Eckhart Tolle: the joy of living in the Here and Now

www.mysticism.nl

The message of Eckhart Tolle is the message of mysticism, but it is modernized and presented as therapy. In history mysticism was in most cases confined to a religious setting and was practiced by monks or devout laymen in a religious community. But in our modern day world the message of mysticism has become a personal one. It has found its way to almost every segment of society, from households to Eckhart Tolle

schools to corporate organizations. Tolle's book 'the Power of Now; a Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment' has found a wide acclaim with different kinds of spiritual seekers, not only with the religious, but also with atheists and agnostics, because his message is a universal one, speaking of universal happiness.

So we see mysticism evolving and changing with the coming of new cultural and social developments. The modern day mystic has laid aside his monk's habit. He dresses and talks like everybody else. He now operates from within our mental health centers and tries to bring some relief to the oppressed individual in our modern day society. From the days of Assagioli and his Psychosynthesis mysticism has now been incorporated into psychological treatment. She now can offer us 'mental health' instead of 'redemption', which amounts to the same, provided we carefully define what mental health actually consists of.

But there lurks a danger also, in this modern shift from religion to therapy, in that mysticism can also be used as only one out of many (New Age or other) treatments in boosting up our self esteem and our level of 'feeling good'. It has nowadays become fashionable to devote some 'quality time' to our self, but like any fashion this devotion tends to remain very superficial. It can be a trick once more of our ego to let our selves and the world know that we've got a spiritual side also that makes us look good. But this is all in the service of the self and not in the service of the Self with a capital.

Eckhart Tolle is clear about this. For us to become happy, we can't be partial. We cannot devote partial time to the Here and Now and at other moments fall back into our old ways. We have to remain always, every moment of the day, in connexion with our source of Being. It will be difficult at first, but with practice comes expertise. So we have to practice constantly with perseverance.

Happiness lies beyond our thoughts and our mind

Most people are ill at ease and restless because they are all the time bewildered by the constant inflow of thoughts in their mind. They can't stop thinking. There is no inner peace and calm. They give the impression of being haunted by something. Their emotions give rise to new thoughts and their thoughts give rise to new emotions. So they are fettered to this vicious chain of cause and effect. This is what makes them so unhappy, because they seem not to be able to let loose of their thoughts and enjoy the happiness of the Here and Now. All the time their thoughts take them adrift.

For the mind creates the past and the future. If we would have no thoughts we would be forever living in the happiness of an Eternal Now. But instead, our thoughts force us to be mesmerized by our past, both with guilt and with feelings of nostalgia, and also by the future, the outcome of which is always too uncertain and too fickle to make it worth a second thought, one would say; but nevertheless people go on thinking and worrying, which are in most cases synonymous, about the future.

Out of fear for the Void behind our thoughts we keep clinging to the content of our mind. We can not let Eckhart Tolle

our thoughts be for what they are, mere bubbles in a vast ocean, but we are so used to identify our self with mind, that our whole notion of self is derived from it. We just give our mind too much credit and what is worse: we think we are having these thoughts, while it would be more accurate to say that Consciousness is having these thoughts in this particular mind in this particular body.

So in order to be happy we have to learn to disidentify with our thoughts and emotions and take a higher stance in witnessing our internal life. That way we shall develop presence in the Here and Now and learn not to be taken away anymore. This is the Mystical Warrior Stance: to remain firmly rooted in the Now and fight all distractions of the mind, out of our deep knowledge that nothing can make us happy and blissful apart from this our own inner Self. For this is our greatest mistake: we think that happiness is somewhere out there on the horizontal line, either in the past or in the future. But happiness is the whole vertical line of our existence. When we were sometime happy in the past, it was because we were then living -be it just the blink of a moment- the vertical line of our existence. The same with the future: happiness will come when we start living on the vertical line.

