Eckhart Tolle: Modern-day Buddha?

I recently came across Eckhart Tolle's books, and I was immediately struck by the depth and scope of his spiritual insights. As a voracious reader, who has sampled quite a vast array of discourse on Religion, Spirituality, Philosophy, Metaphysics and Psychology, I find his books to be some of the most relevant and well expounded volumes on Buddhist thought and general Spirituality I have ever encountered.

Born Ulrich Leonard Tolle in Lünen, Germany in 1948, Eckhart (a name he chose) was perpetually troubled by depression, anxiety and fear until he was twenty-nine years old. One night in 1977, after having suffered from long periods of suicidal depression, he experienced spontaneous "Samadhi," awakening from the illusion of duality. Recounting the experience, he says "I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this a question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void! I didn’t know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or “beingness,” just observing and watching."  For a period of about two years, he wandered aimlessly like the Zen Buddhist Masters of old,  spending a lot of his time sitting in park benches, “in a state of deep bliss." Eckhart wandered around staying with friends and drifted about "watching the world go by." His family was worried that he had gone insane.

People were curious, so they began talking to him about his perspective on life. Amazed at his thoughts on spirituality, people began to be drawn to him. This led to a five year stint as a Spiritual councilor and teacher. In 1995, he migrated to Vancouver, Canada where he began to write. His first three books, "The Power of Now," "Stillness Speaks" and "A New Earth," have sold millions of copies and  have been consistently on the "New York Times Best-Sellers List." Spurred by his books' successes, Eckhart partnered with Oprah Winfrey to produce webinar sessions in 2008 and launched Eckhart Tolle TV in 2009.

The current commercial tone of his enterprise is not exactly to my taste (maybe it is the best way to reach the most number of people), but I fully support his message and goal. Eckhart speaks clearly about our "collective delusions," and how our "Egos" have created the destructive path we are currently facing. We should all awaken from our "state of insanity," and realize the divinity of life, in all its forms. I highly recommend "The Power of Now" and "A New Earth" to everyone seeking genuine spiritual insight. Eckhart is the real thing, and he is showing us a viable way out of Māyā (Sanskrit माया ), our collective illusion of duality and separateness.

Here is an excerpt from "A New Earth:"

Most ancient religions and spiritual traditions share the common insight-- that our "normal" state of mind is marred by a fundamental defect... In Hindu teachings (and sometimes in Buddhism also), this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering. Liberation and awakening are other terms used to describe this transformation. The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness.

--Quote taken from "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle 

The Music We Are

By Jelaluddin Rumi (1207 - 1273)

Did you hear that winter's over?  The basil

and the carnations cannot control their

laughter.  The nightingale, back from his

wandering, has been made singing master

over the birds.  The trees reach out their

congratulations.  The soul goes dancing

through the king's doorway.  Anemones blush

because they have seen the rose naked.

Spring, the only fair judge, walks in the

courtroom, and several December thieves steal

away.  Last year's miracles will soon be

forgotten.  New creatures whirl in from non-

existence, galaxies scattered around their

feet.  Have you met them?  Do you hear the

bud of Jesus crooning in the cradle?  A single

narcissus flower has been appointed Inspector

of Kingdoms.  A feast is set.  Listen: the

wind is pouring wine!  Love used to hide

inside images: no more!  The orchard hangs

out its lanterns.  The dead come stumbling by

in shrouds.  Nothing can stay bound or be

imprisoned.  You say, "End this poem here,

and wait for what's next."  I will.  Poems

are rough notations for the music we are.

--translation by Coleman Barks

Einstein's View On Religion

Albert Einstein is one of the greatest thinkers in the history of humanity.  He is generally known for his thoughts on theoretical Physics.  But since Physics is concerned about the nature of  (physical) "reality," its greatest thinkers cannot avoid pondering on metaphysical questions in their quest to seek answers to explain Nature and the Universe.  I think, Einstein's views on Religion and God are just as facinating and as relevant as his thoughts on Space and Time.  Here is a brief excerpt of an article he wrote for the New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930.

"The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.

Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.

The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.

The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."

Media Madness

When asked “What thing about humanity surprises you the most?”, the Dalai Lama answered:

“Man…. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

“Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility...without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed, or unhappy because of circumstances.”

I found these quotes by the Dalai Lama on the internet... I never met his Holiness personally, but these statements touch me personally and profoundly just the same.

Modern Media -- the Internet, TV/Cable, Radio, Cinema and Print, have profound effects on our daily lives.  It keeps us constantly informed and in touch with an extended world beyond our immediate environment (social circle/neighborhood).  World events now have a sense of intimacy and urgency about them, that was not palpable less than a century ago, before TV and the Internet were widely present in most households.

