Why Eckhart Tolle June 25, 2006
Posted by Strephon Kaplan-Williams in Podcasts, Tao of Now.trackback
- Strephon Says 23 Why Eckhart Tolle 1
Strephon points out how to think clearly. He uses Eckhart Tolle’s thought as an example of being anti-thinking when clear thinking is absolutely necessary to life.
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Why do we need thinking?
Thinking is perspective. We not only experience ourselves and the world. We also process that experience to learn from it, we hope.
We state the theory that logical thinking developed in animals as the evolutionary perception of nature and the universe. If the universe is made up of universal and unchanging laws, as it seems to be, then it is natural that animals and humans would develop a brain to analyze and record those laws. Such universal laws would at some developmental stage be conceptualized as mathematics and logic. In the long ago markets counting by fingers, and then by beans, would be replicating how universal laws work. In the village a human being dies. That body, like a bean, is taken away from one pile of beans representing all the live bodies in the village and put in the pile of beans representing all the remembered dead of the village.
Thus does human logic replicate the laws of the universe. We use a similar set of universal laws called thinking, called logic, as those laws which hold the universe together as it is. We find this thinking function quite useful and necessary to the study and perception of ourselves and our environment.
Thinking about our direct experiences creates perspective in how we make new choices in our lives. Thinking about ourselves and life is necessary to problem-solving our lives. Several million people have bought Eckhart Tolle’s book, The Power Of Now. They must be trying to live by Eckhart Tolle’s thinking, for they have bought a book by a man who thinks about himself and life.
Yet there is one great fallacy that readers who try to adopt Eckhart Tolle’s thinking can fall into. Readers can adopt Tolle’s thinking instead of developing and using their own perspective on life. The greatest thinking fallacy there is probably is to adopt the thinking of a religious perspective about who you are and how to live your life.
Religions have specialists, sales priests called lamas, priests, realized masters, rabbis and gurus who sell you a way of thinking and living. When you adopt someone else’s thinking perspective rather than develop and live by your own, then you must give up thinking for yourself in life. Is this not a serious error? Do you not live and die by this error?
Eckhart Tolle comes in like a breath of fresh air to some. He is not of any one religion. But is he of religion itself? Does he make statements about himself, you and life which are the same as certain religions state?
Eckhart Tolle uses brilliant thinking to at the same time attack thinking as a tool to bring you to the truth of life, the right perspective on how to view your existence.
We read some Eckhart Tolle. This from an interview by Kathy Juline in Science of Mind, copyright 2002. It is called “The Presence of Now.”
Our first question is to ask: Is Eckhart Tolle using thinking to condemn thinking as a way to the truth?
If so, then Tolle is caught in a logical fallacy, The Fallacy Of False Premise Used To Condemn Entity.
Either thinking is a valid form of proving truths, and thus proving also that correct thinking works, or thinking can prove itself a false way of proving truths by pointing to logical inconsistencies. Can thinking be both proven true and false because correct thinking can logically prove that correct thinking is not possible because of logical inconsistencies proven inherent to logical thinking? If a process can prove itself false, it must then be true, since its process is so powerful that it can invalidate its process itself. The evidence that correct thinking is true is that correct thinking can prove itself false because of inherent contradictions.
However, if correct thinking can prove itself valid by proving itself invalid, then it is in itself valid. There is no greater form of thinking than that thinking which proves itself both false and true. The Illogical Logic Of Eckhart Tolle is another title for this talk. Or, The Illogical Logic Of Being Logically Illogical.
Tolle says: ‘Usually, such moments are short-lived, as the mind quickly resumes its noise-making activity that we call thinking. Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.’
Note that Tolle makes absolute statements that use the thinking fallacy of Truth By Assertion Only. Tolle describes the mind as noise-making activity we call thinking.
Colorful but where is the logical or empirical proof to support such a statement? This proof is not forthcoming because Tolle ends the necessity for it by saying you don’t need ‘mind dominance,’ presumably thinking, to come to the Great Abstractions called Love, Joy and Peace.
This is also a logical fallacy, The Fallacy Of The Universal General, in which universal and general terms are assumed meaningful and even beyond any definitions needed. Of course, definitions should be both inherently logical and empirically descriptive of the objects of the definitions.
Yet Tolle bypasses all this in his thinking. Rather than proving that dominance by the mind is itself bad in that it does not lead to love, joy and peace, Tolle makes the leap by simply stating his statement without logical or empirical proof.
I, as a philosopher, in contrast, state that clear thinking can lead us to love, joy and peace when we define those terms also in terms of experience. Clear, objective thought can be immensely clarifying about our direct experiences.
For instance, does Tolle use love for sex, for touching, for conversing together, for accepting experience, for sharing joyfully, for fighting as well as sexual activity, for relationship itself? Or is love some sort of Universal Term that Tolle has already declared indefinable because thinking cannot lead you to it or define what he is experiencing? Tolle’s statements are admittedly beautiful sometimes, and like poetry, evoke awe. Yet if we sat his listeners down to a group discussion would we find out that such listeners have a common description of what Tolle means?
Are there seeming contradictions in logical thinking? Do these seeming contradictions indicate the fallacious nature of thinking itself, and so one cannot rely on thinking for perspective about oneself and life?
Or, is it possible that apparent contradictions in pure thinking are not really contradictions but only appear so because the thinking used to point out contradictions is not itself sufficiently developed yet to find the consistencies in the inconsistencies of thought?
A misimpression? I believe he suggests it be accepted and used as a tool to interpret the reality he feels we are able to accept at a given level of consciousness. I feel he urges that thinking be kept in perspective. “No mind” isn’t for all, all the time, for now, anyway. Thinking and higher consciousness can coexist as needed. Tolle’s not necessarily speaking the absolute truth, but presenting a philosophy worthy of dialogue. I’m glad you provide the exclusively scientific perspective. I believe some meshing of these attitudes may have many positive knock-on effects, perhaps for both science and philosophy.
Thank you for your comment about what you see Eckhart Tolle doing and what I am doing. Of course to even discuss at a philosophical level involves using thinking to understand experience. I appreciate this. I wonder if my “root cause” is speculation about experience itself, while Tolle appeals to something other than direct experience, which he says he gets to with other than the mind, but which I see him using his mind to get to.
Using the mind to attack the mind is as old as the mountains, but it will be done. Let me borrow your horse so I can jump off a cliff with it and thus prove that horses don’t fly. The trouble is that with the horse
you lose the man and therefore the thinking consciousness that has made itself aware of its own existence.
To what does Tolle then credit HIS AWARENESS OF HIS OWN EXISTENCE? It is a problem for any of us who think.
How do we describe our experience of ourselves, and what use is this
perspective for living life?
I am scientific in that I appeal to direct experience and I fashion my
thinking-perceiving tools in order to make perspective that seems to
understand that experience as it is in a objective correlative. Many
thanks! -Strephon
I understand your difficulty of understanding Tolle’s words. In my experience, I immediately recognized what he was talking about because I had experienced it on my own before reading his book. The difficulty is that it cannot be explained with words, it can only be experienced. I know that I experience it, with varying degrees of intensity. I know that it can’t explain it with words or analysed. It simply is.
Thanks for the comment. Let’s put it this way. You and Tolle are involved in a logical tautology. You say words cannot describe your direct experience, yet you use word-concepts to deny that word concepts can accurately describe your non-words experience.
If the car is faulty it won’t run. Either the car will get you there or it won’t. Your car breaks down and you say, see, cars don’t work to get you from one place to another. Yet, other drivers whose cars are not breaking down say, No, you are wrong. Cars do get you to where you are going. See! I was here, and now I am there!
