Eckhart Tolle And My (Almost) Spiritual Transformation

In light of the title of this article, I feel compelled to let you know that prior to this past Friday afternoon, I had no idea who Eckhart Tolle was. By the time I got to the Beacon Theater, my knowledge was not much improved, and all I knew (from a quick scan of his Wikipedia page, no less) was that he was a "spiritual teacher", and he wrote a book that Oprah liked, called The Power of Now. This last tidbit told me two things: One -- that he was relatively famous and that I probably should have heard of him, and Two -- that I should be mildly skeptical because, while I do love (and I mean love) Oprah, The Secret, another Oprah endorsement, offends me in ways that I never thought a self-help book (that I haven't even read) could.

So, I walked into the theater a cynic, and the slideshow being projected on to the stage did not help. There were pictures of multi-ethnic groups of smiling children (aw!), middle-aged couples meditating (eh.), and one seemingly appropriate photo of a long-robed, bearded man with his eyes closed, face turned towards the heavens, and hands raised in some sort of spiritual jubilation (ah!). So this was to be the next four and a half hours (in two parts) of my life. Yikes.

The introductory speaker starts by telling us all about the Omega Institute, which is presenting this talk, and this makes me feel like I've stumbled into an episode of Lost (Matthew Fox!), but that's okay because the speaker makes me laugh. Apparently the Omega Institute is "sort of like the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle. A supermarket of so much delicious wisdom!" (Yum!) But then we get to the real stuff, because before he comes to the stage, Tolle would like us to take a minute or two of silence to prepare ourselves for what he's going to say. (I take this opportunity to scribble some notes.)

Eckhart Tolle takes the stage and he's a small man, slightly knock-kneed, with slow and deliberate movements, which in my (skeptical) mind is an affectation entirely required of spiritual teachers. Surprisingly, he takes a seat on a fold-out chair in the center of the stage, and he begins with a joke: "If you live in New York, and this beginning is too slow for you, I apologize!" And so he sets the stage for the rest of his talk. Eckhart Tolle is both very funny, and entirely convincing as a man who at 29 underwent a "profound spiritual transformation that virtually dissolved his old identity and radically changed the course of his life", or so says every bio (verbatim) I found online. Note: nowhere (and I do mean nowhere) on the Internet is there to be found a description of what exactly this spiritual transformation was, though the man next to me tells me that it's described in the book, which I therefore promptly go and buy. Abridged spiritual transformation as follows: Tolle wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks, "I cannot live with myself any longer," and then being "aware of what a peculiar thought it was...[that] there must be two of me: the 'I' and the 'self' that 'I' cannot live with," his mind stops and he sees "the image of a precious diamond," and then he spends "almost two years sitting on park benches." Okaaay.

Eckhart Tolle, with his smiling eyes and mellifluous German accent, is all about the now. (Duh. The Power of Now?) Essentially, there is no future, as the future never actually arrives, and therefore, we never experience it. All we can experience is the now, every present moment, and within that, no moment is more important than another. Tolle explains that when we are rushing to get somewhere, we get stressed out because we are projecting ourselves into that future place, like what will happen when we do finally arrive (late) to work. Instead, we should embrace, and enjoy, and be completely in the moment. He uses a Manhattan-centric analogy about someone stealing your taxi, and this is where he loses me, because the only time I embrace having my taxi stolen is when it's by a little old lady with her arms full of groceries, and then I feel like I've done my good deed for the day. (Later that night, while rain is pouring down and I'm on 7th Ave. in the West Village trying to catch a cab, I attempt to embrace the moment in which a couple of bankers dart ahead of me to an approaching cab. I embrace it by giving them a death-stare so lethal that they slink away, grumbling. Point, Tolle!)

I'm with Tolle on identities as well. He says that we have a tendency to derive our identities from stories that we create for ourselves. I say, "I am a writer." But, this is merely a fiction that I have created about myself. (Wait, how did he know?). I am not "a writer". I am me. And we do this to others: "He's a hipster, and he lives in Williamsburg." That may be how he is described, but we should be careful not to mistake that for who he is (although...). And here Tolle makes a great case for ridding ourselves of baggage, which, for anyone in on the dating scene in Manhattan, could be really handy. He states that our "personal histories are not relevant to who we are"... (So I can just go ahead and delete that one time, in college, when...? This is fun!)

And while some might argue here that I'm twisting his teachings, and that's not quite what he meant, well, I say this, and I'm quoting the master here: Don't attach yourselves to the words. The words are signposts, pointing you to the essence that is both in and behind the words. And I say the essence is: Delete it!