I have nothing against Media.  As a matter of fact, I am a rabid consumer of information in the form of books, movies, cable TV (Discovery, History, TLC) and the internet.  There are a lot of great information that can be gleaned from these media sources.  But I cannot help but wonder if Media, specifically the News and information giants like CNN, FOX, NBC, etc., are actually doing more harm than good by propagating "sensationalism."  Their practice of hyping stories to attract the maximum number of viewers, have a multiplyer effect that create media driven crises-- What would have been contained and manageable before a media frenzy, becomes more astronomical and uncontrollable.

It makes me wonder if the crises in "hot spots" around the world would become as big as they eventually turn out to be without media magnification.  The current World Economic Crisis for example or the global proliferation of terrorism, would they be as serious as they are now without constant media attention?

But it is not all bad.  Constant media focus on humanitarian and environmental issues for example, would not get the proper forum without media interest.  So in the end, it all balances out one way or another.  Like everything else in Life, there is a good and there is a bad in everything.  Media is a part of the evolution of humanity, it is here to stay whether we want it or not.

But like everything else that is potent and powerful, we must treat it with respect.  Let us be mindful of its ability to alter people's consciousness and opinions.  We should not be solely motivated by monetary or political considerations when we use media, the mental and spiritual well-being of our fellowmen (and women) must also be factored in, to avoid the degeneration and destruction of "soul" caused by irresponsible "sensationalism"-- which promotes fearfulness, excessive consumerism and egocentrism.

The well-being of our "soul" is the key to our overall health in the long-run.  Information and media might be useful in our day to day lives, but inner peace is the only thing that will bring true happiness and wellness.

Homeostasis: Life in Balance

Homeostasis is a magical word.  The coincidental presence of the word "home" within "home-ostasis" should already clue us in to its importance.  Homeostasis is vital for the health and healing of all living organisms, as well as to the health and healing of all ecological systems, including our planet, Earth.

A term (milieu intérieur) defined by French Physiologist, Claude Bernard and later coined by American Physiologist, Walter Bradford Cannon, Homeostasis (from Greek hómoios meaning "similar" and stásis, meaning "standing still") can be simply defined as The ability of a system or living organism to adjust its internal environment to maintain a stable equilibrium.  A word that was originally used to describe physiological phenomena, the term has been extended to include all living systems in such diverse disciplines as medicine, science, ecology, sociology, philosophy, politics and religion. 

Many diseases are a result of disturbance of homeostasis, a condition known as homeostatic imbalance. As it ages, every organism will lose efficiency in its control systems. The inefficiencies gradually result in an unstable internal environment that increases the risk for illness. In addition, homeostatic imbalance is also responsible for the physical changes associated with aging. "Just as we live in a constantly changing world, so do the cells and tissues survive in a constantly changing microenvironment. The 'normal' or 'physiologic' state then is achieved by adaptive responses to the ebb and flow of various stimuli permitting the cells and tissues to adapt and to live in harmony within their microenvironment. Thus, homeostasis is preserved. It is only when the stimuli become more severe, or the response of the organism breaks down, that disease results - a generalization as true for the whole organism as it is for the individual cell." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostasis)

Homeostasis occurs not only within our bodies, but also in our environment.  Pollution is an environmental disease that nature compensates for to ensure its own system's survival.  The Earth is a living organism.  Medicine people from all over the world have been warning us about the importance of living in harmony with the environment for hundreds of years.

Chemist James Lovelock and Microbiologist Lynn Margulis formulated the Gaia Theory (Principle) proposing that all organic and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet -- The scientific investigation of the Gaia hypothesis focuses on observing how the biosphere and the evolution of life forms contribute to the stability of global temperature, ocean salinity, oxygen in the atmosphere and other factors of habitability in a preferred homeostasis.  The Gaia Hypothesis has since been supported by a number of scientific experiments and provided a number of useful predictions, and hence is properly referred to as the Gaia theory. In fact, wider research proved the original hypothesis wrong, in the sense that it is not life alone but the whole Earth system that does the regulating. In 2001, a thousand scientists at the European Geophysical Union meeting signed the Declaration of Amsterdam, starting with the statement "The Earth System behaves as a single, self-regulating system with physical, chemical, biological, and human components." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis)

From ancient Hermetic texts we read: "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing."  Daoist sages have always counselled on the wisdom of embracing opposites -- the moment we chose one side and block out the other, we upset nature's balance.  Therefore the idea of Homeostasis is not new, it has always been with us from the earliest times.  But we have chosen to ignore it.

The freak storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and temperature shifts we are currently experiencing are homeostasis at work.  The Earth is alive!  We must learn to balance our needs with the planet's own need or we will perish in the process.  The Earth is hemorrhaging and it is correcting itself.  The only way to reverse this catastrophe is by actively living in harmony with the Earth right now -- we've got to stop polluting it today!  I understand that we have complex economic and political systems inplace to consider, but how do you bargain with the Earth?  I do not think this planet will sit and wait for us to sort our political, economic, diplomatic and bureaucratic differences before it starts correcting the imbalances we are causing to its system.