Thus Tolle and you use a logical fallacy to make your point: Words don’t work, yet you use words to say Words don’t work.
What are we to do with you and Tolle?
Listening to Tolle he seems so confident in his use of words. He pauses for effect. His face shows struggle, as if he is really searching for the ultimate clarity. Tolle uses words beautifully but that does not successfully mask that his thinking has fundamental logical fallacies, so that his speeches turn into high entertainment rather than rigorous enquiries into fundamental truths. He may not know this. He may actually believe he is stating truths based on experience.
However, the best philosopher is a silent philosopher. Have your experiences. Just don’t try to use words to explain that your experiences are beyond words.
I myself stick with words as mirror-reflections of fundamental truth experiences. Metaphysics does mean that the right word at the right time does accurately represent an experience of the reality it is meant to represent.
Fundamentally, we humans have our direct experiences and our conceptual processing using words to organize our experiences into units of meaning, into relevance to our further experiential lives, such as you and I writing to each other right now.
We are engaging in a metaphysics of meaning right at the moment of our intersecting.
I suggest further that we humans are doing damn well to develop our language, logical thinking and metaphysical processing.
I think maybe Tolle should try to catch up with the metaphysicians instead of sitting in cafes watching ordinary people go by and then making beautiful, high concept, word salads to give back to these same people he watches all the time, trying to have experiences beyond words.
The telling of the experience is indeed the truth of the person having the experience. The telling of it is necessary because the telling reveals the truth of the person experiencing the experience. Maybe this is the point. Maybe this is why we need words. Through our words we can learn to reveal the truth of ourselves as we are.
-Strephon
Everything will become clear to us, as we begin to understand. What process we experienced to get there, it doesn’t make a difference, as long as we get there. Everybody will find their own way, just by getting to a point that is realized, some are tired of repeating the same repetitive road to a dead end. Ego is another awareness that will create misinformation without an understanding of the harm it can cause in our growth. Most of the information, applies directly to what we should make an effort to understand, the truth will apply to everybody, and it only appears to discriminate if the person is not willing to listen. Listen not of our minds but our spirit combined.
We will never be led blindly to a situation that doesn’t create some kind of understanding in what or why the experience was necessary.
It has nothing to do with learning anything, it has all to do with feeling, understanding the need and having enough love for the intention of creating the truth in spirit, and the oneness of all,, as ONE, it will be an individual creation for all to experience. It is an experience without having to do with all our past knowledge.
The purpose will be unimportant, and a conformation for purpose can wait until we are ready. Not while we think we know it is all about, it only comes when we don’t know, why we would have a need to understand a purpose that we already know. This isn’t a competition of knowledge, awareness, or enlightenment. We can never make our thoughts belong to another, nor, why must it be so important to have the acknowlgement and approval of others?
Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with how much is known, it’s about how well we observe, and pay attention to everything that is affecting us, our responsibility is in our humble beginnings, without a fear of looking dumb. We are responsible for only ourselves in the present; the future will begin tomorrow, but the foundation your building today, will be what will create it. Your perception is always changing; there is no purpose in holding on to past belief of a truth which doesn’t pertain to what is important in thoughts using imagination of change and reality of a new beginning, it is the efforts made possible to receive information in another way. Are we not allowed to evolve? What does change create? The effort in creating this change …will create …exactly…what efforts are made…in acknowledging the importance of ourselves …as one in purpose
P.S.
I have read some interviews on Tolle, I have not read any of his books. I do recognize truth, but he appears to need more time in his thoughts, during the interviews he begins with truth and towards the end he begins combining his words with ego.
Jennifer Banker, Hi! I have read your words here and I appreciate that for me they are a meditation, a perspective, that I listen to and sit with, so that I do have a direct experience of what you mean through you. You exist for me in these moments.
Thus, I begin with my experience of myself, my sentient awareness which includes thoughts because my thoughts are usually connected to my being. They are not waves of a wave machine but part of wind, rain and ocean, but also with my small boat upon the waters while I exist as individual being.
What I value from your contribution is that instead of defending Tolle, as if he is a voice for you, you give your own way of understanding.
Thus, when I question guru thought it is more in the sense of people not taking responsibility for their own thoughts.
You will not be asked, Why did you not study Tolle and defend him well against his critics?
You will be asked, Why have you not developed your own perspectives on life and experienced them directly, and shared them with others?
Someone who is aware of their awareness and living such a perspective does not have to attack or defend as a personal issue.
I keep stating that I am not attacking Tolle. I don’t know him personally. Yet I do challenge the guru image he seems to manifest, doing spiritual entertainment on stage with flowers and refinement and all that, as we see from certain videos.
This fosters spiritual dependency in which people project their own God selves onto Tolle and other teachers clothing themselves in guru entrapments.
But then, I am a psychologist-philsopher. My job is to help people in need of healing and rebalancing find their own God-source within, taking back all sorts of projections in the process.
As a guru I am nothing. I have no followers. As a teacher I am a failure. I have no successful students. As a person I am a complete being, just as I am, and in a place where no judgments are needed.
So I do find a place for ego, but it is hopefully carefully chosen.
In consciousness, Strephon
It is nearly certain that what you say generates different thoughts in my mind than were in your mind when you thought them up. That however does not mean that you are wasting your time speaking, nor does it mean that I am waisting my time listening. It is likely that we can both babble enough thought approximations to reach a practical understanding of where to find sustinance to further out exixtince and improve the likilihood of our offspring surviving.
As for your spiritual being . . . your words make no sense to me. At least there is agreement that the ego exists.
Len Kharlen, I don’t understand everything you say here, but I do appreciate the contact, and here’s why.
-We are not discussing Eckhart Tolle directly, but being direct with each other, discussing our own thoughts and approximate understandings.
-I do appreciate thought to thought at an abstract level. I feel connected to my thoughts and thus somewhat to yours.
-It would be imaginary to expect us to reach perfect understanding together in anything. But words do communicate. I do feel influenced in some emotional way with what I read seriously and thus respond to. Thus, as you point out, even if I am responding to a misunderstanding of something you or Tolle, or my wife, says, I am still trying to sort out something for myself.
-Great issue! What do we do when we are communicating together and we don’t understand each other, misread each other, and so on? I say a little understanding of each other is worth the encounter, usually. It is a good starting place to take a theme further.
For instance, here I am picking from your presented issues and developing a theme. This may not be what you mean or say, but it is still a real response. So we stimulate others with our communications, even though we cannot understand each other completely.
-Some critics of my criticising Tolle’s thought have responded to me as if I did not understand Tolle’s thought and person, even getting emotional about it. The response is then to explain and defend Tolle, or their personal experience of Tolle.
Well, are we talking about Tolle? Most of us only know the public image Tolle. So we are not talking about a person Tolle but about our own responses to the themes and issues evoked in us by a Tolle paragraph or video talk he gives.
Tolle does not exist! What exists is our experience of a symbolic Tolle. This is how I see it and process what is evoked.
If critics are attacking the person they are in effect attacking themselves. For all they really have is their image of Tolle, me, you, or anyone else.
So, it’s not easy to find the true person or the true thought, or to get out of our own stuff and thought patterns enough to see objectively outside of ourselves.
Should I add, don’t you think?
Thanks, Strephon
People talk of enlightenment without understanding the fundamental nature of thought and its limitations. Thought is necessary of course, but it is also limited. Thought is conditioned, and where conditioning is operative, the logic and the reasoning will be biased, flawed, distorted in one direction or another. Therefore, and this is logical, one must understand first the distorting mechanism that is thought and how thought is never “pure”. It is rooted in time and experience. Truth, what is, is always changing, moving. Thought, mired inevitably in the past, cannot keep up with the flow of actuality. Thought is a tool of communication and we need to communicate obviously, however, there is a point at which thought becomes a hindrance because it is always old always translating the new in terms of the old. Cf. Robert Pirsig, static and dynamic Quality or J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known.
