If you still haven’t heard about Eckhart Tolle, now is the time. No pun intended there. Eckhart Tolle is one of the world’s most recognized spiritual teachers. His book The Power of Now, published in 1997, remains an essential spiritual guide for everyone in modern society.
I was first introduced to the book by a friend, and, having only read a couple of pages, I left it and did not look back. Until 2020. When the COVID pandemic started, my life - as the collective - started to change, and I went back to it. This time, the book seemed to speak to me in ways for which I might not have been ready the first time around.
In the book's introduction, Tolle writes,
‘I trust that this book will find its way to those who are ready for such radical inner transformation and so act as a catalyst for it. I also hope that it will reach many others who will find its content worthy of consideration, although they may not be ready to fully live or practice it. It is possible that at a later time, the seed that was sown when reading this book will merge with the seed of enlightenment that each human being carries within, and suddenly that seed will sprout and come alive within them’.
A strange statement at first glance, perhaps, but when looked at closely, very true. We change. The world goes on, leaving its marks on us, and altering our states. But, once we become aware of this continual change, we can open ourselves up to new experiences.
What’s real, what matters, cannot be lost - even though we are set to lose, constantly.
It’s the paradox of nature.
It’s our paradox.
To live a finite, minuscular life, in an infinite, grand universe.
To be aware of life while being already sentenced to death.
If we lived life from this perspective, would we live differently?
Would we allow ourselves to be beat down into submission by stress, shackled to society’s expectations and other people’s perceptions of us?
Constant Anxiety: A Powerful Tool for Inner Transformation
The Wonderful Story of Becoming Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart Tolle was born on February 16, 1948 in Lünen, Germany, as Ulrich Leonard Tölle.
In 1961, he moved to Spain to live with his father, and until he was 22 years old, refused all forms of formal education. He preferred to explore his interests on his own, and was later deeply influenced by the five spiritual books of the German mystic Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken.
When he was 19, Tolle moved to England and started to teach German and Spanish at a London language school.
He lived in a constant state of anxiety, depression, and obsessive suicidal thoughts until he was 29 years old. One time, he says, he woke up in the middle of the night, and was so consumed by fear and anxiety, that he realized he couldn’t live with himself anymore.
'I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this a question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void! I didn’t know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or “beingness,” just observing and watching.'
The next day, Eckhart wandered around London, sitting on park benches, listening to the sounds and observing the world go by. He felt at peace. Nothing seemed to bother him. Not the noise, nor the traffic. He spent the next two years staying with friends, at monasteries, or sleeping in the street, in a state of “deep bliss”.
Tolle changed his name to Eckhart, because, according to him, he saw a dream in which a book was sitting on a table with the name ‘Eckhart’ on it, and he knew that he had written it.
Our dreams are powerful pointers - the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung acknowledged their importance years ago and focused much of his work and self-exploration on dream symbolism. And it transformed his life, as well.
After Tolle's inner transformation, he started to work as a counselor and a spiritual teacher, and, for the next five years, students continued to go to him for guidance. He moved to Glastonbury, and a few years later, in 1995, to Vancouver, Canada.
Tolle's talks were attended by only a handful of people in the beginning. But, he kept doing them, because, he says, there was wisdom that needed to be shared with a world in which, constant stress and anxiety were being accepted as normal.
Mental Health: Societal Issues of the Modern Human Being
The number of people affected by mental health issues, stress, anxiety and depression has been increasing in the past few years. According to WHO,
“Mental health conditions are increasing worldwide. Mainly because of demographic changes, there has been a 13% rise in mental health conditions and substance use disorders in the last decade (to 2017). Mental health conditions now cause 1 in 5 years lived with disability. Around 20% of the world’s children and adolescents have a mental health condition, with suicide the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. Approximately one in five people in post-conflict settings have a mental health condition. Mental health conditions can have a substantial effect on all areas of life, such as school or work performance, relationships with family and friends and ability to participate in the community. Two of the most common mental health conditions, depression and anxiety, cost the global economy US$ 1 trillion each year. Despite these figures, the global median of government health expenditure that goes to mental health is less than 2%.”
