Below is an inspirational video with quotes and affirmations from the “Law of Attraction” teachings.
https://youtu.be/HoKfz-zCdE8
Check out the “Law of Attraction” which is the idea behind the popular movie “The Secret”. However I would suggest checking out some of the videos done by Abraham Hicks on youtube for some really interesting in-depth videos about the subject. I recommend keeping an open mind when approaching the subject.
The 3 laws that are detailed by Abraham Hicks are:
The Law of Attraction – says “That which is likened to itself is drawn” and refers to the magnetic power of thought
The Law of deliberate creation – says “That which you give thought to or that you believe, allow or expect, is” we are all creators, most thoughts are by accident or default but holding deliberate thought will allow it to grow stronger and manifest itself into our life, good or bad.
The Law of allowing – says “I am that which I am, and I am willing to allow all others to be what they are”
You must understand the first before you can understand the second, and you must understand the first and second before you can understand the third.
Author Napoleon Hill also advocates the use of the Law of Attraction in this book Think and Grow Rich. He outlines the stages that need to be taken to live a fulfilled life:
Develop a burning desire, have faith, learn how to feed constructive ideas to your subconscious mind, acquire specialized knowledge, put your conscious mind to work, have a written plan, be decisive, be persistent, join forces with like-minded individuals, understanding the function of sex as related to success, understanding the power of the subconscious mind, trust your inner voice or six sense.
Although the book was written 1937 many of its teachings are still relevant today and is certainly worth a read. If you search there are a number or free PDF downloads available and the book is also available from Audible.com in audio form.
In a nutshell the premise of the Law of Attraction is:
Whatever you focus on, good or bad, you get more of. So be careful what you lock your thoughts on. Try to positively frame things in your thoughts such as wanting to be rich, instead of not wanting to be poor. If you think of poor, even in the negative you will get more of it in your life. The law of attraction does not understand the difference between not wanting or wanting. If you think poor, even in not wanting to be poor, that is the overriding focus of your thoughts and as a result you will get more of it in your life. So just to clarify, if you don’t want to be poor, think about being rich.
Just thinking of something is not enough, it needs to be mixed with a strong emotion to really work. so desiring something with all your heart will be more effective. So will fearing something. If you fear something greatly and keep that fear in your mind, you will, like a magnet attract that very thing into your life…so be warned!
Don’t just wish for something, believe it is waiting for you in the future, just waiting for you to meet up with it. Believe it is already yours, it’s just waiting for you to claim it.
There needs to be at least two parties involved in the persuasion process, these being the…
Sender of message
Receiver of message
For the purpose of this article, we are going to look at how persuasion is used within MARKETING although it is used in many other real world situations, with good or bad intentions. One of the best ways to protect yourself from its influence, is AWARENESS. If you know how it works, you can defend yourself against it.
As Marketers we are, in our role as “sender of message” ultimately hoping to persuade the “receiver” to buy our product, there are a number of ways we can do this. The bare bone approaches being:
Control
Convince
Convert
Control
If we have power over the receiver we can use this to pressure them to buy. Power can come from..
Using your authority, if you have it,
The lack of options open to the receiver (no substitutes or alternatives available),
If receiver is desperate,
The scarcity of time to make the decision.
The receiver may feel their hand being forced, which might well lead to a feeling of resentment and resistance and is not likely lead to any kind of ongoing relationship, loyalty and bonding between the receiver and sender. I personally, don’t like to be pushed, manipulated or forced into buying, and I’m sure most people feel the same.
Hard sales tactics are often used by the sender, when trying to invoke some level of control over the receiver, and are common in the following circumstances:
When PRODUCT is temporary, limited use, or one-time use: fads, fashions, entertainments, seasonal clothing, equipment, perishable foods, collectables
When SELLER is temporary: door-to-door selling, telephone solicitations (“boiler room”), fly-by-night operations (“one shot”), con games (“pigeon drop”)
When BUYER is temporary, that is, in an unfamiliar area or condition: tourist, travelers, newcomers, inexperienced, immature
When a sense of CRISIS exits (a real or imaged emergency, time limit, or deadline): pain, genuine close-outs, elections, TV “shopping clubs”
When GUARANTEE (refund, or return of goods) is missing: unknown companies, “fronts”
When DEMAND exceeds SUPPLY: SURPLUS situations
Let’s look at a couple of real life examples: Some caravan parks limit the maximum age of caravans on their site, to say, 10 years old and then force caravan owners to buy a replacement new caravan from them, rather than from 3rd party suppliers.
Cinemas often discourage or even stop customers bringing their own refreshments into their venue, so they have to buy them from the foyer, at inflated prices. This control is enforced by the venue as a condition of using its facilities.
Convince
“Convincing” the receiver of your message to take a particular course of action, takes more effort than the “control” method, but is more ethical and rewarding. Getting attention is the first objective, followed by, creating a convincing argument that promotes your case and negates the alternatives. This is illustrated in Professor Hugh Ranks “Intensify and Downplay schema (see below).
If we present a clear cause and effect appeal to the receiver we will find our message more readily accepted from a rational perspective. So we must communicate the benefits and features of our offering and answer any objections that the receiver will inevitably have.
However emotional appeals have proven to yield better results because receivers engage the right-side of their brain more when emotionally aroused, as a result, they think less rationally, and are prone to act without thinking it through fully.
Intensify and Downplay Schema
Professor Hugh Rank’s model of persuasion, describes how promisers (marketers) intensify their own good and downplay their own bad. This model shows how marketers only tell receivers of product benefits using composition, association and repetition, But downplay any negative aspects by omitting this information, diverting attention away from it or trying to confuse. If you want to learn more about Hugh Rank’s model check it out here.
Pros, cons and objection handling
When I’m putting together a marketing message I look at the pros and cons of the product and note each down. I view the “cons” as possible objections and try to answer these objections, turning them into positives where possible. I also look at the benefits of using the product compared to not using it. Here is an example I have done recently for Thrive Landing page WordPress plugin to illustrate the process I use myself.
Positive/pros/for – ask why would they want to buy the product and keep asking why to dig deeper
No coding needed – drag and drop
No design skills needed – pre-defined templates
One off fee – No monthly recurring cost
One interface for website and thrive themes – within WordPress site
Professional looking landing pages
Better than many of competition because no subscription needed
Great support – fast replies via online forum
Lots of tutorial videos provided by Thrive themes
Negative/cons/against/objections (Turn these into positives where possible using law of opposites)
It isn’t free and costs $49 – better than having to pay monthly subscriptions like some of the popular alternatives such as Leadpages.
Negatives if not using product
Need to get a designer to do for you or learn HTML and have good design skills
Other options seem to include monthly subscription charges which mean when you stop paying you can no longer use the landing pages, with Thrive there are no monthly costs anyway, but the landing pages are built into your WordPress site so can be used forever.
With some suppliers you have to login to a remote interface to access your landing page editor
If you’re doing the HTML yourself and if you don’t have any coding skills these can be time consuming, look amateurish, and have limited template options
From this information I can now sell the benefits of the products
Selling Benefits
If you’ve done any marketing in the past, you’ll know about selling the benefits of your product. Getting these benefits over to receivers as early as possible is crucial to marketing effectiveness. Benefit seeking is the main driver of customer motivation. If receivers (customers) are looking for investment opportunities, their main motivation is “making money” or “preserving the value of their money”. So if you’re selling an investment product of any kind you need to communicate the making money aspect of your offer to appeal to the receiver of that message.
It is important to get the product benefits over to the receiver as early as possible, so it grabs their attention. The first thing a receiver sees on most marketing material, is usually the initial headline. Some examples of good headlines include:
You’ll never have Y (without X)
• You’ll never make money from your website (without having professional landing pages)
Buy X to achieve Y
• Buy Thrive Landing pages and make money from your website
How to achieve Y with less effort/cost/time
• How to make money from your website with less effort, cost and time
The Only Way to [Do Something Desirable] Without [Doing Something Undesirable]
• The Only Way to build landing pages Without learning to code HTML
[Do Something Hard] in [Period of Time] or [Promise]
• Make stunning landing pages in minutes or get your money back
[Do Something Desirable] Like [an Expert] Without [Something Expected & Undesirable]
• Make stunning landing page like a marketing expert – without any design or coding skills
Other examples
How to….
• How to Win Friends and Influence People
• How to Save Time and Get Things Done
Lists
• 7 Reasons Why List Posts Will Always Work
• 10 Ways to Beat the High Cost of Living
• Do You Recognize the 7 Early Warning Signs of High Blood Pressure?
Who Else Wants [blank]?
• Who Else Wants a Great WordPress Theme?
• Who Else Wants a Higher Paying Job?
The Secret of [blank]
• The Secret of Successful Podcasting
• The Secret of Protecting Your Assets in Litigation
Little Known Ways to [blank]
• Little Known Ways to Save on Your Heating Bill
• Little Known Ways to Hack Google’s Gmail
Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
• Get Rid of Your Unproductive Work Habits Once and For All
• Get Rid of That Carpet Stain Once and For All
Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]
• Here’s a Quick Way to Get Over a Cold
[Do something] like [world-class example]
• Speak Spanish Like a Diplomat
• Party Like Paris Hilton
See How Easily You Can [desirable result].
