Friday, November 15, 2013

Eckhart Tolle - Findhorn Retreat, Stillness Amidst the World

Eckhart Tolle is one of my favorite writers. His clarity is amazing. I am a huge fan of his books 'The Power of Now' and 'Stillness Speaks' and now am searching for 'A New Earth' which I had and lost. Quite by chance I stumbled across this lovely little booklet in my bookshelf about his stay in Findhorn retreat, Scotland, with two DVDs. With some of his quotes and some lovely pictures of nature, this booklet draws you into the stillness that Tolle speaks of and touches a still part of you too.

Some gems
'..true love is the recognition of the formless in the other - which is the recognition of yourself in the other.'

'You are the sky. The clouds are what happens, what comes and goes.'

'When you are present in this moment you break the continuity of your story, of past and future. Then true intelligence arises, and also love.'

'When you no longer compulsively label things, when you let go of attachment to your story, you become alive to the present moment. You become quite simple. You become ordinary.'

'So put your story away. It is not who you are.'

'Seek out a tree and let it touch your stillness.'

'You don't solve problems by thinking; you create problems by thinking. The solution always appears when you step out of thinking and become still and absolutely present, even if only for a moment.'

'Let go of excessive thinking and see how everything changes.'

'No matter how long your journey appears to be there is never more than this one step, one breath, one moment - now.'

'Look at a tree, or a flower, or the sunset. The moment you analyse it, attach mental labels to it, it becomes interesting, but its depth and its aliveness are lost.'

'Thought subsides when you pet your dog or you have a purring cat on your chest. Even just watching an animal can take you out of your mind. It is more deeply connected with the source of life than most humans, and that rootedness in Being transmits itself to you. Millions of people who otherwise would be completely lost in the conceptual reality of their mind are kept sane by living with an animal.'

'How insignificant we seem to be, compared to the vastness. And yet that vastness, that infinite depth, is within us, inseparable from who we are.'

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