Why is it so hard to understand Eckhart Tolle?
I’m going to give you the answer… But you have to promise to stay to the end of this article.
Why? Because I’m going to give you a very short, succinct answer, and you’re immediately going to misunderstand it. I will give you the answer, and then I have to work through what it actually means.
If you aren’t willing to stay to the end—and it’s not long—then just swipe away right now. You’ll only be confused if you don’t the whole thing. Deal?
All right. The reason you can’t understand Eckhart Tolle completely is because he doesn’t know how to talk about enlightenment!
What?
Stick with me on this. He is talking about a state of being that cannot be described with words—particularly modern languages like English. Yet, words are the only tools he has to explain it. He can’t say exactly what it is; he has to talk around it, and around it, and around it.
Even more important, however, is that this confusion is something new in human consciousness. It’s very new for us to be living in the deep illusion we are currently experiencing.
We didn’t evolve to be this confused. We evolved living in interconnected, wise societies—groups with elders who knew how to bring children smoothly into the state we call non-duality, awareness, or awakeness. That is our nature. It’s really only been the last couple of centuries that we’ve gotten so lost.
So, someone like Eckhart Tolle is trying to figure out on his own how to describe enlightenment to people who are currently in a dream. How do you describe not being in a dream to someone who is still dreaming? He doesn’t know perfectly how to do it. I don’t know how to do it. Adyashanti doesn’t know how to do it. Krishnamurti didn’t know how to do it.
Here is my theory: when we finally become able to describe this succinctly, everything is going to change for everyone, because the truth is actually very obvious. When non-duality teachers are able to describe this well enough to actually bring you into that state, then—boom—everyone’s going to wake up.
In the meantime, Eckhart Tolle is sitting there just trying to figure it out on his own. It’s exactly the same with me. That’s why I reach out to other non-duality and enlightenment teachers all the time to have conversations. We are asking: How can we describe this more easily?
Okay, the last reason—and then this article is done.
The tendency of someone who is “awake” is to try to describe what awakeness is like. We tend to describe this indescribable state rather than coming up with a way to bring you into it. The second you are there, you and I can have a conversation and we know exactly what we’re talking about. But until you’re there, the words don’t make sense.
Teachers tend to just explain what enlightenment is like, and all that does is go into your head and turn into concepts. We get stuck on this reel of intellectualizing rather than knowing.
So, what’s the point?
The point is to listen to all the non-duality and enlightenment teachers with a lightness of being. Try to hear the words almost like music—like listening to instrumental music without lyrics. Let it wash into your soul, because there is a part of you that already understands it.
Once you listen from that part of you, boom—you’ll understand Eckhart Tolle.