• See How Easily You Can Learn to Dance This New Way.
• See How Easily You Can Own a Lamborghini Miura.
Convert
This is the hardest of the three ways to persuade. Attempting to convert someone’s beliefs and values is really difficult because people hold them tightly and often associate their very being with deeply ingrained value and belief systems. If you’re message contradicts such values and beliefs you will need to provide hard factual evidence to back-up your message to have any chance of converting the receiver. However not all values and beliefs are made equal, and we may convert some, using emotional appeals that do not need complex reasoning to back them up.
The role of Emotions
Emotion makes people act in irrational ways and prevents them thinking clearly, and marketers know this and attempt to use it to their advantage. Many big organisations with vast marketing budgets look to get some incite into their customers inner workings, finding out what they like and dislike and what presses their buttons. They track shopping habits and develop marketing messages designed to get them to take action. Even small businesses need to have an understanding of who their customers are and what they want. The easiest way to do this is carry out surveys, hang out where prospects hang out, ask existing customers for feedback and run test campaigns online offering searchers a choice between options and measuring what choices they take.
Many large companies try to associate their products with popular celebrities, hoping some of that popularity will rub off on their brand. They know that if our idol tells us it’s good, we are more likely to act on their endorsement. On the flip side, if a celebrity encounters controversy, brands are quick to cut ties, and end sponsorship deals so that they are not cast in the same negative light.
If people are made to feel fearful that their family might be in danger, they are more likely to buy a security system, if they are scared their family will be left to struggle if they were to die, they are more likely to buy life insurance. If someone describes how we can live life on a sunny beach, having an amazing time with our families and have no money worries ever again, working a job that takes just thirty minutes a day, simply by reading a $99 Ebook, or joining the latest magic money making system, yes you got it, we will buy the Ebook, if we believe what we are being told.
The emotions of greed and fear are the most often targeted ones, but other emotions like curiosity are often used to pull the reader into marketing messages.
“Check out the one plugin that will turn your website into a money making machine”,
“If you’re not enjoying success online, this is the one thing you NEED to become a success”,
“What Everybody Ought to Know About making money online”.
People are very curious creatures, it is hard-wired into the human psyche and it’s very difficult to ignore curiosity laden statements or headlines. However the subject needs to be relevant to the interests of the reader. or it won’t work.
Summary
Persuasion is a fascinating subject, and the more that is understood about human psychology the more sophisticated the marketing messages will undoubtedly become. The key points to remember are:
Have a clear understand of who your customer’s are or are likely to be
Craft marketing messages from your customer’s point of view (what’s in it for me)
Sell the Benefits of your product, this is the core reason for them to buy
Pre-suppose their objections and tackle these head on
Find an answer to this prospects question “Why should I do business with you, instead of any and every other option available to me, including the option of doing absolutely nothing at all?”
Try to evoke emotion from your prospects to take action NOW
Add value, don’t try to manipulate your audience, try to persuade them that doing business with you is a win win situation, and make sure you mean it.
Manage expectations – Disappointment is based on expectations. Under promise and over deliver.
If you would like to learn more about marketing, check out our marketing guide.
The other day this saying randomly popped into my mind…
“Never ASSUME, it often makes an ASS of U and Me”.
Well it got me thinking about how ASSUMING impacts our lives. We often hear the word used when something has failed to happened, but which should have happened, because an assumption was made instead of checking. For example you might leave the house without your keys, only to realise after you’ve shut the door and locked yourself out, simply because you assumed your partner had picked them up.
That’s one example of assuming, others might include:
assuming we have the correct information,
assuming we are being told the whole truth,
assuming we have and understand all the facts,
assuming we know best.
I came up with this list while considering the current political debate ranging in the UK, where lot’s of strongly held opinions are flying around, based, to a large extent, on many assumptions.
So making assumptions can be very problematic, we should never assume anything, we should always double check, or do the research to make sure we have all the facts. Assuming is a form of laziness, which can cause us more hassle and pain further down the road.
I decided to look up the synonyms of ASSUME and came up with the following list:
taking for granted
taken as given
accept
conclude
consider
estimate
expect
guess
infer
presume
speculate
suspect
think
understand
ascertain
conjecture
deduce
deem
divine
fancy
find
gather
hypothesise
imagine
judge
posit
postulate
predicate
presuppose
suppose
surmise
theorise
be afraid
be inclined to think
count upon
fall for
get the idea
have a hunch
have sneaking suspicion
When I read though this list, it got me thinking about how ASSUMING is not just about missing something, or not checking if something has indeed taken place, it can also be a reason why we DON’T TAKE ACTION.
Think about it for a minute, if you assume you KNOW the outcome of say, a particular course of action, it might be enough to discourage you from even trying. Your internal inner dialogue might go like this…
“It won’t work”, or
“I’m not good enough to make a success of this”, or
“People aren’t going to buy it anyway.”
This might be an assumption based on nothing more then self-doubt, but if you just assume you can’t do it, or assume it won’t work out, you aren’t likely to take the necessary steps to find out.
Stop ASSUMING, it’s a motivation killer. The only way you can know for sure is by giving it a go.
Marketing is a subject close to my heart, mainly because it taps deeply into human psychology, and I love trying to figure people out.
The trouble with marketers is they try to game the system all the time, trying to find shortcuts and quick wins, which often means being content with making a quick buck and lacking any kind of long game.
I like marketing when it is used to make people aware of genuine solutions to genuine problems, I like it when it’s used to help people. “The best form of selling is helping.”
Adding value to someones life, and earning something for doing so, means you get to help someone else. That’s the best use of marketing, long term.
So if we are to distil Marketing down to its core, what is it?
Is it the exchange of value? Well “no”, the actual sales transaction is the value exchange, you provide a service or product and the customer pays you for it. Until that happens there is no value exchange.
So what is marketing at its core? How about, the getting and keeping of attention. Sure, good marketing does that, but there’s much more to it then just that, like knowing how to capture attention by targeting the right prospects, and understanding what they want and need. Digging even deeper, we have to understand what prospects will value enough to part with their hard earned money, for. It becomes a rabbit hole of tunnels that are hard to summarise.
So what summary covers a more complete picture about marketing? Well, how about this one. Marketing is all about doing the following…
“Providing the RIGHT OFFER to the RIGHT PERSON, in the RIGHT PLACE at the RIGHT TIME.”
I think that just about covers the necessary basics.
“Providing the RIGHT OFFER, to the RIGHT PERSON” – infers providing something the prospect actually wants or needs and is will to pay for, rather than trying to sell to people that have no interest in purchasing your solution.
“In the RIGHT PLACE at the RIGHT TIME” – infers marketing at a location where your prospects’ attention is going to be, and at a time they will be receptive to listening to you. Much online attention is currently concentrated on social media platforms, particularly for certain demographics, and if that is where your prospect have their attention, you should be there as well.
I would also add a couple of additional points, like giving prospects a reason to TRUST you, to LIKE you and see you as a CREDIBLE provider, but these only come into play once you do the other things RIGHT first and are a big part of your value proposition.
So what do you think. Do you have a better summary that nails what marketing means at its core?
Check out our Marketing guide for more marketing related content.
When it comes to moving closer to goals, by actually taking action, many people can’t even seem to get started. They come up with lots of excuses why they shouldn’t act. For example if you have a goal of becoming a successful business owner, or entrepreneur, you might say to yourself via your inner dialogue…
Justifications for maintaining the current status quo
It’s less risky to just keep doing what I am currently doing (not taking action)
I’m too busy with my current work and family schedule, I don’t really have the time to devote to pursue my goal(s). Working evenings will cut into my time with family an friends.
Possible negative consequences of taking action
It will take time, skills that I may not have
I could fail (so won’t take the risk)
I want to put myself in a situation where I’m being judged by others
People might think I’m fake, a fraud
I don’t know or might not know how to do it (what needs doing)
My idea isn’t good enough, or might not be good enough
I could waste lots of time, effort, money investing in something that just doesn’t work out, so why even bother
Success will mean working all hours and will have no time for family
I’m scared of pushing myself and doing things outside my comfort zone, because it’s uncomfortable
I don’t like asking people for help, and I might have to do
I don’t like asking people to buy from me, I just can’t sell
I might lose all my money
I might get ripped off by scam artist who takes advantage of my naivety
Talking professionally to people (in case they think I’m a fake)
I might be promising something I can’t deliver
I might ruining my reputation, when it’s very important to me
I don’t like giving presentations, pitching, speaking in front of customers, audience and might find I have to at some point
I don’t like the idea of putting myself out there and feeling vulnerable
I don’t like to rely /depend on other people, in case I get let down
If you’re trying to lose weight or get fit you might say to yourself…
Justifications for maintaining the current status quo
I love eating tasty fatty foods – they taste so good. I always have good intentions but when I’m hungry, I just give in
I want to watch TV rather than going out and exercising in the cold/at the gym
Possible negative consequences of taking action
Healthy food doesn’t taste as good as fatty food
Exercise is too hard, I don’t enjoy it, and can’t deal with the discomfort and pain
Issues with self esteem or even some degree of self loathing, can sometimes result in people finding comfort in binge eating, which further fuels self loathing and lowers self esteem. In such circumstances you should try to deal with the underlying root issues, as the eating is a manifestation of these, rather than the root cause.
