Awake teacher Says Philosophy is a Waste of Life

[Breakingthewall]

29 minutes ago, Grateful Dead said:

So just because you've found some limitations in his teachings, does that mean what he teaches is fundamentally wrong? Eckhart's words aren't meant to become a law for you; they are merely a reference to a deeper truth.

What I mean is that It's not limited; it's essentially wrong. You said above that all spiritual traditions speak of transcending the ego. Let's see, traditions like Buddhism or Hinduism like the Bahavad Gita speak of dissolving the ego barrier to open your consciousness to the unlimited, to the non-self in Buddhism and to Brahman in Hinduism. This is not the same as what Tolle and nonduality say.

They say that only the now is real, therefore the ego is not real. This makes no sense because the ego is something that is happening now. Tolle and nonduality tell you to be like an animal, without ego, only sensory perception and instinct, but you are not that.  It's a frustrating philosophy that never works. Totally dissolving the social capsule of the ego during certain moments is essential to accessing the realization of your true nature, but you cannot completely transcend the ego, since you would cease to be human and this is impossible; you would be self-repressing an essential part of yourself. The part that communicates, that establishes emotional bonds, that projects, and that modifies reality, and all this implies suffering in more or less extent. Why would you want to do this? To avoid suffering? It's like saying that to avoid having sex, you amputate your genitals. Can you be more egotistical than someone trying to kill their ego? That's the question.

Ultimately, I believe that Tolle's philosophy and nonduality are essentially limiting and toxic because they deny the human nature. I would say that anyone who believes in his philosophy and tries to put it into practice will end up frustrated, confused and unhappy. And over all, the most important: closed to the possibility of opening themselves to the absolute. No one of them would get it, because their philosophy closes.  

29 minutes ago, Grateful Dead said:

you have to survive as an ego in the material world.

The real thing is when you realize that the ego, the external material world, and your true nature are interconnected, completely synchronized, are one. Trying to transcend your ego only locks you into a capsule. True spirituality, as I see it, isn't about transcending, it's about expanding. The ego isn't something you can transcend; it's impossible. You can repress it and thereby isolate yourself further, or you can expand it and realize that your ego is the reality.

Edited March 13 by Breakingthewall

[Basman]

It's is much harder to be at peace when your starving and scared so arguably human ego on a practical level is necessary for most people spiritually.

[Grateful Dead]

34 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

You said above that all spiritual traditions speak of transcending the ego.

I didn't say that.

34 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Let's see, traditions like Buddhism or Hinduism like the Bahavad Gita speak of dissolving the ego barrier to open your consciousness to the unlimited, to the non-self in Buddhism and to Brahman in Hinduism. This is not the same as what Tolle and nonduality say.

Tolle says, “Let go of your ego and open yourself to the present moment.” That doesn’t seem so different to me.

35 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

They say that only the now is real, therefore the ego is not real. This makes no sense because the ego is something that is happening now. Tolle and nonduality tell you to be like an animal, without ego, only sensory perception and instinct, but you are not that.  It's a frustrating philosophy that never works. Totally dissolving the social capsule of the ego during certain moments is essential to accessing the realization of your true nature, but you cannot completely transcend the ego, since you would cease to be human and this is impossible; you would be self-repressing an essential part of yourself. The part that communicates, that establishes emotional bonds, that projects, and that modifies reality, and all this implies suffering in more or less extent.

I think completely differently about the rest. I believe it's possible to leave the ego behind and live from a deeper level. That doesn't mean you can't use the ego when necessary. If you don't identify with the ego, then you're not suppressing an essential part of yourself by not paying so much attention to it anymore.

36 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Why would you want to do this?

Perhaps for some people the goal is complete peace and absolute freedom.

36 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I would say that anyone who believes in his philosophy and tries to put it into practice will end up frustrated, confused and unhappy. And over all, the most important: closed to the possibility of opening themselves to the absolute. No one of them would get it, because their philosophy closes.  

I can tell you from my experience that this type of spirituality has given me exactly the opposite: happiness, clarity, peace, and freedom.

37 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

The real thing is when you realize that the ego, the external material world, and your true nature are interconnected, completely synchronized, are one. Trying to transcend your ego only locks you into a capsule. True spirituality, as I see it, isn't about transcending, it's about expanding. The ego isn't something you can transcend; it's impossible. You can repress it and thereby isolate yourself further, or you can expand it and realize that your ego is the reality.

