Comments on: Eckhart Tolle Enlightenment

By: ra

ra — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:13:31 +0000

problems for those with long held beliefs ? Tolle could have avoided controversy by avoiding quoting or misquoting Jesus . He avoids quoting from vedanta and the Upnishads (ancient hindu texts) which are really the basis of his ideas. Tolle is New Age only in the commercial marketing of ideas used by Indian mystics for atleast 5000 years. These ideas may have influenced Tao, Buddhism and maybe even Western religions.
Some of the criticism of Tolle is obviously plain envy. I wish i had put forth these ideas ! His genius is stating the obvious in simple language is much like that of Shakespeare but in self awareness. I suspect not many will be able to practise what Tolle suggests even in small measure. Like me, they will be impressed with the good stuff for the moment “now” and move on or back into our minds/ egos/the voice in the head.

By: Jamal

Jamal — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 20:31:07 +0000

I see we understand very different things while reading Tolle. His reference to thinking for example, I did not understand from reading the book that thinking is useless or dysfunctional. I think that the important part of Tolle’s work, and the same goes for Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj has to do with the center of our identity. We take a contruction created by thought and memory and turn it into an identity. They are just pinting out that it does not hold the reality we pretend it has. I would refer anyone to Freud’s definition of Ego and Id. These guys, for me, are pointing out the same problem as Freud did, when referring to identification.

If you just dont like how Tolle talks, thats ok. Just cause I dont personally like many people, it doesnt make them “wrong” or “liars”

By: Neela

Neela — Sun, 25 May 2008 02:23:14 +0000

A most insightful response given above by Louis Abbott.

Most insightful.

By: cato

cato — Thu, 22 May 2008 04:05:31 +0000

And the most ………… zillionaire if you want one is D.Chopra.

By: cato

cato — Thu, 22 May 2008 04:02:44 +0000

Well I guess he should have stayed a recluse then eh?

By: louis abbott

louis abbott — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:06:19 +0000

I refer to the Oprah version of enlightenment as “Delightenment.” Every thing will work out and you will be rewarded with material gain as a result of your spiritual work. We’ll be right back after a word from our corporate sponsor.
Let me refer to a specific discussion between Oprah and Tolle. He describes thinking too much as being stuck in a ditch. The more one thinks, the more one sinks. Before he finishes, Oprah cuts in with a colloquial “You just gonna get more mud on ya!” Eckhart agrees but that is not his point at all. You are going to sink, not suffer from dirty clothes. This is the surface mentality that Oprah works on. Eckhart goes along because she is making him a zillionaire.
Forget about the idea that the best thing to do when stuck in a ditch is to think about how to get out; abandon the physical and be still. This may or may not include enlightenment, but stop digging. A real bad analogy full of holes and also very shopworn. The best description for the Tolle philosophy in general.
I would also be more favorable to this narrative if Tolle included some of his obvious influences: Plato, Teilhard de Chardin and Catholic Mysticism, Jung, Buddhism, Taoism, the obvious anti-Descartes angle and many more. Perhaps he is not encouraged to discuss the great literature in a popular format?

By the way, attempting to denigrate another’s opinion by offering up your own experience in comparison seems to be using ego as a defense mechanism. So much for enlightenment.

By: E

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 21:18:08 +0000

“as long as you keep your mind involved, you’re fools!!!”

Who said that? Was it not your mind? Where you not using your mind to formulate those “thoughts”? Had you not had your mind you would have never come across the idea of enlightenment. You wouldn’t have the equipment to do that. All you enlightened beings out there, didn’t the idea and the first steps begin with thought and the discovery of no mind as a counterpoint to mind? Anyone searching will inextricably use the mind, and anyone who has found it will USE his or her mind to formulate words and help in liberating others, not being abusive. I think that Eckhart Tolle is bit new age but he has a comprehensive way to describe what is fundamentally Buddhist ideas. I recommend reading him but not taking words like “inner vibrational frequencies”, “divine” and such obscure phrases too seriously.

Enlightenment seems like art, everyone has their own idea of what it is, and few understand each other fully.

By: george stegler

george stegler — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:38:20 +0000

Enlightenment: that is a state where a person can, at any time, lose one’s own mind and be the every thingness and nothingness , to become “GOD”, one’s true nature, to be out of mind. That’s all an enlightened person is, a rare gift at that. There are more people who can on rare occasion have brief glimpses of their true nature, and that happens with meditation, lots of meditation at that. So, all of you who want to ‘think’ themselves to bliss, it’s your time, your life. You can bark up the wrong tree as much as you like and delude yourselves in to “thinking” that you are blissful, as long as you keep your mind involved, you’re fools!!! Lose it baby, Chris is right, a mind is the ONLY thing to lose!.

By: Chris Williamson

Chris Williamson — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 06:23:27 +0000

The more one thinks the further you are from your true self. Your true self is not physical, or of thoughts. You are everything or no-thing, both are the same. We are consciousness, everything-ness, form-less. There is only one consciousness, it is in and of everything, be it an atom or a star in the sky, plant, animal or human. That is GOD, we are GOD. Clear thinking or chaotic thinking is much like the thin film of a bubble or clouds in the sky, once it disappears YOU are there. You are there- EVERYWHERE and NOWHERE!!! A mind is the only thing to lose!!

By: E

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:34:45 +0000

Have you ever tried to hunt for the present moment? you get there you think but then you realize you didn’t but the closer you get the more presence you experience. If there is time, there is past and future. But then, what is the now? The infinitely small or non-existent “gap” between present and future? What Tolle gave to me was a sense of no time. If the concept of time is something evolutionary evolved in us, for us to be able to sort out our experiences then we could learn to abandon it. We could experience our place as only space. The clock is ticking because it does, why make the series of events into a line on which we and everything glide along. Yeah, don’t bother, I know why but try this image and at least the sense of presence in “the now” will emerge. Your lover will appear more real, and the food will have a taste instead of being a memory of taste.

Peace: “Tolle speaks of Religion being dogmatic. But what he speaks is a belif & a practice as well. Religion=a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects:” Isn’t that the case of all western or any other society? Is democracy a religion? Using a dictionary to make anyone wrong without going further in reasoning is easy.

Tolle gave me one hint in life. So did a lot of people, and some of you guys, I don’t care about the word “enlightenment”. Do you? It’s just a word!

PS: Sorry for my language, I’m not a native English speaker.