Why you come up with excuses
This list of excuses, is your mind trying to rationalise the decision not to take action. On one hand you feel you should be doing something in pursuit of your goals, after all everyone says you should have goals, don’t they? On the other hand part of you fears taking the risk.
When you contemplate moving from your comfort zone, your current situation, and the routines and habits that you have, and maybe have had for some time, to something that feels new, you will naturally feel some level of fear.
You are hardwired, through evolution, to resist putting yourself in dangerous situations, and change is perceived as being potentially bad. Change equals uncertainty and uncertainty could result in risk and possible danger. Risk and danger is considered bad because your sense of self (who you see yourself to be) could be devalued in some way, and your survival instincts will do its level best to ensure this doesn’t happen.
All action is driven by the need to avoid pain and being destroyed, and all your actions are built on this one need. You continually strive for more, because being more means you are further away from being nothing. The more you have, the more you are. So you’re not a freak because you’re not taking action, you’re trapped by your fear of change, uncertainty, risk, danger, failure, you might even be fearful of success, or at least the consequences of success (no time to spend with friends and family, responsibility etc).
Moving beyond fear
So now we know why we aren’t taking action, we can move on to working out a strategy for overcome these limiting thoughts and beliefs.
The first thing to consider is how real these perceived dangers are and how seriously are they likely to impact you, should they materialise.
Without knowing your personal situation in more detail, it is difficult to give a specific answer, but general fears can be looked upon in the following ways:
Being judged by others
With regards to being judged by others, if you had more self confidence or self esteem, other peoples’ opinions would matter much less to you. Sure, we all like to be liked, but being dependant on other peoples’ opinions, is not healthy. You will tend to make up stories about how and why this and that person doesn’t like you, which is usually nothing more than a fictional story of your own invention and more about your own judgements of yourself, rather than theirs.
If another person doesn’t like you, and you know this for sure, because they have actually told you so, and for XYZ reasons then at least you know, rather than suspect. You can either try to adjust your behaviour, if you agree that it is unacceptable, or ignore their views, if you disagree. After all they might be accusing you of behaving unacceptably when they are the ones with the insecurities and esteem issues. Remember they are being driven by the same insecurities and fears that you are, and putting yourself in their shoes through empathy, allows you to realise this. They might be lashing out because of their own pain, rather than it being you.
I believe if you are truly joyous and genuinely happy and aligned inside, you have no reason to attack or belittle another person. Anger, frustration, fear and all negative emotions come from insecurities and pain within you, which is already there, but just being aroused by the situation you’re reacting to. Check out my wellbeing guide for more information, particularly the equation of emotion part which details how negative emotions are created.
Not good enough
If you believe you’re not good enough or not up-to-the-job. Try to understand where these thoughts are coming from. Again your self-preservation instincts will try to protect you from risky situations, but you can move beyond this by identifying your weaknesses and educating yourself into mastering them.
Low self esteem and lack of belief in yourself can be embedded deep into your psyche from early childhood, when you were very impressionable and filtered your experiences less. If your environment at an early age was not supportive, maybe you were continually told you were not good enough, or were not given enough love from one or more of your parents, whom you craved love from. Or you were discouraged to take risks or do things outside the norm, being told not to do something “for your own safety”, or told to fit in and not stand out, these fears and insecurities might still be lingering in the background of your mind, influencing your present decision making and possibly sabotaging your goals. None of these things can be considered as “truths”, they were opinions and actions from people who themselves were in some degree of pain, and may well have been just passing on their own insecurities and fears through their actions and words.
You can be good enough if you’re willing to make the effort and put in the work. If you don’t want to make the effort then you’re probably not going to get far, for that reason. Check out my work ethic article for more.
Now a caveat. Talent has a part to play in success, particularly when you’re competing with others to get to the top. You should look to play to your strengths, and you will have strengths as well as weaknesses. We all have weaknesses so don’t feel bad about them. I would love to be a singer, unfortunately I can’t hold a tune, I’m terrible, really. I could probably improve with training and purposeful practice, but I would never be able to go beyond my physical limitations. I might, with lots of practice, get good enough to perform at a certain level but I would never be at the top of the tree. Such limitations are true of some activities, singing, I would say is one, some kinds of sports that rely on certain physical characteristics and prowess, maybe another. But there are many more things that don’t have such limitations, you can practice and practice and become better, and be as good as you want to be. Often hard work trumps talent, when talent doesn’t work. Check out my article on self awareness, because this is key to identifying your strengths and weaknesses.
Fearing success
You might have an inner conflict of wanting to be successful, while at the same time fearing the consequences of success, like having no time for friends and family or relying on other people or being ripped off, or having to shoulder responsibility for yourself and others.
The best thing to do is examine these conflicts and resolve them. If you don’t want to work all hours and miss time with family and friends, then find a lifestyle business that doesn’t depend on your presence so much. Many large businesses have managers operating the business on behalf of the owners, so scale could work in your favour after the initial building phase. Some businesses, such as online businesses can be worked on around family time, or be outsourced/delegated to someone else. If you first, identify the conflict and confront it, you can then work out a solution to move beyond it. If you can’t resolve it, maybe you should drop that particular goal and find a different one that best suits who you are. It’s really no good trying to put a square brick into a round hole (check out my article on self awareness).
Conflicting wants
Wanting one thing (your goal), but also wanting something that is counter-productive to that goal, is obviously problematic. For example if you want to lose weight, be lean, get fit, but can’t resist eating fatty foods such as chocs, snacks, sweets, burgers and the like, you have a conflict of wants. You might have good intentions, but when the temptation is there, for example having chocs in the cupboard, you find it almost impossible to resist, without having a huge amount of self control and willpower.
Another example: If you want to get an assignment done, but can’t resist watching your favourite sports team playing, or can’t face pulling yourself away from the TV, then you have a a conflict of wants.
One solution is to avoid putting yourself in situations that provide temptations or distractions. If you’ve no chocolates in the cupboard, you can’t eat them. If there’s no TV, you can’t watch it. It all comes down to deciding your priorities.
Personally I can work on my laptop, while sat in front of the TV and remain 100% focused on what I’m doing. This means I don’t feel I’m having to lock myself away or miss out on anything. It encourages me to work more frequently and intensely, and really, the TV, even with the sound on low, doesn’t distract me. I find I’m more productive working that way. Find what works best for you.
Giving yourself a reason to take action
Life is all about making choices. You will take the action that drives you most. You will take the action that NEEDS to be done or else…., or that you really WANT to do. Check out my article about getting into a WANT or NEED state of motivation.
Give yourself a compelling reason to take action and you’re more likely to take it. Motivation has many elements, check out my motivational guide here.
My mother was rubbish at finances, she had no business sense whatsoever, she couldn’t understand spreadsheets, profit and loss accounts, or marketing principles, she couldn’t even work a mobile phone, let alone a computer. I don’t think I ever saw her read a book during the 46 years I knew her. She didn’t obsess about personal development, or being a better person, none of that stuff.
But she was pure of heart, she was always there for anyone without judgement. She was an extraordinary person, probably the most extraordinary person I’ve ever known. She listened, loved, and was deeply loved by those around her. She is sadly missed by all who knew her. The world is not the place it once was, when she was in it. The definition of success that I learned from her comes from the ability of positively answering these questions at the end of your life, when you look back at how you lived it.
DID I LIVE?
DID I LOVE?
DID I MATTER?
If you can answer yes to these questions you have been incredibly successful x
Without the motivation to get off your ass and take action, nothing is possible. Taking action is where all progress happens. It is where you will “learn” as well as “do”.
All action and inaction is driven by motivation, which is made up of two opposing forces. One that wants us to be more, to have more, to be better. The other wants to keep us safe, psychologically and physically. They fight over everything we set out to do, and each battle can have only one winner. We need to give ourselves more of a reason to act than not, if we are to chase down our goals. We must NEED or WANT enough, so that staying safe is not enough.
After forcing the initial effort needed, habit comes to help us carry it on. Once you learn to master this initiation phase, the world is your playground.
Learn from TAKING ACTION
The feedback you get from doing is where all your education lies. Don’t be scared of testing boundaries, see what works and what doesn’t. Go about your actions with purpose and in a systematic manner so you can keep track of successes and failures.
Overcome fear of failure
If you fear failure, then you have to be prepared to undergo something of a mind shift. Redefine what failure means to you. Failure can only occur if you throw in the towel, if you are using it to navigate the path to your goal, it just becomes part of the process.
Think of it like finding your way out of a maze. Having a reliable map is great, but not always possible, so in the absence of such a map you might have go down a few dead ends and participating in a little trial and error is as effective as anything else, in such situations.
The three groups of people
Now some people are happy to take action, they have found a purpose that they are enthusiastic to pursue. They wake up excited at what lies ahead of them. Motivation is not an issue for these people. Sure, they might be somewhat fearful of the unknown but they find not taking action much more scary. Their fear of inaction outweighs their fear of action, hands down.
The next group of people, find they have their backs to the wall, they have to take action because of necessity. They might be facing financial or social pressures that are threatening to ruin them, or they might have reached the end of their tether, and just can’t take their present situation any longer. If they stay put, they are finished, emotionally, financial or in some other way. Again taking action is far less risky then not, at this point.