If you want to expand your ego and become a super ego, that's fine with me. I think we have fundamentally different approaches to spirituality and won't be able to connect on that. That's why I'm ending our exchange here.

[Breakingthewall]

30 minutes ago, Grateful Dead said:

you want to expand your ego and become a super ego, that's fine with me. I think we have fundamentally different approaches to spirituality and won't be able to connect on that. That's why I'm ending our exchange here.

That's not what I meant. I was trying to analyze and nuance the Tolle spirituality and revealing what in my opinion is a mistake, Tolle has a huge influence on current nonduality. I'd say it's key. Anyway, you don't need to take it like personal, it's a conversation to understand not to win. Sorry if I talk too aggressive about Tolle, I think that his intentions are honest and his message is very useful, I'm talking about his wrong side if you want to totally open yourself . But probably Tolle did more for human spiritual evolution than anyone else alive nowadays 

Understand that when you see that you have to overcome a barrier you have to break it. 

Edited March 13 by Breakingthewall

[Breakingthewall]

On 13/3/2025 at 1:36 PM, Grateful Dead said:

Eckhart's message is that if you want to find complete inner peace, you must let go of your ego

I've been listening to Tolle and I've seen the same mistake again, but more clearly. Tolle says: There's a voice in your head all the time. This voice is always the same, it's you, and it triggers feelings and emotions. But this voice isn't real. The feelings it provokes, however, are real. They're chemical reactions in the body and affect the physical. Do you agree that this is an important part of Tolle's message? Well, this is absolutely wrong, from the root. That was the intuition I had when reading him, and now I see it with absolute clarity.

Let's see, that unreal voice that is always you, that tells you negative things, and that you can, according to Tolle, change at will, is nothing other than the manifestation of an absolutely real energetic structure created by millions of living generations evolving. Tolle doesn't understand what a human being is, what the mind is, what the openness to the absolute is, I assure you. His message is wrong from the root. You can't silence your inner voice with your will; that is violence, and it will make that voice manifest in other ways. Oh, and please, don't get angry, I'm not attacking you. I'm analyzing Tolle from a very clear perspective because I've been where he preaches, trying to change my inner speech. It's never going to work.

Your inner speech will only change if the structure that produces it changes. To penetrate this structure is to open your mind and heart to the limitless. It's impossible to do so from willpower, because willpower is part of that structure. We're talking about a very complex issue. 

You create your mental structure on genetic pillars. Sorry, you don't create it, reality creates it. Your mind is a manifestation of the total reality, a structure of reality formed by multiple energetic layers on a pattern created over millions of years of evolutionary movement. In the same way that your body is an energetic pattern that places atoms in exact places, your mind places energetic vibrations in exact places, and it is as solid and as real as your body. You cannot defeat your mind because you are your mind.

You can open your heart and your mind and break through the barriers that limit you and expand into the absolute. Then, from this perspective, understand the energetic patterns that constitute you and align them. And always to a certain extent, you will always, as long as the current structure exists, be this structure, this color and flavor of reality, this specific configuration. Because you did not create this configuration. You are not God. You ultimately are the substance of reality. And this substance flows and synchronizes with itself to infinity, infinite structures that fit together into a perfect mosaic. You are infinitely limited by yourself as a form and absolutely unlimited as an essence. Tolle captures part of the essence, but his openness is partial, so his message, although seductive, is incomplete, and therefore wrong.

Edited March 15 by Breakingthewall

[Grateful Dead]

36 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

I've been listening to Tolle and I've seen the same mistake again, but more clearly. Tolle says: There's a voice in your head all the time. This voice is always the same, it's you, and it triggers feelings and emotions. But this voice isn't real. The feelings it provokes, however, are real. They're chemical reactions in the body and affect the physical. Do you agree that this is an important part of Tolle's message? Well, this is absolutely wrong, from the root. That was the intuition I had when reading him, and now I see it with absolute clarity.

Let's see, that unreal voice that is always you, that tells you negative things, and that you can, according to Tolle, change at will, is nothing other than the manifestation of an absolutely real energetic structure created by millions of living generations evolving. Tolle doesn't understand what a human being is, what the mind is, what the openness to the absolute is, I assure you. His message is wrong from the root. You can't silence your inner voice with your will; that is violence, and it will make that voice manifest in other ways. Oh, and please, don't get angry, I'm not attacking you. I'm analyzing Tolle from a very clear perspective because I've been where he preaches, trying to change my inner speech. It's never going to work.