This is written as a response on the Tao of Now page:
Thank you for your comments on the value of thought as well as its limitations.
What I like here is that we are in dialogue. I like also that for some of us who use our minds at the abstract level, like here, we are dealing with a general issue, maybe central to humanity itself.
Let me ask then, if thought has its limitations, such as in ascertaining truth, what then, if there is a way, is the way to the truth?
Let me ask also, in our time, when you and I exist, what is the way to truth?
Great minds like Tolle, Pirsig and Krishnamurti, and those of us who understand things like they do, can wander in abstract thought, and even say that abstract thought fails as an adequate way to ascertain true knowledge about ourselves and life.
My task here in tackling Tolle as representative of the thought-using, anti-thought people is to again raise the question: if you use thought to condemn thought, how can you do so without dealing with this logical inconsistancy?
This is the first paradox-challenge to all who would think along these lines.
The second paradoxical challenge to the same people is: if indeed thought is inadequate to come to the core truths of our existance, what do you propose as an alternative, and how can you prove this alternative method of yours works better than thought, and without thought?
Third issue-question: is truth or knowledge obtained by negaitve proving something false? If you say, thought is not the way, this is “statement by exclusion,” or saying what is not. It creates the logical fallacy of Proving the Existence of Sometime by Proving the Non-existence of Something Else.
You try to prove thought does not work, but you use thought to prove this? Or do you say that you have experience of something else that proves that thought does not work to get to the truth?
So Tolle may be right! He states that there is another way that leads to the values he says are the values to have in life. Does he describe this other way using thought processes?
Yet he has condemned thought processes as the way. Thus, for logical consistency he is not logically allowed to use thought to describe or state the truth of “his other way” whatever that is. If you don’t want to adhere to logic as an inherent truth-tool in itself necessary to organize perception and experience, then of course you can say anything and try and have it believed by others as some sort of validating process.
Thus, Tolle cannot describe “his other way to the truth” without thought processes. Yet, he has already condemned thought processes as true, as effective in guiding the way to truth. Thus, Tolle, or this kind of thinking, is contamintated with inconsistency.
Therefore I take another position: since I am using as clear a thinking process as I possibly can to get to what is real and true in life, I do my best to enhance that thinking, not condemn it. However, what I get to as the chief value is more than clear thinking itself, and also gotten to with more than clear thinking itself.
I don’t end with negatives because I have thought as well as I can. I enjoy clear thinking and find it useful for understanding my experience and yours.
CLIMBING THE GREAT MOUNTAIN – A PARABLE
There once was a journeyer who had to climb a high mountain in his weakened state to cross over to the other side where things were beautiful and secure, as this journeyer had heard. However, being too weak, the journeyer despaired of ever making it to the other side. The farmer the journeyer was staying with on the side of the great mountain offered him an old horse saying, “I hear your complaint and know you cannot on your own make this final journey. Let me offer you my old horse. Maybe on his own he cannot make it over the great mountain, just as you can’t. But together, who knows what you both can do?”
Gratefully the stranger took the gift of the farmer’s old horse and horse and journeyer set out together. Many and terrible were the words sometimes that the journeyer used, along with kicks, to get this old, biting horse with his limp and sagging muscles up the side of the great mountain and over the top. It was not an easy way to go for either of them, cursing each other all the way, if even the horse knew how to curse, and he certainly knew how to bite!
However, they made it to the top of the great mountain and over to the other side, where the way was easier and the view of the valley below splendid.
Instead of curses, kicks and bites, both horse and rider enjoyed each other’s company on the downward sloap. Together they had reached something that neither of them could have reached alone. They had become friends for the better times to come.
The old farmer on the other side of the Great Mountain must have wondered what had happened to his two frail complainers. He must have smiled at the thought of them together. Yet, I think also, his optimism about life must have revived.
He knew the principle well: two can make it where one alone will never be able to go because each is inadequate alone.
While he realized he would never go there himself, he did allow himself to glory in their probable success. He had done his supportive function well. The thought of the two complainers having to work well together gave him food for a smile and a laugh that day and the next and the next and onward.
The horse and its rider must also have thought back on things and been grateful for the farmer’s support.
When help is needed help is there, yet it has to be recognized to be made useful for the greater journey ahead.
—
Inumerable sages, teachers, mystics, philosophers, even scientists, have pointed out that thought alone is inadeqaute to convey the whole of human experiences. It is not an “all or nothing” issue. Logic itself is an attempt to deal with the inadequacies, inconsistencies and contradictions even a casual observation of thought reveals. What is the nature of thought fundamentally? That is a key question and one that is not ordinarily asked. Is it not wise to ask the nature of the tool one is using to discover truth and to find meaning and psychological security?
Also, thought condemns thought every day: Propaganda, t.v. ads, billboards, lies. Thought is also used to justify these same things and worse: The use of torture, war, the death penalty, pro-life or pro-choice issues etc. The point is not that thought is to be condemned or justified but rather questioned. Thought has created the so-called answers in the form of religions, ideologies, utopian philosophies, all of which perpetuate confilict, violence, and war. Even people who on the surface believe in the same God or religious founder fragment into conflicting sects and political struggles. Thought as a truly unifying force is hardly evident. Where is evidence for thought as a tool for producing a truly orderly, harmonious, highly civilized and cultured community? As J. Krishnamurti and physicist David Bohm once asked, “has thought taken a wrong turn” somewhere in the course of human history and evolution? Thought is responsible for beautiful symphonies and paintings, as well as genocide and the expoitation of the weak and less educated by the clever and the powerful. We live in a society rooted in greed, corruption, and the use of force.
And to discover whether it is possible to live in the Sacred, not in some thought-bound system of beliefs but in the actual, living, vibrant flow of life itself means asking if there is an end of thought with all of is inevitable confilct.
Also, thought is capable of penetrating into the nature of its own activities, of investigating the thinker and the thought. Even if thought were the only means we have of discovering what is true, then it would still be necessary to question whether it is capable of actually doing so. To ponder such a question it is necessary to be quiet and observe what is happening in the silence and the space, not of knowing, but of a mind that is truly learning without the influence of one’s preconceptions.
Thanks for the opportunity for dialogue.
Is thought not only the finger pointing to the moon.
There are many valid situational truths which may claim to all answer the same question. The collide of world views that’s occured rapidly over the past two decades (as well as ideas such as evolution, capitalism, marxism, etc) have resulted in a situation where, trying to find the truth through thought is analogous to spending one’s life trying to guess a 100 digit number. Thus, at the end of one’s life, based on the notion that developing one’s own individual understanding of the world through thought is the purest ideal (the position you seem to be taking), one has only to hope that they have guessed the right 100 digits. You may come to peace with the fact that through thought, all you need to know can be revealed, yet at the end of life, when most are clinging to their best guess at the 100 digit number (and their all different by a digit or two), thought then seems to be useless in discerning an absolute truth.
Great Discussion!
No one knows the Ultimate Truth. This much is sure for me. May be Tolle Knows how to feel good inspite of that. But of what help is it to others unless one is also inclined to think in similar lines to Tolle. I am not against Tolle but see his limitations when attacking thought. May be ’seeking’ would have been a better choice of word instead of ‘thought’.
Chakri,
Thanks for your comments. We are all struggling with these issues:
1. You make the statement there is no absolute truth.
2. You make the statement, I believe you do, that each person must decide the truth for themselves, like when you say that for Tolle his thought processes help him feel good inside himself.
