Eckart Tolle and Adyashanti

[mada85]

Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book "New Earth"

jlynn12345, perhaps you could answer a question about Tolle's work.

Eckhart Tolle defines three conditions which a book should meet if people are to be spiritually awakened by it.

He also claims:

[These three] conditions were met in The Power of Now, which is why the book has had such an impact on the collective consciousness.

He also claims that his teachings, faithfully followed, lead to greater inner peace, joy, love, transcending the mind, radiant being, and so on.

These are Tolle's own claims, given the context of his statements.

Why, then, if 'the book has had such an impact on the collective consciousness', do we not see a world that is a manifestation of greater inner peace, joy, love and radiant being?

 

[Bernhard]

Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book "New Earth"

Hey anart!

I really like your quote by Mme de Salzmann.
Is it from a book/writing by Gurdjieff or herself?
Sorry, don't mean to distract from the topic, just a curious inquiry.

In regards to Tolle, I read "The Power of Now" years ago and it did help me somewhat to become aware of my thought process and constant pre-occupation with future "thoughts" as I used to worry a lot about all kinds of mundane things. However, it really stops there and if people take just that as a "spiritual practice" then it is indeed a sleeping pill that can do more harm than any good. Like with everything "spiritual" these days that is being advertised to the masses via mainstream media outlets like "Oprah", it is lies mixed with truth and should really be questioned and taken with a grain of salt.

 

[anart]

Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book "New Earth"

Hey anart!

I really like your quote by Mme de Salzmann.
Is it from a book/writing by Gurdjieff or herself?
Sorry, don't mean to distract from the topic, just a curious inquiry.

It is entitled 'First Initiation' and was written my Mme Jeanne de Salzmann - here is the full quote:

You will see that in life you receive exactly what you give. Your
life is the mirror of what you are. It is in your image. You are
passive, blind, demanding. You take all, you accept all, without
feeling any obligation. Your attitude toward the world and toward
life is the attitude of one who has the right to make demands and to
take, who has no need to pay or to earn. You believe that all things
are your due, simply because it is you! All your blindness is there!
None of this strikes your attention. And yet this is what keeps one
world separate from another world.

You have no measure with which to measure yourself. You live
exclusively according to "I like" or "I don´t like," you have no
appreciation except for yourself. You recognize nothing above you-
theoretically, logically, perhaps, but actually no. That is why you
are demanding and continue to believe that everything is cheap and
that you have enough in your pocket to buy everything you like. You
recognize nothing above you, either outside yourself or inside. That
is why, I repeat, you have no measure and live passively according to
your likes and dislikes.

Yes, your "appreciation of yourself" blinds you. It is the biggest
obstacle to a new life. You must be able to get over this obstacle,
this threshold, before going further. This test divides men into two
kinds: the "wheat" and the "chaff." No matter how intelligent, how
gifted, how brilliant a man may be, if he does not change his
appreciation of himself, there will be no hope for an inner
development, for a work toward self-knowledge, for a true becoming.
He will remain such as he is all his life. The first requirement, the
first condition, the first test for one who wishes to work on himself
is to change his appreciation of himself. He must not imagine, not
simply believe or think, but see things in himself which he has never
seen before, see them actually. His appreciation will never be able
to change as long as he sees nothing in himself. And in order to see,
he must learn to see; this is the first initiation of man into self-
knowledge.

First of all, he has to know what he must look at. When he knows, he
must make efforts, keep his attention, look constantly with
persistence. Only through maintaining his attention, and not
forgetting to look, one day, perhaps, he will be able to see. If he
sees one time he can see a second time, and if that continues he will
no longer be able not to see. This is the state to be looked for, it
is the aim of our observation; it is from there that the true wish
will be born, the irresistible wish to become: from cold we shall
become warm, vibrant; we shall be touched by our reality.

Today we have nothing but the illusion of what we are. We think too
highly of ourselves. We do not respect ourselves. In order to respect
myself, I have to recognize a part in myself which is above the other
parts, and my attitude toward this part should bear witness to the
respect that I have for it. In this way I shall respect myself. And
my relations with others will be governed by the same respect.

You must understand that all the other measures-talent, education,
culture, genius-are changing measures, measures of detail. The only
exact measure, the only unchanging, objective real measure is the
measure of inner vision. I see-I see myself-by this, you have
measured. With one higher real part, you have measured another lower
part, also real. And this measure, defining by itself the role of
each part, will lead you to respect for yourself.

