Tag: eckhart tolle

Eckhart Tolle on the self in the age of the selfie

eckhart-arianna
Arianna Huffington: How much harder is it to find the authentic self in the age of the selfie?
Eckhart Tolle: There’s always been, of course, people construct for themselves a self image and then live through that self image, which consists of stories that you tell yourself about who you are, which starts with your parents, what your parents tell you who you are, and you adopt those stories and what society tells you, or you counteract what society says and you develop your own stories. So gradually a self image develops in people’s minds. So there’s a loss of authenticity. So they live through a self image instead of being themselves. And Facebook can actually magnify that particular dysfunction. Because in Facebook you actually construct for yourself an image. And most of the people have — it’s a fiction that they create for Facebook. And everybody thinks that the fiction they see on Facebook of other people, “That’s their real lives and I’m the only one that’s the unhappy one.” “Look at where he is, he’s having this wonderful meal,” so you get a picture of the plate. “I’m in this and that restaurant.” “Wow.” And then you get the comments: “Cool!” “It’s great!” And then, “I just bought this thing,” and then “Wow,” you get the comments. And then you think, “Oh, I haven’t bought anything in two weeks.” But what you don’t realize is these people unconsciously create a fictional image, which people have always done, but here it gets even magnified because there you have the Facebook page and everybody creates the fictional image. So, it’s very seductive and can be — I’m not saying don’t use Facebook. Do you use Facebook? [laughs]

Eckhart Tolle: breathe to feel at ease

Eckhart Tolle

Here is a simple but very useful lesson from Eckhart Tolle about thinking, breathing and awareness.

Thinking is no more than a tiny aspect of the totality of consciousness, the totality of who you are.

Time is seen as the endless succession of moments, some “good”, some “bad”….

Yet, if you look more closely, that is to say, through your own immediate experience, you find that there are not many moments at all.

Most egos have conflicting wants. They want different things at different times or may not even know what they want…

…except that they don’t want what is: the present moment.

Be aware of your breathing. Notice how this takes attention away from your thinking and creates space.

Eckhart Tolle in conversation…

Eckhart Tolle’s meditative talks about “the eternal now” are wonderful and inspiring, but his conversations with other people can sometimes be more accessible and give yet another perspective. In these seven videos, Eckhart Tolle talks with Marianne Williamson, Neale Donald Walsch, Ram Dass, Bradley Horowitz, the Dalai Lama (with others), Ken Robinson and Oprah Winfrey. Really good stuff.

Eckhart Tolle and Marianne Williamson
(no longer on youtube)

Eckhart Tolle and Neale Donald Walsch
(no longer on youtube)

Eckhart Tolle and Ram Dass
(no longer on youtube)

Eckhart Tolle and Bradley Horowitz:
Talks at Google

Eckhart Tolle and The Dalai Lama
(no longer on youtube)

Eckhart Tolle and Ken Robinson
(no longer on youtube)

Oprah Winfrey’s Soul Series with Eckhart Tolle (3 parts)



Eckhart Tolle: thoughts create the ego

In this video, Eckhart Tolle is asked, “Is the ego the source of our thoughts or are our thoughts generated elsewhere and pass through the ego?”

He begins by saying, “There is no ego apart from thoughts. The identification with thoughts is ego. But the thoughts that go through your mind, of course, are linked to the collective mind of the culture you live in, humanity as a whole, so they are not your thoughts as such, but you pick most of them up from the collective (most of them). And so, you identify with thinking and the identification with thinking becomes ego, which means simply that you believe in every thought that arises and you derive your sense of who you are from what your mind is telling you who you are. Opinions, viewpoints, ‘that’s me.'”

Watch the rest here…

Eckhart Tolle says Escape the Prison of Your Mind

In this excerpt from Eckhart Tolle’s Findhorn Retreat DVD, he speaks about the eternal dimension of silence within us all and suggests that we “do not identify with the movement of thought.” As Jiddu Krishnamurti said, “The mind has to be empty to see clearly.” Eckhart also explains that “the depth of Now is inseparable from your very being, your very life.” Indeed!

2 Views of Enlightenment

In these two videos, Eckhart Tolle (author of The Power of Now and A New Earth) and Himalayan yogi master Yogiraj Gurunath Siddhanath (author of Wings to Freedom) share their thoughts on “enlightenment” and the following question: Should you not make an effort to achieve enlightenment because making the effort in itself engages desire – or – should you desire enlightenment as intensely as a drowning man wants air, as a man with his head on fire?

Eckhart Tolle believes that you should make no effort at all to achieve enlightenment. However, Yogiraj believes that you should first desire enlightenment like a man with his head on fire, then afterwards you can reach the state of no effort and peace. What do you think?