Erkhart Tolle is GOD!

[Globe_Trekker]

Read his books and find out why...the truth has been spoken! His books are my new bible...

[Jerzy007]

Good for you bro-share some great bullet points you found helpful please!

[Globe_Trekker]

There are so many good quotes to pick from, here are just a few:

1. The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any concrete and true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia, and so on. This kind of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now.

2. What you refer to as your “life” should more accurately be called your “life situation.” It is psychological time: past and future. Certain things in the past didn’t go the way you wanted them to go. You are still resisting what happened in the past and now you are resisting what is. Hope is what keeps you going, but hope keeps you focused on the future, and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the NOW and therefore your unhappiness.
Forget about your life situation for awhile and pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time. Your life is NOW. Your life situation is Mind-Stuff. Your life is REAL.

3. All inner resistance is experienced as negativity in one form or another. All negativity is resistance. In this context, the two words are almost synonymous.
Negativity ranges from irritation or impatience to fierce anger, from a depressed mood or sullen resentment to suicidal despair. Sometimes the resistance triggers the emotional pain body…The ego believes that through negativity it can manipulate reality and get what it wants.... The fact is, of course, that negativity does not work. Instead of attracting a desirable condition, it stops it from arising. Instead of dissolving an undesirable one, it keeps it in place.
Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry or hard-done-by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also insane.

4. Transcending the world does not mean to withdraw from the world, to no longer take action, or to stop interacting with people. Transcendence of the world is to act and to interact without any self-seeking. In other words, it means to act without seeking to enhance one's sense of self through one's actions or one's interactions with people. Ultimately, it means not needing the future anymore for one's fulfillment or for one's sense of self or being. There is no seeking through doing, seeking an enhanced, more fulfilled, or greater sense of self in the world. When that seeking isn't there anymore, then you can be in the world but not be of the world. You are no longer seeking for anything to identify with out there.

(All quotes are from Erkhart Tolle's The Power of Now, except quote 4 which is from an interview with What is Enlightenment? magazine)

[Jerzy007]

Profound A wonderful paradigm of reality! I dig it...

[screwjack]

I think Tolle would find you calling him a God funny. Though his philosophy is really nothing new mostly the essense of many different philosophies, religions, spiritual paths boiled down for the layman. A course in miracles, the upanishads, the bible, the writings of Meister Eckhart, etc.

I like the message but find it hard to actually follow through with it.

[Jerzy007]

Big up for seeking knowledge, i respect that and believe that truth is everywhere, its up to us to find where the fullness of truth lies!-opinion

[tiberius]

I just read the Power of Now. It's really great. But I agree with screwjack, these are not Tolle's original ideas. They have been presented by many people before, first one probably being Buddha. Nevertheless, Tolle doesn't claim that he has some unique knowledge. He quotes a lot from buddhist texts, bible etc.

If you like Tolle, I also recommend reading Anthony de Mello's Awareness. Pretty much the same ideas, but a more interesting presentation.

[Globe_Trekker]

Originally Posted by screwjack

I think Tolle would find you calling him a God funny.

I know, I realized this immediately after I wrote it...sorry Tolle!

Though his philosophy is really nothing new mostly the essense of many different philosophies, religions, spiritual paths boiled down for the layman. A course in miracles, the upanishads, the bible, the writings of Meister Eckhart, etc.

I agree...

I like the message but find it hard to actually follow through with it.

.

[hichews]

OMG!! I just got on this forum after several weeks of absense due to being busy.

I was just about to post about Tolle and all of his great books when I see: Eckhart Tolle is GOD! I was so happy about this.

For everyone out there, I just started reading his book "A Near Earth" and it talks about how, many of the thoughts going inside your head are not actually from you, but from your ego. And your ego controls you and puts all these negative thoughts into your head. Being aware of this ego can set yourself free.

After reading just the first few sections I have been able to see my social anxiety in a different perspective and I feel it has improved by a lot.

[misticknight]

i was just about to create this same topic, i'm reading TPON myself and it's really really great and has helped me alot. it hasn't cured my SA by any means, but now i only get it WHEN i'm actually in a situation that causes me to have SA (like meeting new people or shopping for clothes) i dont ponder what MIGHT happen or think about things that HAVE happened anymore, which is a great help cause that was so emotionally draining. whether he came up with his own technique or just borrowed from other techniques to make his book, i have to thank Eckhard Tolle for helping me. It's a great book and i suggest anyone struggling with SA to read it as i'm sure it'll help at least a bit.

[sprinter]

Now I'm interested in Eckhart Tolle's book on the ego after Janet Esposito mentions it in this quote below.

Toning Down The Ego
I have recently been reading Eckhart Tolle's newest book, A New Earth, and listening to his interviews with Oprah (which can be downloaded from her site). A lot of the focus of his book, and his conversations with Oprah, relate to the power of the ego in creating much of our fear and struggle in life. In fact, he states, "The underlying emotion that governs all the activity of the ego is fear."