The pattern of Life exist from the smallest systems within us (cells, molecules, organs) to the vastness of the Universe (planets, star systems, galaxies).  We are truely made in the image of God -- one organism, related and interrelated atomically as well as ecologically.  Homeostasis is critical for our survival and to the health of our planet, and vice versa.  We must therefore respect our planet, as we care for ourselves individually.  We are locked in this fate by our very existence.  We have no choice but to live in harmony with Earth (our only home) for our own collective survival.

“Because we all share this planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. This is not just a dream, but a necessity.”  ( by the Dalai Lama XIV)

"MITAKUYE OYASIN" - "All (are) My Relatives" (Lakota Sioux Prayer) 

Arguing Against Stephen Hawking's Views on God and the Afterlife

I saw this article in Yahoo last Monday and I immediately wanted to comment on it:

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking recently explained his belief that there is no God and that humans should therefore seek to live the most valuable lives they can while on Earth.

Guardian writer Ian Sample asked Hawking if he feared death in a story published yesterday. This was his response: I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

Hawking's 1988 book  "A Brief History of Time" sold 9 million copies, and in it Hawking referenced God metaphorically as the force that could fully explain the creation of the universe. But in 2010, Hawking told Diane Sawyer that "science will win" in a battle with religion "because it works."

"What could define God [is a conception of divinity] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."

Hawking's latest book, "The Grand Design," challenged Isaac Newton's theory that the solar system could not have been created without God. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going," he writes.

Hawking was diagnosed with the degenerative Lou Gehrig's disease at the age of 21. He lost his power of speech and for decades has talked through an electronic speech synthesizer. The device has allowed him to continue his research and attain a top Cambridge research post, which was previously held by Newton. His most famous theory explains how black holes emit radiation, according to The Guardian.

So if everyone is destined to power-down like computers at the end of their lives, what should humans do to lend meaning to their experience? "We should seek the greatest value of our action," Hawking told the paper.

Unknown to a lot of people, Isaac Newton studied the Bible passionately.  As a matter of fact, he devoted more time to the study of Scripture than to science.  But he was an Arian (believed that God the Father and Jesus the Son did not exist together eternally) theologically and would have been considered a heretic by mainstream Christianity. Yet Newton saw God as the masterful creator whose existence could not be denied in the face of the grandeur of all creation. Nevertheless he rejected Leibniz's' thesis that God would necessarily make a perfect world which requires no intervention from the creator.  He warned against using the law of Gravity to view the universe as a mere machine, like a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion.  God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."

Albert Einstein on the other hand, cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures.  Neither does he believe in an Afterlife.  But he agrees with Spinoza's belief in a God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, as opposed to a God who concerns himself with the fate and actions of human beings.  According to him the religion of the future will be a cosmic religion.  That it should transcend personal God, as well as avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.

Are Physicists becoming more and more cynical as Science develops? I guess it just goes with that territory.

By design, the discipline of Science operates with the assumption that everything that exist is governed by the laws of nature (the laws that they have so far defined).  For this reason, a scientific minded individual would be less inclined to believe that events can be influenced by a Supernatural Being (or defy logic).

But I believe this to be a limited perspective.  Do we already know everything there is to know?  Have we penetrated all the mysteries of the Universe?  Is logic the limit of all Creation or is it just the limit of our (human) mind?

I am astounded by Stephen Hawking's certainty about God and the Afterlife.  I think it is unbelievably arrogant to come out in public with a statement like that.  I prefer Newton's and Einstein' opinions on religion, since they left some space for "humility."  Einstein was known to have said, "that he does not share the crusading spirit of the atheist, whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth."

I also agree that religion (or Spirituality in my definition) should be more cosmic.  But unlike all of them, I believe in a personal God and I believe, that someday, we will eventually come close to proving this.  We just have to understand that we are more that just atoms, energy and forces, there is also an Intelligence or Mind that determines which particular elements specifically combine with each other to give birth to individually unique entities.  In other words, there is an intelligent order to existence that reflects a sophisticated "Mind," which confounds mere randomness (chance).

I know this, because every spiritually (mystically) inclined person, from the Buddha to your average modern day medicineman, will tell you that God exists simply because they have a personal relationship with the Divine.  He (or She) is within us, as well as without.  God defies logic and encompasses paradox.  God is personal and impersonal at the same time.

If we box God in a humanistic frame... having a physicality of some sort and having a limited mind, we will surely get tangled in a puzzle of our own making.  We should leave God to be God, unknowable, infinite, undefinable.  We are all connected as One.  By looking within ourselves, into that ineffable depth that defies all logic, we will discover a thread that leads back into the center of Creation, that is God.

Einstein said it best, "It is very difficult to elucidate this (cosmic religious) feeling to anyone who is entirely without it. . . The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no god conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it ... In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it."  I guess Professor Hawkings is just entirely without it.  I really feel sorry for him.