Eckhart Tolle

[Odysseus]

@Paul92 You watched some videos on youtube and tried to grasp Truth by conceptualizing with your brain? You're making logical conclusions about illogical paradox.

Everything is real and nothing is.

Your loved ones are you. You are your life, your mind, everyones life, everyones mind. You are loving, crying and laughing and they are too. We are one organism. We are real in every moment. 

[Paul92]

@Odysseus I'm sorry but I can't make any sense of what you're saying. 

I didn't just watch YouTube, either. 

When you say my loved ones are me, I don't understand. I thought I was my life and my mind. But I am not, am I? How can we be one organism?

You have Odysseus as your username. I am assuming you are interested in and study Greek mythology. But why do you do this? Aren't you chasing knowledge here? Why do you consume information? Ultimately, there is no point to it. In comsuming information, to retain knowledge, you are being egoic. In the basic fact that you have Odysseus as your username, you are projecting an image of yourself. That is egoic. I swear to you I am not saying this to be a 'troll', I'm very serious. I've honestly never understood trolling. 

People talk about the middle road. Like Leo in his video. But that isn't enlightenment, is it? Again, it is cherry picking! 

My 'loved ones' think they love 'me'. I thought I 'loved' 'them'. But you cannot love anything, if everything is an illusion. Sorry for being in a state of anxiousness following this realisation. 

[TheAvatarState]

@Paul92 this is fantastic news my friend! No, really. This means you're questioning everything and you're on the path. What you're going through is pretty common; I went through that too and I feel your pain. 

You're close to flipping all these realizations on their heads (with the proper context), and about to burst into the most wonderful and liberating experience of your life. Hopefully I can try to explain this in a way that makes sense to you now...

You're correct that this is potentially dangerous knowledge, because if interpreted from the ego, with your ego still identifying with feelings and emotions and meaning (like you're doing now), then yeah, this shit leads down a dark spiral of Nihilism. You're living proof of that. This is normal, don't be afraid. But try to notice something. Why are you afraid? Why does this feel like the end of the world? Why would you possibly want to commit suicide after reading The Power of Now? Really think about this. When you're in the present moment, do you die? You might be inclined to say yes, but be careful here. WHICH part of you dies? Please don't conceptualize this, you'll have to go into your direct experience. When you've identified the part of you that dies when living through present awareness (because YOU certainly don't), then ask yourself an important question. Is it right that I die when I'm present? When I'm being? Isn't that the opposite of what it should be? 

You've been identifying with a toxic illusion your whole life. You still do. That illusion is not you. This illusion is precisely illuminated as an illusion by the fact it ceases to exist in the light of being. Try to understand the gravity of this. You're insisting on answering to an illusory being whose sole purpose is to trap you in psychological time to control you.

Now all of this should start making sense. One of the tricks your ego uses to control you is to make you believe in absolute meaning. When that gets stripped away, your ego will rightfully feel like it's dying, and will go into overdrive to make excuses and rationalize. Understand that ALL meaning ever was, was a conceptualizion of your own mind. It never existed out there. Nothing has "changed" with this new knowledge, you're only awakening to what has always been the case. Look back on all the times you used your sense of meaning in your life. If you are truly honest with yourself, you'll start to see that it was used as an enslavement tool more often than not. Love existed prior to meaning, and never required such a thing. You've never required meaning to be happy. On the other hand, you required a lot of artificial meaning to get stressed out and anxious. 

Another trick your mind plays on you is the "logical rationalization" that if none of this is "real" then the only thing to do is to stop doing anything. Classic! But think about this: picture someone just becoming lucid in a dream... Why is everyone's first instinct to fly, along with a whole slew of crazy things? If none of it "mattered" then why doesn't everyone who lucid dreams immediately frown and wake up, saying, "oof glad that's over, that could have been a huge waste?"

What is "real?" How do you define "real?" Why would you get so protective of this notion of real, like your very life depended on it? Oh yes, because the existence of your parasitic, illusory self hinges on you believing that's the real you! Your direct experience, your consciousness, your love, your happiness, your purpose, and your friends and family do not hinge on the notion of real. The only thing that's threatened by it is the thing that created the illusion of real in the first place. Be aware of whose life is really on the line here. 

[Shin]

When Leo will wake up 

 

[pointessa]

@Paul92  What if you could consider your role on this planet as a part you are playing? Why not create your role to be the best it can be? ET does not say that we should not be involved in the world, just that we have an understanding of what it is. You have a choice how you will respond to what you know at this moment.

