I know this site is supposed to be for poetry, but I just discovered an author who has been around for a long time. His name is Eckhart Tolle. His new book is called "Oneness with All Life."
"You never no longer derive your identity, you sense of who you are, from the incessant stream of thinking in the old consciousness you take to be yourself. What liberation to realize that 'the voice in my head' is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that. The awareness that is prior to thought, the space in which the thought---or the emotion or sense of perception---happens." NOW THAT'S PRETTY GOOD!
Here is what WIKI says about him:
Early life
Born Ulrich Leonard Tolle in Lünen, near Dortmund, Germany, Eckhart Tolle lived with his father in Spain from about the age of 13 to 19, approximately between the years 1961 and 1967, after which he moved to the UK. He had no formal education between the ages of 13 and 22, refusing to go to school because of its "hostile environment"; but he pursued his own "particular interests."
Tolle graduated from the University of London and entered, but did not complete, a doctoral program at Cambridge University, having studied literature, languages and philosophy. At the age of 29, Tolle experienced what he calls an "inner transformation," after suffering long periods of suicidal depression. Since 1996, he has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
[edit] Teachings
Tolle's non-fiction bestseller The Power of Now emphasizes not being caught up in thoughts of past and future as a way of being aware of the present moment. His later book A New Earth further explores the structure of the human ego and how this acts to distract people from their present experience of the world. He asserts that it is the feeding of the human ego that is thought to be the source of inner and outer conflict, and that only by examining the ego may people begin to see beyond it and obtain a sense of spiritual enlightening or a new outlook on reality.
Influences
At about the age of fifteen he received five books that were written by a German mystic, Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, also known as Bô Yin Râ. Tolle responded "very deeply" to those books. He said the first texts with which he came in contact after the awakening and in which he found deep understanding were the New Testament, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching and teachings of The Buddha. In The Power of Now, he mentioned the writings of Meister Eckhart, Advaita Vedanta, A Course in Miracles, the Bible, mystical Islam, Sufism, and Rumi's poetry, as well as Zen Buddhism's Lin-chi (Linji in pinyin ) (Rinzai) school. In the book Dialogues with Emerging Spiritual Teachers by John W. Parker, he has acknowledged a strong connection to J Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi and stated that his teaching is a coming together of the teachings of both those teachers, and it is a continuation of that. In addition, he states that by listening to and speaking with the spiritual teacher Barry Long, he understood things more deeply.[
The first of his four books was The Power of Now, a #1 New York Times best-seller that has been translated into over 33 languages. He has also recorded numerous audio interviews and a video. American talk-show host Oprah Winfrey considers The Power of Now to be one of her favorite books. Tolle's most recent book, A New Earth, also topped the Times chart in March, 2008.
In January 2008, Winfrey selected A New Earth s her Oprah's Book Club selection, accompanied by a 10-week live online seminar (or "webinar") with Tolle, which started on
In a 2003 interview with the Telegraph Magazine, Eckhart Tolle indicated that he has no intention to create "a heavy commercial structure" or to set up an ashram.
Born Ulrich Leonard Tolle in Lünen, near Dortmund, Germany, Eckhart Tolle lived with his father in Spain from about the age of 13 to 19, approximately between the years 1961 and 1967, after which he moved to the UK. He had no formal education between the ages of 13 and 22, refusing to go to school because of its "hostile environment"; but he pursued his own "particular interests."
Tolle graduated from the University of London and entered, but did not complete, a doctoral program at Cambridge University, having studied literature, languages and philosophy. At the age of 29, Tolle experienced what he calls an "inner transformation," after suffering long periods of suicidal depression. Since 1996, he has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
[edit] Teachings
Tolle's non-fiction bestseller The Power of Now emphasizes not being caught up in thoughts of past and future as a way of being aware of the present moment. His later book A New Earth further explores the structure of the human ego and how this acts to distract people from their present experience of the world. He asserts that it is the feeding of the human ego that is thought to be the source of inner and outer conflict, and that only by examining the ego may people begin to see beyond it and obtain a sense of spiritual enlightening or a new outlook on reality.
Influences
At about the age of fifteen he received five books that were written by a German mystic, Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, also known as Bô Yin Râ. Tolle responded "very deeply" to those books. He said the first texts with which he came in contact after the awakening and in which he found deep understanding were the New Testament, the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching and teachings of The Buddha. In The Power of Now, he mentioned the writings of Meister Eckhart, Advaita Vedanta, A Course in Miracles, the Bible, mystical Islam, Sufism, and Rumi's poetry, as well as Zen Buddhism's Lin-chi (Linji in pinyin ) (Rinzai) school. In the book Dialogues with Emerging Spiritual Teachers by John W. Parker, he has acknowledged a strong connection to J Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi and stated that his teaching is a coming together of the teachings of both those teachers, and it is a continuation of that. In addition, he states that by listening to and speaking with the spiritual teacher Barry Long, he understood things more deeply.[
The first of his four books was The Power of Now, a #1 New York Times best-seller that has been translated into over 33 languages. He has also recorded numerous audio interviews and a video. American talk-show host Oprah Winfrey considers The Power of Now to be one of her favorite books. Tolle's most recent book, A New Earth, also topped the Times chart in March, 2008.
In January 2008, Winfrey selected A New Earth s her Oprah's Book Club selection, accompanied by a 10-week live online seminar (or "webinar") with Tolle, which started on
In a 2003 interview with the Telegraph Magazine, Eckhart Tolle indicated that he has no intention to create "a heavy commercial structure" or to set up an ashram.
Tolle has an interesting presentation style, he is probably an acquired taste:
As far as inspirational music, check out this band called "The Bird and the Bee" who I first saw yesterday on the Ellen G show. They definitely craft their own sound and I cannot get their song, "Love Letter to Japan" out of my mind.
