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If you have found any of Eckhart Tolle’s books, CDs, videos or appearances helpful, that can only be because he spoke to a yearning you had inside you. That yearning is to have a deeper experience, to be more fully yourself, in the truest possible way, in your life. You may have noticed that that yearning is painful, very painful. How could it be anything else, given the state of humanity and civilization and “human nature” as it is at present? You have undoubtedly noticed as well that the yearning is a thirst for love and stillness, at some level where love and stillness are one and the same.

At this point I have to criticize Tolle because, as I understand it, he plays down that pain. I appreciate some may jump to the false conclusion here that by making a criticism I obviously don’t have a wealth of the most profound experience of what I’m talking about. Tolle flatly dismisses all (emotional or psychological) pain as being nothing more than “a lack of awareness.” Most of the traditional meditation schools in effect do precisely the same – although some of the Western branches of e.g. Zen have recently been changing their position on this. I have to say that Tolle is flatly wrong here. You don’t heal yourself of your pain by “jump-starting” it with high-voltage awareness, so to speak. And as I understand it, what Tolle and the traditional meditation schools have believed effectively comes to just that.

The way it actually works, in all my years of experience and of counseling others, is as follows. Yes, you do need the high energy of that stillness that comes from meditation. But then you have to apply that energy to doing whatever it takes to make your life right in all practical areas – improving or obtaining the right job or business, and loving it; making all your relationships right, or, if it’s really necessary, having the courage to leave; and so on. The high energy of awareness doesn’t remove the pain. What removes the pain is your removing of the obstacle that was keeping you from being happy in real life. Then the pain goes. It goes because you have removed its cause. Even if the obstacle is mostly in your mind rather in the world external to you, it takes work and great determination and intention to get rid of it. And it takes very specific identification of what the obstacle is, plus a very specific intention regarding what you really want to replace the obstacle with. That also implies great persistence, if necessary. I’ve seen far too many fans of traditional meditation or of Tolle who seem to expect such an obstacle to “dissolve” into flat-out nonexistence if they float around in sufficiently intense bliss and peace on cloud nine. Sorry, but it doesn’t work in quite that magical kind of a way. 

Certainly, the usual behavior from most people is to get rid of pain by using an instant pain-killer of some kind. You know, entertainment, food, chatting, etc etc. That’s putting a band-aid over pain, where the band-aid is made of a lack of awareness.

I believe one thing that’s missing in Eckhart Tolle is a proper explanation of what we need to do instead of mindlessly using those pain-killers. This is particularly important because usually, finding great depths of stillness and love involves great pain, and a great deal of it. Fortunately, a person’s capacity to face pain greatly increases as they progress, so it doesn’t feel too bad. For more details, go to www.explainingtolle.com.
 

Eckhart Tolle claims that the reality of who we are is our “pure” consciousness, and that everything else that we consider to be “ourselves” is an illusion. I certainly agree that in our recent Western culture we have ignored the necessity to make consciousness one of the central things in our daily lives. But who “we” really are is mostly determined by what we’re responsible for. Whatever we’re 100% responsible for is literally a part of us, whether we like it or not. That means consciousness is part of us, but so is our stream of thoughts. And that does make an important difference.

Another way to look at this is to notice the importance of ideas in our lives. An idea, as distinct from a thought, is something fresh and (at least slightly) unique. Every idea comes out of our consciousness. It comes out of that “space,” as Tolle calls it, which seems like nothingness, and is formless. However, every idea does have a form. And the only way we can ever apply the idea, to “give it birth,” in the physical and emotional and intellectual world that we live in, is by using thoughts. 

So we see that without having and using thoughts we could not survive. It’s kind of similar to how our bodies can’t survive without blood. Blood certainly isn’t bad, unless it gets out of control and starts appearing in places where it shouldn’t.

Most of the things we do are dependent on the smooth working of subconscious or unconscious streams of thought. For instance, when you get up on any weekday morning, you probably follow a routine on “automatic pilot.” That routine gets you efficiently through showering and breakfast and personal grooming and out your front door. You probably aren’t even aware of the thoughts which that routine runs through your brain. You rarely remember any of them, — do you?

