Recently I have been all jazzed up over Eckhart Tolle and Oprah Winfrey joining forces on a podcast. Eckhart Tolle is a renowned spiritual teacher who has written books titled Power of Now, Stillness Speaks, and his latest, A New Earth. The podcast is a book review that takes callers and also answers e-mails pertaining to A New Earth. The podcast started off with over 700,000 listeners representing 190 countries. I know in the last 6 weeks, the number have grown but I can’t tell you what they are. During the first podcast, Oprah said this is the most exciting thing she has ever done. That statement took me back!
Tolle poetically and simplistically writes and teaches about the importance of understanding the difference between thought and what lies behind thought: our presence or consciousness. His message parallels Jesus and the Buddha and his delivery is digestible and non-dogmatic if you are ready to listen with your consciousness. In all his books and in the podcast, he has said there are people that are just not ready to understand that they are not their thoughts, and come to the realization that there is something vaster than their thinking mind residing within them. He goes onto say that unless you have observed your thoughts and realized there is something that can view your thoughts and emotions like a 3rd party observer, the book may not be for you.
I first read the book Power of Now in 2002 and have reread it several times over the years. The first time I read it I was at a yoga retreat in Utah, sitting 9600 feet above sea level with my legs kicked up. and I read the line, “You cannot think and feel at the same time”. This sentence has stayed within my awareness for the last six years. I don’t profess to be a spiritually advanced person and I continually get hung up in my thoughts and emotions. Over the last six weeks I have felt a deepening of his message and I have been talking with colleagues and friends about why this is happening.
1 comment:
I am so greatful to Eckhart Tolle and Oprah for turning me onto Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and her beautiful book ""My Stroke of Insight"". Her story is amazing and her gift to all of us is a book purchase away I'm happy to say.
Dr Taylor was a Harvard brain scientist when she had a stroke at age 37. What was amazing was that her left brain was shut down by the stroke - where language and thinking occur - but her right brain was fully functioning. She experienced bliss and nirvana and the way she writes about it (or talks about it in her now famous TED talk) is incredible.
What I took away from Dr. Taylor's book above all, and why I recommend it so highly, is that you don't have to have a stroke or take drugs to find the deep inner peace that she talks about. Her book explains how. ""I want what she's having"", and thanks to this wonderful book, I can! Thank you Dr. Taylor, and thank you Eckhart and Oprah.
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