This doesn't mean that we can not use our mind for practical and technical problems. Our work and the vicissitudinous fate of our life often call for deep thinking and that's what our mind is made for. But can we 'turn it off'? Or are we also in bed or in our seat constantly overwhelmed with thoughts about our work and our problems? Tolle says that we are by then creating 'psychological time': we have made the clock time of our work and daily life internal and by thinking about it -be the thoughts joyful or distressing- we have created our past and our future.

But can we let go of all mental images, all judgments, all memories, anticipations and evaluations about everything, including our self? Can we live in the Now? For beyond our mind and our thoughts there is the blissful world of Being. We only have to identify our self with this world of peace, says Tolle. And it is not so hard as it may seem, for in fact we are this very Being. All else is just a dream and an illusion.

criticism: this concept of no-mind, which belongs to the inner core of mysticism and is the central teaching of Japanese Zen Buddhism for reaching nirvana, may give rise to some misunderstandings, if not explained properly. It may give the impression that mystics live in a total blank and are numb and dull headed persons who despise the workings of their mind. This is not the case. In fact most mystics are very rational and wise persons who are in sound and healthy control of their mind. They see their rationality as a great gift and treasure it.

But in order to reach the happiness and bliss of the transrational domains of our consciousness we have to be able to transgress our rationality. This means that we have to be able, at any given moment, to leave our mind behind and enter the Stillness, the source of all intuitive knowledge. So the mystic does not despise and depreciate rationality but he enlarges his rationality by opening it up to the transcendental world of unlimited knowledge. This is what the word wisdom means.

So in fact our rationality is greatly enhanced when we apply the concept of no-mind. It is my personal experience, that the mind becomes more clear and more able in discerning. It also shows from the history of mysticism, that offers us numerous examples of clear and gifted thinkers. like Plato or Shankara. So it must be stressed that mysticism is no enemy of the mind. But with the mystics the mind is only an instrument. It is not our true identity. Our true identity lies in Being.

consciousness and living in the Now end all misery

Pain and misery are created in the psyche because of an internal conflict between what is and what we think should have been. We are never happy with the present state of affairs. We always want better circumstances. We always want more. Even when we are happy, we still want more happiness. This is the working of our mind, that it is never satisfied with the Now. Our heart says: 'what is wrong with the beauty of this moment? Look at the sky and the beautiful trees and flowers? What is wrong with it? Isn't life beautiful just the way it is?' But then our mind goes on saying: 'be careful! Think about the future! Will you have enough to eat in the future? Will you still have a job, a fine marriage, prosperity and friends? Do not sit there! Do something! You may lose it!'

Why is our mind so afraid of the present moment? Because total living in the Here and Now would entail a total annihilation of the mind. The mind cannot survive in the Now. It can only survive when we bring in the past and the future, but in the Now it instantly drops dead. The Now is its worst enemy. And like every holon in the universe it fights for its survival. So when the Now comes in, it instantly starts fighting back. It has since the beginning of time grown so powerful that there isn't holon in the universe as sly and cunning as mind. So it fights with all possible, even with treacherous and perfidious means. It even tells us that we are unhappy when we are happy, or that we need more happiness, when we have enough. It tells us lies, just to survive.

But let us be very precise here in our analysis. We have just said that pain and misery arise in the psyche out of an internal conflict. Can there still be conflict, without mind and thoughts? Is there not internal conflict in us, just because we want to change what is ? Isn't it our mind that creates our problems? The world is just what it is, neither good nor bad. Our mind makes the value judgments and in doing so it also creates our misery. Mind and misery are dependent of one another. So when we end the mind, we will end our misery, (and ending our misery we will end our mind; just observe how our mind falls blank, be it for only one second, when our misery ends, either when we reach success but also in cases wherein we do not fight our misery anymore, but accept it and surrender to it).

