Eckhart Tolle Quotes

The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.

It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suffering before they will relinquish resistance and accept - before they will forgive.

The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.

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. This spiritual truth is diametrically opposed to the values of our contemporary culture and the way it conditions people to behave.

Not until you surrender does the spiritual dimension become a living reality in your life. When you do, the energy you emanate and that then runs your life is of a much higher vibrational frequency than the mind energy that still runs the world.

Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by facing what is rather than making up stories about it.

Probably, if you are successful in this world you are stressed, and if you are a failure, you are bored!

Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.

Become conscious of being conscious.

The goal has its importance. But the doing is what is truly fulfilling. Every enthusiastic person has a goal that may be important, but the doing is intensely fulfilling, and it is the essence of enthusiasm.

When your sense of self is no longer tied to thought, is no longer conceptual, there is a depth of feeling, of sensing, of compassion, of loving, that was not there when you were trapped in mental concepts. You are that depth.

Space has no "existence." "To exist" literally means "to stand out." You cannot understand space because it doesn't stand out. Although in itself it has no existence, it enables everything else to exist. Silence has no existence either, nor does the unmanifested.

In the face of death, especially violent death, things don't make sense anymore. So death is the dissolution of either physical form or psychological form. And when a form dissolves, always something shines through that had been obscured by the form. This is the formless One Life, the formless One Consciousness.

The state of presence is the only state in which creative energy is available to you.

When you live as a friend of the now, many changes come into your life.

In whatever way change comes, the important thing is to take responsibility for this moment. Then, life becomes cooperative.

The more suffering you create, the more suffering comes to you.

Even in a moment of stress, you can say, "OK, can I enjoy the doing itself? Can I enjoy the flow of energy of this moment?" And of course you can!

Some people are called upon to do great things externally in this world by creating some new structure that reflects their awakening consciousness. Other people are not called to go out into the world and create great big things externally. Their purpose is to let consciousness flow into whatever they do - to do everything in a sacred manner.

Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be there, or being in the present but wanting to be in the future. It's a split that tears you apart inside.

Just as the sun is infinitely brighter than a candle flame, there is infinitely more intelligence in Being than in your mind

Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.

Any action that arises out of stress is of low quality, and it contributes to human suffering. You are making yourself and others suffer.

Seek out a tree and let it teach you stillness.

Doing is never enough if you neglect Being.

Loss is very painful, because any kind of loss leaves a hole in the fabric of one's existence.

Non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego.

When you say “yes” to the “isness” of life, when you accept this moment as it is, you can feel a sense of spaciousness within you that is deeply peaceful.

Worry means the mind is controlling you. Worry is always pointless. A solution never comes out of worry.

Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life.

What you encounter at your destination once you get there depends on the quality of this one step. Another way of putting it: What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.

Make sure your goals are dynamic, that is to say, point toward an activity that you are engaged in and through which you are connected to other human beings as well as to the whole. See yourself inspiring countless people with your work and enriching their lives. Feel yourself being an opening through which energy flows from the unmanifested Source of all life through you for the benefit of all.

Many people in this world are still so identified with every thought that arises in their head. There is not the slightest space of awareness there.

If your relationship to the present moment is not right - nothing can ever be right in the future - because when the future comes - it's the present moment.

You can be very much aware that when you are stressed, it always is a sign you have lost the present moment. So, you can choose to re-enter the present moment.

The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.

Only when you've truly had enough suffering in your life, are you able to say ' I don't need it anymore'.

An amazing realization is in the present moment there is only what is, but there are no problems. And if your attention remains in the Now, you no longer inhabit a world of problems. Challenges you may still face, but they come to you in the space of Now.

When you recognize this, you also realize that you are now free to give up this futile conflict, this inner state of war.

Enthusiasm is when the universe creates through you. You are involved in a creative act. You are bringing something new into this world. When that energy comes in, you feel an intense aliveness that flows into what you do. That is enthusiasm.

For what you do to others, you do to yourself.

Through forgiveness, which essentially means recognizing the insubstantiality of the past and allowing the present moment to be as it is, the miracle of transformation happens not only within but also without.

The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately... you usually don't use it at all. It uses you.

The most decisive event in your life is when you discover you are not your thoughts or emotions. Instead, you can be present as the awareness behind the thoughts and emotions.

When you want to arrive at your goal more than you want to be doing what you are doing, you become stressed.

People always form images of who others are, and they can be inflated images. People may not realize that the enormous energy and spiritual power that comes through a teacher, especially in a teaching situation, has nothing to do with that person.

There is no separation between being and the manifested world, between the manifested and the unmanifested. But the unmanifested is so much vaster, deeper, and greater than what happens in the manifested.

Life is the dancer and you are the dance.