Famous Quotes & Sayings

Eckhart Tolle

Teaching a practice can also be a hindrance if it becomes one's identity. To be a spiritual teacher is a temporary function. I'm a spiritual teacher when somebody comes to me and some teaching happens, but the moment they leave I'm no longer a spiritual teacher. If I carry the identity of spiritual teacher, it will cause suffering.

Eckhart Tolle

Thought alone cannot recognize spiritual truths no matter how highly developed thought is. It's impossible.

Eckhart Tolle

The human condition: lost in thought.

Eckhart Tolle

That is the real spiritual awakening, when something emerges from within you that is deeper than who you thought you were. So, the person is still there, but one could almost say that something more powerful shines through the person.

Eckhart Tolle

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.

Eckhart Tolle

Our animal friends’ non-reactive and forgiving natures can teach us positive spiritual lessons on a daily basis.

Eckhart Tolle

As you become present and thereby total in what you do, your actions become charged with spiritual power.

Eckhart Tolle

A simple but radical spiritual practice is to accept whatever arises in the Now, within and without.

Eckhart Tolle

A significant portion of the earth's population will soon recognize, if they haven't already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die.

Eckhart Tolle

Doing is never enough if you neglect Being.

Eckhart Tolle

If you are in a state of intense presence you are free of thought, yet highly alert. If your conscious attention sinks below a certain level, thought rushes in, the mental noise returns, stillness is lost, you're back in time.

Eckhart Tolle

Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind.

Eckhart Tolle

And then there is the universal role of adult. When you play that role, you take yourself and life very seriously. Spontaneity, lightheartedness, and joy are not part of that role.

Eckhart Tolle

Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.

Eckhart Tolle

Become conscious of being conscious.

Eckhart Tolle

Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe.

Eckhart Tolle

To love is to recognize yourself in another.

Eckhart Tolle

Once you have had a glimpse of awareness or Presence, you know it firsthand. It is no longer just a concept in your mind.

Eckhart Tolle

Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. … The ultimate purpose of human existence, which is to say, your purpose, is to bring that power into this world.

Eckhart Tolle

When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought.

Eckhart Tolle

When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say, and do, what kind of world do I create?

Eckhart Tolle

Some people awaken spiritually without ever coming into contact with any meditation technique or any spiritual teaching. They may awaken simply because they can't stand the suffering anymore.

Eckhart Tolle

I don't want it to end, and so, as every therapist knows, the ego does not want an end to its “problems” because they are part of its identity. If no one will listen to my sad story, I can tell it to myself in my head, over and over, and feel sorry for myself, and so have an identity as someone who is being treated unfairly by life or other people, fate or God. It gives definition to my self-image, makes me into someone, and that is all that matters to the ego.

Eckhart Tolle

If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me

Eckhart Tolle

The reason why some people love to engage in dangerous activities, such as mountain climbing, car racing, and so on, although they may not be aware of it, is that it forces them into the Now - that intensely alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, free of the burden of the personality.

Eckhart Tolle

Spiritual Awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.

Eckhart Tolle

If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.

Eckhart Tolle

If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion and peace.

Eckhart Tolle

Reading is my passion and my escape since I was 5 years old. Overall, children don't realize the magic that can live inside their own heads. Better even then any movie.

Eckhart Tolle

Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now.

Eckhart Tolle

Inner resistance to whatever arises in the present moment pulls you back into unconsciousness. Inner resistance is some form of negativity, complaining, fear, aggression, or anger. This is important because whenever you complain about what somebody else does you're already beginning to fall into that trap of unconsciousness.

Eckhart Tolle

That in you which recognizes madness as madness (even if it is your own) is sanity, is the arising awareness, is the end of insanity.

Eckhart Tolle

It is precisely through the onset of old age, through loss or personal tragedy, that the spiritual dimension would traditionally come into people's lives. This is to say, their inner purpose would emerge only as their outer purpose collapsed and the shell of the ego would begin to crack open. The emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: being? What do you do with it?