From BookJive
|
|||||
| Name: | Eckhart Tolle | ||||
| Birth: | February 16 1948 | ||||
| Nationality: |
|
||||
| + add to my profile | |||||
Eckhart Tolle (born February 16, 1948) is a German/ Canadian spiritual teacher, motivational speaker, and writer.
Contents |
Biography
Born Ulrich Leonard Tolle in Lünen, near Dortmund, Germany, Eckhart Tolle lived with his father in Spain from about the age of thirteen to nineteen, approximately between the years 1961 and 1967, after which he moved to England. He had no formal education between the ages of thirteen and twenty-two, refusing to go to school because of its "hostile environment"; but he pursued his own "particular interests." Tolle graduated from the University of London and entered, but did not complete, a doctoral program at Cambridge University, having studied literature, languages and philosophy. At the age of twenty-nine, Tolle experienced what he calls an "inner transformation," after suffering long periods of suicidal depression. Since 1996, he has lived in Vancouver, Canada.
Teachings
Tolle's non-fiction bestseller The Power of Now emphasizes not being caught up in thoughts of past and future as a way of being aware of the present moment. His later book A New Earth further explores the structure of the human ego and how this acts to distract people from their present experience of the world. It is the feeding of the human ego that is thought to be the source of inner and outer conflict. Only in examining one's ego may people begin to see beyond it and obtain a sense of spiritual enlightening or a new outlook on reality.
In Tolle's view, the present is the gateway to a heightened sense of peace. He states that "being in the now" brings about an awareness that is beyond the mind, an awareness which helps in transcending the ego. The ego means here the false identification with forms and labels: body, mind, thoughts, memories, social roles, life-story, opinions, emotions, material possessions, name, nationality, religion, likes and dislikes, desires, fears, etc. If one is present, one recognizes oneself as the space of consciousness in which the thought or impulse arises. One doesn’t lose the self in thought, nor does one become the impulse. Being present is being the space, rather than what happens. He says that the mind is to be used as a tool, but not let the mind use the person.
A central element in Tolle's teaching is a concept, which he calls the "pain body", which is described in greater detail in A New Earth, the audio book “Living the Liberated Life and Dealing With the Pain Body”, and other teachings. He believes that a good understanding of this concept is an effective way to stop the suffering and to allow life to flow freely. The pain body is the emotional component of the ego and therefore the source of all suffering by non-acceptance of what is. It is created by the accumulation of suppressed emotions. The size of the pain body differs from person to person and originates in the person’s past conditioning, usually early childhood. It can be understood as a contracted energy field within the body that “feeds” on pain, i.e. which needs negative emotions to exist further. On a positive note, Tolle claims that the pain body can be a necessary motivation to live in the present moment. He considers it to be your teacher. The goal would be to stay fully present as the watcher of the pain body when it gets activated, and feeling the negative emotion without reacting to it. This way, the pain body would decrease in size and eventually dissolve, leading to a full acceptance of what is and a life free of suffering.
Tolle says that our true "identity" is the underlying sense of I Am, which is consciousness itself. Awareness of Being is self-realization and true happiness. He states that we people are very important, because we are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold.
In Tolle's view, all wanting implies that the future is more desirable than the present. As long as you want something, you are seeking to reach some point in the future that promises fulfillment. Thereby you are making the present moment, as well as other persons, into a means to an end. More importantly, in desiring future events, you are denying the value of the present moment; the right now. And as Tolle points out, the right now is all you have. This is true since the past (and even the future) are experienced "in the now." Other authors, such as Robert Pirsig, also make this same point.
Tolle says you don't need the future, or future lives, to find yourself, and you need to add nothing to "you" to find yourself.
Tolle believes that the New Testament contains deep spiritual truth, as well as distortions, which are due to a misunderstanding of Jesus's teaching. He teaches that when you are present, you access your inner knowing and you will sense what is true and what was added on or distorted.
Tolle believes that love comes into existence when you know who you are in your essence and then recognize the "other" as yourself. It is the end of the delusion of separation, which is created by excessive reliance on thinking.
Although Tolle himself became suddenly conscious following a period of intense suffering, he believes that for most people this shift in consciousness will not be a single event, but a process, a gradual disidentification from thoughts and emotions through the arising of awareness.
Tolle stresses that we should not become attached to any particular word. Instead, the words are only signposts, pointing to the truth. He believes that the word God is a signpost that has been so misused that it has lost its real meaning. He prefers the words Being and spaciousness.
Tolle espouses as illustrated above a confusing and mind-numbingly long collection of vague gnostic cliches, poorly expressed buddist philosophies, rambling ambiguous language, generalized observations, unscientific and unsubstantiated claims about the nature of the universe and an elitist kindergarten logic typical of magic thinking new age guru cult philosophers of 1960s like Timothy Leary who promise happiness and peace of mind.
Tolle has yet to provide controlled scientific psychological studies providing evidence as to whether adherents of his anti-intellectual approach attains any degree of happiness by diminishing the role of ego in their lives.
Tolle's egotistical defense is that the "enlightened" will fail to see the truth of the philosophy present in his writings. With this in mind some critics argue Tolle displays a form of freudian avoidance typical of an individual suffering from a narcissistic complex brought on by social maladaption and depression present in there early personal history. This pattern of behaviour and though is typical of both cult leaders and followers who feel some alientation and wish to suppress the god complex.
Influences
In the book Dialogues with Emerging Spiritual Teachers by John W. Parker, he has acknowledged a strong connection to J Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi and stated that his teaching is a coming together of the teachings of both those teachers, and it is a continuation of that. In addition, he states that by listening to and speaking with the spiritual teacher Barry Long, he understood things more deeply.
At about the age of fifteen he received five books that were written by a German mystic, Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, also known as Bô Yin Râ. Tolle responded "very deeply" to those books. He said the first texts with which he came in contact after the awakening and in which he found deep understanding were the New Testament, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching and teachings of The Buddha. In The Power of Now, he mentioned the writings of Meister Eckhart, Advaita Vedanta, A Course in Miracles, the Bible, mystical Islam, Sufism, and Rumi's poetry, as well as Zen Buddhism's Lin-chi (Linji in pinyin ) (Rinzai) school.
Reception
The first of his four books was The Power of Now, a #1 New York Times best-seller that has been translated into over 33 languages. He has also recorded numerous audio interviews and a video. American talk-show host Oprah Winfrey considers The Power of Now to be one of her favorite books. Tolle's most recent book, A New Earth, also topped the Times chart in March, 2008.
In January 2008, Winfrey selected A New Earth as her Oprah's Book Club selection, accompanied by a 10-week live online seminar (or "webinar") with Tolle, which started on March 3, 2008.
