Eckhart Tolle Vs. Leo Enlightenment Advice

[UpperClassWhiteBoy]

Eckhar Tolle believes that to achieve enlightenment one must just practice staying present but Leo seems to be suggesting that one should use meditation, self-inquiry and contemplation to achieve enlightenment. Leo believes that the everlasting state of enlightenment is a random result whit Tolle believes that everlasting presence in the Now can make one enlightened. Is Tolle referring to enlightenment as a state of mind or an achievable result? Or is Leo just wasting his time instead of practicing presence for longer and longer spurts of time?

[Leo Gura]

They are the exact same advice!

[Frogfucius]

There's nothing to achieve. You already have it, and there are different ways to find it. Presence, meditation, self-inquiry, contemplation are basic practices on finding your true self. But people who are poor, sick, injured, in great suffering, dying etc. can also find it through more natural means.

As long as you're distracted by your ego, your identity, your obsession with worldly and materialistic pursuits, you're not going to find it. You basically have to give up everything in order to find it..and as Eckhart always talks about, most people are sucked into the concept of time; of past and future. If you're absorbed in past and future, there's no way you can find your true self. You're still seeing your existence as a concept, as some idea that you have created. That's something that has to be shed to find your true being.

[aurum]

If you want to succeed in grasping enlightenment theory, you're going to have to understand some very nuanced and subtle truths. Read between the lines. What are both Eckhart and Leo word's pointing at? Keep learning, everyone is saying the same thing.

[Dodo]

Meditation is the practise of sitting still. You dont even need to label it as meditation. Any advice Leo gives is meant to be practiced in the present moment. When else can you practise it?

[Neo]

10 hours ago, aurum said:

If you want to succeed in grasping enlightenment theory, you're going to have to understand some very nuanced and subtle truths. Read between the lines.

Why is this? Why is there a kind of "veiled" truth?

[aurum]

3 hours ago, Neo said:

Why is this? Why is there a kind of "veiled" truth?

It's because what is trying to be communicated can't inherently be done through words. Imagine that you were trying to describe the sun to someone who had been in doors their entire life.

So enlightened people have to resort to analogies, metaphors and incomplete statements of knowledge in order to get you going down the right path. But eventually, the hope is you say "fuck all that" and you experience it FOR YOURSELF.

If you honestly break down most non-duality books, it's all the same shit at the core. The perceived contradictions come from the LIMITS OF HUMAN RATIONALITY, not the message itself.

[Neo]

Quote

It's because what is trying to be communicated can't inherently be done through words. Imagine that you were trying to describe the sun to someone who had been in doors their entire life.

OK, yes but above we are talking about "achieving enlightenment" so we are not talking about the end point which is impossible to describe but the process, the kind of step on from meditation techniques.?@aurum

[UpperClassWhiteBoy]

Those who are enlightened have thus fully let go of their ego forever? What is the best way to fully surrender the ego? Tolle seems to think presence in the now primarily through inner body concentration, silence , and acceptance (don't really understand this one by the way) Leo believes self-inquiry, meditation and contemplation, so which is better if there is a better way? I don't really understand how one can question the ego away either?

[aurum]

1 hour ago, Neo said:

OK, yes but above we are talking about "achieving enlightenment" so we are not talking about the end point which is impossible to describe but the process, the kind of step on from meditation techniques.?@aurum

Fair enough. I misunderstood the question.

But this can be answered too. The fact that someone is Enlightened does not necessarily mean they are going to teach the same way as another Enlightened being. Once you get into studying "enlightenment techniques", we're back into the world of dualistic thinking. And so we're going to have these kinds of problems because everyone has their own perspective just like anything else.

When Leo says, "enlightenment is random", he doesn't literally mean that there isn't a process people usually go through. There is no such thing as random, only our limited capacity to understand cause and effect. So techniques of course can play an important role.

[Leo Gura]

It's random in the sense it's unpredictable. You will never know when it hits you.

But just like playing the lottery -- which is random -- buying yourself 1,000,000 tickets can help you win very significantly.

So from your perspective, there's no need to worry about odds. You can make the odds 100% if you want.

But you still won't ever know when it hits you.

[Neo]

@Leo Gura OK, but when people say "read between the lines" and in one of your vids do you remember saying, "there's a cake with a file in it to get you out of prison", it's almost like it's essential for the reader to work it out for some reason, or something else...

[Leo Gura]

Of course, that's the buying yourself 1,000,000 lottery tickets part. You buy a lottery ticket each time you sit down and question, question, question yourself.

[UpperClassWhiteBoy]

So basically there is no correct way because different enlightened humans have different ways that led them to the same experience and enlightenment is random in the sense that its a lottery but one where one can obtain multiple tickets through different techniques 

[Capethaz]

Tolle is enlightened, no doubt about that. But for him, Enlightenment happened spontaneously, so he does not have experience or competence to teach people how to become enlightened.

[cirkussmile]

If you look for it you can't find it

or

If you look for it you can find it

It can't really be explained! 

[DoubleYou]

9 hours ago, Capethaz said:

Tolle is enlightened, no doubt about that. But for him, Enlightenment happened spontaneously, so he does not have experience or competence to teach people how to become enlightened.

It happened because he questioned the thought "I can't live with myself." It didn't make sense to him that there's an I that lives with itself. And then it clicked. So in a way it was spontaneous but it definitely started with questioning. The man has been teaching people exactly this for years now. Saying Eckhart Tolle doesn't have the experience or competence is just flat-out ignoring most of his teachings. 

[Neo]

Quote

If you look for it you can't find it

or

If you look for it you can find it

It can't really be explained! 

I like this. Would you also agree that while you can't look for it, you must really want it? Thoughts from other things I read on here.