3. I think you are saying, seeking truth is more real than saying, I have the truth. Tolle definitely makes absolute statements, such as saying you won’t find the enlightenment he talks about through thinking.
4. I say in contrast, that clear thinking is a most useful tool for clarity about our own existence and must be developed further, rather than put down, as Tolle seems to do.
5. As a psychologist, I suggest further that Tolle’s attack on thinking makes a lot of his followers give up thinking for themselves because they are mesmerized by Tolle’s often brilliant, guru delivery. I don’t buy this, of course. Only each one of us can live our own existence and become conscious of ourselves.
6. My friend suggests that many people prefer to follow ’spiritual masters’, and nothing I say or do will change this.
7. I say that making myself conscious of what’s really going on will at least change me and that is worth the process.
I am obviously going to use thinking to communicate ideas to you all now. What is good about thought, I think is the question and assertion. To gain something, knowlege, ability to think clearly? Why do I want to gain something? What can be lacking in me that I feel the need to gain? Some part of myself? What part? Is there parts of me? What is me? Do I know? What is really me? A bunch of things really? What things? Can I be things? What things are me? What is me? Who speaks, me? What is me?
This is the limit of knowledge/thought, the essential concept that is the core from which I assert/think/know I cannot really say.
Doug,
The impression you give me is that you have used thinking to make an object of yourself. You are things, like you say. This may be a good demo to show the limit of thinking as an awareness tool of our immediate selves.
Do I through thinking make myself into just an abstract thought? I am just my thinking, since as you suggest, thinking analyzes, making my experience of myself into objects. In your view I understand that my experience of myself is as objects or things, and is also the thinking process that I use to analyze myself as objects.
I am an “I” perceiving myself as “me”. The process of perceiving myself as “me” through analytic thinking is then the true me. I am the “thinking of me”. When I make myself an object through thinking, that object becomes a “not-me”. Therefore, all I have left is thinking “thinking of me”. The “I” becomes the object “me”. The object-making process called thinking is the experience of the object “me”. Thinking itself makes an object of itself.
What then is the solution, if we want to be more than just our self-awareness, thinking process? This is where I introduce the concepts of Choice and Value. Realizing finally, through the truth-reduction process, that I am nothing more than objects and experiences.
But, is that enough for me in my current existence? Is that all there is of myself? No, if I chose to live values, realizing through clear thinking that I am an empty vessel, I then chose to fill that vessel “me” with experiences of chosen values to be realized in my existent life.
Being “nothing” myself, I still chose to live certain values as they can exist through me. This I call the Purposeful Life.
Thank you for your comment!
The question I think then becomes, did I choose these experiences to be part of me? At what age did I choose the majority of the experiences that represent me? Was it an age where I was struggling to define myself, and therefore accepted whatever experiences arose? Did I choose, or was I trying so hard to define myself as a me like everyone else, that I just accepted what was there? Can I redefine myself? Yes, I think so, How? By stepping out of the definition. How do I step out of the definition? By knowing I am not the definition. How do I know I am not the definition? By not knowing me for a bit and then recalibrating my definition. How do I not know or assume to know me? By drawing energy out of the mind and into my body, by drawing conciousness out of thought into life/nature (my body).
Doug,
If I follow you or your questions, or your process, using thinking as done here, shows what thinking can do and maybe cannot do. Thinking, by objectifying myself and my experiences, creates the things that I am by making them conscious. Consciousness gives existence. Unconsciousness takes it away.
Through thinking, making conscious my various parts, I see that “I” at least see myself as my real self. I am consciously aware.
Thus, the thinking consciousness process takes us to the limits of our perceived being through thinking analysis.
How much better it is to at least know what we are? Jung said it is much more important to know what we are than who we are.
Now I suggest that when we find out what we are, we then have a choice as to who we are. This is exciting because now we can consciously choose from among the possibilities of what we are in each moment of who we are. It is in the existential moment that through choice we come into being.
Thus, in the choice of the present moment to experience the being available to us, whether being in the body, mental concepts, meditation, making love, working, emotional upsetness, whatever a present moment of experience is, we are the present moment of living experience.
This and this only is what I am in the experiential moment of present reality. I am my experiences. And that’s it. Or so it would seem.
My suggestion in how I try to live the process is to be my experience, but to be conscious of my experience at the same time. This lends intensity, fulfillment and the ability to choose from the possibilities available to me.
I am me being aware of me as I am “I”. The important question may be, what is the outcome of all my self-analysis and what are my choices because of this? Choice is the one absolute, because it determines what I am in each and every moment of my existence.
Thanks for your comments!
Hello all. I am new to Tolle’s message, but I for one can identify with what he is saying. I believe that there may well be a level of the universe that can only be experienced by going beyond experience. The highest level of ‘being’, you might say. This highest level is absolutely beyond description, yet i might say that it could be suggested as this:
pure abstraction. pure being. pure self aware consciousness.
Transcendant humans will join this universal ocean upon death. The rest of us will have to wait. There may be different levels, different dimensions in creation, higher and higher vibrations. I think tolle has accessed the highest level. The mind IS redundant at this level. ‘god’ would appear to be far far beyond the mind. This highest level cannot be described. it can only be experienced. Anyone who has experienced it, brings it back with them, it can be said that they ‘know’ it. Anyone who hasn’t, cannot ‘know’. But were all getting there. one way or the other.
I think there is an awareness beyond the mind. It is this awareness that Tolle is trying to awaken in people. It’s part of the universal ocean. beyond time and mind.
with love, danny.
and i’m aware now that my statement can be picked apart. dont pick at my words, just try to see where my words are pointing. like a finder pointing to the moon,. if you concentrate on the finger, you’ll miss the heavenly glory. i only wrote from the heart, i’m not trynig to say that i know. but i do think Tolle accessed the highest level. i really do.
HI STEPHON. I SEE THAT YOU REALLY ENJOY WORDS. BUT DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT ZEN, DZOGCHEN, ADVAITA, AND TOLLE (HE IS CLOSEST TO ADVAITA) WHICH HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR 3000 YEARS, ARE JUST MASTURBATION? IF NOTHING ELSE, THE ADVANCED PRACTITIONERS THAT I HAVE MET ARE IMPRESSIVE PEOPLE, ACCOMPLISH REMARKABLE FEATS, ARE VERY PLEASANT TO BE AROUND, ETC. I DO NOT KNOW IF THEY ARE FULLY ENLIGHTENED, BUT THEY ARE A LOT CLOSER THAN ANYONE ELSE.
hey word man. you couldnt say anything about the long history of advaita, dzogchen, and zen, so you deleted it. you are a coward.and your “knowledge” is only words. you should actually listen to teachers in the above traditions or tolle
As a thinker, if not a philosopher, the thinking fallacies I see in some of the above remarks are as follows. However, I believe also in all the remarks above because they help me be more aware of how thinking helps, or does not help, approaching the state of enlightenment, or no-enlightenment if enlightenment does not really exist.
1. The fallacy of existence. Do we exist, and do we know it? Do we have to know we exist to exist? If we start with the premise that we don’t exist, then we have to prove our existence, don’t we? I am a philosopher, therefore I exist. I am a thinker, therefore I exist. These statements do not logically prove I exist. What exists are the labels, philosopher and thinker. You are your name, duke, strephon, whatever. Our bodies were named with sounds. But is this us? Proof that we exist? Who is this we that exists?
2. The existence, awareness, enlightenment beyond thought? The postulate that you cannot reach what is beyond thought by thought is of course a logical redundancy! The fallacies are that you cannot prove that something exists by asserting its existence! The enlightened state exists beyond thought because it is asserted it does. Come on now!