The third group of people are the least likely to be motivated to take action. They might have a burning desire to do something, a dream they want to fulfil, but their fear of change, of the unknown, of the possible risk that might, could possibly be waiting for them further down the road, is too great to take a chance. They might not be 100% content with their present situation, they might even be unhappy with it, but it feels safer or more comfortable to maintain the status quo.
So how do you find enough motivation to initiate action. Well first understand that like pushing a car from a standing start, the hardest bit is starting. Once you build up some momentum, a little thing called inertia takes over. Inertia is where the very act of movement helps propel you forward, requiring less and less effort from you. Inertia comes through the habits and rituals that you do daily. They might be small in nature but doing them daily, means you are using less conscious effort, just to take the action, you just do it, cause it’s what you always do.
It gets easier
So knowing that the first day of a new you is going to be the hardest, but give it a couple of weeks, you will have a new routine that kind of, takes care of itself, without you having to force yourself. If you still have to force yourself at that point, maybe it’s not for you. It’s important to have some self awareness of what you like and don’t like and why, check out my piece on self awareness for more information.
Move from indifference to WANT or NEED
Well going back to our groups of people, those that WANT enough to take action, those that NEED to take action, and the third group, these I call INDIFFERENT to taking action. The INDIFFERENT group as highlighted previously, are the least likely to act, because their fear of taking action is stronger than their fear of not taking action. So, if you’re in this group and are wondering how you find enough motivation to move you towards your goal, you have to push your mindset into either the WANT or NEED groups.
One of the best ways to increasing your WANTING, is by setting yourself goals.
Without a goal to aim for, you will lack direction, and it becomes difficult to effectively gauge if you are doing the right thing at any given moment. With a goal, you can develop a plan of action for achieving your goal and feel that you have a sense of purpose in the pursuit of it.
One of the masters of goal setting Zig Ziglar, outlined a seven step process for effective goal setting:
Identify exactly what you want and write them down
Spell out why you want to reach goals
List obstacles to overcome to get there
Identify the people, the groups and the organisation you need to work with in order to get there
Identify what you need to know to reach your goal
Develop a plan of action to reach your goal
Put a date on when you expect to get there
On the other hand, manoeuvring yourself into a NEED state is for sure, a more high risk option, and not one that I would personally recommend. It includes things like leaving a regular day job that you might hate, to build your dream business, so that you have to make it work, or sink. I would prefer to work in the evenings to test the idea and build it to a point where it becomes less of a risk, but taking this all-or-nothing approach remains an option that some choose to take.
Over to you
You should try to find a purpose that pulls you towards it, rather than you having to push yourself to do it. Alternatively you have to cut your options so that you “HAVE to” take action, and give yourself no other choice.
One thing is for certain, if you stay in a state of INDIFFERENCE, you’re unlikely to take the necessary actions to leave your present situation. “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.”
Now I’ve given you some pointers, the details of how you go about it, are unique to you and your circumstances. Good luck. Please sign up to our mailing list if you want more tailor-made content, and share this article with your friends and family if you found it useful.
For more about motivational influences, check out our Motivation guide.
If you would like to read more articles focused on INITIATING MOMENTUM, click here.
Why do some people NOT take action, when other’s do?
Why are you not living the life you want?
If you’re where you want to be in life, you’ve already won…
… but if you’re hungry for more, for better, then what’s missing?
Why are you not where you want to be?
’cause your stuck in the…
STATUS QUO
You’ve settled
There’s not enough MOTIVATION to move you forwards
You haven’t given yourself a big enough WHY
If your goal isn’t big enough to PULL you to it, or…
You’re not desperate enough to HAVE TO get off your arse…
You WON’T TAKE ACTION
And only by TAKING ACTION is anything going to change
Increase your DESIRE or DESPERATION
Take your motivation from a “WOULD LIKE TO” to a “MUST DO”
There are three states you can occupy, two of which will push you to take action, the other will keep you stuck in your current status quo.
The first state is to “WANT TO…” this is where you are drawn towards or pulled towards a goal or to take a particular action. You’re compelled to act from within yourself. This state is due to having purpose, doing what you love, pursuing something you are passionate about.
The second state is to “HAVE TO…” this is where your back is to the wall. You’re forced to take action through necessity, financial or otherwise.
The third state is “Indifference” this is where you’re somewhat content where you are but would ideally like to progress, be in a better place or position in your life. You have ambitions and dreams but you’re not motivated enough to take action. This is where most people exist.
They don’t take action because they don’t have a big enough WHY. They fear taking action over not taking action. They haven’t tipped the balance. They need to shift their state into one of the other two states to motivate them into action.
“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, personal and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.” – Eckhart Tolle
“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.. Awarenesss and Ego cannnot coexist.” – Eckhart Tolle
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Life is the dancer and you are the dance.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Don’t Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“This is my secret,” he said. “I don’t mind what happens.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Man made God in his own image…” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“To recognize one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Become conscious of being conscious.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“You have so much to learn from your enemies.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“It is when we are trapped in incessant streams of compulsive thinking that the universe really disintegrates for us, and we lose the ability to sense the interconnectedness of all that exists.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Authentic human interactions become impossible when you lose yourself in a role.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. … The ultimate purpose of human existence, which is to say, your purpose, is to bring that power into this world.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“One thing we do know: 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 this moment.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Life isn’t as serious as my mind makes it out to be.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but you thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“In the eyes of the Ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“With stillness comes the benediction of Peace.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The brain does not create consciousness, but conciousness created the brain, the most complex physical form on earth, for its expression.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Each person’s life – each lifeform,in fact – represents a world, a unique way in which the universe experiences itself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“And then there is the universal role of adult. When you play that role, you take yourself and life very seriously. Spontaneity, lightheartedness, and joy are not part of that role.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn’t work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form — or a species — will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Nothing has ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“A significant portion of the earth’s population will soon recognize, if they haven’t already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the eyes of the Ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“A powerful spiritual practice is consciously to allow the diminishment of Ego when it happens without attempting to restore it. I recommend that you experiment with this from time to time. For example, when someone criticizes you, blames you, or calls you names, instead of immediately retaliating or defending yourself – do nothing. Allow the self-image to remain diminished and become alert to what that feels like deep inside you. For a few seconds, it may feel uncomfortable, as if you had shrunk in size. Then you may sense an inner speciousness that feels intensely alive. You haven’t been diminished at all. In fact, you have expanded. You may then come to an amazing realization: When you are seemingly diminished in some way and remain in absolute non-reaction, not just externally but also internally, you realize that nothing real has been diminished, that through becoming “less,” you become more. When you no longer defend or attempt to strengthen the form of yourself, you step out of identification with form, with mental self-image. Through becoming less (in the Ego’s perception), you in fact undergo an expansion and make room for Being to come forward. True power, who you are beyond form, can then shine through the apparently weakened form. This is what Jesus means when he says, “Deny yourself” or “Turn the other cheek.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“You may remember the paradox of time we mentioned earlier: Whatever you do takes time, and yet it is always now. So while your inner purpose is to negate time, your outer purpose necessarily involves future and so could not exist without time. But it is always secondary. 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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The more shared past there is in a relationship, the more present you need to be…” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. That realization is true forgiveness. With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges–the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“… there are two ways of being unhappy. Not getting what you want is one. Getting what you want is the other.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“You don’t have to wait for something “meaningful” to come into your life so that you can finally enjoy what you do. There is more meaning in joy than you will ever need. The “waiting to start living” syndrome is one of the most common delusions of the unconscious state.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“whatever you fight, you strengthen. What you resist, persists. “A New Earth”:War is a mindset” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Let me say it again: the present moment is all you ever have.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Deny thy self!” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now, and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“So love is the recognition of oneness in a world of duality. This is the birth of God into the world of form. Love makes the world less worldly, less dense, more transparent to the divine dimension, the light of consciousness itself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Non-resistance, non-judgment, and non-attachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Ego-identification with things creates attachment to things, which in turn creates our consumer society and economic structures where the only measure of progress is always more. The unchecked striving for more, for endless growth, is a dysfunction and a disease. It is the same dysfunction the cancerous cell manifests, whose only goal is to multiply itself, unaware that it is bringing about its own destruction by destroying the organism of which it is a part. Some economists are so attached to the notion of growth that they can’t let go of that word, so they refer to recession as a time of “negative growth”.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“If you are content with being nobody in particular, content not to stand out, you align yourself with the power of the universe. What looks like weakness to the Ego is in fact the only true strength.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“For what you do to others, you do to yourself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“you are never fully here because you are always busy trying to get elsewhere.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Nietzsche, in a rare moment of deep stillness, wrote, “For happiness, how little suffices for happiness!…the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance—little maketh up the best happiness. Be still.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“By a monstrous act of reductionism, the infinite depth of who you are is confused with a sound produced by the vocal cords. ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“This is most people’s reality: As soon as something is perceived, it is named, interpreted, compared with something else, liked, disliked, or called good or bad by the phantom self, the Ego.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“When you want to arrive at your goal more than you want to be doing what you’re doing, you become stressed.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The joy of Being, which is the only true happiness, cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person, or event—through anything that happens. That joy cannot come to you—ever. It emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself and thus is one with who you are.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“If you were far out in space, you would see that the sun neither rises nor sets, but that it shines continuously. And yet, even after realizing that, we can continue to speak of the sunrise or sunset, still see its beauty, paint it, write poems about it, even though we now know that it is a relative rather than an absolute truth.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“When you realize it’s not personal, there is no longer a compulsion to react as if it were.