Who is Eckhart Tolle?

[Erik_]

[mudra]

I love Elckhart Tolle .
Thank you

I posted this video before but there is no better time to listen to it but NOW .

Loving kindness
mudra

[bushycat]

"You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are !"
-Eckhart Tolle

I love Eckhart Tolle, too. His mantra to stay always in the Now is such a simple baseline. He is clear in his words of wisdom and love and surely could bring something to anyone who reads him or hears him.
His warmth is huge, and my heart brightens just thinking about him.

Love always, Bushycat

[14 Chakras]

The Hour video above, George Stroumboulopoulos starts it out by saying: "Was he born that way, is he some kind of a Buddha? Well no..."

I think this is one of the major illusions people need to break through. The spiritual teachers from the past were NOT born enlightened. Gautama Buddha was in his 30's before he achieved enlightenment, Jesus was 30.

We've been sold the story that enlightened people are so much more special than the rest of us and they were born that way, that's not true.

We all have the potential to achieve enlightenment, and even Buddhahood, as I personally believe Eckhart Tolle is doing!

Thanks for the thread.

[Ross H]

Eckhart Tolle is a master teacher of this time. His lessons in "the ability to observe one-self" is, the direct path to understanding who we really are. Also Neale Donald Walsh's work "conversations with god" is another worthy mention and well worth the read.

It is my opinion, that, with all the information we are emersed in and at times "overloaded" in our quest for truth, these 'works' should be in our forefront used as grounding tools and reminders to be the "observer" through these observations we can clearly observe our thinking/thoughts that instantly and directly create and manifest our immediate emotions. From this we learn "what we think we create" and what ultimatly serves us best.

These are powerful books/reminders and I have them by my bedside at all times.

This past full moon had a profound effect on my being. I for the first time in a long time felt dis-connect from the source...It was a strange and unpleasant feeling, however Eckhart and Neale's books grounded me again. I fully recommend reading if you havn't read,or re-read if feeling fragmented and dis-connected.

peace and love to all

[bushycat]

Remember that your perception of the world
is a reflection of your state of consciousness.
You are not separate from it, and there is
no objective world out there.
Every moment, your consciousness creates
the world that you inhabit.

-Eckhart Tolle

[BROOK]

To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it - who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It says: “One day, when this, that, or the other happens, I am going to be okay, happy, at peace.” Even when the ego seems to be concerned with the present, it is not the present that it sees: It misperceives it completely because it looks at it through the eyes of the past. Or it reduces the present to a means to an end, an end that always lies in the mind-projected future. Observe your mind and you’ll see that this is how it works.

Eckhart Tolle

http://blog.eckharttolle.com/blog/20...-mind/#more-92

[TraineeHuman]

Eckhart Tolle was a student of an Australian spiritual master named Barry Long, at some of Barry's London classes. Barry died in 2003, but you might like to check out http://www.barrylongfoundation.com

It seems to me that Tolle doesn't say anything original at all. On the other hand, Barry was original, although it's also true much of Barry's teachings is based on extending and making practical sense of J. Krishnamurti's teachings -- with some influence also from Raman Maharshi. You may be aware that some claim to know that Krishnamurti (1895-1986) was a reincarnation of the Buddha. (Krishnamurti certainly takes precisely the same position as the Buddha did on literally every metaphysical question, even though his words are quite different.)

Tolle's biggest virtue and uniqueness is that he writes very simply and fluently and in a way that a huge audience can understand and resonate with. But I understand it's hugely expensive to catch him live. I'd suggest that people might stick with the videos. (It's simply not true that being in the physical presence of a spiritual guru creates major transformation in a person. The effects wear off within 3 days.) If you want to go deeper and further into what Tolle is teaching, I suggest you'll need to practice some of the exercises. Barry Long was (far as I know) the ingenious inventor of the "foundation stone" practice which Tolle usually calls "feeling the aliveness" inside you. I've never seen an acknowledgement from Tolle that Tolle certainly wasn't the originator of this. Ditto regarding the notion of "the inner body" and the practice of experiencing it, and also re "the pain-body", which Barry called "the unhappy-body".

These practices are very important because Krishnamurti argued very persuasively that he had discovered some ultimate shortcuts to achieving happiness, and exercises such as "feeling the aliveness" are Barry's ingenious practical applications of what Krishnamurti had proved in theory but didn't manage to make concrete.

Unfortunately, Barry decided to add the application of his exercises to "making love", which he saw as a very important way for people to make these things practical and to "make sense" of them. I don't believe everybody understood how to apply them to making love. Tolle leaves any Tantric stuff out, and to me that makes better sense (ignoring the pun on "sense").

[mudra]

Truth may take different forms to speak but in essence remains the same.
It can be conveyed but it is not possessed by anyone in particular.
Truth is an experience one makes from within.
Truth is.

Love always
mudra

[TtC]

The title of this thread is paradoxical.