We live in a world rushing unforgivingly towards something external. With the rise and expansion of social media, we have become, it seems, so detached from ourselves and the things that truly matter, that we have no interest in developing a better relationship with our inner self. Today, tremendous efforts are put into showing other people that one’s life is nothing short of perfect - that they are the smartest, most capable individual around, that they have been on vacation, that they are in an awesome relationship, or have gotten a new car, for instance. That they are happy. And, if they truly are, then, great.Yet, I can’t help but wonder, does the truly smart, happy, capable and fulfilled person have this constant need to show off their good fortune to others, often complete strangers? Or, is the internal, repressed unfulfillment that cannot be silenced by looking outward, the reason they yearn for this illusory outside validation?
Writing in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle says:
“In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same”,
and, at another time,
“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.”
However, both the educational system and often, the one in the family, still teach children that the most important values are to be gained outside of themselves. Whether it be material wealth (which, of course can be great) or social status, it’s as if everyone is compulsively in competition with other people, trying to best them. And, given the fact that we rarely consider putting in the time and work to get to know ourselves, we have come to the point where we are now facing an age of “lost souls”- human beings who've seemingly done everything by the book, and are still deeply unfulfilled and dangerously unhappy.
Which, of course, causes them to live in a state of perpetual stress.
Stress and Burnout: What Are Studies Showing Us Now
Studies now show that long, unmanaged stress is linked to serious:
Tolle writes,
“Stress is a form of suffering, but it is accepted as normal. And it is normal in our world”,
and,
“Look at your body and see what stress does to the body and its functions - what it does to the heart, the circulation, the immune system, the digestive function, the liver.”
Yet, instead of recognizing and learning how to manage the different types of stresses that we are inevitably subjected to, we keep on tightening the grip around things we have been taught to think add to our value, security, and piece of mind - achieving more goals, climbing imaginary “ladders”, becoming “successful” before other people do, making only the “right” choices, getting married before thirty, having kids because your friends are having them, or, because your parents want you to have them.
While these things can be beautiful experiences, everyone’s path and life experience is different. The vast majority, however, tend to forget this. Of course, adding to this confusion, is the fact that we are almost completely uneducated about dealing with the consequences of painfully trying to obtain all of this. No school teaches children how to deal with the stress of education, tests, public speaking, or social anxiety. Rarely do work organizations really care about the burnout their employees experience - as long as profits are high and sales are great. Yes, companies might seem to go out of their way to pay their employees the “big bucks”, give them a car, a laptop, a phone, a bonus - but how high is the price of the things they take from them, really? Today’s culture seems to have evolved into a culture of “taking” - time, energy, health, peace of mind. Humanity has come to a point where it’s constantly being distracted by things and gadgets, while the health and quality of the fundamental internal states, and then, without a doubt, its physical reality, suffer.
The World Health Organization has now classified burnout as a medical condition, defining it as follows:
“Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:
feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and
reduced professional efficacy.”
According to Forbes,
“Poor mental health is skyrocketing as 70% of the C-suite with the weight of the world—or at least the company—on their shoulders considered quitting to search for a job that responded to their mental health and well-being. A recent survey from Slack found that burnout is on the rise globally, most significantly in the U.S., where 43% of middle managers reported burnout—more than any other worker group”,
and,
“Many people treat burnout as stress and try to push through it, but stress and burnout are not the same. The fatigue that comes with burnout is different from the stress you might have after a long day or week’s work. The fatigue can be so severe that it’s crippling. And although there’s controversy over the incidences of burnout, it’s real.”
How did we, evolutionary inclined, wise beings, come to this?
The answer is, perhaps, in the process of basic human development, or rather, the lack of it. Instead of consciously focusing on skill development unique to the individual, while educating them how to kindly take care of their physical, mental, and emotional health, we follow a general pattern of behavior that is proving to be destructive.
Instead of pausing and resting, giving our undivided attention to the present moment, and noticing the thought patterns, people, and situations that, perhaps, are not in our best interest, we blindly run toward something unattainable.
And, instead of creating space and open communication about these mental health issues, we shy away from conversation. People are still ashamed to admit that they are dealing with anxiety, depression, or panic attacks, thinking - and rightfully so - that they will be judged or seen as unfit.
My heart breaks every time I think about all those we’ve lost to suicide, because they couldn’t bare the burden of life anymore. Because we still don’t know how to talk about how hard life can get, sometimes. Because we feel that we can’t share the heaviness of our tormented hearts with others, and see ourselves as unworthy of being here. Because we save compassion for others, and give not a crumb to ourselves - to the children we used to be, and to the adults we had to become.