I appreciate your passion. If you stay on this path your perceptions of all of this will change. I remember when I first began studying ET, I began to really focus on the Egoic self. I came to see that most relationships where just in place to satisfy the needs of each ego.  Everything seemed to futile to me. Most interactions seemed horribly shallow and I was shocked  to see how cunning the ego is, how many layers there are. That was before I started meditation. I found that a regular meditation practice has been greatly beneficial.

It took me a long time to realize that the path to enlightenment is about removing and letting go , not adding more.

[Cepzeu]

Hi @Paul92 ,

Let me tell you that everything will be OK. There is no need to jump off a bridge and commit suicide. Let me explain:

 

What you are experiencing is a very common set of feelings that come up when you first come to see how everything is an illusion. It happens to nearly everyone when they start to learn about these things because it shatters their previous belief system. You will likely feel depressed and nihilistic for the next couple of weeks but that is OK. Everything will be OK and there is no need to start loading yourself up with worry. 

You will be in existential pain but just know that it will ease and things will normalise with time. 

You've taken the first step in a wonderful journey, but at this point you cannot appreciate what is in store for you.

Console yourself. And give yourself time. These thoughts that you are having will subside with time, and then you will be able to take steps in a more positive direction, and you will end up in a better place than now. 

Everything is OK and we are here for you on the forum if you need us.

 

[Paul92]

@Shin You are free to mock me all you want. I won't judge you for that. I just thought to enlightened, you never judge or make fun of anyone, no matter what. That is your ego. Your 'devil' brain, if you will. 

 

@TheAvatarState

Why would I want commit suicide after reading the PON? Because nothing is real. Everything is an illusion. There is no point to anything. Everything is a construct. You can just say accept it, and fighting it is your ego, but I think, rather selfishly, Id rather feel a painful death than feel nothing.

@pointessa

Well, my relationships are in tatters now regardless. I haven't spoken to anyone for days. Sure, people are sending me messages. But they're not real are they? So why engage with something that is false? Or why engage with an illusion... isn't that just madness?

Why create a role? Seriously!! Why do anything?! Isn't creating a role just your ego? You are giving yourself a false identity. You are not being you. I don't want to be possessed. Nor do I want to be a in world of fiction, surrounded by these human bodies that are possessed. 

[Paul92]

@Cepzeu Well, thank you for your kindness. It is terrifying. I just don't see the point in anything. I feel completely and utterly numb. But apparently, feeling nothing is what it is like to be enlightened...

To be myself, I need to stop all thoughts. Then how do I function without thoughts?

[Shin]

See how everything is about YOU ?

Maybe I just made a meme to make other people laugh, nothing to do with you ...

I never said I was enlightened, and Peter Ralston/Eckhart Tolle/Rupert Spira/Sadhguru, all make fun of their students anyway.

Making fun of you is a way to force your ego to react, to force yourself to see it.

[Paul92]

@Shin I'm assuming you consider yourself egoless, then?

Surely though, for people to laugh, they have to identify with a thought or indeed, a thought pattern as to why something is funny. People find that meme funny, as it born out of what we generally find in society funny. Again another social construct. Why do we find that meme funny? And why did you THINK people would find it funny? 

Ultimately, you had to think to post that on here. Thinking is bad. If you are thinking, you are almost possessed. Because your thoughts are not real. 

People can say to me, oh your interpretation is so wrong. But they never actually explain why it is wrong. 

"Oh, you can't get rid of ego!" "I consider myself to be egoless". But isn't considering yourself to be egoless actually a new form of ego?

The only way around it is to be thoughtless. You can only be thoughtless if you are dead. 

Edited January 5, 2019 by Paul92

[Odysseus]

@Paul92

No problem, there is no need to apologize for asking questions. Anyway, I know this realization isn’t easy to handle.

By saying that you just watched some Youtube videos, I just wanted to point out that your assumptions (as far as I know) come from an intellectual and conceptual POV and not from direct experience (so-called enlightenment experience). Sorry for being indirect.

What I discovered in a glimpse is that everything is nothing and nothing is everything. So you are nothing and everything. Meaninglessness is itself meaningful. The “construct” does not consist of X parts but is one. Ego isn’t the ‘evil part’ because there are no parts and no evil. So there are no separate organisms, just one. Everything is an illusion but the illusion is everything.