Eckhart Tolle has the mystical experience that the awareness of presence is one of the characteristics of the Here and Now. If we live totally in the Now, we leave our mind and become present in our consciousness. In fact we become our consciousness itself. For the Now and formless consciousness are one and the same. When we become our consciousness -when we identify solely with consciousness-, we will by doing so witness the content and workings of our mind. This conscious witnessing can only be done in the Now. So there is a second way also in ending our misery. If the Now and consciousness are one and the same, we can end our misery also by being totally conscious of our pain. Consciousness will shine its light over our lives and will end all our misery by putting an end to the workings of mind and by firmly establishing us in the Now. It is impossible to be miserable and to be fully conscious at the same time. So both consciousness and living in the Now end all our misery.

a difference between the situation in life and life itself

We can have different situations in our lives. At one time we can be successful and prosperous; at another the sisters of Fate may suddenly spin evil threads for us. It may seem -this is the great illusion- that we are different in all these different circumstances, happy when we are successful, unhappy when we lose, but all the time our life , that what we truly are, does not change a bit and remains always the same. To observe this, just take a look inside. Has there really, in the depth of you, been a change in who you fundamentally are? There may have been changes at the surface. You may have changed jobs or Eckhart Tolle

partners. You may even have had some so called transformations. But have you essentially become very different from the you that you were when you were a child? Isn't the you in your mind and body not something continuous, something permanent? We all have intuitions about this true state of what we truly are. Tolle calls this our life, the internal life in us, to contrast it with our external life, the life situation where we are in, right now.

This is Tolle's message: let's concentrate on our life and shrug shoulders about our life situation. Our life is blissful and peaceful, full of beauty and harmony. It is available and instantly to be contacted with right here at this moment. We only have to disidentify with the situation we are in. We have become so external that we have come to the absurd conclusion that we are our external circumstances. But are we not something far greater than that? Are we not something far more heroic than that? Every one knows in his heart that we have a Power that far exceeds our petty life situation. Why not identify with this Power? This is what we truly are.

the inner body

To find out who we really are we must concentrate on and identify with formless Consciousness, the substratum of our mind and body. But at the same time we must never forget that our body also is a manifestation of Consciousness. It is not the opposite of Consciousness. It is not her enemy. This is the great mistake religious people and also mystics have made in history. They have condemned the body. They mistakingly thought that the body formed a hindrance for realizing Spirit. They were blinded by that worst of dualisms, the separation of body and soul. It led to that deplorable atrophy of true religion and mysticism: ascetism. Even a beautiful mystic like Plato thought we had to subjugate our body and bring it under control. The end result was catastrophic for the spirituality of the West: only rarely did our western monks, mystics and religious laymen reach enlightenment, because of this hostile attitude toward the body. It only brought guilt and the tears of remorse to the soul. Man became unto himself his own worst enemy. The soul of religion became contaminated with the pest of this inner conflict.

I personnally think this is the most beautiful message Eckhart Tolle is offering us: instead of being our enemy, our body can be our greatest helper in reaching enlightenment. It can help us in contacting our true inner Self. Let's close our eyes in meditation and feel how consciousness is permeating every cell and every atom of our body. Let's observe from the inside our body and feel It is there. Let's not think or speculate about it. Feel it. It can be felt right at this very moment. We can feel it being the cause of everything. We can feel that if It would not be there, things would not work. By feeling and observing this we get immediate and instant knowledge about It. If we'll concentrate on this inner Body we will reach enlightenment in the end. For in contacting Consciousness our mind makes the shift from form to the formless.

acceptance, surrender and trust

We prevent our blissful living in the Here and Now because we create a hard and obstinate mental attitude against the situation as it is. This creates inner conflict and dualism in our consciousness and out of this dualism (the dualism of good and bad) more mind and more thoughts are generated. So what we have to do is to loosen up inwardly. We have to give way to the situation as it is. This is what amor fati means: we have to totally accept 'what is been ordained for us'. This doesn't mean that everything that befalls us in life is good. It only means that we have to give up our mental resistance. So the first thing we have to do if our life situation becomes bad (and this may sound paradoxical if we do not understand the mechanism behind it) is to totally accept the situation.