But you will see that it is not easy. And it is not cheap. You must
pay dearly. For bad payers, lazy people, parasites, no hope. You must
pay, pay a lot, and pay immediately, pay in advance. Pay with
yourself. By sincere, conscientious, disinterested efforts. The more
you are prepared to pay without economizing, without cheating,
without any falsification, the more you will receive. And from that
time on you will become acquainted with your nature. And you will see
all the tricks, all the dishonesties that your nature resorts to in
order to avoid paying hard cash. Because you have to pay with your
ready-made theories, with your rooted convictions, with your
prejudices, your conventions, your "I like" and "I don´t like."
Without bargaining, honestly, without pretending. Trying "sincerely"
to see as you offer your counterfeit money.

Try for a moment to accept the idea that you are not what you believe
yourself to be, that you overestimate yourself, in fact that you lie
to yourself. That you always lie to yourself every moment, all day,
all your life. That this lying rules you to such an extent that you
cannot control it any more. You are the prey of lying. You lie,
everywhere. Your relations with others-lies. The upbringing you give,
the conventions-lies. Your teaching-lies. Your theories, your art
lies. Your social life, your family life-lies. And what you think of
yourself-lies also.

But you never stop yourself in what you are doing or in what you are
saying because you believe in yourself. You must stop inwardly and
observe. Observe without preconceptions, accepting for a time this
idea of lying. And if you observe in this way, paying with yourself,
without self-pity, giving up all your supposed riches for a moment of
reality, perhaps you will suddenly see something you have never
before seen in yourself until this day. You will see that you are
different from what you think you are. You will see that you are two.
One who is not, but takes the place and plays the role of the other.
And one who is, yet so weak, so insubstantial, that he no sooner
appears than he immediately disappears. He cannot endure lies. The
least lie makes him faint away. He does not struggle, he does not
resist, he is defeated in advance. Learn to look until you have seen
the difference between your two natures, until you have seen the
lies, the deception in yourself. When you have seen your two natures,
that day, in yourself, the truth will be born.

In regards to Tolle, I read "The Power of Now" years ago and it did help me somewhat to become aware of my thought process and constant pre-occupation with future "thoughts" as I used to worry a lot about all kinds of mundane things. However, it really stops there and if people take just that as a "spiritual practice" then it is indeed a sleeping pill that can do more harm than any good. Like with everything "spiritual" these days that is being advertised to the masses via mainstream media outlets like "Oprah", it is lies mixed with truth and should really be questioned and taken with a grain of salt.

And that's really the main point - lies mixed with truth - just enough truth to 'resonate' but mixed with so many lies that the crux of the matter is lost in all the 'feel good and change is yours if you just think it is messages' - leading the reader down the garden path to a more comfortable sleep.

 

[domi]

Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book "New Earth"

Anything that increases awareness and leads those at various points on their journey of seeking knowledge is of benefit. period.

There is much anecdotal evidence that certain drugs lead to (temporary) increased awareness and it has led to some people seeking out more knowledge.
Do you really think that is such a good idea?

 

[tendrini]

Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book "New Earth"

A friend of mine recommended this book because she said it helped her over a difficult point in her life. I was impressed with her new insights and bought the book. I read halfway through it and found a lot to like, but then I found myself thinking about the Star Wars movies, especially "Revenge of the Sith".

Eckhart Tolle and his "program" remind me of the Jedi knights - non-attached to ego, self-aware and also aware of their connection with all life and "The Force". His books could be Jedi textbooks.

BUT, despite of all their awareness, the Jedi were completely blind to the incredible evil that was coexisting right under their noses. In the movie, it is hard to believe that these really enlightened and wise beings could be so taken in, so conned, and destroyed so easily. I used to think this was a plot flaw in the series, but now I'm not so sure. Was George Lucas trying to tell us something, to warn us of what happens when we focus on overcoming our own egos while ignoring the predatory egos that are closing in on us?

 

[endgame]

Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book "New Earth"

Oprah likes it, so it must be good. Right?

John Crace
Monday March 10, 2008
The Guardian

Are you Ready for your unconscious To be awakened to the Random use of capital Letters? Oprah thinks You are. And what Oprah thinks, the US invariably does, so more than 500,000 people logged on to her website last week to view the first of 10 online seminars by self-styled Spiritual Teacher Eckhart Tolle.

Tolle's latest book, A New Earth, has been heavily plugged on the chatshow host's website, propelling it straight to the top of the Amazon bestseller list. Around 3.5m copies have been shipped in the four weeks since Oprah selected it, and with another seminar scheduled for tonight, it's unlikely to stop there.