Odysseus was a great traveler. He tried to find his way home to Ithaka, just a short way, but it took him ten years. He used his intellectual brilliance to progress, just to find himself further away. He blamed a lot of people and forgot about his aims. But finally he found his way home with the help of the gods. I’m fascinated about his journey not about his destination.

You and me we both are travelers in this world, as everybody is. We always want to know but we have to experience. For me the ego isn’t the enemy, sometimes a distraction, but after all it is me. It is just feels like part as long as you are searching. It doesn’t go away because it was always there, as everything is.

It is really hard to explain paradox because there is no (classical) logic. I think you will find answers if you discover further ahead. I also think there are other people on this forum who can find much better words than me.

 

Much love

[Amun]

The message isn't, in my opinion, that nothing is real, but rather there is no difference between real and not real as long as it is in your experience, your experience is all there is. Your love for your family is real because you experience it, so is their love for you. That which beholds all this experience is the same thing but that is at least in this context not that important. If you hurt yourself, their sadness will be as real as it gets

Edited January 5, 2019 by Amun

[Antonius]

11 minutes ago, Paul92 said:

To be myself, I need to stop all thoughts. Then how do I function without thoughts?

That's straight up wrong. Do you stop being yourself when you think? Test this in your experience right now. When you think a thought, do you suddenly vanish out of existence? No. You and thoughts can exist simultaneously, but identifying with them creates trouble. You are eternal, your thoughts are impermanent, hence when you identify with them you constantly fear being annihilated. When you realize what you truly are, you will literally feel immortal.

You are always you. You always were you. The problem is you don't know what the fuck are you. Make finding out what are you your first priority.

[Shin]

25 minutes ago, Paul92 said:

@Shin I'm assuming you consider yourself egoless, then?

Surely though, for people to laugh, they have to identify with a thought or indeed, a thought pattern as to why something is funny. People find that meme funny, as it born out of what we generally find in society funny. Again another social construct. Why do we find that meme funny? And why did you THINK people would find it funny? 

Ultimately, you had to think to post that on here. Thinking is bad. If you are thinking, you are almost possessed. Because your thoughts are not real. 

People can say to me, oh your interpretation is so wrong. But they never actually explain why it is wrong. 

"Oh, you can't get rid of ego!" "I consider myself to be egoless". But isn't considering yourself to be egoless actually a new form of ego?

The only way around it is to be thoughtless. You can only be thoughtless if you are dead. 

25 minutes ago, Paul92 said:

@Shin I'm assuming you consider yourself egoless, then?

Surely though, for people to laugh, they have to identify with a thought or indeed, a thought pattern as to why something is funny. People find that meme funny, as it born out of what we generally find in society funny. Again another social construct. Why do we find that meme funny? And why did you THINK people would find it funny? 

Ultimately, you had to think to post that on here. Thinking is bad. If you are thinking, you are almost possessed. Because your thoughts are not real. 

People can say to me, oh your interpretation is so wrong. But they never actually explain why it is wrong. 

"Oh, you can't get rid of ego!" "I consider myself to be egoless". But isn't considering yourself to be egoless actually a new form of ego?

The only way around it is to be thoughtless. You can only be thoughtless if you are dead. 

 

 

[mp22]

4 hours ago, Paul92 said:

You're not thoughtless, otherwise you wouldn't be able to write that reply, or indeed, have the opinion that what I am saying is wrong. Which is your ego. 

With no thoughts you cannot feel anything. And thoughts are not you, are they?

If someone murdered Tolle's family, I don't think it would bother him one bit, as committed as he is to this. He knows everything is an illusion and not real.

With the exception of his bank account. I promise you that he thinks it's very real. Don't believe me? go ask him for some cash :-)

[Paul92]

@Amun But their emotions are not real, are they? They might experience it, but that does not make it real. If I throw myself off a bridge, their emotional reaction is not real. Their real self, who they really are, would not react. It would even recognise me. Indeed, I am their son, but that is a concept. They could switch that emotion off in an instant. Tolle has even said this. It is you who chooses to grieve. Because he knows that ultimately, we are all illusions and not real. He can't say this though can he? Otherwise the world wouldn't last 24 hours. 

@Odysseus

I loved Greek mythology, too. You say your ego is you. But is it really? We are being told that it isn't us. The 'real' you has no thoughts, no opinions and feelings or emotions. It is your ego that is telling you that you like Greek mythology. Why it feeds on that I am not sure. But your real self wouldn't recognise it. There is no need to know things. 

