I thought I'd make a new thread for eckhart tolle as the long term monogamous relationship material?! post seems to be descending into tolle based discussion and is veering away from the original post.

I like some of the things he says but I think some of the other things is total bollocks. Also I like some picasso paintings but I don't like others are you saying I can't criticise things because you identify with some of it?

I would hate to live in such a totalitarian world (unless it's based on science hey dolphin )

I fucking hate Damien Hurst but if you liked his work i'd still criticise it

What?!! Based on what evidence?

Yes please

Then enlighten me! I've managed to say what I thought he was on about but you keep telling me it's amazing without telling me what 'it' actually is.

What I got from it was that don't focus on past experiences, live in the now but since I didn't get to the end because of his annoying german voice he might have said something else but no one seems to want to actually tell me what these things are just tell me I should think they are brilliant and he is immune from criticism. Maybe I should give the book a go instead of audio but no one has come up with any reason for me to give it another go.

Enter the finned one..

Hmmm, I've not read any Tolle, but this looks like it could be a good thread if we are discussing love and spirituality.

I'm tempted to stay out of this one though, to discuss these topics you need to have a good level of mutual respect and manners as the topics relate to peoples personal beliefs etc.

For some reason I think we've not been living up to these recently.

Its a shame and I feel disappointed with myself today.

i can just hear tolle's little chuckle as he reads through this thread

I don't like this whole "you can't question me because I believe in X"
I could believe in murdering children or that the mystery method is the right way to do things but I can't defend myself by saying you can't question me it's my beliefs.

This is censorship and this forum would be dead if this prevailed. My beliefs oppose yours in some ways but i'm not supposed to express them but you can express yours? Hardly fair.

So excuse me if I believe in free speech and debate, feel free to question me, in fact I support your right to and will defend it but don't tell me I can't.



But then I would be dead or a robot? Or are you trying to say I should react without thinking much like a fly would? I don't see how this can work for a human, expand on this please.

What's the pain body? You just seem to have copied and pasted that.
What I think he's trying to say is don't hold on to past emotional pain which I try not to anyway.

That's the main thing I thought he was trying to say when I said

haha.

Anyways, I'd be interested in hearing your omelette version K. I should probably do the same, but not sure if I can face it!

From what I hear so far (having skimmed his book – for good reason not ploughing through it), some things to be aware of which K will no doubt pick up on:

-the idea of 'being in the moment' is not new. See Taoism or buddhism – thousand year old religions. To adam and others, if you want an introductory book on 'being in the moment', read the Tao of Pooh – this might also help your game too (everyone loves Pooh) Anyways, its not a bad message, so if it helps then good. But I don't think its right patronize people into thinking if they don't 'get' Toole's message they are missing something.

-stating things which are impossible to test. This doesn't make them true.

Hopefully we can get something useful from this. Maybe if K summarizes the reasonable messages to half a side of A4 he should sell it for royalties. Karma. X

I strongly recommend meditation regardless of the text.

Fair enough if you can't be bothered to answer my questions then i'll wait for Kowalski's omelette.

I think I have got to tolles main message and agree with it.

These are all essentially boiled down to don't focus on past experiences, live in the now and I agree with them.

The other bit about

I didn't identify with.

For something so exciting and interesting I thought you might be able to or even want to share what you got from it. I heard this bit and didn't take much from it, you seem to have taken a lot from it, yet you won't or can't explain it.

The thing that gets me is what's this other thing other than the mind?
Does he call it something or describe it in some way? Or is it indescribable?
Is it the sub conscious? To me that's still part of the mind.

This is just me thinking from the top of my head i'm not even too sure myself but...

I think he might be referring to the lateralization of brain function, although the way i'm going to describe it is a simple way of looking at things as these things can be bilateral.

He may be stating that the left brain is the mind, the part that governs the more analytical side that calculates, retrieves facts that sort of thing.

And that you need to get away from that part to the more chilled out non time conscious day dream right side that controls visual distances and subconscious things you don't have to think about.

I've experienced the left right shift from drawing exercises and it's pretty weird, also my perception of time went crazy. It taught me how to shut out the analytical part which sounds a lot like what you are referring to.


I'd be extremely interested in what K has to say on this as it has a lot to do with the ego and the self and he's probably the one who has been exposed to the most material on this.

Well this is my first proper post on this forum and it has to be here because if this topic were a woman she'd be my perfect 10.

I'm half way through The Power of Now and am no expert on Tolle at all but I find it fascinating and I think there's at least some good advice in there. Even though I've read half of his book, I couldn't say I fully understand what I'm reading. I haven't decided how profound or nonsensical it is yet. I say this partly as a disclaimer so it's clear I'm not fanatically defending Tolle and also as an explanation of why I want to discuss his ideas.

It's obvious from all your posts you know a lot about psychology. I can maybe explain Tolle's point of view here.

To address your point first, there is some evidence that people should trust their gut instincts more than they do - and that they should correspondingly think a bit less sometimes. Some research on this can be found here and I think there are quite a few studies showing similar results. Tolle accepts that of course you need to consciously think sometimes but it should be thinking that is focussed in the present moment and on the task at hand, not endlessly pondering different possibilities that might play themselves out in the future. His way of phrasing it will naturally be different to the psychologists' because he's arriving at his conclusions in a different way but the gist of what they're saying sounds quite similar to me.

That said, Tolle is also getting at something else, which is probably more important. You shouldn't identify with, or create an identity for yourself, out of your thoughts. There are many ways you can do this without being aware of it. For example, you might believe in your thoughts too much. Anyone with a limiting belief is arguably identifying with a thought that they are making real in their mind. Alternatively, you might base your self-esteem or your sense of self on something you did/thought/felt in the past. Maybe you're the guy who always got top marks in maths, or the guy who's a virgin at 25. These identities might be based on true stories and they might be positive or negative but Tolle argues it's not a good idea to get too invested in them in any case.

Yes I took it to be a spiritual metaphor to tie together a lot of other ideas that I can't remember now. I didn't find it all that useful when I read it either but maybe it would help me remember all those ideas...

Yeah you're right it's not a new idea, though Tolle himself does point to the ancient religions and says he's just rephrasing the same messages for today.

I will check out your book recommendations and am curious why you advocate meditation. What have your experiences been with it? I'm also reading Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, which seems more about that than the Power of Now is.

And I agree Tolle sometimes seems a bit patronising and full of himself, which strikes me as ironic.

I think Tolle is talking about something he calls awareness. It's a sense of being aware (without thinking about it) of what your mind is thinking, of what your body is feeling and of being present and connected to everything else in the world. He talks about the watcher of your thoughts, who is aware of what your mind is thinking without identifying with the mind and thoughts.

I'd be lying if I said I understood this myself, and it might all be nonsense. However I think it's an idea worth investigating, not least because it echoes what meditators have been saying for millenia. Meditators often try to observe their thoughts without engaging with them. Sometimes they try to focus entirely on bodily sensations, like breathing, which calms and quietens their mind. I guess Tolle is talking about a similar state when he talks about awareness but it's an intangible and hard to understand thing.