Eckhart Tolle & Oprah: Week 1
If you haven’t heard, Oprah is doing an online series with Eckhart Tolle. She chose Tolle’s A New Earth for her bookclub this month. This is a pretty big deal. When Oprah gets behind a book, it sells millions of copies. The first installment of the online series had over 700,000 visitors (Oprah’s figure). The people that watch Oprah are not people who you would expect to be getting excited about consciousness evolution.
Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now was published in 1997. My mom gave it to me in college during my existential crisis phase. I remember thinking it was interesting and useful, but it didn’t cause a real shift. I haven’t read A New Earth, but the first installment of Oprah’s series is very interesting.
For those of you who are at all familiar with any variety of consciousness work, there won’t be anything new, however, it seems like an ideal introduction to mindfulness for traditonally religious people. I love Oprah and I know that many people trust her completely. Oprah takes callers’ questions about reconciling their religious beliefs with this scary New Age spirituality and she puts them totally at ease. The Universe couldn’t ask for a better spokesperson.
The whole endeavor could be seen as a watered-down version of any of the great esoteric traditions, still I think it’s fantastic. It’s so important that these ideas get into people’s daily lives. Just the fact that Oprah is able to do this at all shows that significant numbers of regular people are at least intrigued with the idea of spiritual growth, if not actually awakening to some degree. I am very excited about having lots of new people to consider the Universe with. I feel like I’m just beginning on my path and it’s nice to know there’s many other people in the same boat. Hopefully this will translate into more traffic for our blog. Ha!
Peace be with the moderator as well as those reading this message.(that is if this message is not censored :-).
The time has come, the harvest is ripe.
I am here to bring judgment to those who are awake, and those who are asleep.
Now is your time of testing.
Pass this on to all fellow believers.
The Faithful Witness
Duke
Peace be with the reader.
Just written a short message in response to
Eckart Tolle’s writings. The title is :
“Consciousness Gurus” and can be
found on the website
The Faithful Witness
Duke
Although I began reading the online chapters and listening to the webcasts only on Friday, May 2nd, the concepts Eckhart Tolle provides to reaching enlightenment are interesting and thought provoking. He has worded the material so everyone hearing or reading about this, is able to understand and visualize what is required to reach enlightenment through awareness.
Emily, you have a new blog reader.
I am so greatful to Eckhart Tolle and Oprah for turning me onto Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and her beautiful book “”My Stroke of Insight”". Her story is amazing and her gift to all of us is a book purchase away I’m happy to say.
Dr Taylor was a Harvard brain scientist when she had a stroke at age 37. What was amazing was that her left brain was shut down by the stroke - where language and thinking occur - but her right brain was fully functioning. She experienced bliss and nirvana and the way she writes about it (or talks about it in her now famous TED talk) is incredible.
What I took away from Dr. Taylor’s book above all, and why I recommend it so highly, is that you don’t have to have a stroke or take drugs to find the deep inner peace that she talks about. Her book explains how. “”I want what she’s having”", and thanks to this wonderful book, I can! Thank you Dr. Taylor, and thank you Eckhart and Oprah.