Your inner speech will only change if the structure that produces it changes. To penetrate this structure is to open your mind and heart to the limitless. It's impossible to do so from willpower, because willpower is part of that structure. We're talking about a very complex issue. 

You create your mental structure on genetic pillars. Sorry, you don't create it, reality creates it. Your mind is a manifestation of the total reality, a structure of reality formed by multiple energetic layers on a pattern created over millions of years of evolutionary movement. In the same way that your body is an energetic pattern that places atoms in exact places, your mind places energetic vibrations in exact places, and it is as solid and as real as your body. You cannot defeat your mind because you are your mind.

You can open your heart and your mind and break through the barriers that limit you and expand into the absolute. Then, from this perspective, understand the energetic patterns that constitute you and align them. And always to a certain extent, you will always, as long as the current structure exists, be this structure, this color and flavor of reality, this specific configuration. Because you did not create this configuration. You are not God. You ultimately are the substance of reality. And this substance flows and synchronizes with itself to infinity, infinite structures that fit together into a perfect mosaic. You are infinitely limited by yourself as a form and absolutely unlimited as an essence. Tolle captures part of the essence, but his openness is partial, so his message, although seductive, is incomplete, and therefore wrong.

Since you've made the effort, I'll reply again just to say that you still don't understand, at least from my perspective. And I believe that's because you yourself haven't yet found a way to overcome your ego.

First, he does not distinguish between the reality of thoughts and feelings; both are part of the "dream".

And further Eckhart doesn't say that you can change the voice in your head through the violent exercise of will. That would indeed be foolish. What he is saying is that through increasing awareness of your mind (or body), you can become so conscious that the voice in your head fades into the background, and then you can open yourself more and more to this present moment. As a result, the energetic structure you speak of gradually dissolves, and you become increasingly free.

Where I think we agree is that it is not really possible for someone who has not experienced such a deep awakening as Eckhart to fully engage in this process.

And don't worry, I'm not offended by your opinion. It just seems to me there's no point in writing to you, since you won't be persuaded by me anyway, and I can understand that. As I said at the beginning, I just wanted to clarify that, from my perspective, you're misinterpreting Eckhart's teachings. That wasn't directed at you, but at everyone.

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Grateful Dead said:

And I believe that's because you yourself haven't yet found a way to overcome your ego.

Translation: I'm better than you 

1 hour ago, Grateful Dead said:

Since you've made the effort, I'll reply again just to say that you still don't understand

you are so generous, thanks 

1 hour ago, Grateful Dead said:

And don't worry, I'm not offended by your opinion. It just seems to me there's no point in writing to you

Translation: I'm so so high and you so low, but anyway, I'm generous and I do a big effort 

1 hour ago, Grateful Dead said:

you're misinterpreting Eckhart's teachings.

Translation : you are not deep enough to understand Tolle. 

Ok seems that you should read Tolle again because I see anger, ego, reaction, and no life and original thought, just sadness and need of superiority. I think I did some interesting points , but as you need to put me the label : no awake, then nothing is going to get into your mind, that is quite closed btw. 

Bye

Edited March 15 by Breakingthewall

[gengar]

@CoolDreamThanks what you wrote in that post is one of the most deluded and dogmatic things I've ever read. you literally postulate not-thinking as the only spiritual state, this is bastardization of the fact that not-thinking leads to the realization that all is divine, including thinking. thinking is not merely concepts. I've had very spiritual connections with God through thinking. 10 years ago, thinking about math and the number e lead me to breaking out of my atheist paradigm. And thinking about consciousness, and "why is there something rather than nothing" led me even further.

Thinking is not seperate from consciousness.

Living in the dream is not being unaware of how the dream works (not that i think Leo knows that all, but it doesn't exclude it) Gandalf still fought in the war against Sauron. not that I'm any better, since I can't stand this nightmare anymore.

Claiming his diseases come from his non-no-mind spirituality is a vile move.

If it is all a meaningless dream you can still act out however you want and act like it is all real. actors in movies do. what do we think of actors who act like they think it's all not real? we think they're ass. but both the bad and good actors know its not real. you claiming that the only true way to live is in some non-attached state is just pure dogma. although you do make some good points about Leo's awful arrogance and bombastic claims of knowledge.

Edited March 16 by gengar

[Aaron p]

On 08/03/2025 at 8:32 AM, Leo Gura said:

juicy bacon burger with special sauce.

Mmmm

I had bacon today 

Edited March 17 by Aaron p