Eckhart Tolle famous quotes

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

#Giving Up #Mean #Knowing

When you always want the next thing, every human being becomes a means to an end.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Mean #Want #Next

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Inspirational #Life #Happiness

A huge number of people are going through the process of awakening, some in the early stages, some in later stages, and it's wonderful to see.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Numbers #People #Awakening

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Infinite #Possibility #Infinite Possibilities

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.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Important #World #Demand

Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Suffering #Realizing #Unnecessary

If people believe the world is here to satisfy them, whenever they begin to encounter their limitations, they become unhappy.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Believe #People #Unhappy

Be aware of your breathing. Notice how this takes attention away from your thinking and creates space.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Thinking #Breathing #Space

The most important healing - realizing who you are. The healing on the outer level is fine, but it's not the essence of healing.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Healing #Essence #Important

Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Flower #Tree #Looks

When you see around you the human form suffering or dissolving, you have empathy on the human level. You share the suffering because it has to do with the fleetingness of form. But if that is the only level that operates in you, you haven't gone beyond suffering.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Empathy #Suffering #Gone

You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Past #Finding Yourself

For many years I had been deeply identified with thinking and the painful, heavy emotions that had accumulated inside. My thought activity was mostly negative, and my sense of identity was also mostly negative, although I tried hard to prove to myself and to the world that I was good enough by working very hard academically. But even after I had achieved academic success, I was happy for two weeks or three and then the depression and anxiety came back.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Thinking #Years #Two

You are here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. That is how important you are!
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Inspirational #Inspiring #Beauty

Some people are called upon to do great things externally in this world by creating some new structure that reflects their awakening consciousness. Other people are not called to go out into the world and create great big things externally. Their purpose is to let consciousness flow into whatever they do - to do everything in a sacred manner.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Creating #People #Purpose

All you realy need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Needs #Ease

To do everything in a sacred manner means to do everything fully in the state of presence.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Mean #Sacred #States

How do you let go of attachment to things? Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Letting Go #Philosophical #Attachment

Challenges are something that can only be tackled in the present moment and require action.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Challenges #Action #Moments

When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation or accept it, all else is madness.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Hate #Complaining #Madness

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

#Mean #Worry #Mind

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Mistake #Moving #Past

With stillness comes the benediction of peace”. “Thinking isolates a situation or event and calls it good or bad, as if it had a separate existence.  Through excessive reliance on thinking, reality becomes fragmented.  This fragmentation is an illusion, but seems very real while you are trapped in it.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Real #Thinking #Events

If your relationship to the present moment is not right - nothing can ever be right in the future - because when the future comes - it's the present moment.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Mindfulness #Moments #Our Relationship

It is important to realize that a large percentage of what we hear or see on the news focuses on those places where there is violent conflict...It gives us a slightly or very distorted view of what is going on because there are many other parts of the planet where there is no violent conflict, but that is not on the news.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Views #Giving #Important

The consciousness of the animal begins to change when it interacts with a human who's gone beyond thinking. It's not only the animals assisting us; we are also assisting the animals.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Thinking #Animal #Gone

When you say “yes” to the “isness” of life, when you accept this moment as it is, you can feel a sense of spaciousness within you that is deeply peaceful.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Peaceful #Moments #Accepting

You can marry the Buddha, and after a few months you will find on the human form the Buddha, too, has his limitations. There may be things that the mind reacts to and irritates you about the Buddha. "Why is he sitting over there in meditation?"
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Meditation #Mind #Sitting

The ultimate truth of who you are is not I am this or I am that, but I Am.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Ultimate Truth #Ultimate #Who You Are

Space really means the level of awareness or presence, not thinking. So, can you look at your partner and not think? Two conscious beings realize that the essence of the relationship is the space in it. Even when there is an egoic overlay, it is not too dense or heavy for you to sense the essence underneath it. You don't need to react to the egoic overlay. When you don't react to it you don't strengthen it.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Mean #Thinking #Essence

Ultimately what you do is secondary. But how you do it is primary.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Positivity

I sometimes say animals are closer to God than humans. They are closer to the source. The humans are more lost in the mind forms. Being is more obscured to the human because of the overlay of ego and mental formation.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Animal #Ego #Mind

The past has no power over the present moment.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Positive #Wisdom #Philosophical

I call animals "guardians of Being," especially animals that live with humans. Because, for many humans, it's through their contact with animals they get in touch with that level of being.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Animal #Levels #Guardian

You are not 'in the now;' you are the now. That is your essential identity-the only thing that never changes. Life is always now. Now is consciousness. And consciousness is who you are. That's the equation.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Life Changing #Identity #Essentials

We are destined not to go back to the level of animals that we've come from but to return to being by going beyond thinking.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Animal #Thinking #Levels

Give up waiting as a state of mind. When you catch yourself slipping into waiting...snap out of it. Come into the present moment. Just be and enjoy being.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Giving Up #Waiting #Mind

The animals are at a level prior to thinking. They haven't lost themselves in thought. We rise above thinking and then we meet them again, where we're both in no-thought. There's a deep connection.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Thinking #Animal #Levels

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Inspirational #Life #Change

With the egoic consciousness having become so dysfunctional, and now having at our disposal all these enormous technologies and scientific advances, if nothing changes the ego will use those things - as it already has been doing - and will amplify the technology that we now have. The scientific advances, to a large extent, will be used in the service of the ego, and they will become more and more destructive.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Technology #Ego #Use

As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Inspirational #Spiritual #Struggle