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“If you can be absolutely comfortable with not knowing who you are, then what’s left is who you are — the Being behind the human, a field of pure potentiality rather than something that is already defined.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The more negative emotion there is in a story, the heavier and more impenetrable it becomes.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“There is no substitute for finding true purpose. But the true or primary purpose of your life cannot be found on the outer level. It does not concern what you do but what you are—that is to say, your state of consciousness.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“I want to know the mind of God,” Einstein said. “The rest are details.” What is the mind of God? Consciousness. What does it mean to know the mind of God? To be aware. What are the details? Your outer purpose, and whatever happens outwardly.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Jesus points to this when he says, “Be ye whole, even as your Father in Heaven is whole.” The New Testament’s “Be ye perfect” is a mistranslation of the original Greek word, which means whole. This is to say, you don’t need to become whole, but be what you already are—with or without the pain-body.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“demanding recognition for something you did and getting angry or upset if you don’t get it; trying to get attention by talking about your problems, the story of your illnesses, or making a scene; giving your opinion when nobody has asked for it and it makes no difference to the situation; being more concerned with how the other person sees you than with the other person, which is to say, using other people for Egoic reflection or as Ego enhancers; trying to make an impression on others through possessions, knowledge, good looks, status, physical strength, and so on; bringing about temporary Ego inflation through angry reaction against something or someone; taking things personally, feeling offended; making yourself right and others wrong through futile mental or verbal complaining; wanting to be seen, or to appear important.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“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 this moment.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Why is old considered useless? Because in old age, the emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: Being? What do you do with it?” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“This is my secret,” he said. “I don’t mind what happens.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“In either case, you can only go beyond it by taking responsibility for your inner state now. Even if blame seems more than justified, as long as you blame others, you keep feeding the pain-body with your thoughts and remain trapped in your Ego. There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. That realization is true forgiveness. With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges—the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Not what you do, but how you do what you do determines whether you are fulfilling your destiny. And how you do what you do is determined by your state of consciousness.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“psychological time, which is the mind’s deep-seated habit of seeking the fullness of life in the future where it cannot be found and ignoring the only point of access to it: the present moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“earth drama has any purpose at all, it is an indirect one: It creates more and more suffering on the planet, and suffering, although largely Ego-created, is in the end also Ego-destructive. It is the fire in which the Ego burns itself up. In a world of role-playing” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Those who do not attempt to appear more than they are but are simply themselves, stand out as remarkable and are the only ones who truly make a difference in this world.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“There is nothing that strengthens the Ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position – a perspective, an opinion, a judgement, a story. For you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, as so the Ego loves to make wrong in order to be right.”― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“It is everywhere, not just in places where people don’t have enough, but even more so where they have more than enough. Is that surprising? No. The affluent world is even more deeply identified with form, more lost in content, more trapped in Ego.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The good news is: If you can recognize illusion as illusion, it dissolves.”― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“You are then like an apparently poor person who does not know he has a bank account with $100 million in it and so his wealth remains an unexpressed potential.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“they are no more than unconscious players in the Egoic game, a game that looks so important yet is ultimately devoid of true purpose. It is, in the words of Shakespeare, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Amazingly, Shakespeare arrived at this conclusion without having the benefit of television.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“When there is stress, it is usually a sign that the Ego has returned, and you are cutting yourself off from the creative power of the universe.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Unhappiness or negativity is a disease on our planet. What pollution is on the outer level is negativity on the inner. It is everywhere, not just in places where people don’t have enough, but even more so where they have more than enough.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Don’t seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“And then, just when you thought you made it or that you belong here, the return movement begins. Perhaps people close to you begin to die, people who were a part of your world. Then your physical form weakens; your sphere of influence shrinks. Instead of becoming more, you now become less, and the Ego reacts to this with increasing anxiety or depression.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“And it is from inner space, the unconditioned consciousness itself, that true happiness, the joy of Being, emanates.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mental labeling of people and adds even more energy to the Ego. Resentment means to feel bitter, indignant, aggrieved, or offended. You resent other people’s greed, their dishonesty, their lack of integrity, what they are doing, what they did in the past, what they said, what they failed to do, what they should or shouldn’t have done. The Ego loves it. Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity. Who is doing that? The unconsciousness in you, the Ego. Sometimes the “fault” that you perceive in another isn’t even there. It is a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior. At other times, the fault may be there, but by focusing on it, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else, you amplify it. And what you react to in another, you strengthen in yourself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn’t even know you are thinking.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Instead of trying to be a mountain, teaches the ancient Tao Te Ching, “Be the valley of the universe.” In this way, you are restored to wholeness and so “all things will come to you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“in it. It means consciousness is lost in its own dream. You get taken in by every thought, every emotion,” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“fed up with being unhappy.” Some people may feel, as I did, that they cannot live with themselves anymore. Inner peace then becomes their first priority.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Neither concepts nor mathematical formulae can explain the infinite.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“the end justifies the means. But the end and the means are one. And if the means did not contribute to human happiness, neither will the end.”― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Why does the Ego play roles? Because of one unexamined assumption, one fundamental error, one unconscious thought. That thought is: I am not enough. Other unconscious thoughts follow: I need to play a role in order to get what I need to be fully myself; I need to get more so that I can be more. But you cannot be more than you are because underneath your physical and psychological form, you are one with Life itself, one with Being. In form, you are and will always be inferior to some, superior to others. In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the eyes of the Ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same. THE PATHOLOGICAL EGO In a wider sense of the word, the Ego itself is pathological, no matter what form it takes. When we look at the ancient Greek root of the word pathological, we discover just how appropriate that term is when applied to the Ego. Although the word is normally used to describe a condition of disease, it is derived from pathos, which means suffering. This is, of course, exactly what the Buddha already discovered 2,600 years ago as a characteristic of the human condition. A person in the grip of Ego, however, does not recognize suffering as suffering, but will look upon it as the only appropriate response in any given situation” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Stillness is the language God speaks, and everything else is a bad translation.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“You are the light of Presence, the awareness that is prior to and deeper than any thoughts and emotions.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self, to keep the Ego in place.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“just as without silence there could be no sound, you would not exist without the vital formless dimension that is the essence of who you are.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The law that outflow determines inflow is expressed by Jesus in this powerful image: “Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Violence is a primitive but still very widespread way in which the Ego attempts to assert itself, to prove itself right and another wrong.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Nothing is going to make us free because only the present moment can make us free. That realization is the awakening.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mental labelling of people and adds even more energy to the Ego. Resentment means to feel bitter, indignant, aggrieved, or offended. You resent other people’s greed, their dishonesty, their lack of integrity, what they are doing, what they did in the past, what they said, what they failed to do, what they should or shouldn’t have done. The Ego loves it. Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity. Who is doing that? The unconsciousness in you, the Ego ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The other more serious reason for the illusion of separateness is compulsive thinking. It is when we are trapped in incessant streams of compulsive thinking that the universe really disintegrates for us, and we lose the ability to sense the interconnectedness of all that exists.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Making it” in whatever field is only meaningful as long as there are thousands or millions of others who don’t make it, so you need other human beings to “fail” so that your life can have meaning.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Then what is the relationship between something that you do and the state of joy? You will enjoy any activity in which you are fully present, any activity that is not just a means to an end. It isn’t the action you perform that you really enjoy, but the deep sense of aliveness that flows into it” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn’t even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn’t know he is dreaming.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Many people are already aware of the difference between spirituality and religion. They realize that having a belief system—a set of thoughts that you regard as the absolute truth—does not make you spiritual no matter what the nature of those beliefs is. In fact, the more you make your thoughts (beliefs) into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself. Many “religious” people are stuck at that level. They equate truth with thought, and as they are completely identified with thought (their mind), they claim to be in sole possession of the truth in an unconscious attempt to protect their identity. They don’t realize the limitations of thought. Unless you believe (think) exactly as they do, you are wrong in their eyes, and in the not-too-distant past, they would have felt justified in killing you for that. And some still do, even now.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Only if you resist what happens are you at the mercy of what happens, and the world will determine your happiness and unhappiness.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the Ego with its image-making and self-seeking.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The source of all abundance is not outside you. It is part of who you are. However, start by acknowledging and recognizing abundance without. See the fullness of life all around you. The warmth of the sun on your skin, the display of magnificent flowers outside a florist’s shop, biting into a succulent fruit, or getting soaked in an abundance of water falling from the sky. The fullness of life is there at every step. The acknowledgment of that abundance that is all around you awakens the dormant abundance within. Then let it flow out. When you smile at a stranger, there is already a minute outflow of energy.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“His name was Jean-Paul Sartre. He looked at Descartes’s statement “I think, therefore I am” very deeply and suddenly realized, in his own words, “The consciousness that says ‘I am’ is not the consciousness that thinks.” What did he mean by that? When you are aware that you are thinking, that awareness is not part of thinking. It is a different dimension of consciousness. And it is that awareness that says “I am.” If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn’t even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn’t know he is dreaming. You would be as identified with every thought as the dreamer is with every image in the dream. Many people still live like that, like sleepwalkers, trapped in old dysfunctional mind-sets that continuously re-create the same nightmarish reality. When you know you are dreaming, you are awake within the dream.