Like any self-respecting guru, Tolle is a bit of a mystery. We know he was born in Germany and went to the universities of London and Cambridge before having a profound inner transformation that changed his life at the age of 29, but after that it's a bit of a blur. Not because he hasn't written any more about himself, but because he has. Tolle writes the kind of new age quasi-mysticism that you would have hoped had died out along with the acid casualties of the 60s and is therefore virtually unreadable.

Take this quote from the opening paragraph in which he explains "The Purpose of This Book". "Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection?"

It doesn't get any clearer as Eckhart rambles on in a similar manner for more than 300 pages, mixing portentous allusions to ideas, such as the Presence and the Pain-Body, with mind-numbingly dull parables. The advantage of writing this sort of stuff is that it can mean everything and nothing. Depending, of course, on your level of Spiritual Enlightenment. And Oprah's is clearly very high.

You can't help feeling, though, that the one person who will really benefit from Oprah's largesse is Tolle, as US booksellers struggle to keep up with demand. Then again, enlightenment in the US has always come at a price.

_http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2263979,00.html

 

[Yossarian]

Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book "New Earth"

I'm changing my position.

I'd better add a disclaimer. I do remember a section in "The New Earth," fairly early on, that made it painfully clear that Tolle has no clue about psychopathy. I was irritated to read that and pointed it out to a friend.
However, I don't think that in itself negates what he has to say.

Upon reflection, I think that Tolle is more harmful than helpful because of his nearly total ignorance of psychopathy and related characteropathies. Dr. Lobaczewski calls it the lack of a psychological worldview (psychological sophistication) I think. I'm becoming convinced that without a clear working knowledge of psychopathy, that one can not hope to break free of the control system. Period. I'm also becoming more convinced that it's SOTT's work in this area and success in getting the word about psychopathy out, that is the chief cause (among many--essentially destroying all the lies that make up this fairy tale, oppressive world that we live in) of the increased attacks they are receiving.

I think it's similar to what's going on with the MTV video question, see: http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=8407 Though the video's are excellent, they are being used, most likely, for negative purposes.

I still think much of Tolle's work is excellent--and still think it may be useful. Nevertheless, I'm coming to the realization that if one is being fed one's knowledge and information by a tainted source, then the control system, by its very nature, will insert false leads and trails that will herd the seeker into a dead end--Tolle's ignorance of psychopathy being one such dead end. One could perhaps find one's way out, but looking at the time frame that we may have available--that may likely not be possible in time to be beneficial. I am convinced that getting the word out about psychopathy is primary--to our "asleep" friends, relatives, and acquaintances that are questioning what's happing, that ask or are seeking objective reality.

 

[Turgon]

Re: Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book \

I read the discussion forum on Tolle and still stand-by the book as a potentially helpful tool as a beginning point to understanding the concept of awareness. Reading the book gave me a lot of insight into becoming aware of my breathing, thoughts, emotions and my external environment at the same time. Whether it is really a book thats being used to keep people asleep remains a question mark to me. It was a beneficial read to me, so I can't really form an opinion based on other peoples judgements of it.

But in all honesty, how often are you going to come across books that are 100% genuine from pure, honest sources? (Wave series not included ) We are living in an STS society, where taking and manipulation are the norm. Even the C's said that factual information is mixed in with false information. That means if we want to gain knowledge we have to learn to decipher through the garbage to get to the facts. That's what Laura and the folks at SOTT are doing. How many times have they been led astray as a lesson to get back, or find the "track."

We can't escape it, but we can choose not to be fooled and blinded by it, turn on our thinking caps and learn to understand ourselves and the information we read better.\

Just to finalize my thoughts, I'm not claiming Eckhart Tolle IS or ISNT anything. But if the best information against him is that Oprah Winfrey is backing him up, he's in the mainstream media too much or he doesnt talk about psychopathy in his book, then I'm not buying the disinformation theory yet.

I'm actually gonna re-read his book now to see if I can see any holes or inconsistencies in what he wrote so I can add more to this discussion.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Re: Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book \

The very fact that Tolle's new book is being promoted by the mainstream media should set the alarm bells ringing. Laura's work has been around for longer than Tolle's, but can you see Oprah Winfrey promoting The Wave or Political Ponerology in her book club? When did the MSM ever promote anything that was not in the controllers' interests, even if it appeared otherwise?

This is not always the case. Many of the books studied in QFG are bestsellers and have been heavily promoted by the MSM: Blink, Lucifer Effect, Shock Doctrine, The Field, etc. You'll always find books that go a certain distance being accepted and promoted. It's only the books that touch on some key issues, and in specific ways, that makes them "off limits". For example, you can talk about psychopathy, you just can't talk about politics and psychopathy. You can talk about crazy physics, but you can't talk about the implications. You can talk about 911, but you can't mention Israel. Etc. But you'll find plenty of good books on important subjects. They just lack the added application that makes them "too hot", so too speak.