 

@Shin Watching that, the brown bear does a great job of illustrating my point. I don't see how he is wrong. He still actually has ego himself, because he has an opinion on what is right. But when it is an opinion on the Truth, that it is permitted. 

From what I've read and researched, everything is an illusion. From the love we feel for different things, the concepts that certain thing are beautiful, to the fear of death as a bad thing, none of it is real. It's all a construct. 

Who says I should fear death? One, that is a construct in itself, that death is a bad thing. Two, I won't hurt anyone. If you truly, truly accept the truth, then you have to come to terms with this point. Three, I will be dead, so it makes no difference to me. When you die, you die. Your body rots down to next to nothing. You don't go anywhere and you certainly don't come back as an olive. If reincarnation was real, I wouldn't now be me, because why would I want to be me? Of course I AM NOT ME. 

 

 

[Paul92]

Can anyone even explain to me how they navigate their day to day lives?

Why do you go to work?

Why do you visit your family or pretend you love them? As we know, emotions are not real!

Do you engage in any activities you find pleasurable? 

Do you study? If you do, why? I study an MA, but I don't see the point now. I study international relations. I wanted to try and work myself into a position where I could influence conflicts in the world. Perhaps stop them, to end what I saw as injustice and suffering. But who actually says that killing is bad? Isn't it their choice to suffer? I saw Tolle speak about the Syrian crisis. He seemed a little concerned, but I think he knows that it is their choice to suffer. They can enjoy the bliss of now. I'm being deadly serious here, too. 

[cetus]

1 hour ago, Paul92 said:

Why would I want commit suicide after reading the PON? Because nothing is real. Everything is an illusion. There is no point to anything. Everything is a construct

@Paul92 Tolle also says in P-O-N that life is Leela the "divine game". Did you and I read the same book? 

Note: Opra Winfrey is a fan of Tolle and has done many interviews with him. 

Start playing the divine game and get on with it.

LEELA — the Play of the Divine

Posted By Ramesh

Leela literally means play, and is the word commonly used in India for the play of the Divine. This point of view, naturally, assumes that there is a Divine; that having ‘created’ the universe, It is actively engaged in the affairs of Its creation; and that for It all the happenings of the universe that we sometimes take so seriously are a mere game. The game consists of changing forms, and new experiences, somewhat like what happens on a movie screen. Since Vedanta looks upon the material world as a manifestation of the Divine, the play consists essentially of the Divine creating and recreating Itself. As Sri Aurobindo says, the Divine is “Himself the play, Himself the player, Himself the playground.”

Why should the procession of forms and events in the universe be looked upon as a play? Going back to the beginning, when the Divine created the universe, It was not compelled to do it, because the possibility of an agency capable of compelling It is itself incompatible with the concept of the Divine. If the Divine did it voluntarily, it may be assumed that It did so for pleasure. Any pleasurable activity may be looked upon as a play, a game, or leela. However, even a game has a direction, a goal towards which it moves. Which way is the leela of the Divine going? The game began with the Divine concealing itself very effectively in matter. How difficult it is to see the all-knowing, all-powerful Divine in dead inconscient matter! Then the Divine started unfolding in successive forms of Its creation through the agency of first the life force, and then the mind. The game became more interesting after the creation of man, because here was a creature who is dimly aware of its true identity, and seeks to discover the divinity that it conceals. Now it is truly a game of hide and seek: the Divine hides, and man seeks – often erroneously everywhere else except where it is easiest to find It, i.e., within himself. That is why man has been compared to the deer who runs in search of fragrance all over the place, little realizing that the source of the fragrance is within itself. However, occasionally, man does discover the Divine within, and goes into an ecstasy. The Divine shares the ecstatic experience because man is nothing but one of the infinite forms of the Divine. The joy of discovery cannot be experienced unless one starts with ignorance. That is possibly why the Divine started with the creation that hid it so well.