3. The other logical fallacy here is asserting that because one thing exists also its opposite exists. This is a heavy-duty fallacy. Because thought exists, and I use thought to assert, or use, its existence, therefore enlightened awareness also exists. The reasoning is this: Because thought exists and thought is not the enlightened state, therefore enlightenment is that which is not thought.
4. The Tolle Fallacy is that because enlightenment exists (he has experienced it) and it was not got to by thought, therefore enlightenment is not produced by thought: therefore also, enlightenment cannot be gotten to by thought. Further, there is something in thought that diverts you from enlightenment. If there is, I would like to know what it is, and how you intend to prove this? Is the position that enlightenment cannot be got to by thought, and that using thought itself diverts you, a proved statement or an asserted statement? If it is an asserted statement, then this must be classified as a logical fallacy: truth by assertion, a grave fallacy indeed.
5. Is it true: I think, therefore I am? In modern terms. I am aware, therefore I exist in that awareness, or as that awareness. Is it really that I am only the awareness of my awareness, that which is in itself and cannot be labeled as something else? If I can be labeled as a thing, then I am not that thing and therefore my true I I strive for does not exist. If I am just the objects that make up me, then I am nothing apart from those objects, right? Labels and objects, just to make things clear.
6. What are we striving for, those of us who are striving for the true nature of ourselves and our existence? And what are the means of that striving? Is the medium the message? Is there nothing apart from the medium? If Tolle says thinking, as the medium, does not get you there, then what does? He describes himself as being in an enlightened state sitting in a cafe watching the people go by. Not my way, certainly!
7. Impressive people accomplish remarkable feats? said by HAYDUKE. I have used people as one of the ways I test what they say as what they do and as who they are. However, how can I know I am not projecting? Tolle being filmed going down to the edge of the water and dipping his hand in? It’s metaphor. The human flesh alive for a moment making contact with the elements of eternal nature, if not infinite at least almost endless. It’s a mere gesture. Is it futile? Is it all a spiritual warrior or any of us can do? To make contact with our physical existence, yet know that we are not it!!! We are practically dead as soon as we are born. And what for? Can I achieve in such a short time of physical existence something more real, more true, than physical existence itself.
8. Certainly Tolle deals in metaphors. And we can use him as such. For certain, we cannot escape the nature of our own existence. But can we know it. Was Tolle just another desperate human being facing death and asserting, merely asserting, his enlightenment, as if he had transcended the physical limitations of his own existence? Making money on asserting answers to age-old questions may not resolve the anxiety of Not Knowing. I would be hesitant to try and resolve Great Questions into Answers, too soon. And should we do so by using the fallacy of Asserting Existence by asserting the existence of something as True? I assert the existence of enlightenment therefore what I assert is true?
Rough borders receive rough challenges.
Thanks again for all the comments. We are together in working on The Problem and using to the limit what intelligence each of us might have. The secret of intelligence is to be in league with other intelligences, as is now more possible in this the Internet Age.
I would like to recommend the diamond sutra written by the buddha and explained in an accessible yet profound way by paul muenzen in english as abbot of an asian monastery. I think that it will help you see beyond words. “mind should be kept independent of any thoughts that arise within.it.”
Thank you for such incisive thinking.
Firstly- I agree that Tolle has an image of being an ‘ anti thinker’. Thought itself is a verbalisation of neural energy. On a more fundamental level-first some neurons fire in the brain and then verbalisation follows. The brain has several schemata to represent the environment (people, places, reactions etc). It becomes adept in using the neural pathways – for example – when we learn to drive – we tend to be very concious and deliberate in every action- later on it becomes automatic
Similarly, we have developed a schemata of routine thinking to solve routine problems. New problems warrant new thinking.
What tolle seems to suggest is that the schemata of thoughts, reactions, mental plans etc are usually repititive and only problem solve superficially. Often, instints accumulated through evolutionary development are acted upon – so that although we have an impression of free will – we are actually acting out of a template formed by a combination of our conditioning and primordial impulses. Often this happens automatically.
Tolle suggests that if we are conciously aware of what we are thinking.. i.e. we use thinking to be aware of what we think – then we are immediately into 2 states – the thinker and the thought. I agree that they are emerging from the same mind but this process immediately breaks the momentum of usual thinking and can lead to a relaxed disengagement with the thought… The thinker is simply called awareness of what goes on in the mind. I dont, for a moment think that it is some mysterious ‘no thought’. What is interesting, however, is that the more one is aware of what is running through ones head – the more peace (which could just be absence of anxiety) prevails.. The objectivity the thinker brings sometimes let us observe patterns and connections that the one state of ‘thought’ may not bring. In staying in the ‘thinker’ mode – the absence of anxiety can produce deepening joy (?endorphin release).
I think – tolle has developed the capability of staying in the ‘thinker’ mode and not the ‘thought’ mode. I also think Buddha and similar beings lived in that mode — the routine pattern of thinking based on past experiences -was broken- peace emerged.. The objective detached mode may not hanker after material goods as in the detached mode- the temporary nature of all thoughts and things is brought home- one realises that the peace generated is not reliant on external conditions that the human may face ! The state is self reliant ! It is practically most difficult to live in that state perpectually!
Amit,
The Tolle Position From A Scientific Standpoint
It is interesting that you are explaining Tolle’s position, if not Tolle, and maybe only he can explain himself, but that you are using more our scientific lingo, which certainly fits with my background, neurons and all!
So you have explained Tolle for me using the more scientific language that I understand. He uses traditional spiritual-philosophic language, and obviously some people love that language.
We get more comments from my Tolle podcasts than from any other podcast of mine though other podcasts have a lot more listeners.
There must be something in the thinking process itself that arouses thinking and thinkers?
This is why I have maintained the Tolle challenge, or the Tolle fallacy. How can you use thinking to condemn the usefulness of thinking? Proving the one make the other false. Proving the other true make the first false. Or, if this is an attack on logic itself, the fact that you are both false and true questions whether logic is itself logical.
If logic is logical it cannot be proved logical by using logic. If logic is not logical it would seem so since logic has proven logic false which in itself logic cannot do.
Unless logic of course proves logic true by itself in itself proving logic false!
Which is a greater truth statement by weight of itself? That logic must be true because it proves itself false? Or that logic is false because using logic we have proven logic false?
How can we then using logic prove logic true? We cannot first prove logic true since we have to use logic to prove logic true and if logic is not true then logic proving logic true is false.
So we don’t know, do we, in terms of Tolle on what basis he uses thinking to prove thinking false, or not the basis of enlightenment?
If religion is the creation of a belief system which is taken as true based on the assertion by faith the the dogma is truth, then assertions of truth by faith cannot be proven false by the use of logic, since the truth of religious dogma is affirmed as true, not by logic but by faith, a statement of absolute and eternal truth about an assertion of truth.
So is Tolle saying we cannot prove anything true by logic because logic is not where truth resides?
Or is he saying we cannot trust logic or thinking because what we call thinking is inherently fallacious?
His position seems to be, do not rely on thinking for your enlightenment. By this he means that which saves you from attachment to emotions and objects, the Buddhist position. Detach, he says, and you will be free of these anxiety causers and therefore you will have perfect peace.
My challenge back is that it seems to be ego saying both that it wants perfect peace and that perfect peace is somehow a value and an experience to achieve in this life.
Other spiritual teachers also assert this need for and value in perfect peace or enlightenment that leads to perfect peace.
Thus, I still assert that perfect peace is an ego definition and an ego desire, and a limitation of severe proportions to the wholeness of the human experience.
The Tolle philosophy, the Buddhist philosophy, and others like it, are attempts at dealing with the human being and the world as it is by asserting total transcendence from the human condition.
Thus we have at end only two fundamental positions.