In the case of Tolle, "mindfulness meditation" does have some correspondence to "self-observation", although there's as much misunderstanding about it as there is about "self-observation" or "subject-object in oneself" as Dabrowski called it. At the root, they describing the same process, but the terms are vague enough that you get plenty of charlatans who hypnotize themselves and others into thinking they know what they're talking about. And only a limited number of the population is capable of such a thing, so that only adds to the confusion.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Re: Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book \

A note on subject-object in oneself: Dabrowski differentiates it from simple introspection, calling it an ability to "observe one's own drama". In other words, to view oneself as one views another. To put "distance" between the observer and the observed. Ouspensky made the observation that when trying to describe self-observation to a colleague, the colleague was immediately sure he knew what O was talking about. But the colleague could not differentiate between simple introspection and self-observation. Introspection is simply a mental awareness of one's thoughts and actions. One is still "witihin" the heat of the moment, so to say. In self-observation, one "steps outside oneself", one "self-remembers". When one is overcome by an emotional state, thinking becomes narrowed, reality becomes distorted to fit the parameters of the emotion, and intellect is thus subservient to the emotion. This is "forgetting", a term also used by the Buddhists. However, from my reading, their teaching on mindfulness isn't as clearly defined, and thus protected against distortion, as Gurdjieff's or Dabrowski's presentation of the matter.

In Personality Shaping, Dabrowski writes:

Disclosure and observation of oneself passes from such primitive forms as seeing one’s image in a mirror, to an intense and all-embracing examination of oneself, one’s structure, tendencies and aspirations, one’s internal life in general. Taking an interest in one’s own “internal environment” and observing it sometimes becomes a permanent habit of internal self-observation. From this habit there is but a step to intervention in one’s own psychic life -- this is, however, a matter belonging to the problems of another order.

We call this taking of interest by an individual in his own psychic life, and the ability for an ever wider and deeper penetration of it, the dynamism of “subject-object in oneself,” that is, in the psychic structure of one and the same person. The advent of this dynamism means that interest in the internal environment begins to prevail over interest in the external world. This dynamism is a key that permits the individual to open his own psyche for observation by himself. Thanks to this dynamism the subject “objectifies,” as it were, its contents, grasping them almost as external phenomena, which permits a fuller, matter-of-fact, less subjective knowledge and treatment of them. The mechanisms of this dynamism, combined with the progressing development of a personality, become for the person an ever more subtle and ever more universal instrument in self-cognition, in discovering in oneself and becoming aware of the subliminal contents thus far unknown to oneself.

Progressive self-cognizance, realized by means of the “subject-object in oneself” dynamism, permits one to utilize this cognizance in a more purposeful, more effective, and accelerated shaping of personality in oneself and facilitates the work of other developmental dynamisms.

This dynamism should not be identified with the conception of introspection accepted in psychology. Psychological introspection is used by us, in the observation of our own psychological processes, exclusively to determine the form of their course, their correctness, associations, and so on. The significance and the tasks of the “subject-object in the psyche of one and the same individual” dynamisms are considerably further-reaching: with its help the individual knows himself in the sense of knowing the motives and aims of his own actions, his own moral, social, and cultural self. In other words, this dynamism serves the aims that are connected primarily with one's higher development, with the development of one's own personality, and not only those connected with cognition as such, or cognition for purposes of scientific research. The character and the very genesis of this dynamism, therefore, show that there are essential differences between it and the introspective method in psychology...

 

[Beorn]

Re: Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book \

I have listened to the first two chapters on audio CD with a Christian friend and a Buddhist friend .
While listening I was trying to look for inconsistencies or disinfo but couldn't find any. It was only later during discussion that I realized why.
We discussed the topics on ego and self observation and my Buddhist friend and I were basically in agreement, he relying on his Buddhist teaching while I related it to Gurdjieff teaching.

My Christian friend was a bit confused and said he agreed with everything that the two of us had said but disagreed with Tolle.
I realized that everything Tolle said I interpreted based on my understanding of Gurdjieff and without an understanding of Gurdjieff/Mouravieff/Ouspensky to begin with, it would be rather confusing and convoluted. In essence I was fitting what Tolle said into my own world view, like pieces of a puzzle.

For a christian/western audience wanting to be spiritual, wouldn't some basic mindfulness exercises be far more practical? Tolle in my opinion doesn't add anything new to the mix but just throws various teachings together in order to sound enlightened.