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“outside of the structures of the existing institutionalized religions. There were always pockets of spirituality even in mind-dominated religions, although the institutionalized hierarchies felt threatened by them and often tried to suppress them” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Love and do what you will,” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Whenever you are in a negative state, there is something in you that wants the negativity, that perceives it as pleasurable, or that believes it will get you what you want.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“you are. Even if people agree with it, it is ultimately a fiction. Many people don’t realize until they are on their deathbed and everything external falls away that no thing ever had anything to do with who they”― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“I try to find myself in things but never quite make it and end up losing myself in them. That is the fate of the Ego.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“In many cases you are not buying a product but an “identity enhancer.” Designer labels are primarily collective identities that you buy into. They are expensive and therefore “exclusive.” If everybody could buy them, they would lose their psychological value and all you would be left with would be their material value, which likely amounts to a fraction of what you paid.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The world always makes sure that you cannot fool yourself for long about who you really think you are by showing you what truly matters to you. How you react to people and situations, especially when challenges arise, is the best indicator of how deeply you know yourself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“What keeps the so-called consumer society going is the fact that trying to find yourself through things doesn’t work. The Ego satisfaction is short-lived and so you keep looking for more and keep buying and consuming.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Whenever tragic loss occurs, you either resist or you yield. Some people become bitter or deeply resentful; others become compassionate, wise, and loving. Yielding means inner acceptance of what is. You are open to life.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“As you read, a shift takes place within you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“When you are aware that you are thinking, that awareness is not part of thinking. It is a different dimension of consciousness. And it is that awareness that says “I am.” If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn’t even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn’t know he is dreaming. You would be as identified with every thought as the dreamer is with every image in the dream. Many people still live like that, like sleepwalkers, trapped in old dysfunctional mind-sets that continuously re-create the same nightmarish reality. When you know you are dreaming, you are awake within the dream.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Non-reaction is not weakness but strength. Another word for non-reaction is forgiveness. To forgive is to overlook, or rather to look through. You look through the Ego to the sanity that is in every human being as his or her essence.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“If you consider the Ego to be your personal problem, that’s just more Ego.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“If the history of humanity were the clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be: chronic paranoid delusions, a pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of extreme violence and cruelty against his perceived “enemies”—his own unconsciousness projected outward. Criminally insane, with a few brief lucid intervals.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“You can only be in a state of non-reaction if you can recognize someone’s behaviour as coming from the Ego, as being an expression of the collective human dysfunction. When you realize it’s not personal, there is no longer a compulsion to react as if it were.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Complaining is one of the Ego’s favourite strategies for strengthening itself. Every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in. Whether you complain aloud or only in thought makes no difference. Some Egos that perhaps don’t have much else to identify with easily survive on complaining alone. When you are in the grip of such an Ego, complaining, especially about other people, is habitual and, of course, unconscious, which means you don’t know what you are doing.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The thinking mind cannot understand Presence” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“As I was walking with a friend through a beautiful nature reserve near Malibu in California, we came upon the ruins of what had been once a country house, destroyed by a fire several decades ago. As we approached the property, long overgrown with trees and all kinds of magnificent plants, there was a sign by the side of the trail put there by the park authorities. It read: danger. all structures are unstable. I said to my friend, “That’s a profound sutra [sacred scripture].” And we stood there in awe. Once you realize and accept that all structures (forms) are unstable, even the seemingly solid material ones, peace arises within you. This is because the recognition of the impermanence of all forms awakens you to the dimension of the formless within yourself, that which is beyond death. Jesus called it “eternal life.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The affluent world is even more deeply identified with form, more lost in content, more trapped in Ego.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Paradoxically, what keeps the so-called consumer society going is the fact that trying to find yourself through things doesn’t work: The Ego satisfaction is short-lived and so you keep looking for more, keep buying, keep consuming.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“The present moment is the field on which the game of life happens. It cannot happen anywhere else.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“War is a mind-set, and all action that comes out of such a mind-set will either strengthen the enemy, the perceived evil, or, if the war is won, will create a new enemy, a new evil equal to and often worse than the one that was defeated.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“And so religions, to a large extent, became divisive rather than unifying forces. Instead of bringing about an ending of violence and hatred through a realization of the fundamental oneness of all life, they brought more violence and hatred, more divisions between people as well as between different religions and even within the same religion.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“What is commonly called “falling in love” is in most cases an intensification of Egoic wanting and needing. You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person. It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The most important, the primordial relationship in your life is your relationship with the Now, or rather with whatever form the Now takes, that is to say, what is or what happens.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“I don’t know” is not confusion. Confusion is “I don’t know, but I should know” or “I don’t know, but I need to know.” When you fully accept that you don’t know, you actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be. Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Many people are already aware of the difference between spirituality and religion. They realize that having a belief system—a set of thoughts that you regard as the absolute truth—does not make you spiritual no matter what the nature of those beliefs is. In fact, the more you make your thoughts (beliefs) into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The Ego’s unconscious core feeling of “not enough” causes it to react to someone else’s success as if that success had taken something away from “me.” It doesn’t know that your resentment of another person’s success curtails your own chances of success. In order to attract success, you need to welcome it wherever you see it.” ― Tolle, Eckhart, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Try this for a couple of weeks and see how it changes your reality: Whatever you think people are withholding from you—praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on—give it to them. You don’t have it? Just act as if you had it, and it will come. Then, soon after you start giving, you will start receiving. You cannot receive what you don’t give. Outflow determines inflow. Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you already have, but unless you allow it to flow out, you won’t even know that you have it. This includes abundance. The law that outflow determines inflow is expressed by Jesus in this powerful image: “Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn’t work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form—or a species—will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“All creativity comes out of inner spaciousness.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The peace that comes with surrendered action turns to a sense of aliveness when you actually enjoy what you are doing.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“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.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Nothing makes sense anymore, because all the meaning and purpose that life had for them was associated with accumulating, succeeding, building, protecting, and sense gratification. It was associated with the outward movement and identification with form, that is to say, Ego. Most people cannot conceive of any meaning when their life, their world, is being demolished. And yet, potentially, there is even deeper meaning here than in the outward movement.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“when they identify relativism, the belief that there is no absolute truth to guide human behaviour, as one of the evils of our times; but you won’t find absolute truth if you look for it where it cannot be found: in doctrines, ideologies, sets of rules, or stories.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“I don’t have enough yet,” by which the Ego really means, “I am not enough yet.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“if you live in a culture that to a large extent equates self-worth with how much and what you have, if you cannot look through this collective delusion, you will be condemned to chasing after things for the rest of your life in the vain hope of finding your worth and completion of your sense of self there.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“deeper, true I. When I know myself as that, whatever happens in my life is no longer of absolute but only of relative importance. I honor it, but it loses its absolute seriousness, its heaviness. The only thing that ultimately matters is this: Can I sense my essential” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“For happiness, how little suffices for happiness!…the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance—little maketh up the best happiness. Be still.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Ego takes everything personally. Emotion arises, defensiveness, perhaps even aggression. Are you defending the truth? No, the truth, in any case, needs no defence. The light or sound does not care about what you or anybody else thinks. You are defending yourself, or rather the illusion of yourself, the mind-made substitute.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The Catholic and other churches are actually correct when they identify relativism, the belief that there is no absolute truth to guide human behaviour, as one of the evils of our times; but you won’t find absolute truth if you look for it where it cannot be found: in doctrines, ideologies, sets of rules, or stories. What do all of these have in common? They are made up of thought.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“To be in alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of inner non-resistance with what happens. It means not to label it mentally as good or bad, but to let it be.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality, the miracle of life that continuously unfolds within and around you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Anybody who is one with what he or she does is building the new earth.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Don’t try to let go of the grievance. Trying to let go, to forgive, does not work. Forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self, to keep the Ego in place.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“This forgetfulness is original sin, suffering, delusion. When this delusion of utter separateness underlies and governs whatever I think, say, and do, what kind of world do I create?” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Words, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sounds or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you. You easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into implicitly believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is. The fact is: You don’t know what it is. You have only covered up the mystery with a label. Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable. This is because it has unfathomable depth. All we can perceive, experience, think about, is the surface layer of reality, less than the tip of an iceberg.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Your sense of who you are determines what you perceive as you needs and what matters to you in life – and whatever matters to you will have the power to upset and disturb you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“What is commonly called “falling in love” is in most cases an intensification of Egoic wanting and needing. You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person. It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever. The Spanish language is the most honest in regard to conventional notions of love: Te quiero means “I want you” as well as “I love you.” The other expression for “I love you,” te amo, which does not have this ambiguity, is rarely used—perhaps because true love is just as rare.”― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Ego-generated emotions are derived from the mind’s identification with external factors which are, of course, all unstable and liable to change at any moment.