One, is transcend what the experience of the world evokes in you using spiritual and religious assertions of truth that disengage you from your emotions and your experience.
Or, two, accept fully the human condition of existence and enhance consciously all the human experience. Rather than transcend the natural human experience, make it all conscious and integrate it into centers of meaning and vitality.
The Dalai Lama recently said something to the effect that with the right attitude and detachment, the Buddhist way of universal love for all unenlightened beings, you would achieve a universal peace and not be subject to such emotions as anger, jealousy and all the dark states. My interpretation of what he said, of course.
Here’s the problem! Such assertions of truth seems to be control through disassociation, detachment and transcendence. Also we see the ego at work in a preference for peace and harmony over discord, conflict, fear and difficulty.
Why should ego prefer the positive states and condemn the negative states as somehow ’shouldn’t be?’
There is no answer for this except this is how the ego often acts, including the spiritualized ego, the so-called enlightened one doing good and making bad the destructive forces of life.
I say, what if the price for our existence is that we are born into a world of opposites in which we are wounded and destroyed just as much as we are healed and vivified?
I tend to think that whether a religious teacher has sex or not they certainly know the feeling and must have identified with it and the pleasure principle, as Freud defined it.
Spiritual pleasure is no less an extreme than sexual pleasure, as is violent rage, as is great crying. Better then to pay the price of your existence by not letting ego rule and go for pleasure at the expense of avoiding pain. Why? Why existence as it is? Why try and end pain in the world? Why try and make enlightened ones while the troubled ones still serve you coffee at your table as you speculate on the great human issues of your epoch?
Thinking then, as maybe as imperfect as it is, can be used for helping organize your experience of the world into valuable units of meaning that you can use to guide you in the choices you need to make in life.
Your existence is short enough. Why try to transcend it through any means?
The attack on thinking, if it is necessary, can be a distraction in itself. I would tend to think and feel that the more serious distraction than believing in thinking is the distraction of judging certain parts of the human experience as bad and to be avoided, while other parts are judged good by ego with an attempt at embrace.
How we see things is how we choose things. What we choose is what we become.
Goodness!
A lot of words!
Thinking is useful for some things. Not thinking is useful for others.
Whatever the spiritual or scientific reason for “The Feeling of Oneness” is…it is the most wonderful experience I ever had.
I didn’t get it from thinking about it. It just happened when I least expected it.
I started thinking about it after I got it.
No worries!
I think I’ll quit thinking for awhile..:) My mind could use the rest!
Thinking may be classified into various levels in which sense experience and interpretation of it comes until a certain level where one can no longer define something based on labels but what the experience is actually, an awe that one finds onself speechless. Tolle, to my opinion, is not downgrading the usefulness of logical and scientific thinking. Both serve their purpose for a particular situation or experience in life.We salute both for the advancenment of technology for a “better existence.” However, an experience of awe and wonder is something that cannot be grasped logically and scientifically. Even if one attempts to do so, the experience loses its meaning since in our experience, words sometimes are not enough to capture it. We still have to accept the fact that in life, there is always the element of mystery which of course cannot be equated with blind consciousness.
You said you had a most wonderful experience, not produced by thinking. Our suggestion here is that no matter how wonderful you think or feel, the experience is. It is just an experience, unless you think that you are other than your experiences.
Having an experience has little or nothing to do with who or what you are, unless of course, you are just an experience.
The problem is to be other than, and hopefully more than our experiences. Hopefully, you can begin to understand this and maybe use thinking to do so.
What is your point, please? Are you saying thinking is valid in certain ways, but not in other ways? Are you saying truth is truth sometimes, but other times truth is false? Are you saying, we can use non-thinking to invalidate thinking? It seems to us, if thinking works some of the time as a tool for discovering truth and if, this is a consistent universe, than thinking is always a truth discovery tool, or else it never is.
On this basis we seem to have discovered, that Tolle is totally inconsistent. Therefore for Tolle, the universe is itself inconsistent and not based on universal laws and principles universally applied.
In the same way, thinking and logic is either universally applicable or not universally applicable, and therefore not valid. Logic in itself is logical or it is not logic. Thinking is in itself universal and consistent or it is not thinking.
Tolle is either logical, consistent and existent, or Tolle is illogical, inconsistent and with his existence doubtful.
Based on the observation of inconsistency, is it logically doubtful that Tolle exists, or does not exist?
I keep hear you saying that over and over that Tolle is condemning thought by thought, which I don’t think he is doing. I believe he is saying accepting that thought as thought whether it is good or a bad thought-is irrelevant. For what we think what is good or bad thought are relative to our physical nature-which is logical and accepted. Meaning, clear thinking in itself is limited to the power of our brains and subject to our experience.
For instance as I write this, according to Tolle, thoughts are arising and my brain and being transferred onto this message and he would be aware of those thoughts-not thinking of them. Where I think you are in error is one needs to think of the thinker or consciousness. If one flows with reality, whatever arises, thoughts, external actions, the sound of a bird and surrenders to it pure consciousness arises. However, once one thinks, states, or explains that “pure consciousness” you are back thinking and thus not pure anymore but rather an element of the pure. Conscious thoughts is simply an identification of your divine. Basically its just there.
Somehow, I am not enlightened believe me, according to him he is able to tap into the higher consciousness and watch everything as it arises into form and watch as it disperses. In my eyes it more of surrendering to what is. Then once you have surrendered to what is-deep peace, and tranquility set (it might be psychological because all resistance is removed) in that cannot be described in words and you even may act on what is but that is also observed through higher consciousness. In other words, one becomes the aware of the driver of the car on the road of life. In essence, the car (body and brain) surrenders to the conditions of the road that may be smooth or bumpy, winding or straight. This surrender, allows car (body and brain) to become aware of your the driver (pure consciousness) and instead of the car trying to drive itself it lets the driver (which is its job) to drive. The car is full of working parts (letting it drive on its own) and computers that allow it to think and contemplate the road and react accordingly. It may even try to predict the road 15 miles down the road on what it learned on the previous 30 miles (conditioning)(similar to what humans do in their lifetime and in collective history).
The driver is in the car and essentially the true driver of all life and everything that exists.
Only we as humans, I think-not sure, with our complex cars are able to hint or speak of the divine. We can only offer clues of the divine-no explanations. That is in effect an explanation, I know, but that is why a guru can do nothing for you in your pursuit or un-pursuit of the divine. One has to experience it for themselves to be sure. The horse you ride to a house (divine) is not by which you enter the house (divine). One must get off the horse and walk in. In other words, you must drop or surrender to all words, symbols, concepts and thoughts to experience the divine. Then all sense of the self (car) is lost and all that remains and existence itself or pure conciseness.
I think all “enlightened” people view the world almost like a moving, ever-changing artwork of the divine. A divine expression-something that everything in existence (the physical world) is apart of. Essentially, we are the same as a rock, or the sea, or the sun. Something backed by chemistry since we are made of all the same elements. Although different elements and element combinations form different forms. Like a crap-load of H for the sun and carbon for life.
I agree with you that Tolle exuberates a sort of positive illumination to his apprentices. But, such things are unavoidable as human beings. The mind tries to conceptualize positive experiences to organize it and re-produce it.
Like I said I am not enlightened. I just think this is the way they view it. I am only 24 and graduated college (pysch and phil majors) last year so what do I know and I am just a salesman.
I have been searching for someone to debate Tolle because I (my brain-J) like to hear opinions on the matter. I am glad I found this site and await your reply. Cheers
Dear Mike,
Your stuff is interesting. I can respond to how you articulate some of the Tolle issues. I think we are clear I am not challenging Tolle the person, whom I do not know. I can’t even challenge his thinking because I cannot be him and his thinking.