The question is, do we need to suffer as much as we do, or, can we still learn to consciously help ourselves?
Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now: Consciously Living in the Present
We’re interesting creatures. The power of the human mind is limitless, and we are at the mercy of its work. In fact, it is as if the mind is using us. It happens because we have become unaware of the constant stream of thought that takes place inside of us. And when the mind is left unobserved, the mind takes over. This constant stream of thought is like a river that never stops flowing. It grows, both in size and in speed. If the river consists of continual tidal bores - thoughts about past events, mistakes one has made, regrets about missed opportunities, future problems, anticipation of tomorrow’s despairs - the river bed gets deeper, darker, and sucked into its own self.
This is not hard to observe.
Bringing Awareness to the Unobserved Mind
Remember a time when you’ve felt stressed, fearful or anxious. The cause of these states, usually, is some memory of the past, or, an anticipated event in the future. The mind creates the thought, and, as a response to the thought, the emotions of fear and anxiety are created. The body, then, reacts to these emotions by, for example, creating an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, shortness of breath, panic attacks, and/or headaches. You fall into fight-or-flight mode.
And, once you are in a state in which you feel unsafe, and are not aware that it was mentally created in the first place, you keep thinking the same thing over, and over, and over again - caught in the illusion that thinking about it might mean that you have some control over it. The reality, though, is that the mind feeds on the same thought and emotion, and you fall deeper into fear and unconsciousness.
And, though fear is a primal emotion programmed in our biology and pivotal to our evolution, it can disrupt our whole life when extreme and unmanaged.
Tolle says,
“The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much.”
If you’ve ever seen Tolle speak, you’d have noticed that he always starts his teachings, meditations, and public talks with a moment of silence. Not always because he aims to make a point - though the moment always does so, regardless of his intention - but because, he says, he doesn’t know what to say. And, since he is not thinking about what to say, he only stays open to the information that will, eventually, come to him with the purpose of being said.
Which leads me to question the ways in which we - human beings- relate to the complexity of the mind.
Do we function as a symbiosis, the human being and the mind, with the purpose of getting the most out of human experience?
Or, is there a tacitly established hierarchy, where human beings merely get an illusory sense of being in control, when in fact, they are conducted by the mind?
And, if this is the case, how do we rise above it?
Tolle On the Beautiful Practice of Stillness and Observation
The first step on this journey of separating oneself from the mind, Tolle says, is not a matter of doing - one is not required to do anything - rather, being. And, the easiest way to step into being, is by observing.
When the mind creates a thought, one only needs to become aware of it. When one becomes aware of the thought, one can disidentify with it. At the core of this disidentification, then, is the realization that one is not the thought, but the awareness that observes the thought.
“Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions. When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. All artists, whether they know it or not create from a place of inner stillness, a place of no mind” ,
writes Eckhart.
Thoughts come and go, like clouds in the sky. And, the interesting thing is that not every thought that appears in the mind is true. Just like, not every cloud that appears in the sky inevitably means rain. The mind works with the information it has accumulated over time.
“The mind is a record of the past”,
says researcher of epigenetics, quantum physics & neuroscience, doctor Joe Dispenza. Yet, we not only believe every thought we get, our actions are led by the energy carried by them. Translating those thoughts into emotions, and then, into physical sensations, we make them true, even if they were not. Our experience, then, is a reflection of those thoughts, and if those thoughts were negative, their manifestation into physical reality will also be negative.
Now, the question arising is - since the human condition is such that we cannot not think, is there a way to pause and rest both the mind and the body? For, even if one decides to lay down and rest, if the mind is still constantly overcome by thought, one will still feel exhausted, and, in some cases, one might even feel worse. People don’t like to be left alone with their thoughts - that’s why they do things to distract themselves. And, since the mind likes to be busy, we never really allow ourselves to truly rest.
Years ago, the amazing Alan Watts had said:
“A person who thinks all the time, has nothing to think about except thoughts”,
implying, perhaps, that constant thinking does not necessarily mean a fruitful, rich experience for the individual.
On the contrary. It means the person is functioning on auto-pilot, deeply unconscious of the present moment and what is happening around, or, inside of them.
The Way of Meditation: Noticing the Gaps in the Whole
This is where the practice of stillness and meditation comes in. Meditation can take on many forms, but the essence of it is always the same - paying attention by being still.
