Dharma Combat

Where Spiritual Giants Duke It Out

Eckhart Tolle
Taking Hits

 

Andrew Cohen: "What both Tolle and Goldstein share is this rigidly undogmatic enlightenment teaching . . . they both fervently resist the notion that enlightenment could ever have anything to do with doing anything other than letting go of those ideas, concepts, and attachments that, in the spiritual revelation, are recognized as being false, wrong, and untrue. They are both examples of "personal enlightenment" - in which transcendence of the world and personal salvation are pursued in such a way that the individual always remains free from excessive involvement with the ordinary world. Firmly devoted to the path of unconditional freedom, they avoid any kind of engagement that would risk creating attachment. Indeed, with both feet rooted in the realm of the unmanifest and treading very lightly on this earth, both Goldstein and Tolle, as individuals, are clear demonstrations of a deeply detached engagement with this world. Both are not in sexual relationships, have no children, and have organized their lives in a way that ensures that there's plenty of time for personal space."
- from "What Is Enlightenment?" magazine, Fall/Winter 2000, Issue 18, p.45

Derek Cameron: "My only quibble with Tolle's program is that the practice he recommends - essentially, something very similar to the Buddhist practice of mindfulness - is not the method by which he himself arrived at his transformation. In fact, Tolle's 'enlightenment' occurred, without prior practice, over the course of just one night..."

 

Dante Parker: " Tolle says essentially that women are closer to God, because they are generally more in touch with or in tune with feeling, the deeply vital aspect of existence, beneath which is the Absolute, the Source, or whatever it is called. But remember - Eckart Tolle is a man, coming from a masculine male perspective - so for him this may in fact be true, while it may very well not for others.
Meaning, Tolle may be coming from a perspective of generally being orientated on and identified with a kind of head-centered, intellectual, objective perspective to the exclusion of the vital and embodied; thus for him, this "other half" of wholeness lies in the vital embodied aspects of existence. But for someone who is constitutionally more identified with the vital-embodied aspects of existence, the transcendental or head-centered, intellectual and so on aspects of existence may well be "closer to God." It depends on where, on which part of the polarity, one is coming from. Wherever you're coming from, the other part seems closer to God."

 

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