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Almost every thought you think is then concerned with past or future, and your sense of self depends on the past for your identity and on the future for its fulfilment. Fear, anxiety, expectation, regret, guilt, anger are the dysfunctions of the time-bound state of consciousness. There are three ways in which the Ego will treat the present moment: as a means to an end, as an obstacle, or as an enemy. Let us look at them in turn, so that when this pattern operates in you, you can recognize it and—decide again. To the Ego, the present moment is, at best, only useful as a means to an end. It gets you to some future moment that is considered more important, even though the future never comes except as the present moment and is therefore never more than a thought in your head. In other words, you are never fully here because you are always busy trying to get elsewhere.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Whatever the Ego seeks and gets attached to are substitutes for the Being that it cannot feel. You can value and care for things, but whenever you get attached to them, you will know it’s the Ego. And you are never really attached to a thing but to a thought that has ‘I,’ ‘me,’ or ‘mine’ in it. Whenever you completely accept a loss, you go beyond Ego, and who you are, the I Am which is consciousness itself, emerges.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“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. A depth returns to your life. Things regain their newness, their freshness. And the greatest miracle is the experiencing of your essential self as prior to any words, thoughts, mental labels and images.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the Ego in you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Whenever you notice that voice, you will also realize that you are not the voice, but the one who is aware of it.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and Ego cannot coexist.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“To awaken within the dream is our purpose now. When we are awake within the dream, the Ego-created earth-drama comes to an end and a more benign and wondrous dream arises. This is the new earth.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“It is through knowing who you are not that the greatest obstacle to truly knowing yourself is removed.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The very reason for our existence in human form is to bring that dimension of consciousness into this world.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“This is most people’s reality: As soon as something is perceived, it is named, interpreted, compared with something else, liked, disliked, or called good or bad by the phantom self, the Ego. They are imprisoned in thought forms, in object consciousness.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“You are present when what you are doing is not primarily a means to an end (money, prestige, winning) but fulfilling in itself, when there is joy and aliveness in what you do. And, of course, you cannot be present unless you become friendly with the present moment. That is the basis for effective action, uncontaminated by negativity.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Thought can at best point to the truth, but it never is the truth. That’s why Buddhists say “The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“What cannot be seen with the eye, but that whereby the eye can see: know that alone to be Brahman the Spirit and not what people here adore. What cannot be heard with the ear but that whereby the ear can hear: know that alone to be Brahman the Spirit and not what people here adore…. What cannot be thought with the mind, but that whereby the mind can think: know that alone to be Brahman the Spirit and not what people here adore.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of humanity is one of “original sin.” Sin is a word that has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted. Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence. It means to live unskilfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering. Again, the term, stripped of its cultural baggage and misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human condition.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
Egos only differ on the surface. Deep down they are all the same. In what way are they the same? They live on identification and separation.”― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“know: 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 this moment.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Once you have decided you want the present moment to be your friend, it is up to you to make the first move: Become friendly toward it, welcome it no matter in what disguise it comes, and soon you will see the results. Life becomes friendly toward you; people become helpful, circumstances cooperative. One decision changes your entire reality. But that one decision you have to make again and again and again—until it becomes natural to live in such a way.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“In form, you are and will always be inferior to some, superior to others. In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the eyes of the Ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“I was convinced that all the answers to the dilemmas of human existence could be found through the intellect, that is to say, by thinking. I didn’t realize yet that thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The Ego could be defined simply in this way: a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Who was responsible for this fear of the feminine that could only be described as acute collective paranoia? We could say: Of course, men were responsible. But then why in many ancient pre-Christian civilizations such as the Sumerian, Egyptian, and Celtic were women respected and the feminine principle not feared but revered? What is it that suddenly made men feel threatened by the female? The evolving Ego in them. It knew it could gain full control of our planet only through the male form, and to do so, it had to render the female powerless.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
On a collective level, the mind-set “We are right and they are wrong” is particularly deeply entrenched in those parts of the world where conflict between two nations, races, tribes, religions, or ideologies is long-standing, extreme, and endemic. Both sides of the conflict are equally identified with their own perspective, their own “story,” that is to say, identified with thought. Both are equally incapable of seeing that another perspective, another story, may exist and also be valid. Israeli writer Y. Halevi speaks of the possibility of “accommodating a competing narrative,” but in many parts of the world, people are not yet able or willing to do that. Both sides believe themselves to be in possession of the truth. Both regard themselves as victims and the “other” as evil, and because they have conceptualized and thereby dehumanized the other as the enemy, they can kill and inflict all kinds of violence on the other, even on children, without feeling their humanity and suffering.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“There is nothing that strengthens the Ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position—a perspective, an opinion, a judgment, a story. For you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, and so the Ego loves to make wrong in order to be right. In other words: You need to make others wrong in order to get a stronger sense of who you are.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“What you usually refer to when you say “I” is not who you are. By a monstrous act of reductionism, the infinite depth of who you are is confused with a sound produced by the vocal cords or the thought of “I” in your mind and whatever the “I” has identified with.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“In most ancient cultures, there must have been an intuitive understanding of this process, which is why old people were respected and revered. They were the repositories of wisdom and provided the dimension of depth without which no civilization can survive for long. In our civilization, which is totally identified with the outer and ignorant of the inner dimension of spirit, the word old has mainly negative connotations. It equals useless and so we regard it as almost an insult to refer to someone as old. To avoid the word, we use euphemisms such as elderly and senior. The First Nation’s “grandmother” is a figure of great dignity. Today’s “granny” is at best cute. Why is old considered useless? Because in old age, the emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: Being? What do you do with it?” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The particular Egoic patterns that you react to most strongly in others and misperceive as their identity tend to be the same patterns that are also in you, but that you are unable or unwilling to detect within yourself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Although the body is very intelligent, it cannot tell the difference between an actual situation and a thought. It reacts to every thought as if it were a reality. It doesn’t know it is just a thought. To the body, a worrisome, fearful thought means “I am in danger,” and it responds accordingly, even though you may be lying in a warm and comfortable bed at night. The heart beats faster, muscles contract, breathing becomes rapid. There is a build-up of energy, but since the danger is only a mental fiction, the energy has no outlet. Part of it is fed back to the mind and generates even more anxious thought. The rest of the energy turns toxic and interferes with the harmonious functioning of the body.”― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS All of the above are assumptions, unexamined thoughts that are confused with reality. They are stories the Ego creates to convince you that you cannot be at peace now or cannot be fully yourself now. Being at peace and being who you are, that is, being yourself, are one. The Ego says: Maybe at some point in the future, I can be at peace—if this, that, or the other happens, or I obtain this or become that. Or it says: I can never be at peace because of something that happened in the past. Listen to people’s stories and they could all be entitled “Why I Cannot Be at Peace Now.” The Ego doesn’t know that your only opportunity for being at peace is now. Or maybe it does know, and it is afraid that you may find this out. Peace, after all, is the end of the Ego. How to be at peace now? By making peace with the present moment. The present moment is the field on which the game of life happens. It cannot happen anywhere else. Once you have made peace with the present moment, see what happens, what you can do or choose to do, or rather what life does through you. There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Once the Ego has found an identity, it does not want to let go. Amazingly but not infrequently, the Ego in search of a stronger identity can and does create illnesses in order to strengthen itself through them.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“It is always the case that both victim and perpetrator suffer the consequences of any acts of violence, oppression, or brutality.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“If there is nothing you can do, face what is and say, ‘Well, right now, this is how it is. I can either accept it, or make myself miserable.” The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is. There is the situation or the fact, and here are my thoughts about it.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“In normal everyday usage, “I” embodies the primordial error, a misperception of who you are, an illusory sense of identity. This is the Ego. The illusory sense of self is what Albert Einstein, who had deep insights not only into the reality of space and time, but also into human nature, referred to as “an optical illusion of consciousness.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“What you usually refer to when you say “I” is not who you are. By a monstrous act of reductionism, the infinite depth of who you are is confused with a sound produced by the vocal cords of the thought of “I” in your mind and whatever the “I” is identified with.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The unconscious compulsion to enhance one’s identity through association with an object is built into the very structure of the Egoic mind.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Being must be felt. It can’t be thought.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“In many cases, you are not buying a product, but an “identity enhancer.” Designer labels are primarily collective identities that you buy into. They are expensive and therefore “exclusive.” If everybody could buy them, they would lose their psychological value and all you would be left with would be their material value, which likely amounts to a fraction of what you paid. What keeps the so-called consumer society going is the fact that trying to find yourself through things doesn’t work. The Ego satisfaction is short-lived, and so you keep looking for more; you keep buying and keep consuming.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“What the world doesn’t tell you—because it doesn’t know—is that you cannot become successful. You can only be successful.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“You might say, “I know I am an immortal spirit,” or “I am tired of this mad world, and peace is all I want”—until the phone rings. Bad news: The stock market has collapsed; the deal may fall through; the car has been stolen; your mother-in-law has arrived; the trip is cancelled, the contract has been broken; your partner has left you; they demand more money; they say it’s your fault. Suddenly there is a surge of anger, of anxiety. A harshness comes into your voice; “I can’t take any more of this.” You accuse and blame, attack, defend, or justify yourself, and it’s all happening on autopilot. Something is obviously much more important to you now than the inner peace that a moment ago you said was all you wanted, and you’re not an immortal spirit anymore either. The deal, the money, the contract, the loss or threat of loss are more important. To whom? To the immortal spirit that you said you are? No, to me. The small me that seeks security or fulfilment in things that are transient and gets anxious or angry because it fails to find it. Well, at least now you know who you really think you are.