The ego is reinforced through a strong identification with our external roles and circumstances. The ego greatly fears any threat of loss of our reputation, status, and image in the eyes of others. The ego takes things very personally and feels diminished by any feeling of loss of respect or esteem in the eyes of self or others. The ego has a strong need to look good and to not look bad, which feeds perfectionist tendencies and the search for approval, as well as the fear of disapproval. The ego fights against and resists feelings of weakness and vulnerability and seeks to feel strong and in control. The ego is especially threatened by any feeling of loss of control and goes to great lengths to avoid this feeling and to seek out feelings of being in control of oneself and one's circumstances.

Does any of this sound familiar as it relates to the fear of public speaking or performing, as well as any other areas of your life? It certainly rings true in my experience. While most people who have performance anxiety would never consider themselves egotistical in terms of being conceited or "full of themselves", the ego can still play a very powerful role in one's life in terms of one's core identity. Most of the people who I have encountered with this fear are high achievers and have a strong investment in their public image and reputation. They are generally fearful of losing respect and esteem in the eyes of others (as well as in their own eyes) and have a need to feel, and be seen as, strong and in control (and a need not to show any human vulnerability or signs of weakness). All of this relates to the concerns of the ego and the over-focus on these self-concerns fuels feelings of guardedness and self-consciousness and seriously gets in the way of connecting more naturally, genuinely, and comfortably with others.

So, how do we tone down the concerns of the ego when they seem to dominate our minds and drive our fear? Tolle states that "Awareness is the greatest agent for change." Rather than unconsciously feeding our ego concerns by believing in our fearful thoughts and perceptions as though they represent truth and reality, we need to consciously step back from our conditioned way of thinking and perceiving. We need to observe our fearful thoughts and perceptions as separate from who we really are and recognize they do not represent the basic truth about ourselves or our situation. We have to learn to detach from our strong identification with our public image and reputation and connect more with the deeper, truer essence of who we are at our core so we do not continue to chase public approval and avoid public disapproval to support the foundation of our identity and our self-esteem.

Rather than engage in fighting against or trying to control our fearful, ego-based thinking and perceptions, Tolle speaks of creating a state of Presence where you have a conscious awareness and acceptance of what is happening within yourself. He says "If there is awareness in you, you no longer need to believe in every thought you think. It's an old thought, no more. Awareness means Presence, and only Presence can dissolve the unconscious past in you." The way Tolle, as well as many others, have spoken of creating more presence, or mindfulness, is to bring attention to the breath as a way of pausing, stepping back from unconscious, conditioned reactivity, and bringing yourself back to present moment awareness. It becomes both a mind discipline and a spiritual discipline as you learn to step away from the trance of unconscious thought patterns and perceptions and ground yourself in present moment awareness where you can see things more as they are rather than through the projections of your mind. The conditioned, fearful thoughts and perceptions of the mind, and the associated ego concerns that drive this fear, begin to lose their power to threaten you when you are grounded more in present moment awareness and have more clarity of mind to recognize the deeper truth about yourself and the situation.

[JPars]

I have to agree, I'm listening to Tolle's Power of Now audiobook and it's great. It's helpful immediately for me and has the potential to be very helpful with more practice in the future.

I'd encourage others to try it also, I prefer the audiobook myself.

[JohnH]

I lived in Vancouver, BC, Canada when Eckhart Tolle had just had his first book the power of now published, saw him a number of times in small venue presentations. I didn't get that turned on to him then, I have recently had quite a turn around.

I saw him giving a talk on PBS and either he is better at his presentation(s) or I'm more receptive, which ever I found him extreamely interesting, I have since checked out from my local library a talk series called "The Flowering Of Human Consciousness" which I have watched a number of times..... now what he is presenting is proably not different from other teachers threw the ages, it's just that he is here now and for a portion of people, including me now, his teaching/message makes sense and has relativeness to me now.....

As for him being God, I cringe alittle about that, I would say perhaps more like Bhudda, a person who relized release from the anxieties/drama/fears/desires of the thinking mind....ie the ego.....

I'm quite happy to have connected with his teaching/message now, as I think it is good for me now!!!!

It is neat that there are also people here that are finding his teaching/message valuable...

JohnH
Blessings Be

[Biscuit]

Oh God. I read some of his stuff a while back and found it to be a bit much, even thouh usually i'm at least a bit receptive to that sort of thing. Maybe I've changed. Don't get caught up in the trap of obsessiveness. The whole point of these philosophies is to let things come naturally, to just be who you are. I find it amusing/sad that many people get caught up in these books and follow them way too exactly, which defeats the original (at least stated) purpose of the authors.

[kos]

Originally Posted by hichews

OMG!! I just got on this forum after several weeks of absense due to being busy.

I was just about to post about Tolle and all of his great books when I see: Eckhart Tolle is GOD! I was so happy about this.

For everyone out there, I just started reading his book "A Near Earth" and it talks about how, many of the thoughts going inside your head are not actually from you, but from your ego. And your ego controls you and puts all these negative thoughts into your head. Being aware of this ego can set yourself free.

After reading just the first few sections I have been able to see my social anxiety in a different perspective and I feel it has improved by a lot.

while this entire video is very entertaining from about 6:00 to the end joe rogan (host of fear factor) talks about your ego and basically has some very interesting thoughts on humanity. check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grcqs9cDuN8