This view of the universe also explains why the perfect Divine has created an imperfect world. Since the Divine hid itself in Its creation, and even the most highly evolved form of creation (man) manifests only a small fraction of the perfect Consciousness of the Divine, the creation is inevitably imperfect. The Divine is perfect, but if It does not reveal Itself fully in the creation, It cannot reveal its perfection in the creation. Lack of perfection is imperfection, lack of perfect knowledge is ignorance, lack of perfect power is weakness, lack of perfect delight is suffering. Thus ignorance, weakness and suffering in the world are an inevitable consequence of the grossly incomplete expression of the Divine Consciousness in the creation. Ignorance is not just absence of knowledge; it may also mean incomplete knowledge or erroneous knowledge, as in man. The best tool to which man may turn confidently for approaching the truth is reason. But reason is not an infallible guide to truth. Better tools, such as intuition, are rather rudimentary in man, and therefore he is not confident in using them. However, the game is on. Going by the trend so far, one may hope for a fuller manifestation of the Supreme Consciousness of the Divine in Its earthly manifestations. The mental man would give way to a supramental creature. The unique privilege of man is that he can consciously work towards a rise in the level of his consciousness, and can thereby contribute to the emergence of a new level of consciousness on earth.

[Shin]

4 minutes ago, Paul92 said:

Can anyone even explain to me how they navigate their day to day lives?

Why do you go to work?

Why do you visit your family or pretend you love them? As we know, emotions are not real!

Do you engage in any activities you find pleasurable? 

Do you study? If you do, why? I study an MA, but I don't see the point now. I study international relations. I wanted to try and work myself into a position where I could influence conflicts in the world. Perhaps stop them, to end what I saw as injustice and suffering. But who actually says that killing is bad? Isn't it their choice to suffer? I saw Tolle speak about the Syrian crisis. He seemed a little concerned, but I think he knows that it is their choice to suffer. They can enjoy the bliss of now. I'm being deadly serious here, too. 

 

You know nothing right now, you're only projecting your ideas on what enlightenment is, you're not living it.

When you'll live it, it will be experiential and you will get it, because it's the only way to get it,
Every stories and concepts in your mind counts for Nothing.
 

It's like telling to someone of the opposite sex what's it's like to have an orgasm, you can talk all day long about it, you have no idea what it's like, and never will be.
Enlightenment is the same, there is no way to know beforehand what it's like, only arrogance of the mind think it can do this.
All the things you're saying are just beliefs in your mind, ideas, everything you're saying only feels true, because you want to believe in it.
Noticed I said "feels true", you actually don't know, hence why you're panicking, you fear to realize you have no idea about anything.

It doesn't matter if it's about enligthenment, it just looks more sophisticated than other subject.
It's the same principle, you're still talking about something you have no idea about, just like a Christian would preach how Jesus will save you and how heaven is the thing and how you should never have sex before marriage ...

You have created a dogma about enlightenment, to protect yourself from it.
It's too late though, you can resist it how much you want you're finished, it's just about how much suffering you accept to create until you stop bullshitting yourself.

It feels so real because you're possessed by your mind, and the mind knows very well that if you actually grasped what Eckhart says, it's finished.
This is the most tricky thing, you think you got it and that your mind is finished, but actually it is your mind tricking itself to think it does to actually not do it.

What is the best way to not understand something ?
To think you already do.

This is the definition of the devil, his lies are so good that it actually believe them himself.
And that's what you're doing, to yourself.

Enjoy your self-made suffering  

[Forestluv]

3 hours ago, Paul92 said:

 

@Serotoninluv  What/who is my true self? As I understand it, it is my body but with a mind that produces no thoughts. None. Akin to a vegetable if you like. With only 2 primary inbuilt desires. 1, to eat. 2, to procreate. No opinions on anything, no labels for anything, no emotions, nothing. 

I might identify with these thoughts, but aren't they the truth? In the same way that you believe you understand the truth. But then again, they are thoughts, so they aren't you, are they? For all of us to be our true selves, we wouldn't be writing on here. So nobody can claim to be at one with their true selves. 

If I'm to meditate and label a thought as a 'thought', isn't that 1, thinking, and 2, labelling something?

There is a mind-body. Within that mind-body, thoughts and feelings arise. There is awareness of those thoughts and feelings. Come to know that awareness. 

It might be helpful to imagine that all those thoughts and feelings arise within a more expansive “you”. Yet, this expansive “you” goes way beyond thoughts and feelings. In a contracted state, the mind-body is limited to identifying as being thoughts and feelings and is unaware of the expansiveness beyond that. 

During meditation, by labeling thinking as “thought” (without judgement) and returning to the breath increases awareness. Everytime you acknowledge a thought, let it go and return to the breath, awareness becomes aware of itself. 

Your mind is giving all relevance to thought.  A thought is a thought. From this perspective, a thought is an impulse and has no more relevance than a bird chirp. This opens a realm of awareness that is highly liberating, yet unpalatable to an ego that wants to control the narrative in one’s mind.