Eckhart Tolle is a German-born resident of Canada, best known as the author of The Power of Now and A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose. In 2011, he was listed by the Watkins Review as the most spiritually influential person in the world.
Eckhart Tolle offers wonderful advice that focuses around mindfulness and letting go of the ego. He is a huge advocate of living in the now, and reading his quotes always make me feel at bliss. A lot of these quotes are taken from his most popular book, The Power of Now, where he gives practical teachings and advice so we can learn how to live in the present moment.
I hope you enjoy these quotes as much as I do!
On The Present Moment
“The past has no power over the present moment.”
“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”
“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”
“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”
“…the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whaterver form. Both are illusions.”
“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you will ever have.”
“Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.”
“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them – while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.”
“If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.”
“Die to the past every moment. You don’t need it. Only refer to it when it is absolutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this moment and the fullness of Being. Feel your presence.”
“Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now, and if the past cant prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?”
On Change
“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.”
“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”
On Happiness
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
“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.”
“Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.”
On Who You Are
“Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”
“Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.”
“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.”
“You are here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. That is how important you are!”
On Letting Go
“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”
On Love
“To love is to recognize yourself in another.”
“Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the “love” of
ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.”
“A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever.”
“Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you.”
On Life
“Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.”
“Life is the dancer and you are the dance.”
“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”
“This, too, will pass.”
“Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living.”
“In today’s rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.”
“What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.”
“The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.”
On Acceptance
“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”
“Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.”
“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”
“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”
“Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”
“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them – while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.”
“Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now.
Let it teach you Being.
Let it teach you integrity — which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real.
Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem.”
“Don’t look for peace. 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”
On Peace
“You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”
“Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.”
On Death
“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.”
“What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.”
On Taking Action
“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it’s no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”
On Negative Emotions
“Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.”
“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.”
“Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.”
“Where there is anger there is always pain underneath.”
“Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don’t think about it – don’t let the feeling turn into thinking. Don’t judge or analyze. Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of “the one who observes,” the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.”
On Being Spiritual
“Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.”
“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.”
“Being an outsider to some extent, someone who does not “fit in” with others or is rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force.”
On Creativity
“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.”
“…whenever there is inspiration…and enthusiasm…there is a creative empowerment that goes far beyond what a mere person is capable of.”
On Thoughts
“What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.”
“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 into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.”
“All the things that truly matter, beauty, love, creativity, joy and inner peace arise from beyond the mind.”
“Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?”
“When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought.”
“Being must be felt. It can’t be thought.”
“The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.”
“To recognize one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.”
“Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.”
“Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.”
On The Ego
“The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.”
“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.”
“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.”
“You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity.”
“The ego wants to want more than it wants to have.”
“In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.”
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