I can only work on my own thinking and my own self-awareness through thinking. I am I, I am not Me. My Me does not talk about my I, but my I tries to be aware of my Me. Therefore I am my I not being Me.
Did we get that?
Here is the way it may work. Tolle uses thinking to put down thinking as the tool for creating enlightenment. Tolle says thinking is not enlightenment. Do we agree on that?
Now, what is enlightenment?
You say at age 24, you are not enlightened. But is that not paradoxical? Of course, if you say you are not enlightened, that is a proof statement that indeed you are not enlightened.
For can we say an enlightened person makes no judgments as to whether they are enlightened or not enlightened. For if the enlightened person is beyond judging, which means identifying with some things and concepts as true and rejecting other things and concepts as not true. It seems that the enlightened one, according to your view, is an observer of the total field as it is without labels, but pure experience merged with the field of objects internal and external.
Thus, in your view, what I get of it, in place of thinking, which Tolle judges as not the tool for pure consciousness, we substitute pure awareness of what is as it is, and what it is.
This means oneness in the Eastern sense; in the Western sense, we experience our existence as duality. I am I in relationship to an “it” or “Thou” using Martin Buber’s terms.
So, it is quite simple in the end, because we challenge Tolle not to try and say what enlightenment is not. Saying what an object or experience is not is the thinking fallacy of “negation of being,” of trying to define one thing as the absence of another.
Conceivably, an enlightened being does not concern itself of definitions and descriptions of what is not. An enlightened being stays only in “what is”. This is maybe what Tolle attempts by his reference to “being in the now.”
The title of his book “The Power Of Now” is a title created by an unenlightened being, because it breaks the principle of total oneness into duality of “this and that.”
The “power of now” means power and now. Are these equated with each other? Is there really a separation between power and now?
My title for the book on the subject is the Tao of Now. The Tao is defined as universal and core oneness happening now and only now. Even memories of the past only exist when they happen now.
So, the suggestion is that while Tolle maybe heading towards universal oneness he still uses the language of duality, Which then indicates that he has not experienced enlightenment, or if he has, he would not be writing books of dualistic awareness and thinking.
Of course, these fallacies can happen to any of us. First, we have direct experience, then we have reflection on direct experience. We try to convey to ourselves and to others what the experience in the now is for us. So my suggestion has been all along, that Tolle confuses us by any not or negation statement, such as thinking not this, whatever this is.
Now for our own experience of existence, being in the now means really being fully experientially present now to what is happening now. Enlightenment then is the presence of what is happening now. Enlightenment has nothing to do with what does not exist, has nothing to do with what is not happening now.
Therefore, I suggest an enlightenment practice: just be present, alive, aware in what is happening now in each moment of your existence. Stay with it, that’s a full time occupation. Put your energy in now, not into the past.
Thanks to all your own writing here. It allowed me to respond in these moments not to you, but to what you evoke for me. I am responding to me not to you yet you are part of me in this moment that I focus in this moment on your words and your meaning for me. I simply dictate the meaning flow happening now in my own direct experience.
If these words evoke your experience of yourself, than the direct experience of yourself is enlightenment in that moment.
A person is not enlightened. Enlightenment is the experience of the total oneness of now, not simply a personality that separates itself from the oneness and therefore causes duality.
So maybe enough said.
Eckhart Tolle is not proposing a philosophy. Something happened to him that has happened to many before. He is merely trying to explain it. He does so particularly well, since he demands no faith, and his words are fresh. Tolle points out continuously, (as does Lao Tsu), that his words are only pointers. Since metaphors are required, he can be caught in logical conundrums. Christ said I am the way, the truth and the light. Is the light the truth? This is illogical! You may scoff, but dissecting the words rather than looking at where he is going is pointless. He doesn’t play your word games. He dislikes words. You have to assess what he means.
Here is what I think he means. Tolle recognizes that thought has it’s place. That we need to get from here to there, make plans, work, and so on. Tolle obviously uses his mind to speak words. But it did not come from a place of conscious thought. It comes from a place of silence- ceasing conscious thought. Conscious thought can only serve the ego, so it will always be clouded. The information-hungry, can’t do with silence, analytical, egotistic, self obsessed viral mind spins past, place, circumstance, and anticipated future into a heinous illusion that pollutes any attempt to unravel amorphous truth. Truly, we are not our thoughts, as we feel in this society where we wear our opinions like a badge. If you stop the viral beast, you will see that the truth shall be revealed to you. Not only universal truth, but the truths of your life, work, goals, and things that you can obsess about and get nowhere. Clear the slate for eureka. If you insist on an air-tight word smithing, revert to Being and Nothingness. In the end, as Tolle says, almost anything can take you there.
I wonder how much of Tolle’s thinking is due not so much to Spiritual pondering, but to Martin Heidegger philosophical thought, especially his Being and Time. Heidegger has famously critiqued Descartes’ cogito ergo sum. In fact, he blamed him for much of the problems of western thought for privileging consciousness over being. Does that not ring a bell?
hi,just came across this page,the whole problem is understood when its is realised that thought is time,you see eckhart is really saying that the noisey thoughts in the head are created by time,time is inconstant movement,so the mind cannot know enlightenment because of this,like in deep sleep there is no thought so there is no time,imagine if there was thought all night long in your sleep?so the mind is in time,which is seeking,his seeking stopped,so time stopped,he is in a timeless state,but thought is still operating,its just in the backround,we are all in this timeless state already,its time that blinds us
The dilemma is not whether we use thought to explain away thought, but is thought using us or are we using thought. When we are a slave to our thought processes and they go on like a broken record of repetitive fears that does not serve us. If our thoughts are aligned with being and we are conscioustly using our thoughts rather than our thoughts using us then that is freedom. It all comes down to who is running the show so to speak , our mind or our being. In the Bhagavad-Gita it is said that the mind is a poor master but a wonderful servant.
I understand that in one sense, we are in a paradoxical position. THis is what i think—
1. The mind is full of repetitive thought patters – which led us to ‘develop’ a personality which has its desires, preferences, habits etc. We are just spinnig within this whirlpool of thoughts. There is also a degree of self awareness – this helps us make decisions – whethere it is better to, say , run a mile everyday for long term health on buy the pizza. Or it may be should I take up this job which pays more but has less leisure time? This awareness is like us looking at a complex set of thoughts from a discrimatory standpoint- almost like standing at a sweet shop and looking DOWN at the variety of sweets on offer and then making a discriminatory decision and pick one. For example –if i dont eat in the morning and skip lunch then i am desperate for a meal as soon as i reach home – at that time i will go straight for the pizza instead of cooking something healthy. My awareness can identify this pattern, recognise it and then perhaps put in place mechanisms to eat something earlier …
2. The awareness can be ‘elevated’ further and we can ‘observe’ the decision making processes that run in our minds, identify complex patterns of thoughts – the tryst between sensual urges and their control etc etc. IF we are stuck at this level, then most of us still would lead relatively satisfied lives- eating and sometimes overeating, the stress of completing an assignment, the joy of watching a good film or reading a book, the disappointments of life etc
3. The question is -is that all there is ??? From the perspective of the ‘englightned souls’ – there is more. The level of awareness can be raised further – where one is able to observe all thought processess, the mind’s interaction with its own conflitcs and that with others, the moral maze, religious thoughts, — the list goes on… And then, something happens (spontaneously) – one becomes automatically detached (it is a completely passive phenomenon) with mind activity. This, I understand, means that one is able to profoundly ‘realise’ that all personality, desires, prefernces are at best labile and cannot be ‘grasped’. It is almost saying my mind has nothing ‘real’ in it- all is changing and impermanent. Infact it is a profoundly logical conclusion.