Stillness is a state ever-present - accessible at any moment, alive in every thread of creation. In an essay titled Stillness, poet, essayist, translator and scholar, Anne Carson, says,
“Emptying a canvas of marks or a musical score of notes makes a stillness where the rest of the world can enter”.
Astoundingly poetically put, and, open, perhaps, to be observed from another perspective: the mind seen as a canvas or a musical score, the marks or notes as thoughts, and the practice of meditation as the emptying, and therefore, the “making of stillness where the world can enter”.
It can also be said that meditation is based on mindfulness, though Eckhart Tolle rarely uses this word, because, he says, it is constructed by two parts, “mind” and “fullness”, which suggests a mind that is full.
The Buddha, however, used the word “nothingness”, meaning no thingness, inferring a state of consciousness or awareness that is present in all of the universe, yet, is constructed of no thing.
Tolle teaches, and very simply so, that practicing meditation and entering the state of stillness can be done at every moment - while washing dishes, sitting in traffic or waiting in line, brushing one’s teeth, or looking at the sky.
A very simple and beautiful thing one can do is observing the gaps - between words when one is talking, between sounds, between notes on the piano. Between thoughts, or raindrops.
“As you go more deeply into this realm of no-mind, as it is sometimes called in the East, you realize the state of pure consciousness. In that state, you feel your own presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your physical body, as well as the whole external world become relatively insignificant in comparison to it. And yet this is not a selfish but a selfless state. It takes you beyond what you previously thought of as "your self." That presence is essentially you and at the same time inconceivably greater than you”,
says Tolle, and
“One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.”
At every moment we are offered the chance to step back from the stream of thought, and into focused, undivided attention of our internal states and our external world.
Listen to an excerpt from Eckhart Tolle's teachings on stillness here:
Daily Engagement In Yoga And Other Physical Energy Flows
Interestingly enough, physical exercise, and yoga especially, is one form of a meditation practice that serves not only the body, but the mind and spirit, as well.
Our involvement in the shapes, asanas, and breathwork, forces the mind to focus on the flow of movement, thus, becoming still.
By doing so, the mind takes on the role of, not the ruler of the human experience, but the servant - it can be used to serve whenever it is needed, and not the other way around.
The word ‘yoga’ comes from the Sanskrit root “yuj”, meaning union and emphasising the unbreakable connection between the mind and the body. Regular yoga practice not only helps one build strength, flexibility and muscle, but also cultivate the qualities of self-awareness, love and compassion, thus, promoting overall well-being. While modern societies still mostly associate yoga with physical postures (asana), the practice of yoga also includes meditation, conscious breathing and breath techniques, lifestyle adjustments, and more.
Research shows that daily yoga practice is effective in addressing mental health issues such as stress, anxiety and depression. It helps the shift from the stress-inducing sympathetic nervous system to the calming parasympathetic system, reducing cortisol levels and promoting relaxation. Studies have found that yoga is also very effective for cardiovascular performance, autonomic balance, respiratory performance, sleep quality, pain management, and even cancer care.
The important thing to become aware of is that, in a society which has evolved to accept the lowered quality of life and increased mental health issues as normal, we have to start taking better care of ourselves. This does not only include regular physical exercise, but also daily practice of stillness and breathwork. Do not be afraid to be alone and in silence, only accompanied by the sound of your breath. Once the preliminary moments of uncomfortableness pass, and they inevitably will, only rewards will come out of the experience.
Learn more about daily yoga practice and free yoga classes here:
Eckhart Tolle’s Essential Books on Sale Now
"To make the journey into the Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. From the very first page of this extraordinary book, we move rapidly into a significantly higher altitude where we breathe a lighter air. We become connected to the indestructible essence of our Being."
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2. Stillness Speaks (hardback)
"In Stillness Speaks, we receive the essence of Eckhart’s teachings in short, simple pieces that anyone can easily understand. The book is organized into ten chapters whose subjects range from “Beyond the Thinking Mind” to “Suffering and the End of Suffering.” Each chapter is a mosaic of individual entries, concise and complete in themselves, but profoundly transformative when read as a whole."
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3. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (paperback)
"Building on the astonishing success of The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle presents readers with an honest look at the current state of humanity: He implores us to see and accept that this state, which is based on an erroneous identification with the egoic mind, is one of dangerous insanity."
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Find Eckhart Tolle's free teachings on his YouTube Channel:
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