Eckhart Tolle

Ever since I read Practicing The Power of Now in 2006 on my South America trip, I have had a great love for Eckhart Tolle and his immense wisdom.  In 2012 I joined Jilly's Tuesday Eckhart Tolle group and for years, watched videos of him teaching. He is directly responsible for my spiritual awakening and evolution.

His books that inspired me

Favourite quotes

Transcending identification with thought and emotion

• The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.
• You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.
• Not all thinking and all emotion are of the ego. They turn into ego only when you identify with them and they take you over completely, that is to say, when they become ‘I.’
• Suffering is believing in the thoughts that the mind throws up. 
• Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don’t take your thoughts so seriously.  
• Be comfortable not needing to define yourself through thought.
• Emotion in itself is not unhappiness. Only emotion plus an unhappy story is unhappiness.

Transcending ego, the false sense of being a separate self

• Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms.
• Whatever form it takes, the unconscious drive behind ego is to strengthen the image of who I think I am. 
• The ego treats the present moment in 3 ways: 1. As a means to an end. 2. As an obstacle. 3. As an enemy. The ego looks to past for identity and the future for fulfilment.
• If you are content with being nobody in particular, content not to stand out, you align yourself with the power of the universe. What looks like weakness to the ego is in fact the only true strength. 
• Your sense of identity, of self, is reduced to a story you keep telling yourself in your head. “Me and my story.” 
• One day I will catch myself smiling at the voice in my head, as I would the antics of a small child.  This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.  
• Without the ego, there would be no enlightenment or awakening.
• What you react to in others, you strengthen in yourself. 

Be the observing Presence and know that as your true essence

• Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom.
• Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind.
• Listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence.
• If thought doesn’t take you over, you become the space in which it comes and goes. 
• The beginning of freedom is the realisation that you are not the “thinker.”
• When you notice that voice, you realise that who you are is not the voice—the thinker—but the one who is aware of it.   
• What a liberation to realise that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.  
• Identification with the mind gives it more energy; observation of the mind withdraws energy from it.
• Pay more attention to your reactions than the cause of the reactions. 
• Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind.  
• Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind the light of your consciousness grows stronger.

Be fully present in the Now

• Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. 
• Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.
• The real meditation is your life and your life is now. 
• To let go of the ego, surrender to the now. Say yes to the form this now takes. \
• You cannot be both unhappy and fully present in the Now.
• In the very moment you recognize you aren’t present, you’ve become present.
• Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment. And what is that? There is a sense of quality in what you do, even the most simple action.
• Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn’t, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle.
• If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will be anchored in the Now. You won’t lose yourself in the external world, and you won’t lose yourself in your mind.
• Sense perception is closer to who you are than thought.

Surrender to the Now by saying "yes" to what is

• Regularly ask yourself “What is my relationship right now with the present moment?”
• Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.  
• Change what can be changed, otherwise surrender to what is.
• Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?
• Since mind and resistance are synonymous, acceptance immediately frees you from mind dominance and thus reconnects you with Being.
• Resisting is obstructing the power of the universe.
• The whole Universe has brought this moment about. Who am I to fight it?
• To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease and lightness. This state is no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad.
• Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon. It does not mean that on the outer level you cannot take action and change the situation.
• The action you take after surrender is always more effective than when you fight against life.
• Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you.
• To complain is always non-acceptance of what is.
• At this moment, you are exactly where you're meant to be. There is nowhere else you can be.

Realise the power of stillness

• Stillness is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation. 
• Stillness is the only thing in this world that has no form but then, it is not really a thing and it is not of this world.   

Access the spiritual power of Presence: Love, Beauty, Wonder, Intelligence, Creativity

• The present moment is always small in the sense that it is always simple, but concealed within it lies the greatest power. Like the atom, it is one of the smallest things yet contains enormous power.
• As you become present and thereby total in what you do, your actions become charged with spiritual power.
• When you are one with what is, the universal intelligence arises to create right action.
• A higher level of consciousness is awakened. I get in touch with the vast realm of intelligence beyond thought.
• All true artists, whether they know it or not, create form a place of no- mind, from inner stillness.
• Beauty arises in the stillness of one’s presence.
• Stop looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfilment, for validation, security, or love – you have a treasure within that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
• Consciousness flows through you into this world. It flows into your thoughts and inspires them. It flows into what you do and guides and empowers it.
• It is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future.

Suffering (resistance to what is) can help us awaken

• Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.
• Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.
• Bring your pain body into the light of presence. Free its energy. Allow the pain to become fuel for consciousness.
• The worst thing in life can become the best thing. The very thing that awakens you.  

Surrender the need to know

• Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.
• When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.

Surrender the need to label, name and categorise

• Can you take the thinking out of the perceiving? Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?
• Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.

Recognise the sacredness in all

• Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.
• Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable. This is because it has unfathomable depth.
• The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.

True non-attachment is not identification with form

• How do you let go of attachment to things? Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.
• Equating the physical sense-perceived body that is destined to grow old, wither, and die with “I” always leads to suffering sooner or later.
• In form, you are and will always be inferior to some, superior to others. In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self- esteem and true humility arise out of that realization.

Rest in the process, in this step

• Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now.
• Doing one thing at a time means to be total in what you do, to give it your complete attention. This is surrendered action—empowered action.
• So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action—just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord.

Through Being, allow consciousness to flow though you into the world

• Formal meditation  is no substitute for bringing space consciousness into everyday life.
• When doing becomes infused with the timeless quality of Being, that is success. Unless Being flows into doing, unless you are present, you lose yourself in whatever you do.
• Opening yourself to the emerging consciousness and bringing its light into this world then becomes the primary purpose of your life. Not your aims or your actions are primary, but the state of consciousness out of which they come.
• Awakened doing is the alignment of your outer purpose—what you do—with your inner purpose—awakening and staying awake. Through awakened doing, you become one with the outgoing purpose of the universe. Consciousness flows through you into this world. It flows into your thoughts and inspires them. It flows into what you do and guides and empowers it.

God is Being; inseparable from what you are

• We are God in deep disguise.
• God is Being itself, not a being. There can be no subject-object relationship here, no duality, no you and God. God- realization is the most natural thing there is.
• What is God? The eternal one life underneath all the forms of life. What is love? To feel the presence of that one life deep within yourself and within all creatures. To be it. Therefore, all love is the love of God.
• We are all manifestations of The One Source. God is the formless essence of all life that you are.
• Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God."
• Enlightenment is simply your natural state of felt oneness with being.
• Consciousness is dreaming you. It likes it. But, it also wants to wake up.

Love is a state of being; a recognition of oneness with everyone and everything

• Love is the realisation we are one. It is meeting another as yourself.
• Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you.

We are here to awaken to our true nature as Being

• Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet—because it is the purpose of humanity.

True happiness lies in the knowing of our own Being

• The joy of Being, which is the only true happiness, cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person, or event –through anything that happens. That joy cannot come to you – ever. It emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself and thus is one with who you are.

Quotes on Wisdom Trove