Terrorism is an example of that extreme madness. People blow themselves up just to kill others. Unconscious reaction to terrorism is equal madness.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Blow #People #Example

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

#Spiritual #Thinking #Joy

There are many things that are still uncertain and that probably nobody knows, because so many factors determine what form the transformation of consciousness on our planet takes.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Transformation #Consciousness #Uncertain

All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Regret #Stress #Sadness

Humanity is reaching the end of the evolutionary stage of ego. The closer we get to the end, the more dysfunctional humanity becomes.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Ego #Humanity #Reaching

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Knowing #Not Knowing #Answers

The egoic madness, or dysfunction, becomes enormously amplified by the science and technology we all have developed.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Technology #Dysfunction #Madness

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not 'yours,' not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Sadness #Boredom #Feeling Sad

Accept the present moment and find the perfection that is deeper than any form and untouched by time.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Perfection #Moments #Accepting

We would destroy ourselves and the planet if no change happens, because of the amplification of the egoic state through science and technology.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Technology #Amplification #States

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.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Ideas #Oneness #Accomplishment

If we don't change, if the egoic consciousness continues, I don't believe that humanity as a species can survive, or at least human civilization can survive, for another hundred years.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Believe #Years #Civilization

Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Inspirational #Life #Death

It is quite possible even that the planet would no longer be able to sustain human life. Probably, the planet eventually would regenerate and produce some other life form. Consciousness would flow into some other life form and express itself through that, whatever that would be.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Would Be #Able #Flow

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.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Wisdom #Space

I believe from what I can see there is a good chance the shift will happen in humanity before it is too late.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Believe #Humanity #Too Late

Stop looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love - you have a treasure within that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Love You #Positivity #Validation

Germany is a nation that created an enormous amount of suffering on the planet. The German people also themselves have suffered, because it always goes together.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#People #Suffering #Together

See if you can catch yourself complaining in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Weather #People #Finding Yourself

The more suffering you create, the more suffering comes to you.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Suffering

You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don’t have a life. You are life.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Air #Earth #Sun

Every individual is in touch with the deeper level of being, the aware consciousness. If these humans form groups, they do not derive their sense of self from the group, which does not mean there cannot be a sense of being part of this group. But the group itself does not become an egoic entity.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Mean #Self #Groups

The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Creating #Moments #Better Future

A group needs enemies, because without enemies its identity cannot continue to be defined.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Enemy #Identity #Groups

The present moment is all you ever have.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Inspirational #Motivational #Moments

Vigilance in oneself is very important. Vigilance means to be alert to what happens inside, so you can catch an old, collective habit pattern.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Mean #Important #Patterns

True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Creativity #Spirituality #Problem

For spiritual teachers, it is important not to identify with the image people inevitably have of them.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Teacher #People

The foundation of greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment, instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Greatness #Ideas

People always form images of who others are, and they can be inflated images. People may not realize that the enormous energy and spiritual power that comes through a teacher, especially in a teaching situation, has nothing to do with that person.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Teacher #Teaching

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Thinking #Small Things

I sometimes say to people, "I am a window frame - no more. The window frame is not that important. What is important is the light that comes through the window.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Light #People #Important

Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Uplifting #Spiritual #Fighting

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Agents #Awareness

When you are not making the present moment into a means to an end, you also are not making every human being you meet - in your business and even at home, in your family - into a means to an end.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Mean #Home #Moments

Being is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Self #Mind #Trying

When you live as a friend of the now, many changes come into your life.
-- Eckhart Tolle

To end the misery that has afflicted the human condition for thousands of years, you have to start with yourself and take responsibility for you inner state at any given moment. That means now
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Responsibility #Mean #Years

You can be very much aware that when you are stressed, it always is a sign you have lost the present moment. So, you can choose to re-enter the present moment.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Stressed #Moments #Lost

Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Flower #Essence #Bird

Stress is a form of suffering, but it is accepted as normal. And it is normal in our world.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Stress #Our World #Suffering

Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Inspirational #Encouraging #Uplifting

Stress is extremely harmful to the body. Even mainstream medicine is recognizing how many diseases stress causes.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Stress #Medicine #Causes

If you are not taking responsibility for your state of consciousness, you are not taking responsibility for life.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Powerful #Responsibility #Consciousness

Stress is a form of suffering. Look at your body and see what stress does to the body and its functions - what it does to the heart, the circulation, the immune system, the digestive function, the liver.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Stress #Heart #Suffering

Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you, no humility, no compassion.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Inspirational #Humility #Compassion

Any action that arises out of stress is of low quality, and it contributes to human suffering. You are making yourself and others suffer.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Stress #Suffering #Quality

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

#Looks #Ability #Needed

In fact, people think you have to be stressed to be successful. They think if you are not stressed, something is wrong with you.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Successful #Thinking #People

You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Miracle #Becoming

The whole world accepts that being stressed is the normal way to live.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Stressed #Normal #World

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Thinking #Live In The Moment

When great loss happens - deaths close to you or your own approaching death - this is an opportunity for stepping completely out of identification with form and realizing the essence of who you are, or that the essence of anyone who is suffering or dying is beyond death.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Loss #Opportunity #Essence

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Inspirational #Life #Spiritual

Sometimes people need to experience great loss to really be driven deeper.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Loss #People #Needs

Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Pain #Long #Mind

When forms begin to crumble there is always an opportunity for great deepening. By deepening I mean the arising of who you are beyond form.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Mean #Opportunity #Form

You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.
-- Eckhart Tolle

#Spiritual #Awareness