The last Tolle-ism that I wrote down and/or understood: in any one moment, we have three choices. We can change it, totally accept it, or walk away. And I appreciate this, because it brings all this now-ness, this "is-ness" (he actually said that), and this "spirituality as a dimension of pure consciousness" (that too), to a place that I can understand and, more importantly, use. And while I would by no means call this my spiritual transformation, I have decided that the next time some guy (the hipster from Williamsburg, perhaps?) feeds me some cheesy line, I'm going to choose to walk away. And the next time I'm watching TV, and the channel sucks but the remote is too far away, I'm going to choose to get up and change it.

And, really, the next time I'm running late to work, and I know that the consequence of being late to work is an excruciatingly snotty comment by my boss, I'm going to choose to totally accept it, because it's going to happen anyway, and I may as well just wait until it actually happens to go ahead and (not) enjoy it.

Comments

[timeforashift]

Just wondering why all of you that are such Tolle supporters are spending so much time arguing about comments that were made in the past...

Doesn't past drama take us out of the present moment? If you believe it, great, believe it and live it.

Just ask yourself why you get emotionally triggered into this pattern that takes you out of "the power of now".

That's why these topical solutions don't last. While they do hold a great deal of truth, there is no "neosporin" for the soul! Accept it as an opening to an oppourtunity to heal, not an end all soulution that clearly isn't working for you in that regard.

If you accept that your experience in life is very real, than you would see that "the power of now" only offers you the opportunity to begin to proccess and heal...

Think of why buddhism values the reflection of pain and suffering so. They just acknowledge it and use it as an opportunity instead of denying its presence in "now".

Best of luck on your journey!

[timeforashift]

Rewilkinson, thanks! One thing that I have a hard time with is the "instant" ability to deny our individual or cultural history that these "over the counter" self help professors sell people on. Although, they do have a point in that we tend to make things more difficult for ourselves and our path to healing, they miss something crucial... why negative exsists at all in our lives. It isn't for no reason and you can't just put it down and ignore it. You actually do have to do the work and process it. I know that most will profess that people like myself won't let go of troubles and hence are "stuck". That's bullshit. As some of our greatest scientists and healers have found, our experiences are stored in our bodies until the are released for us to deal with and process when the time is right. These "instant oatmeal" self help books and seminars do the same thing that right wing christianity does, only it is much more compassionate. It sees the same truth of the teachings of the Christ consciousness but twists it in a way that speeds up the process, and won't have a lasting result as the true issues that an individual holds dear to them aren't brought to attention in the way necessary for true healing. Long of short, there is no short of long. Sorry everyone, you have to do the work to have lasting peace...

[RobertaInCT]

I order to trnasformed spiritualy one's mind must be open. Tolle may not be the way for all, but it could serve as a starting point.

[REWilkinson]

Eckhart Tolle is the latest in a long line of "Spiritual" teachers whose goal is to deny the Earth. He writes: "The ultimate purpose of the world lies not within the world but in transcendence of the world."
The "Goal" of the spiritual path however, is not to lose oneself in the Divine Consciousness. The goal is to let the Divine Consciousness penetrate into Matter and transform it. Tolle, Deepak Chopra and others do not seem to understand that when our highest spiritual wisdom declares the world to be a meaningless, purposeless, illusion that we are obliged to transcend, these nihilistic perceptions invariably play themselves out in our individual and collective life. This fact is undeniable in the tragic symbolism of children blowing themselves up in the service of fundamentalism based upon the deceitful promise of a paradisiacal afterlife. Likewise, if our earthly existence is conceived as only a meaningless passage to some higher reality then a certain restraint is removed on the unconscionable exploitation of the environment not to mention each other. Surely they cannot deny the overwhelming evidence of a looming environmental and human catastrophe, but who would ever have imagined that it was a direct consequence of these old nihilistic religious beliefs that disenchanted the natural world.

[bethinCary]

I don't think Deepak has declared the world to be ",meaningless, purposeless, illusion that we are obliged to transcend". I think that Deepak and Tolle teach the opposite-that you have a purpose to your life-blended with your own spirituality and individuality.
Ones own transformation will not come about just by robotically going through your day-driven by materialism or lack of empathy for others-putting nature as something to be conquered rather than respected. The symbolism of children blowing themselves up-is why it is important to find ones' spirituality on his/her own, without handing off your spirituality to religion, where it is taken advantage of by greed and extremism.

[REWilkinson]

Perhaps you would be interested to know that in a recent interview with Atlantis Rising (May/June 2007) Deepak Chopra told the interviewer:

" I enjoy the illusion of it all. I"m standing in an apartment in New York City on the 69th floor overlooking the city and I know it"s not "real", but I can appreciate it."