The extraordinary and beautiful thing about consciousness is that it’s indivisible. It’s so indivisible that in its purest form, it is totally one with everyone and everything in the universe. The only problem is, while we’re living in this physical world, that’s only half the story. We’re like a drop in the ocean. Yes, that drop can become aware of its oneness with ocean. By doing so, by being totally in harmony with the ocean, it can in a certain limited sense be the ocean. But equally, it has no choice but to be true to its uniqueness and individuality as well. It has a specific location in time and space at every moment. “Now” does not mean “everywhere at the same time.” And that fact makes a significant amount of thought and analysis necessary in almost every area of our lives. 

I became interested in developing methods that would help people who have read Eckhart Tolle because of the problems people have with understanding and practically applying his teachings. Tolle is more geared to people who are already in advanced stages of the process, and not to beginners.  One major difference between myself and Tolle is that I focus quite a lot on how people can get started when they are just beginning. It turns out that the same practices and principles also apply when you have reached advanced stages as well.

Anyone who becomes familiar with my principles and exercises will be much better placed to fully understand and use Tolle’s teachings.

For example, Tolle discusses the “pain-body” in great detail.  The first exercise I teach people enables you to see your entire pain-body regardless of what stage you are currently at, and it only takes five or ten minutes to do it.  I have personally known people who have spent half a lifetime seeking to obtain a complete overall picture of their pain-body.  You don’t have to already been in the Now to do the exercise. In fact, anyone can do it. Similarly with most of the other exercises I’ve developed.

It’s one thing to watch the pain-body as part of it comes up. But to be able to see your own entire pain-body in a nutshell quite precisely and specifically to you is the kind of precision that Tolle doesn’t get into.  This is in spite of the fact that Tolle devotes half of his book ‘A New Earth’ to discussing what a pain-body is like. Reading that book won’t give you a balanced and complete picture of what’s in your pain-body.
 

Welcome to my blog "What’s missing in Tolle"

When I was 15, I experienced what’s known as spiritual enlightenment.  It was certainly the most vivid experience of my life – a blindingly joyful experience and discovery, that caused me to realize that life – existence – isn’t a problem.  From that moment on, I was absolutely incapable of feeling lonely, and the experience has outshone anything that intimacy, love or sex have ever given me.  This spiritual enlightenment opened up direct access to my intuition, and a direct sort of “knowing”.  Everything else was a huge let down, in comparison!  In other words, I didn’t need the new car, new partner or anything else to make me feel happy or loved, because I just have this reality of the world being everything I need.

 All of this started when I was 15.  My parents started calling me “Your Majesty” sometimes, and they did that because they knew for some reason I believed people should treat me just that way and people sometimes did.

The world I found myself experiencing was similar to the world of deeper levels of the “Now” that Tolle continually writes about in his books.  As my life went on, for over two decades from 15 on I was kind of in love with the Now. It seemed clear to me that the Now was more real, more joy-filled. And what everyone around me was worried about seemed to me not deserving to be taken too seriously.  I still generally needed to work at making money, and to create at least some satisfying friendships.  But it was like there were two sides of me, and even two worlds. The everyday world to me was very much kind of an illusion, just a kind of theatrical play where I had to pretend to be very interested in whatever work or business I was involved in. And everyone’s behavior mostly just followed the socially determined script. The light of the Now shone into it, thank goodness, and made it bearable.

I’ve since come to know quite a few individuals who have also experienced spiritual enlightenment, and even levels of liberation. This helped me to realize twelve years ago that no matter how deeply or how long anyone spends in the Now, that doesn’t in itself heal their psychological or emotional scars or blockages. Many things that Tolle says seem very misleading on that point. Some meditation schools, both in the West and even in the East, have begun to realize this at last, mostly in the last ten years. This is one of the reasons why I had no choice but to develop my own methods, which this blog will discuss and share with you.