Eckhart Tolle



Eckhart Tolle (born Ulrich Leonard Tölle) is a New-Age-guru, and garden-gnome-lookalike, promoted by Oprah Winfrey. Eckhart, is the author of the mumbo-jumbo bestseller,

Apparently Eckhart suffered from manic-depression: he writes: Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. (now comes the manic-euphoria bit): I had no relationships, no job, no home, no identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.

But like David Icke, Eckhart has luckily managed to turn his mental-breakdown into a lucrative publishing career.

Education
Before and during his period of park-bench hopping and proselytizing to strangers, Tolle studied at London University. He was offered a scholarship to do postgraduate research at Cambridge University, which he entered in 1977 but dropped out soon after. In addition to speaking English, Tolle taught classes while speaking Spanish and German.

Despite his education, he became a self-help guru utilizing his knowledge in philosophy, religion, and psychology. There is evidence in his talks that he is widely read, however he often misquotes Descartes, Nietzsche, and Sartre. For example, he erroneously states in his book A New Earth:

Despite Descartes's quote being taken completely out of context, and having wrong meaning attributed to it, it makes for good self-help filler.

Tolle states in his books and talks that he is not smart, but it does appear he was learned enough to create a multi-million dollar empire by using pop psychology, philosophy, Buddhism, New Age woo and other sources.

Danger
It's easy to underestimate gurus like Tolle. On the surface he is a calm unassuming man with a German accent, but even a cursory glance at his teachings will show them to be potentially harmful.

The Ego
Eckhart Tolle's definition of the word Ego is different than most psychologists and dictionaries understand the word to be. Regardless, Ecky's position is that the ego should be removed from oneself to avoid suffering:

Because fuck your family, your nationality, and anything that makes life worth living. Meditate on this and be free of suffering!

Focus on consciousness as much as you can, and don't think about what I am saying. Just realize the truth of it.

By "evolve" he means "become enlightened", which means "empty your mind of thought and resistance". The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh cult also used this formula to great effect.

Read The Power of Now chapter on the ego and substitute the word "ego" with "rationalism" or "rationalist". Better yet, read something else. Don't read this shit at all.