Claire Hoffman has written about her meeting with Eckhart Tolle back in 2008. Some things in the article might surprise you, e.g. the authors tensed encounter with Tolle´s wife. It´s a balanced article with a very good ending. Food for thought! I have a copy of Tolle´s book myself, and find it true to try to stay mindful often, but I also think it´s easy to get lost in teachings like this and setting the bar a little too high sometimes, we´re only human after all:
Lying in bed with my new baby girl here in 2013, I’ve thought about that caveat of Tolle’s. As if he had foretold it, I’m a totally different person than I was five years ago, with a totally different life. My Now can’t possibly be the Now of 2008. It’s my responsibility to think about the future and the past as I help create a history for two little girls. It’s my job to worry about unseen danger and to think ahead for them and try to guide them toward their destinies.
I hope that we will all someday look back at 2008 (the peak of the Tolle phenomenon) as also the last gasp of a culture seeking to live unencumbered by lessons of the past or repercussions for the future. I don’t hold Tolle personally responsible for his phenomenon, but I do think his spiritual message, while well-intentioned, might have inadvertently provided the cover for an unhealthy, unbridled Now. I heard Ray Kurzweil on the radio the other day predicting that in a few short decades devices like Google Glass would disappear and simply be programmed molecules flowing through our blood streams, flowing into our brains. With that as the potential future, how can we think the answer is to focus on the present?
Like anyone, I dedicate much of my life to the pursuit of happiness, of self-realization, or whatever you want to call it. But these days, I’ve grown weary of Tolle’s message and all the conflict that comes with it. As sentient beings living in a complex and increasingly fucked-up world, how can we possibly tell ourselves that being present is the end-all?
As I said goodbye to Tolle that day, he seemed to sense I wasn’t entirely convinced. He reassured me that letting go of thought doesn’t mean becoming a puddle of a person. “I believe there’s a vast intelligence beyond the human brain,” he said. “The important thing is not to get trapped in this little instrument for which intelligence expresses itself, but to be consciously connected with that. Consciousness itself underlies everything.” As he talked, I found myself momentarily soothed, hypnotized. He told me there are black holes inside of everyone, and that there was one inside of me. He told me the universe told him to take this interview and that what I was going to write would be profound. As I walked to the door he stopped and gave me a polite hug that suddenly felt important. His dog rollicked at our feet. I walked away, and for a while, didn’t think anything at all.
I never wrote Tolle’s story. I came home to a largely blank notebook, devoid of any real notes or analysis. Being in the Now had rendered me impotent.
Featured image: Eckhart Tolle photographed by Kevin Steele via Spirituality & Health.
