Hi Emmanuel,
Here is a thread that discusses Tolle in some detail.
Based on biographies available on the internet, Adyashanti aka Steven Gray studied Zen Buddhism with a teacher in California. Zen buddhism comes from Japan. This guy left the tradition and apparently struck out on his own taking up the name "Adyashanti" (primordial peace), a Sanskrit word. He is very popular and on the web, his teachings often get grouped together with Advaita (non-dual) Vedanta, a school of thought coming out of India. Just a note that Advaita and Buddhism hold different irreconciliable views regarding reality - both cannot be true together (from a logical standpoint). New Age circles have adopted some concepts from Advaita Vedanta in their own way and it is a huge crowd-puller as are teachers with Indian/Sanskrit names. Zen people are usually more conservative, disciplined and their ways are hard on the body and mind - consequently they usually do not top the metaphysical charts.
One "interesting" snippet in Adyashanti's biography from _http://www.kktanhp.com/adyashanti.htm
He was born to a great family with two sisters, one older and one younger than he. His parents were good people. His childhood was extraordinarily happy. Although his family was not particularly religious, one of his grandparents was very spiritual, and thus spirituality and religion were often part of the discussion. As a child he did not partake of any of the talks, but he merely listened with fascination. So there was this early attraction to spirituality and religion.
As a child he used to experience some mystical phenomena. A ball of white light used to visit him at the end of his bed. He found it intriguing but not unusual. He would find himself merging with his dresser drawer. Again, he found it pleasurable and intriguing but not unusual.
During his teens, ‘in one of those days’, he would wake up and find that everything that he sensed was one thing. And sometimes it felt like something different was looking through his eyes. This mysterious something was very ancient and eternal. He had to be careful not to look at people too closely, as this power through his eyes would shock the people he was looking at. The other people became afraid and looked away. This phenomenon would last one to three days, during which he felt eternal and timeless. These episodes would occur three to five times a year. He never talked to his parents or teachers about them.
At one time a thought would push a child aside in the playground. It felt like his eyes were that of eternity: it was ancient and yet young and innocent. This was really startling and it lasted for a day. He was about eight or nine years old then. The experiences were foretastes of awakening, glimpses of certain aspects of awakening.
He was a loner and quite different from other children, although he played on the bars and always had a few friends. When he was in grade school, he was diagnosed with dyslexia. He could not concentrate very well, but had a lot of energy. His mother had a great sense of humour. She used to tell him that the whole family was weird, and being weird is wonderful.
This may not be the official version of his biography but if what is written is factual, I would not take the signs in bold above as a "foretaste of awakening".
I did go through some of his writings, which as these types of writings go, mixes in elements of truth with a lot of vagueness.
From _http://www.adyashanti.org/
[quote author=Adyashanti]
Everything Comes Back to Nothing
................
The incarnation is nothing more than a thought. A thousand incarnations are but a thousand thoughts. And this amazing miracle of a mirage we call the world reappears as it was before, but now you know. That’s why you usually have a good laugh, because you realize that all your struggles were made up. You conjured them up out of nothing—with a thought that was linked to another thought, that was then believed, that linked to another thought that was then believed. But never could it have been true, not for a second could it have actually existed. Not ever could you have actually suffered for a reason that was true—only through an imagination, good, bad, indifferent. The intricacies of spiritual philosophy and theologies are just a thought within Emptiness.
And so at times we talk, and I pretend to take your struggles seriously, just as I pretended to take my own seriously. You may pretend to take your own struggles seriously from time to time, and although we pretend, we really shouldn’t forget that we are pretending, that we are making up the content of our experience; we are making up the little dramas of our lives. We are making up whether we need to hold on or surrender or figure it out or pray to God or be purified or have karma cleansed—it’s all a thought. We just collude in this ridiculous charade of an illusion pretending that it’s real, only to reveal that it’s not. There is no karma. There is nothing really to purify. There’s no problem. There is only what you create and believe to be so. And if you like it that way, have at it!
But we cannot continue this absolute farce indefinitely. We cannot continue to pretend this game we play, indefinitely. It’s impossible. Everything comes back to nothing.
And then it’s a bit harder to hold a straight face consistently for the rest of your life.
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