# A new earth w/ eckhart



## Guest (Nov 1, 2010)




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## el_kapitano (Aug 21, 2010)

Thanks for that. It's interesting.


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## babybowrain (Aug 24, 2010)

I read part sof his books and found them helpful, but I don't really trust him if he's running around going on oprah...


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## JamJarTashy (Oct 29, 2010)

I love eckhart tolle, i own the book called the power of now. He is very inspirational


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## el_kapitano (Aug 21, 2010)

babybowrain said:


> I read part sof his books and found them helpful, but I don't really trust him if he's running around going on oprah...


What does that have to do with anything?








In what you think that you must trust? He does not force anybody to trust in anything. There is nothing to trust. He is just trying to help people.


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## babybowrain (Aug 24, 2010)

el_kapitano said:


> What does that have to do with anything?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sorry if pissed off anyone..I met like trust in his theories/books, if his things really work. I do like him though!


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

Don't trust Tolle. He bases his theories on no evidence whatsoever. Just like any other new-age spiritualist out there looking to make a quick buck by giving out easy answers.

My general rule: if anything that is being put forward to you as truth asks you to accept it without evidence it should not be trusted.


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## el_kapitano (Aug 21, 2010)

never_giving_up said:


> Don't trust Tolle. He bases his theories on no evidence whatsoever. Just like any other new-age spiritualist out there looking to make a quick buck by giving out easy answers.
> 
> My general rule: if anything that is being put forward to you as truth asks you to accept it without evidence it should not be trusted.


There is no evidence that DP is real... they can't find true cause. We can't put finger on it. Does that mean that DP isn't real?
Yes, it's real. 
What Tolle is saying does make sense. It's not a religion. We can use some of his advices or not. Advices are very simple and easy to do. It's about us and not about him. He is not threat to anybody.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

He is talking about things mystics have been saying for thousands of years. Whether it actually happened to him or he is just parroting them it's hard to tell.


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

el_kapitano said:


> There is no evidence that DP is real... they can't find true cause. We can't put finger on it. Does that mean that DP isn't real?
> Yes, it's real.
> What Tolle is saying does make sense. It's not a religion. We can use some of his advices or not. Advices are very simple and easy to do. It's about us and not about him. He is not threat to anybody.


There is plenty of evidence that DP is real. Brain imaging shows marked differences between DP sufferers and healthy brains.

Tolle asks you to submit to a number of ideas that are either based on no evidence or are a massive over-simplification. I will give two examples, one of each.

For one, Tolle asserts that there is an eternal soul that exists beyond the physical realm of reality. A short argument against this would be that awareness itself depends on one's attachment to one's own senses. Without the senses there is no perception. Without an "ego" you would have no sense of self and thus would not be able to identify yourself as aware.

Secondly, Tolle talks about all negative human behaviour coming from this separate entity called a "pain body." The pain body is an interesting metaphor to describe the cause of certain unconsciously acted negative behaviour but what is implied by Tolle is that this "entity" wants to survive and will only disappear if you starve it of "identification." I think this is a harmful idea. Why? Because I see it as a dissociation from your past trauma. I don't think this is a good way of dealing with repressed emotions at all.

One final thing. Tolle contradicts himself constantly. He talks about "ego-identification" and labeling as if it is bad yet he constantly labels things throughout his writing. I mean to even label "ego-identification" as bad is to contradict himself instantly. If we take the "pain body" for example. Tolle doesn't show sympathy for the self nor does he act with curiosity in trying to understand the cause of emotional repression but instead he just labels it as "bad" and dangerous.

Overall I think Tolle should be taken with a fistful of salt. The meditations can be productive and some of the ideas on identification are useful. All I'm saying is don't take it all literally.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

I think we should hook up Tolle to a brain imaging machine and see what his brainwaves look like in a socially stressful situation, if they are similar to those of people in meditation then we know he's telling the truth.


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

Pablo said:


> I think we should hook up Tolle to a brain imaging machine and see what his brainwaves look like in a socially stressful situation, if they are similar to those of people in meditation then we know he's telling the truth.


You know not all stress is unhealthy right?


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

never_giving_up said:


> You know not all stress is unhealthy right?


Yes, im not sure how that is relevant to what I said though? If Tolle is "enlightened" then normal social stress wouldn't exist for him as he would have no attachment to the outcome of any of it, he would still have stress if you pointed a gun at him but most social stress is all about worrying about upholding your image.


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