Occasionally people would come to me. I was sitting with a woman one day and she was telling me her story and I was in a state of listening, a state of bliss as I was listening to the drama of her story, and suddenly she stopped talking and said, "Oh, you are doing healing."
Eckhart TolleYou are not what happens in your life. You are the space in which it happens, which is consciousness itself.
Eckhart TolleWhatever happens, whatever you experience, feel, think, do - it's always now. It's all there is. And if you continuously miss the now - resist it, dislike it, try to get away from it, reduce it to a means to an end, then you miss the essence of your life, and you are stuck in a dream world of images, concepts, labels, interpretations, judgments - the conditioned content of your mind that you take to be yourself.
Eckhart TolleSignificant things often happen when you are present. Things come to you, and then you respond to what is required. The response very often comes without a premeditated idea of what you want. It is simply a response to the situation.
Eckhart TolleIf uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.
Eckhart TolleConsciousness is evolving throughout the universe in billions of forms. So even if we didn't make it, this wouldn't matter on cosmic scale. No gain in consciousness is ever lost, so it would simply express itself through some other form. But the very fact that I am speaking here and you are listening or reading this is a clear sign that the new consciousness is gaining a foothold on the planet.
Eckhart TolleThe Now is as it is because it cannot be otherwise. What Buddhists have always known, physicists now confirm: there are no isolated things or events. Underneath the surface appearance, all things are interconnected, are part of the totality of the cosmos that has brought about the form that this moment takes.
Eckhart TolleIs there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.
Eckhart TolleThe characters get challenged. Through getting challenged, the character arrives at insights or discovers potentials that he or she didn't know they had.
Eckhart TollePeace can be threatening because peace is the absence of problems and conflict. There is something, perhaps in the personal you, that does not want freedom or peace, or the absence of problems. There's something that wants the opposite.
Eckhart TolleSuppression of the feminine principal has enabled The Ego to gain absolute supremacy in the collective human psyche
Eckhart TolleHumanity as a whole has already gone through unimaginable suffering, mostly self-inflicted, the culmination of which was the 20th century with its unspeakable horrors. This collective suffering has brought upon a readiness in many human beings for the evolutionary leap that is spiritual awakening.
Eckhart TolleWhenever you meet anybody, it is a holy encounter. The primary event is the energy field of presence between you and the other human being that arises. You enjoy it. There is deep joy in the meeting.
Eckhart TolleThe modalities of awakened doing are acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm. Each one represents a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness. You need to be vigilant to make sure that one of them operates whenever you are engaged in doing anything at all – from the most simple task to the most complex.
Eckhart TolleWhen the movie comes to an end, you are not totally the same person you are when you started the movie.
Eckhart TolleAll the things that truly matter, beauty, love, creativity, joy and inner peace arise from beyond the mind.
Eckhart TolleDeath is the moment of form dissolving. When that dissolving is not resisted, an opening appears into the dimension of the sacred, into the One formless, unmanifested Life. This is why death is such an incredible opportunity. There is no transformation of human consciousness without the dissolving that death brings.
Eckhart TolleI believe that Jesus realized his oneness with God and he showed, what he attempted to do was show the way to all of us, how to realize our own onenes with God also, so he's a precursor.
Eckhart TolleIt is quite possible even that the planet would no longer be able to sustain human life. Probably, the planet eventually would regenerate and produce some other life form. Consciousness would flow into some other life form and express itself through that, whatever that would be.
Eckhart TolleYou can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection - you cannot cope with the future.
Eckhart TolleEspecially for those of us living in the Western culture, death to a large extent is still a taboo subject. It's considered something dreadful that shouldn't be happening. It's usually denied. The fact of death is not faced. What we don't realize in Western culture is that death has a redemptive dimension.
Eckhart TolleThe ego wants to want more than it wants to have. And so the shallow satisfaction of having is always replaced by more wanting.
Eckhart TolleEvolution usually occurs in response to a crisis situation, and we now are faced with such a crisis situation. This is why there is indeed an enormous acceleration in the awakening process of our species.
Eckhart TolleWhen one child says to another, "I can do this, I bet you can't"; "My dad has a bigger car than yours"; or, "My dad is stronger than yours." Children identify with this or that, trying to build up a sense of self - a mentally defined sense of self.
Eckhart TolleConsciousness is not personal. Human consciousness is just an expression of universal consciousness, which pervades the entire universe.
Eckhart TolleTo have your attention in the Now is not a denial of what is needed in your life. It is recognition of what is primary.
Eckhart TolleThe 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.
Eckhart TolleMost people are so distracted by their thoughts, so identified with the voices in their heads, they no longer feel the aliveness within them. To be unable to feel the life that animates the physical body, the very life that you are, is the greatest deprivation that can happen to you.
Eckhart TolleChallenges are something that can only be tackled in the present moment and require action.
Eckhart TolleLook at all the conflict between tribes, nations, and religions. They need their enemies, because they provide the sense of separateness on which their collective egoic identity depends.
Eckhart TolleIt is precisely through the onset of old age, through loss or personal tragedy, that the spiritual dimension would traditionally come into people's lives. This is to say, their inner purpose would emerge only as their outer purpose collapsed and the shell of the ego would begin to crack open. The emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: being? What do you do with it?
Eckhart TolleSome people say it is hard to live in such a way, being completely one with the present moment. Of course, it is not hard. The opposite is hard. Not being one with life is hard, and that is how most people live.
Eckhart TolleDon't get stuck on the level of words. A word is no more than a means to an end. It's an abstraction. Not unlike a signpost, it points beyond itself
Eckhart TolleNations consist of individuals. It is for every individual to bring in a different quality - the quality of awakened consciousness - into their lives.
Eckhart TolleWhen faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn't work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form -- or a species -- will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap.
Eckhart TolleFor years my life alternated between depression and acute anxiety. One night I woke up in a state of dread and intense fear, more intense than I had ever experienced before. Life seemed meaningless, barren, hostile. It became so unbearable that suddenly the thought came into my mind, I cannot live with myself any longer.
Eckhart TolleThere is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. That realization is true forgiveness. With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges--the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.
Eckhart Tolle