Eckhart Tolle Quotes

“With stillness comes the benediction of Peace.”

“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.”

“Many people see themselves as a problem that needs to be solved. They also habitually see the present moment as an obstacle that they need to overcome or get away from. With awareness, an inner sense of spaciousness arises that enables you to look at your own mind, which is to say the human mind, with a certain degree of detachment.”

“Most people are so distracted by their thoughts, so identified with the voices in their heads, they no longer feel the aliveness within them. To be unable to feel the life that animates the physical body, the very life that you are, is the greatest deprivation that can happen to you.”

“We can learn not to keep situations or events alive in our minds, but to return our attention continuously to the pristine, timeless present moment rather than be caught up in mental movie making.”

“Every practice at some point will become a hindrance. No practice can ever take you there, to freedom, to liberation. That's important to realize.”

“The ego is just waiting to identify with anything. Whether it's your misery or being a great meditator, it seeks some identification.”

“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.”

“[Relationships] do not cause pain and unhappiness. They bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you”

“Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is freedom.”

“When you can no longer feel the life that you are, you are likely to try to fill up your life with things.”

“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.”

“The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future — which, of course, can only be experienced as the Now”

“Some people awaken spiritually without ever coming into contact with any meditation technique or any spiritual teaching. They may awaken simply because they can't stand the suffering anymore.”

“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.”

“On the surface it seems that the present moment is only one of many, many moments. Each day of your life appears to consist of thousands of moments where different things happen. Yet if you look more deeply, is there not only one moment, ever? Is life ever not this moment? This one moment, now, is the only thing you can never escape from. The one constant factor in your life. No matter what happens. No matter how much your life changes. One thing is certain. Its always now. Since there is no escape from the now, why not welcome it, become friendly with it.”

“Ultimately what you do is secondary. But how you do it is primary.”

“You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present.”

“When you awaken spiritually, in fact, you can use thought much more effectively than before, but you realize there is a depth to your Being, a vibrantly alive stillness that is much vaster than thought. It is consciousness itself, of which the thinking mind is only a tiny aspect.”

“People don't realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.”

“Whenever you are able, have a "look" inside yourself to see whether you are unconsciously creating conflict between the inner and the outer, between your external circumstances at that moment - where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing - and your thoughts and feelings. Can you feel how painful it is to internally stand in opposition to what is? When you recognize this, you also realize that you are now free to give up this futile conflict, this inner state of war.”

“The habit patterns of the human mind are very strong and make it seem that the hard way is easy and the easy way is hard.”

“Once you realize that a certain kind of food makes you sick, would you carry on eating that food and keep on asserting that it's okay to be sick?”

“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.”

“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.”