In life situations that may seem disadvantageous and unfavorable we have to have a mental attitude of surrender (Thy will be done....). Why so? To understand the working of this mechanism let's refer in comparison to some physical workings of nature. Let's assume we have been hurt and have been afflicted a severe injury. We can make a fuss about it, run around very nervous and agitated, worry about it or think about it constantly, but the best way to deal with the injury is to rest and to observe inner calm and let nature heal the wound out of herself. We have to let nature have her way. We must not come in the way. She knows far better to heal than we our selves know. To have no trust in her workings would be foolishness and arrogance and would only forestall the healing process.

Now when we accept our life situation, surrender to the situation as it is and put trust in the workings of nature, a greater Power than we could ever imagine steps in. If we do no come in the way this Power Eckhart Tolle

now takes over control. This is the Power of the God/Brahman the power of unfathomable Intelligence. If we put trust in this Intelligence, everything in our life will be healed. At this point in our argumentation, all explanations and deductions must come to an end. For why this is and how it works we do not know. It is a sheer mystery. It may be the case that with surrender, acceptance and trust we stop the mind deliberating and analyzing. We so 'put an end to the waverings of the mind' (Patanjali's citta-vritti-nirodha) and then our consciousness takes on again its primal formlessness, together with the primal qualities of truth and blissfulness that somehow are identical with Being. But how exactly this transformation of consciousness (from relative to absolute again) takes place is still a matter of dispute among mystics and may well remain a mystery forever.

final comments There lurks one great danger in the writings of Tolle (and that is perhaps the fate of every mystic both past and present): he may well be misunderstood by both reader and auditor alike. And I think it is not only the reader's fault (like with every misunderstanding) if the message is not brought home properly. For his writings (like the writings of Krishnamurti ) seem to suggest that we can realize formless Consciousness just by changing our view and mental outlook on life. This is at least the way it will in most cases be interpreted by the reader. For Tolle does not mention the word meditation a lot and seems to suggest that we can also get the same results as meditation gives, by thinking along the same lines that are presented in the book. The suggestion that we have to think differently is not always cleared. The reader gets the impression that not much can be and is to be done, except practicing on the mental level an altered view on life.

But staying on the mental level will never transform our selves. That way our changed outlook will never become realized in Being. It will only be a transient mood that only lasts for the time being, as long as we read the book or as long as we (sparingly, I fear) think about Tolle's ideas. What we have to do is to practice with our mind and body the technique of remaining in formless Emptiness. The way to do this is to meditate. Meditation not only brings about altered states of consciousness, but also altered neural and physical states in our nervous system and our brain. That way the physcial basis of our consciousness will be altered and along with it, our mental view on life will be totally transformed in the way as it happened to Tolle. For it is my view that the state of our consciousness is influenced by the state of our body and also vice versa. For more details read the physical aspects of enlightenment.

But here I disagree with Eckhart Tolle: this will take time, because our body is in time. Our mind can instantly in the Now realize enlightenment and that's what happens in a so called 'satori', a sudden peak experience of the transcendental world of Pure Consciousness. The mind suddenly and instantly realizes all the characteristics of Eternal Being. But after that sudden flash of spiritual experience our mind instantaneously falls back into its old ways of perceiving, because our body is not yet on a par with the higher developments of the mind.

Eckhart is, like Krishnamurti, afraid that the word meditation takes the aspirant away from the Here and Now. He is right: there may be a danger that one thinks that something can be done by the ego to realize enlightenment and that that 'something' will only materialize in the future after a lot of effort has been put to the test. If this is the way meditation is performed, then the meditations will be a total failure. But we have to meditate totally in the Now, with no expectations, with no hope for results, with no effort whatsoever. We have to meditate precisely along the guidelines of Tolle's beautiful book. But still we have to meditate. If we do not sit, close our eyes and meditate nothing will change, both in our consciousness and in our body. We have to practice the taoist wu-wei by performing meditations: we have to do, by not doing anything whatsoever. This is the great mystical paradox.

Arnhem June 2004