Top 1167 Quotes & Sayings by Eckhart Tolle - Page 3

The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being.

The moment you realize you are not present, you are present.

Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life.

When you are in the present moment, you break the continuity of your story, of past and future. Then true intelligence arises, and also love.

You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could spare them from all suffering? No, it wouldn't. They would not evolve as human beings and would remain shallow, identified with the external form of things. Suffering drives you deeper. The paradox is that suffering is caused by identification with form and erodes identification with form. A lot of it is caused by the ego, although eventually suffering destroys the ego-but not until you suffer consciously.

Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

The most decisive event in your life is when you discover you are not your thoughts or emotions. Instead, you can be present as the awareness behind the thoughts and emotions.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.

I never went out and said, "I want to do this." I never do that. I wait for things to come to me, either within or without, and I go along with it.

If you don't have a good relationship with the now, you don't have a good relationship with life.

every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in.

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and listen. No more is needed.

The present moment holds the key to liberation. But you cannot find the present moment as long as you are your mind.

The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.

Guilt, regret, resentment, sadness & all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past & not enough presence.

Worry means the mind is controlling you. Worry is always pointless. A solution never comes out of worry.

To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment

Mastery of life is not a question of control, but of finding a balance between human and being...Human is form. Being is formless. Human and Being are not separate but interwoven.

The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.

When there's somebody there who is transparent enough so that the stillness comes through unhindered, there's a reciprocal movement in you because the presence of stillness suddenly recognizes itself.

All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no "I" except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted.

People can't live with themselves much longer. The planet cannot live with humans much longer! We have the weaponry, destruction of the planet, pollution, destruction of forests, countless manifestations of humans using their intelligence in the service of the dysfunction, the madness. It's a strange juxtaposition. Humans are intelligent, but if you look at history or even watch TV, they're also incredibly stupid.

Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry or hard-done by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also insane.

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.

Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.

Not until you surrender does the spiritual dimension become a living reality in your life. When you do, the energy you emanate and that then runs your life is of a much higher vibrational frequency than the mind energy that still runs the world.

If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.

Important thing to realize is the world is not here to make me happy. When you don't demand that the situation, or place, or person should make you happy, then actually the situation, place, or person is quite satisfying.

What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.

Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to - alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person - you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain.

Whenever you step out of the noise of thinking, that is meditation, and a different state of consciousness arises.

Thought alone cannot recognize spiritual truths no matter how highly developed thought is. It's impossible.

In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.

Remember that your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness. You are not separate from it, and there is no objective world out there. Every moment, your consciousness creates the world that you inhabit.

Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind.

A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth of who you already are and what you already know in the depth of your being

Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep, unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, while they have a treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.

Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.

Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.

Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.

Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.

True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such a way as if you had completely chosen whatever you feel or experience at this moment. This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering. Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be reading this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.

I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.

Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.

Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.

Instead of asking, “what do I want from life?,” a more powerful question is, “what does life want from me?

Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.

The moment you put a mental label on another human being, you can no longer truly relate to that person. . . It then becomes possible to perpetrate any act of violence.

Gratefulness for what is there is one of the most powerful tools for creating what is not yet there. What does gratefulness mean? It means you appreciate what is. You value, you give attention to, you honor whatever is here at this moment.

The source of all abundance is not outside of you. It's a part of who you are.

The mind is essentially a survival machine. Attack and defense against other minds, gathering, storing, and analyzing information - this is what it is good at, but it is not at all creative. All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.

Don't judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don't make a personal problem out of them. You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher.

The power is in you. The answer is in you. And you are the answer to all your searches: you are the goal. You are the answer. It's never outside.

As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.

Compassion is the awareness of a deep bond between yourself and all creatures.

Fulfill me, make me happy, make me feel safe, tell me who I am. The world cannot give you those things, and when you no longer have such expectations, all self created suffering comes to an end.

Consciousness is a vast ocean and thinking is the waves & ripples on the surface of the ocean.

To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be. The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.

Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.