Wednesday, April 7, 2021

The power of now, A new Earth - Eckart Tolle



A good thing about the current pandemic is that I’ve had plenty of time to read. I'm currently updating a list of the best books I’ve come across so far. Please see my home page for the previous entries.
17th item: a pair of books.
In his most famous works the spiritual teacher Eckart Tolle, drawing from his own experience and various mystical traditions, addresses an old theme: how to deal with emotional problems and improve one’s life.
The message is both simple and powerful, and by no means new: we all tend to identify with a fictitious second self (aka ego), which creates a strong sense of separation between us and the outer environment, including other people, causing an incessant accumulation of emotional pain. This fictitious self feeds itself on memories of the past and expectations/fear of the future. These timeframes, though, don’t actually exist, as the only real moment is the moment we’re living now, i.e. the present.
Tolle then proceeds to explain how we can get out of this vicious circle and how this is gonna improve our own lives and the whole world.
Some call him condescending, others know-it-all. Many claim that he changed their lives. Like him or not he has something interesting to say and knows how to tell it beautifully.

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