We want it right now!!!

It may be that Tolle is so attractive because he is offering the possibility of instant transformation without doing any work. Most people are not willing to discipline the mind and change their habits for the four months or 6 years or whatever it takes to change from a lazy, fat American into a thoughtful aware individual.

Tolle may be unintentionally doing a great disservice for many people by telling us we can just jump from the lower realms of consciousness to where he is.

Just because this happened to him does not make it possible for all of us to follow him just through being aware of the body and breath and the present moment.

It is a start but for most of us it does not lead to the place where Tolle is. Renunciation of idle thought is a good idea. But for most of us it remains an idea or a fleeting experience. We need true motivation and a real daily practice to clear out the garbage and discipline the mind. He does not give us that.

Tolle is for real but he is oblivious to our limitations

I believe Tolle is “the real thing”. Something happened to him that was profound but he is under the illusion that we can just get what he has by reading his work. But he does not quite know how to create a path for us to climb up. He just looks down from were he is and says; “I am free from suffering and I know you can be to.”

Tolle means to be compassionate. He truly wants us to have the same freedom. But it is actually cruelty because we keep scrambling part way up the steep the cliff he is pointing to and then the way becomes treacherous and obscure and we fall back down to the ground right where we started, each time more bruised and disappointed and not knowing what went wrong.

Tolle just smiles encouragingly and tells us to start again. Meanwhile he is too far up to give us a hand and he does not see the problem. He is sitting in the comfortable lap of the Buddha and he can’t reach down here and we can’t reach up there.

Tolle has given us a glimpse of possibility

Since the Oprah book club featured his ten-week course, millions of people can now see him up there in that comfy peaceful blissful place so we know it is possible to get there.

So in itself that is a gift. But instead of pointing to the longer way around…the Buddhist path, he keeps urging us to climb up the bare face of the cliff directly to where he is resting.

What happened to Eckhart Tolle is atypical to say the least

But Eckhart Tolle did not climb the shear face of that cliff himself. Many enlightened beings must have lifted him effortlessly there one night long ago in his dreary apartment in London; because somehow they heard him cry out in agony and had compassion for him. It was grace that brought him there. What other explanation do we have?

I have wandered away from the book club and found and easier way up

I feel as if I have wandered away from the crowd who are still looking up at Tolle and clinging to their copies of A New Earth. I have discovered the longer but easier path. There are guides all along the way. Teachers like Carolyn Green my Kadampa teacher, and the other teachers higher up the path are holding books, drinks of water, fresh socks, hiking boots and snacks and they have even provided places to rest so I can make it. When I get confused or lost these people guide me back the trail, dust me off, and replenish my supplies.

These teachers emanate a great compassion and love because they could just stay on Buddha’s lap with Tolle where it would be far more comfortable but they travel up and down the path and help tirelessly with all the travelers who are coming along. They have carved steps and have dug wells and have done a lot of hard work over the last 3 centuries so it will be easier for us to get to where they are.

No one can really climb the shear face of that cliff that Tolle and some of the other spontaneously enlightened Indian gurus keep pointing to.

Everyone who gets to “Buddha’s lap” has to be carried by an enlightened being or shown the way by a teacher or many teachers.

The problem with the teachings of Eckhart Tolle is that he was sleeping when he was carried up the mountain so he does not know the path exists. Tolle can’t give us this vital piece of information about how to get where he is.

Even Tolle needed some clarification about his condition

Tolle mentions that he studied with several spiritual teachers after the fateful night he was changed for good. Even he needed to figure out what had happened to him and integrate this newfound peace into his life. He read many books on spirituality but they must have seemed irrelevant to him since he was already there.

Tolle can tell us what it is like to be there and encourage us by continuing to call down to us; but that is all he can do and for many it is not enough to end suffering. It only gives us a fleeting taste of nirvana.

Other teachers who have made it up the mountain to Buddha’s lap did it through discipline and focus. Luckily for the rest of us Buddhism has a built in safety valve. The way to enlightenment is through compassion for the suffering of others. So the more they help us the more they help themselves so everybody wins.

For most of us it is helpful to find someone who had to do it the typical way while keeping the image of Tolle in Buddha’s lap as a reminder that we can be free from suffering too.