Eckhart Tolle Quotes

Honoring the moment is honoring every human being you meet. The only place where you can meet them is in the moment.

Gratefulness for what is there is one of the most powerful tools for creating what is not yet there. What does gratefulness mean? It means you appreciate what is. You value, you give attention to, you honor whatever is here at this moment.

You don't 'have' a life, you 'are' life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy.

When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. The mind itself is a wonderful tool. Dysfunction sets in when you seek your self in it and mistake it for who you are.

If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence, the unconditioned consciousness which in a state of inner openness you becomeone with. Circumstances and people then become helpful, cooperative. Coincidences happen.If no action is possible, you rest in the peace and inner stillness that come with surrender.

Remember that your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness. You are not separate from it, and there is no objective world out there. Every moment,your consciousness creates the world that you inhabit.

Although an increasing number of humans are undergoing a process of awakening, identification with thinking is still the prevalent state of consciousness. Thinking is potentially a powerful tool, but it has taken us over, and a lot of it is dysfunctional and negative.

A short attention span makes all of your perceptions and relationships shallow and unsatisfying.

Of course, most of the people in this world are stressed, and most of those who are not stressed are totally bored!

You are not a problem that needs solving.

The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much.

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.

When you feel confused or burdened by problems focus on THIS INSTANT and ask yourself: WHAT PROBLEM DO I HAVE RIGHT NOW? You will find that there is no problem NOW. A challenge that requires action, possibly, but not a problem.

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

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

Let the end of the world be inside you, then you don't need to fear the end of the world out there.

Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.

In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.

Awareness is the greatest agent for change.

For the ego to survive, it must make time - past and future - more important than the present moment.

Focus your attention on the Now and tell me what problem you have at this moment.

When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world. Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form.

The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.

If danger arises in the present moment, there may be an emotion. There may even be pain. But that's a challenge, not a problem. For a problem to exist, you need time and repetitive mind activity.

Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry

I am optimistic that humanity is going to make it, that humanity is going to reach, finally, a new state of consciousness which will then create a different kind of world.

You can still achieve certain things through effort, struggle, determination, and sheer hard work or cunning. But there is no joy in such endeavor, and it invariably ends in some form of suffering.

What is commonly called 'falling in love' is in most cases an intensification of egoic wanting and needing. You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person. It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever.

Instead of being lost in your thinking, when you awaken you recognize yourself as the awareness behind it. Thinking then ceases to be a self-serving autonomous activity that takes possession of you and runs your life.

Most people want to get what they want, whereas the secret is to want what you get at this moment.

The present moment is all you ever have. There is never a time when your life is not 'this moment.' Is this not a fact?

Most people don't know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking. They pay more attention to that than to what the other person is saying, and none at all to what really matters: the Being of the other person underneath the words and the mind. Of course, you cannot feel someone else's Being except through your own. This is the beginning of the realization of oneness, which is love. At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is.

The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That's all there ever is.

An emotion is your body's reaction to your mind.

The energy that flows into what you do, although it may be high energy, is very peaceful energy. It is not out of alignment with life.

To be conscious of Being, you need to reclaim consciousness from the mind. This is one of the most essential tasks on your spiritual journey.

The vital function that pets fulfill in this world hasn't been fully recognized. They keep millions of people sane.

Do not pollute your beautiful, radiant Being nor the Earth with negativity. Do not give unhappiness in any form whatsoever a dwelling place inside you.

You are awareness, disguised as a person.

You are never more essentially, more deeply, yourself than when you are still.

You don't need to condemn. Just observe, That is sin. That is insanity. That is unconsciousness. Above all, don't forget to observe your own mind. Seek out the root of the insanity there.

It's interesting that stepping out of thought was actually triggered by a thought.

You are the love and joy beneath the pain.

To love is to recognize yourself in another.

If it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? Your degree of presence. So the only place where true change can occur and where the past can be dissolved is the Now.

Leave life alone. Let it be.

The teaching arises out of the stillness. But when I'm alone, there's only the stillness, and that is my favorite place.

In whatever way change comes, the important thing is to take responsibility for this moment. Then, life becomes cooperative.

You cannot be both unhappy, and fully present in the Now.

A great deal of what people say, think, or do is actually motivate by fear, which of course is always linked with having your focus on the future and being out of touch with the Now. As there are no problems in the Now, there is no fear either.

Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.

Thoughts are fine when you don't confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.

As soon as the mind and mind identification return; you're no longer yourself but a mental image of yourself, and you start playing games and roles again to get your ego needs met.

At the height of creative activity fueled by enthusiasm, there will be enormous intensity and energy behind what you do. You will feel like an arrow that is moving toward the target-and enjoying the journey.

Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.

If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die. Wars have been fought over this, and countless relationships have broken down.

You create a good future by creating a good present.

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.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

If you don't have a good relationship with the now, you don't have a goodrelationship with life.