However much Chopra may enjoy the illusion, this is plainly a life-negating view that has no power to heal the wounds of fragmentation inflicted on our modern world by the reductive linear mind and its nihilistic religious forms. It is simply a continuation of an old patriarchal consciousness that denies the Sacred Feminine, Matter and our collective Becoming in favor of a remote static peace that has negated the lives and creative possibilities of hundreds of millions of human beings.
why do we continue to cling to the notion that God spoke to man over 2,000 years ago through Buddha, Jesus and a few others and has remained silent on the question of spirituality and the human condition ever since? This makes absolutely no sense but each passing day bears witness to a world arrested by the atavistic beliefs of religions long past, with many still locked in some form of convert or kill mentality.

[marxwasright]

One practical point Tolle makes frequently is that in the last century, man killed one hundred million of his own kind (not counting natural causes, disease, etc.), through wars and other man-caused events. This is insanity. I enjoyed reading most of the posts; many people have obviously been able to change their lives due to Tolle's work... I am one of them, and the change continues. To the skeptics, I will just (roughly) quote Herbert Spencer: "There is a principle that is a barrier to all growth, learning and knowledge -- that principle is 'contempt prior to investigation.'" As someone else already said, not all are ready for it -- when you are, you will find it. These teachings -- and they have been around for a long time -- are the only thing that have a chance to change the world along the lines that HuffPo readers seem to advocate: Living in peace, diminshed consumerism, love for each other, the elimination of hate, war, and other ego-driven pursuits (including, but not limited to, the advertising industry) (!). I wish you all Peace.

[mbaty]

I'm glad to see posts like this on HuffPo, even though they are often coated with skepticism; but a healthy skepticism is good, and no one person's formula is for everyone. I love Tolle, and his book helped me at a time when I was searching for a new spirituality. It's clear and concise, and it makes so much sense--the simplicity being that it doesn't matter what you believe, you still live in the moment you're in, and what is, is.
Living in the moment is a challenge for everyone, but it also makes it easier to be unconditionally loving. I hope that someday Tolle himself will write on HuffPo just like Deepak, and that more forward-thinking spiritual-science/integrative communicators will contribute.

[LordMoon]

Religious fads come and go, because ideas are opiates, that we soon develop a tolerance to.

Ideas, or thoughts or teachings, can never take one beyond the mind.

This year it's Eckart Tolle, before that it was...... oh we'll I've already forgotten that one already.

[brooklyncitizen]

While the post is clever and witty it really is a let down to treat a subject like Tolle in such a glib and dismissive manner.It seems that this sold-out talk (I tried getting tickets) was just another NY curiosity.

In a time when so many things are falling apart around us, transcendence and being really awake is all the more important. As much as I love living in NYC I often encounter this kind of shallowness and find it kind of tiresome.

Enjoy the Power of Now and may it inspire deeper reflections.

[bethinCary]

I have not read or heard of Tolle.
I think many people think that spirituality comes at the worst times of a persons' life. In my case, I woke up one night and something inside of me just said " I'm suffocating in here, and will be gone forever if you don't do something".
So that was the beginning of it for me-I felt it was my own soul talking to me. I made the big changes after that- and 4 years later, am still going through the process on my own.
As far as skeptics about mysticism go, please don't lump religious fanatics and hypocrites in with those who want to achieve spirituality.
A persons' "religiousity" and spirituality can definitely be different things.

[longnow]

I was also at the Tolle talk at the Beacon
and he joked about people like you in the audience
who wanted to leave but didn't so as not to appear
"unawakened" (uncool) so they "will" themselves to stay and politely sleep while their cell phones record the talk.

I liked his joke about not needing to know the title of his talk before going out on the stage
because his talks are always about...

[alyosha]

I heard Eckhart Tolle speak a four or five years ago in Los Angeles. He talked extemporaneously for about two or three hours straight, and the crowd - about 2000 people in a packed hall - were spellbound from start to finish.

I really think HuffPo should send someone who "gets" what Eckhart is all about, and who can do him + his teachings justice - there are plenty of such folk out here in California, even five years ago. This review was disappointing.

[Mother77]

Please don't be critical. It is someone discovering at her level, at her time. No judgement. Thank Goddess we don't have professional spiritual critics. This blog may just cause someone to find Tolle's book for the first time and start on their path of self-actualization. Nice.

[NedFlanders19]

Most "teachers" are simply putting their verbage onto the concepts of their experiences. Personally, I find pure zen, without any attachment to buddhism with its sutras and precepts, etc., to be the most illuminating.

