Eckhart Tolle Quotes

The habit patterns of the human mind are very strong and make it seem that the hard way is easy and the easy way is hard.

The present moment holds the key to liberation. But you cannot find the present moment as long as you are your mind.

Whatever you do in your daily life - driving from here to there, trying to reach someone on the phone, doing this or that - you always are going toward somewhere. That's inevitable.

Every human being in the human form has limitations.

Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy.

To end the misery that has afflicted the human condition for thousands of years, you have to start with yourself and take responsibility for you inner state at any given moment. That means now

In the world of form, everything changes and evolves. So, there was a certain evolution of the teaching. Different pointers came in, different stories, different approaches to the truth, which always is the same.

The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form.

Let go of thought, become still and alert, and don't try to understand or explain.

When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you're waiting for the elevator - instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence.

Present-moment awareness creates a gap not only in the stream of mind but also in the past-future continuum. Nothing truly new and creative can come into this world except through that gap, that clear space of infinite possibility.

The place that I love most is the stillness. It's not that the stillness is lost when I talk or when I teach because the words arise out of the stillness. But when people leave me, there is only the stillness left. And I love that so much.

The thing that gives you power also traps you.

A built-in reminder is the simple understanding that whenever any kind of unhappiness arises, you know you've lost the now. That's a built-in alarm clock. The moment you realize you've lost the now, come back to the now.

The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of ego.

Whenever you are engaged in something and there is an outpouring of energy, you are in enthusiasm.

God is not a personality outside of you. What God is, is inextricably part of what you are. God is the dimension of depth within you.

Enthusiasm cannot be a continuous state. It comes in waves.

Complaining is one of the ego's favorite strategies for strengthening itself.

The fullness of life is only accessible in the present moment.

Fear arises through identification with form, whether it be a material possession, a physical body, a social role, a self-image, a thought, or an emotion. It arises through unawareness of the formless inner dimension of consciousness or spirit, which is the essence of who you are. You are trapped in object consciousness, unaware of the dimension of inner space which alone is true freedom.

Negative states of mind, such as anger, resentment, fear, envy, and jealousy, are products of the ego.

The animals certainly like to be close to humans, especially as humans go through the shift in consciousness.

Pick up any history book, and I suggest you begin with studying the 20th century, and you will find that a large part of the history of our species has all the characteristics we would normally associate with a nightmare or an insane hallucination.

The essence of every form is the deathless. Even the essence of a blade of grass is the deathless. And that's why the world of form is sacred.

Let's say you have to catch a plane, and you are packing your suitcase and moving fast. Most people would call that stress. Most people live stressed like that all the time.

The 'soul' is one of the words you can use to talk about your innermost being, the essence of who you are.

When you see around you the human form suffering or dissolving, you have empathy on the human level. You share the suffering because it has to do with the fleetingness of form. But if that is the only level that operates in you, you haven't gone beyond suffering.

Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.

Presence is needed to become aware of the Beauty, the Majesty, the Sacredness of Nature

Some people get attached to their practice. They get good at it, but even becoming a good meditator can become a hindrance.

Once you see what you are doing or have been doing, you also see its futility, and that unconscious pattern then comes to an end by itself. Awareness is the greatest agent for change.

Become an alchemist. Transmute base metal into gold, suffering into consciousness, disaster into enlightenment.

For many people, the first indication of a spiritual awakening is that they suddenly become aware of their thoughts. They become a witness to their thoughts, so to speak. They are not completely identified with their mind anymore and so they begin to sense that there is a depth to them that they had never known before.

The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future — which, of course, can only be experienced as the Now

You can't wait for the end of your problems for you to be present. It has to be done whereever you are - which is now

So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a 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.

The next step in human evolution is not inevitable, but for the first time in the history of the planet, it can be a conscious choice. Who is making that choice? You are. And who are you? Consciousness that has become conscious of itself.

The future is usually imagined as either better or worse than the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory.

Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom.

Until presence becomes your predominant state, you may find yourself moving back and forth for a while between the old consciousness and the new, between mind identification and presence.

The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare.

We could say that the totality, life wants the sapling to become a tree, but the sapling doesn't see itself as separate from life and so wants nothing for itself. It is one with what life wants. That's why it isn't worried or stressed. And, if it has to die prematurely, it dies with ease.

The philosopher Descartes believed he had found the most fundamental truth when he made his famous statement: "I think, therefore I am." He had, in fact, given expression to the most basic error: to equate thinking with Being and identity with thinking. The compulsive thinker, which means almost everyone, lives in a state of apparent separateness, in an insanely complex world of continuous problems and conflict, a world that reflects the ever-increasing fragmentation of the mind.

If I accept the fact that my relationships are here to make me conscious, instead of happy, then my relationships become a wonderful self mastery tool that keeps realigning me with my higher purpose for living.

Music bypasses the conceptual mind. Music does not give you food for thought.

A simple but radical spiritual practice is to accept whatever arises in the Now, within and without.

I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don't know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.