4. What then? The above realisation is simply an ‘elevated’ form of awarness. It is like standing on the top of a mountain and observing all the villages below- people milling around,stressed, enjoying a wedding etc..The first outcome of such a realisation is peace. Infact if you meet yogis who have meditated for some time – the first sense you get is that they are peaceful. This peace is not the dull peace of running away from thoughts/the problems of the world but an active peace – often described as ’silent and bright’. The second outcome of this realisation is a news engagement with the world (one might say re-engagement with the world). This engagement has now a different quality. On the surface, it may be no different from ordinary activity. But the engagement is without anxieties and with efficiency. Some how now the outcome of the activity (‘fruits of action’) are not the prime motive – it is simply the performance of the activity that becomes its end. To others it appears magical – a peaceful, serene person working with such energy and yet not really concerned about what is in for him! They might comment that this person is ’selfless’. From the point of the aware person – he is perhaps the most ’selfish’ – he knows that his joy and peace are not incumbent on the vagaries of situations!
5 We are all on this journey, I suppose -doing, feeling joys, pleasures, frustations, learning, understanding, changing… At each point we are becoming that slight bit more aware.
6. WHat the masters urge us is to try and raise our level of awareness! I
Tolle offers us a solution – try and step out of the mill of thoughts – do it often – slowly one raises ones ‘level of awareness’.
This is what buddha did ! When someone asked him ‘are you a saint? a god?- he replied ‘ I am awake’
I am new to this site and to Eckhart Tolle’s work. Personally I am not looking for “answers” or some neat summation that I can point to. I am nausieated by the didactic sayings of most spiritual/ philisophical enthusiasts. My only “hope” is that I can enjoy a few more sincere moments before I am done. Perhaps Tolle’s book will assist me in that endeavor. That said can you tell me whether Tolle was in any way influenced by Martin Buber. Purely intellectual curiosity. Thank you.
Does anyone know what Eckhart Tolle studied in University. I’ve been reading his books and they seem to have a strong preference for psychoanalytic ideas and buddhist teachings. Did he study psychology, philosophy, theology, or all of the above?
I’m very curious.
Thank You.
You can’t learn truth from anyone or any blog for that matter. It only comes from within. That is only my opinion, but not necessarily a fact. If Eckhart Tolle resonates for me, it is not his truth that I believe but my truth that is in agreement with his. To argue with the mind will never change anything. The change for me is knowing that the purpose of this post is not to debate or claim to be right or wrong, but to simply state my own truth and put it out there for anyone else to accept or reject beyond the ego. Spring Green, WI Winter 08
I find in reading Tolle that he might have been influenced by Martin Heidegger among others.
Well said Truth&Fiction.
Please, could everyone just “surrender” to the thought that we all maybe DO NOT know the universal truth! You too, dear Strephon. Many people, including Tolle and myself, has experienced something wonderful that is out of this world! If you are interested in experience the same thing, start surrender. You don’t know this yet.
For me, as for everyone else who experienced this higher level of consciousness, it is not about thinking. Try to get rid of thoughts, through meditation for example, and you’ll find yourself filled with energy and well being. That’s a good start. Compassion for other people is also important, because it moves focus from yourself to others. Practice this every day, every minute. By doing that you leave space in your own conscious that can be filled with the ‘new’ level of consciousness. Because thoughts about who we are, what we do, how we look, etc. takes a BIG part of our limited conscious, we need to move focus from this.
Ok, I’m very new to all this, and don’t know the language or all the terms very well. And I don’t know you Strephon. Maybe you already practice meditation on a regular basis. I just want what’s best for everyone. Follow, and trust the feeling that hides in your body, and it guides you to this miracle sooner or later. But the ‘inner voice’ can not be heard through the noise of our thoughts. That’s why we need to get rid of them. The tricky part is to recognize the feeling, witch is not a thought.
Love you all.
PM
Why do people spend their free time trying to convince others their opinion? Why not just put your opinion out there or your facts and let people asborb things on their own time in their own way. The time you spent debating Tolle’s theories against your own is time that could have been spent practicing and focusing on what you already believe. Is there anything negative about what he says? Is it designed to harm people or to affect their lives in a positive way or a negative way? Why do people make something negative out of something positive? Because they’d rather be right than at peace.
Its recognition. One recognises, identifies with, understands etc. and no amount of verbosity will change that for the person who recognises.
Based on my own readings I need to mention that Tolle never condemns human thinking – on the contrary. (I may remember wrong, but in fact I cannot recall him even mentioning logical thinking.) He emphasises it many times that what we may want to achieve is a high level consciousness and directed thinking rather than compulsive thinking, which grabs power over our life and destiny. This high level (effective and creative) thinking however can only be achieved if one is perfectly present in the Now, and he is damn right about it. He provides a brilliant yet simple solution to what an army of psychologists through decades could only raise as THE problem.
Generally speaking his teachings are extraordinary. They are uniqely useful tool to significantly improve one´s life, especially in a psychological sense. Many thanks for your attention.
This actually has been the problem of all philosophers, they have too many questions and thinking and thinking and the more one thinks, concepts and philosophies arise which have absolutely nothing to do with a living truth. Eckart Tolle as well as other do not condem thinking in fact they talk about thinking having its right place., with a clear mind a clear thinking arises, now for mind that is full of questions and ideas I wonder how clear can one be?
We use a thorn to remove a thorn. Why argue with the doctor?
Mind is the source of all illusion, simply because the mind is itself illusion.
All right, you have an MA in theology from Loyola University Chicago here…better hang on to your britches…remember in Forrest Gump, when he was running, and some man caught up with him and commented, “you have all the answers”? Well, something like that, and if I further recollect, Forrest humbly denied that he did.
We ALL want answers to pain, to humiliation, why someone we fell in love with fell out of love with us, why there is swine flu,why death, why cancer…the list goes on ad infinitum.The fact is there ARE no answers that work for everyone. I suggest you read, SELF-HELP NATION. Its right up there with the ONION and Hunter S.Thompson as far as reality checks and cynicism go.
So who the fuck is this German shithead? TatataDA! He’s a SNAKE OIL PEDDLER! He makes no sense, but his pockets are a-jingling! He’s making megabucks on every poor asshole out there who’s searching for answers that no one has.(Slightly over $50.00 a ticket to hear him give a space cadet talk that folks can only muse on what he means-he’s so obtuse, that’s why they figure he KNOWS!) With the money he’s making in THESE TIMES, I’ve gotta hand it to him-he’s got a gimmick, just like Wayne(HasBeen) Dyer.
Get used to it.Life sucks.Money helps, but it doesn’t cure the ache in the heart, it doesn’t talk, it doesn’t put its arms around you and reassure you. The best we can do is try to be kind to one another-you don’t mess with me and I won’t mess with you,that kind of thing.
Essentially, that’s the Golden Rule, but it means you have to constantly be thinking about your actions and how they affect others-not for the lazy!
A Wiccan recently said to me, focus on drawing the positive things in life toward you as opposed to ridding yourself of the negative.Sounds good and simple to me. Is shit still going to happen, yup! But if we stick together and are there for each other,maybe we can get through things better.
Well, go on and read who you will. Dyer was really good in YOUR ERRONEOUS ZONES…he should have stopped there.He’s got to make money now though, so he’s out there in outer space with many others.Remember, as many have said on this site, you need to think for yourself and trust that.Rely on YOU, not someone else!
Who is Eckhart Tolle? Just what are his credentials? I would assert that he has a Ph.D. in Snake Oil Peddling! This man is making over $50/person when he speaks!
Tolle wears a different mask, but underneath, the substance (or lack thereof) remains the same: the Norman Vincent Peales, the Joel