Happy birthday to Eckhart Tolle who is 75 today. Eckhart was born on February 16th 1948 in Lunen a small town in Germany. I just thought I would write a little piece about him because I have become quite a fan of Eckhart since reading his book The Power Of Now a couple of years ago. Unless my memory is playing tricks on me, as it is prone to do these days, I think it was at a Van Morrison concert in Bristol in 2014 that I first heard his name mentioned. Van’s daughter Shana opened the show by singing about four numbers, then Shana made a plea for people not to film on their phones by saying, "Like Eckhart Tolle said, Let’s just be here now". That made me curious about him and I watched a couple of his videos on YouTube. I wasn’t all that impressed at first because I thought he was just rehashing Buddhist teachings and things that Krishnamurti had said decades before. I suspected that he was a charlatan out to make money from gullible people.
I gradually warmed to him though, and one thing I liked was his great self-effacing sense of humour. I like the way he laughs at his own jokes. The Dalai Lama does that as well, and so do I. Also, although I didn’t think he was saying anything particularly new, he was saying it in a simple way that the likes of me could understand. I remember going to see Jiddu Krishnamurti speak at Brockwood Park in the 1980s and afterwards, although I was pleased I went, I couldn’t remember or understand hardly anything of what he said. I also think that there is huge value in Buddhist wisdom, but a lot of the truth is often hidden behind a cloud of jargon and words that I don’t understand. You have to concentrate very hard to follow it, which doesn’t suit my lazy personality. With Eckhart I think I can understand what he is saying. Another thing that made me interested in him was that I learned that Eckhart had lived in my favourite town of Glastonbury for several years. This was before he moved to Vancouver in the 1990s and wrote The Power Of Now.
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| Bove Town, Glastonbury. |
He was drawn to Glastonbury because it has always been a centre for spiritual learning. Eckhart used to walk up Glastonbury Tor every single day. It was in a little church in Glastonbury that he asked for abundance, and he has certainly got that. When I was in Glastonbury for a concert at the Abbey I stayed at a B&B in a street called Bove Town. The landlady Michelle was very nice and when we were chatting at breakfast she told me that Eckhart had lived in that very same street. It seemed uncanny because it was only just before that visit that I had finished reading his book. Later that same morning I saw a pavement artist writing on the street, … it was a quote by Eckhart!
Since then, I have read more of his books, A New Earth and Stillness Speaks and watched dozens of his videos, also videos by his wife Kim Eng. He isn’t the only person I have read and liked in recent years, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield and Thich Nhat Hahn all have valuable lessons to teach, but I think the experience of discovering the work of Eckhart Tolle has improved my life for the better in many subtle little ways. I think I’m a bit more tolerant of other people, if they disagree with me, that is ok, they are entitled to their point of view. I don’t get so angry about politics anymore; in fact, I almost feel sorry for politicians because most of them are deluded. They are intelligent and cunning, but very unwise.
I am coming to the view that the world will only get better, not through politicians, but when more and more people individually transform themselves. I seem to have more energy these days, and find pleasure in the simpler things in life, such as going for a walk, watching the sunset or merely being aware of my breathing. Being aware of breathing stops the mumbo-jumbo of repetitive thought patterns in the head. I don’t seem to want anything more either. By being grateful for what we have is the manifestation of abundance. It is important to live in the now and not the past, or the future. The only use of the future is for planning purposes, and I’m planning to see Eckhart Tolle in October. There is an evening with Eckhart at the Royal Albert Hall on October 2nd and I will be there. I’ll tell you all about it in October, when it will be Now.
