Eckhart Tolle is a modern personal development teacher who is best known as author of the remarkable books The Power of Now and A New Earth. At the age of 29, Tolle went through an inner transformation caused by a depressed childhood. After that, he devoted himself to total understanding, as well as integrating and deepening that transformation. This marked the beginning of an intense inward journey.
At the core of Tolle’s teachings lies the transformation of consciousness, a spiritual awakening that seems the central important part of human and global transformation and evolution. The basic approach of this awakening lies in transcending our ego-based state of consciousness. His approach began with the core question ‘Am I one or two?’
Tolle’s inspiring quotes related on awakening present moment awareness provide better transformation leverage when they are affirmed and applied. Some of his quotes are shared below.
- Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.
- Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.
- Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it
- Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.
- Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.
- The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future,— which, of course, can only be experienced as the Now.
- To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment.
- Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry —– all forms of fear –— are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.
- You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.
- Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.
- You find peace, not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.
- Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.
- The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it.
- Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.
- Sometimes, letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.
- Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.
- The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.
- Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to “die before you die” and find that there is no death.
- Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.
- Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.
- All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.
- All the things that truly matter — beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace — arise from beyond the mind.
- Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance.
- The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.
- All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.
Featured photo credit: Eckhart Tolle in the Now/Surian Soosay via flickr.com