 

[Laura]

Re: Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book

I haven't read the book so I can't comment on it specifically, but it does sound like the guy is just claiming that he has invented the wheel.

Here's the problem as I see it.

A couple of weeks ago when Mark Givert (the infrared sauna guy) was here, we had a few discussions about this approach. He critiqued us for being "too negative" and all the usual stuff that goes along with that. I then pointed out to him that we are doing the SAME THING he is doing only on a different scale and in a different venue.

You see, he's all about detoxifying the body, telling people about the things they do and eat that are not healthy, and what to do to clean up their system, eat good food, what qualifies as good food and good detoxing practices, etc. And, of course, in order to do this he has to point out what bad food and bad habits and a toxic environment does to the body.

So I asked him if he thought what he was about would work if he didn't talk about candida, parasites, toxic overload, and so on.

He agreed that, no, what he was trying to communicate to others would NOT work if people didn't know what they needed to deal with, if they didn't know what was harmful and what needed to be avoided or eliminated from the diet and lifestyle. Further, if you don't know what is causing the problem, you have no idea what to do to correct things.

I then pointed out that pathological people in our society are like candida and heavy metals that poison the body. If you are not aware of them and how they act in the "body social," you will have no way of knowing what needs to be done to correct the social ills we are facing.

Blaming all our problems on "ego" or the predator's mind or the false personality is like blaming the sick person for the heavy metals and candidiasis in their bodies instead of pointing out that heavy metals are there because of greedy psychopaths in charge of creating our consumption/consumer society, the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical profession that promote all these problems.

So, indeed, this approach will never, ever work unless and until the causes of the disease are identified and dealt with.

It is no more negative to point out that the body is loaded with toxins and candida than it is to point out that our society is poisoned by the influence of with psychopaths and other pathologicals. When we talk about what is going on all over the world, we are simply highlighting the symptoms in an effort to get people to see that society is, indeed, toxified! And the symptoms are NOT the disease! But unless a person becomes convinced that they have a sickness by fully experiencing the symptoms and having an educated assessment of those symptoms, they will not know that they have to seek the cure!

 

[PepperFritz]

Re: Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book

It is no more negative to point out that the body is loaded with toxins and candida than it is to point out that our society is poisoned by the influence of with psychopaths and other pathologicals. When we talk about what is going on all over the world, we are simply highlighting the symptoms in an effort to get people to see that society is, indeed, toxified! And the symptoms are NOT the disease! But unless a person becomes convinced that they have a sickness by fully experiencing the symptoms and having an educated assessment of those symptoms, they will not know that they have to seek the cure!

Excellent analogy, Laura. Did Mark Givert seem to "get it" once you explained it that way?

 

[Turgon]

Re: Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book \

I just had a thought and would like to add it to the discussion. I still havent re-read it but when Tolle talks about the Ego and how it isn't part of us, that it's a collective dysfunction. Isn't that similar to sort of placing the responsibility of our thoughts to some outside source? And wouldn't this go against the idea of taking personal responsibility for ourselves?

I agree with a lot of his exercises on how to potentially gain awareness but I'm a bit "iffy" on this idea of ridding ourselves of the inner voice (ego).

If you live your life fully in the present moment of awareness, which means just BEing, completely aware of everything going on around you and in you, but rid yourself of the Ego (inner voice), then arent you in a state of neutrality? Meaning that without that inner voice there would be a lack of thought generation because the voice inside your head is kind of like a feedback system?

I know I have plenty of times where I'm thinking or acting a certain way and in my mind I'm like "Wait a minute, do you realize what your thinking/doing?!

So in other words your Ego can be extremely helpful IF your in the right mind state. And I guess that would come down to what Frequency your emitting, which would affect and alter your perceptions and ways of thinking, which can in turn gear your Ego towards a certain direction or thought processes.

Let me know if it makes sense or if I'm talking out of my ass! - umptions.

 

[Laura]

Re: Oprah & Eckhart Tolles book

It is no more negative to point out that the body is loaded with toxins and candida than it is to point out that our society is poisoned by the influence of with psychopaths and other pathologicals. When we talk about what is going on all over the world, we are simply highlighting the symptoms in an effort to get people to see that society is, indeed, toxified! And the symptoms are NOT the disease! But unless a person becomes convinced that they have a sickness by fully experiencing the symptoms and having an educated assessment of those symptoms, they will not know that they have to seek the cure!

Excellent analogy, Laura. Did Mark Givert seem to "get it" once you explained it that way?

Yes, he did. I think it gave him a lot to think about.