Let's be honest, most people are caught up in the past or future (neither of which truly exist outside of our minds) and never are fully in their bodies, present with their experience.

One way in which I see most teachers missing is in being able to help people clear away all the crap that keeps them from being present. Meditating helps, but ways are available to clear out what no longer serves us in our lives and it can be quick and painless.

In the end, we all have the answers within ourselves, its just that we usually need help realizing this and finding our way as a lot of stuff tends to be hidden in blind spots, just like when driving a car.

Find something that resonates deeply with you and stay with it. You can always ask for assistance, and be ready for it to show up in many different ways. It's been long said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Enjoy your journey and remember, the journey is the destination.

[joegillick]

Having spent the spacious weekend at Prana the headquarters for Movement for Spiritual Inner Awareness with which Arriana was once associated, I find the article on Eckhart Tolle to be quite entertaining in a New York cynical kind of way but disappointing as a serious discussion on the benefits for society by the clarification of consciousness and living in the "Now".

What Tolle is trying to transmit is quite similar to the goal of Buddhism and Advita and that is that there is a reality beyond the parameters of the conditioned personality which sees reality in a dicotomous and judgmental way of self and other, good and evil, past and future. A reality that is not predicated on thinking or analysis but upon pure perception free of mental constructs.

In all spiritual traditions it is well known the thinking and the experiencing of emotional states are very strong addictions and that to experience the "Now" as it actually is and not what we think or feel about it is a big piece of work requiring quite a bit of letting go of belief and structured ides instilled by parents and society. Although this experience of "Now" can occur in a flash as in Tolle's case, it generally requires many years to clarify these obscurations of the True Nature of mind.

Of course, seeing reality as it actually is is the only way to experience true happiness and the only way that really exists for Humanity to free itself of it's self destructive tendencies. Generally speaking this work cannot be done by oneself but requires a guide or teacher first to actually introduce what the True Nature of one's mind is in actuality (not what we think it is from reading books) and then to serve as a guide through the morass of obscurations until the mind can rest in it's True Nature undisturbed by arising thoughts or emotions.

A more traditional presentation of the the teachings presented by Tolle would be "Present Fresh Wakefullness: A Meditation Manual on Nonconceptual Wisdom", Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Rangjung Yeshe Publications, Hong Kong, 2002.

[Pandu]

"What Tolle is trying to transmit is quite similar to the goal of Buddhism and Advita and..."

In other words, "spirituality" for atheists.

Whatever.

[SamThornton]

I tend to be automatically skeptical of those who claim to have experienced a religious epiphany, primarily because such experiences are indistinguishable from psychotic episodes reported by those suffering from both drug-induced and pathological schizophrenia.

One hitches one's wagon to such a star at their own risk.

[brooklyncitizen]

It doesn't sound like you have a personal spiritual experience so maybe making a judgement on "spiritual experience" is premature.

"By their fruits ye shall know them."
This scripture is well known and certainly a simple and basic truth.Look at someone's actions, and deeds, and life's work to know who they are.

Mystics, those that live their life according to spirital thruths, have given us incredible fruit and their paths have been varied. It still amazes me that in spite of this evidence(fruit) people still attempt to debunk and discredit someone's spirtiual experience and truth.

A list:
Einstein
St. Augustine
Peace Pilgrim
Ghandi
Tolstoy
Martin Luther King
Simone Weill
Maya Angelou
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thoreau
Emerson
Walt Whitman
Joel Goldsmith
Alan Watts
Yogananda
Kierkegaard
Mother Teresa
Nelson Mandela

These are just some of my personal teachers/heros/guides...there are too many to list.

[dharmamom]

I looked to buddhism, new age offshoots of it, zen philosophies etc. when I was going through a divorce. The absurdity of my ex cheating on me and abandoning his three kids put me over the edge. Well, three years and many gurus later, I realize its great stuff. The problem is that once someone latches onto it, that soul wants to make a livelyhood out of it, writes a book, espouses a similar philosophy, markets a clone of it. When all it is , is a comfortable way to see the univerality of existance. We are all in it together, each moment of our lives is like any other. To forgo ego, judgement, attachment, envy, etc is a healthful way to cope with this plane of existance. And once one does that, many other universal truths become apparent. This is the gist of it, calm down the brain, and it opens to better and better feeling emotions every day. I love this stuff, but I agree, it sucks if people want to make a buck at it. Welcome to the western world.

[chin075]

It's astounding to see people so quickly and automatically overlay their own personal judgments, prejudice and ignorance onto this man's spiritual teaching. Then again, that's what we are all best at, isn't it: compulsively judging everything with limited knowledge but great conviction. That is the essence of his teaching but I see that it's lost on many...