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Awareness means Presence, and only Presence can dissolve the unconscious past in you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“Ego-identification with things creates attachment to things, obsession with things, which in turn creates our consumer society and economic structures where the only measure of progress is always more.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“You might say, “I know I am an immortal spirit,” or “I am tired of this mad world, and peace is all I want”—until the phone rings. Bad news: The stock market has collapsed; the deal may fall through; the car has been stolen; your mother-in-law has arrived; the trip is cancelled, the contract has been broken; your partner has left you; they demand more money; they say it’s your fault. Suddenly there is a surge of anger, of anxiety. A harshness comes into your voice; “I can’t take any more of this.” You accuse and blame, attack, defend, or justify yourself, and it’s all happening on autopilot. Something is obviously much more important to you now than the inner peace that a moment ago you said was all you wanted, and you’re not an immortal spirit anymore either. The deal, the money, the contract, the loss or threat of loss are more important. To whom? To the immortal spirit that you said you are? No, to me. The small me that seeks security or fulfilment in things that are transient and gets anxious or angry because it fails to find it. Well, at least now you know who you really think you are.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“How you are seen by others becomes the mirror that tells you what you are like and who you are. The Ego’s sense of self-worth is in most cases bound up with the worth you have in the eyes of others.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“A new heaven is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness. And A New Earth is its direct reflection in the physical realm.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Designer labels are primarily collective identities that you buy into. They are expensive and therefore “exclusive.” If everybody could buy them, they would lose their psychological value and all you would be left with would be their material value, which likely amounts to a fraction of what you paid.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“so when you look to the future for salvation, you are unconsciously looking to your own mind for salvation.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“inner state. You need to be extremely alert and absolutely present to be able to detect them. Whenever you do, it is a moment of awakening, of dis-identification from the mind.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“This is beautifully expressed in the Zen saying “The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“What you react to in another you strengthen within yourself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“see the sameness of being in every human.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Love makes the world less worldly, less dense, more transparent to the divine dimension, the light of consciousness itself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“Thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence.”― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“At the core of all utopian visions lies one of the main structural dysfunctions of the old consciousness: looking to the future for salvation. The only existence the future actually has is as a thought form in your mind, so when you look to the future for salvation, you are unconsciously looking to your own mind for salvation. You are trapped in form, and that is Ego.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Enthusiasm and the Ego cannot coexist.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Nature exists in a state of unconscious oneness with the whole. This, for example, is why virtually no wild animals were killed in the tsunami disaster of 2004. Being more in touch with the totality than humans, they could sense the tsunami’s approach long before it could be seen or heard and so had time to withdraw to higher terrain.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Most people Treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.” – Eckhart Tolle
“Most people don’t inhabit a living reality, but a conceptualized one.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“awareness is the main dilemma of human existence. I looked upon the professors as sages who had all the answers and upon the university as the temple of knowledge. How could an insane person like her be part of this?” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Mind isn’t as serious as my mind makes it out to be.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The word “identification” is derived from the Latin word idem, meaning “same” and facere, which means “to make.” So when I identify with something, I “make it the same.” The same as what? The same as I. I endow it with a sense of self, and so it becomes part of my “identity.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living—” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“All utopian visions have this in common: the mental projection of a future time when all will be well, we will be saved, there will be peace and harmony and the end of our problems. There have been many such utopian visions. Some ended in disappointment, others in disaster.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness, that is to say, dependent on form. They don’t realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe. It changes constantly.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“I try to find myself in things but never quite make it and end up losing myself in them.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“In Zen, such a glimpse is called satori. Satori is a moment of Presence, a brief stepping out of the voice in your head, the thought processes, and their reflection in the body as emotion.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Unhappiness covers up your natural state of well-being and inner peace, the source of true happiness.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“What could be more heavier and more impenetrable than a rock, the densest of all forms? And yet some rocks undergo a change in their molecular structure, turn into crystals, and so become transparent to the light. Some carbons, under inconceivable heat and pressure, turn into diamonds, and some heavy minerals into other precious stones.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Knowing the oneness of yourself and the other is true love, true care, true compassion.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“You cannot receive what you don’t give.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Somebody becomes an enemy if you personalize the unconsciousness that is the Ego. Non-reaction is not weakness but strength. Another word for non-reaction is forgiveness. To forgive is to overlook, or rather to look through. You look through the Ego to the sanity that is in every human being as his or her essence.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Enthusiasm brings an enormous empowerment into what you do, so that all those who have not accessed that power would look upon “your” achievements in awe and may equate them with who you are. You, however, know the truth that Jesus pointed to when he said, “I can of my own self do nothing.” Unlike Egoic wanting, which creates opposition in direct proportion to the intensity of its wanting, enthusiasm never opposes. It is non-confrontational. Its activity does not create winners and losers. It is based on inclusion, not exclusion, of others. It does not need to use and manipulate people, because it is the power of creation itself and so does not need to take energy from some secondary source.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“The source of all abundance is not outside you. It is part of who you are. However, start by acknowledging and recognizing abundance without. See the fullness of life all around you. The warmth of the sun on your skin, the display of magnificent flowers outside a florist’s shop, biting into a succulent fruit, or getting soaked in an abundance of water falling from the sky. The fullness of life is there at every step. The acknowledgment of that abundance that is all around you awakens the dormant abundance within. Then let it flow out. When you smile at a stranger, there is already a minute outflow of energy. You become a giver. Ask yourself often: “What can I give here; how can I be of service to this person, this situation?” You don’t need to own anything to feel abundant, although if you feel abundant consistently things will almost certainly come to you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Enthusiasm “wants” nothing because it lacks nothing. It is at one with life and no matter how dynamic the enthusiasm-inspired activities are, you don’t lose yourself in them. And there remains always a still but intensely alive space at the center of the wheel, a core of peace in the midst of activity that is both the source of all and untouched by it all. Through enthusiasm you enter into full alignment with the outgoing creative principle of the universe, but without identifying with its creations, that is to say, without Ego. Where there is no identification, there is no attachment—one of the great sources of suffering.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“They look upon the present moment as either marred by something that has happened and shouldn’t have or as deficient because of something that has not happened but should have. And so they miss the deeper perfection that is inherent in life itself, a perfection that is always already here, that lies beyond what is happening or not happening, beyond form. Accept the present moment and find the perfection that is deeper than any form and untouched by time.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“And the Ego’s greatest enemy of all is, of course, the present moment, which is to say, life itself.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The more you make your thoughts and beliefs into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The eternal, the infinite, and unnameable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as “my god” or “our god.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Stupidity is relatively harmless, but intelligent stupidity is highly dangerous.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“who are you? Consciousness that has become conscious of itself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The only actions that do not cause opposing reactions are those that are aimed at the good of all.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“A large part of many people’s lives is consumed by an obsessive preoccupation with things. This is why the ills of our times is object proliferation” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Can you feel that there is something in you that is at war, something that feels threatened and wants to survive at all cost, that needs the drama in order to assert its identity as the victorious character within that theatrical production? Can you feel there is something in you that would rather be right than at peace?” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“What “I” could there be apart from life, apart from Being? It is utterly impossible. So there is no such thing as “my life,” and I don’t have a life. I am life. I and life are one.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“Some churches, sects, cults or religious movements are basically collective Egoic entities, as rigidly identified with their mental positions as the followers of any political ideology that is closed to any alternative interpretation of reality.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“The modalities of awakened doing are acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm. Each one represents a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness. You need to be vigilant to make sure that one of them operates whenever you are engaged in doing anything at all—from the most simple task to the most complex. If you are not in the state of either acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm, look closely and you will find that you are creating suffering for yourself and others.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The Ego doesn’t know that mind and mental positions have nothing to do with who you are because the Ego is the unobserved mind itself. In Zen they say: “Don’t seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The Ego’s greatest enemy is the present moment, which is to say, life itself” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“A large part of many people’s lives is consumed by an obsessive preoccupation with things. This is why one of the ills of our times is object proliferation. When you can no longer feel the life that you are, you are likely to try to fill up your life with things.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The Ego loves it. Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity. Who is doing that? The unconsciousness in you, the Ego. Sometimes the “fault” that you perceive in another isn’t even there. It is a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior. At other times, the fault may be there, but by focusing on it, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else, you amplify it. And what you react to in another, you strengthen in yourself. Non-reaction to the Ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond Ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human Ego. But you can only be in a state of non-reaction if you can recognize someone’s behavior as coming from the Ego, as being an expression of the collective human dysfunction. When you realize it’s not personal, there is no longer a compulsion to react as if it were.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“Don’t ask your mind for permission to enjoy what you do.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Negativity is not intelligent. It is always of the Ego. The Ego may be clever, but it is not intelligent. Cleverness pursues its own little aims. Intelligence sees the larger whole in which all things are connected. Cleverness is motivated by self-interest, and it is extremely short-sighted. Most politicians and businesspeople are clever. Very few are intelligent. Whatever is attained through cleverness is short-lived and always turns out to be eventually self-defeating. Cleverness divides; intelligence includes.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“conscious manifestation of form when he said, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“The collective disease of humanity is that people are so engrossed in what happens, so hypnotized by the world of fluctuating forms, so absorbed in the content of their lives, they have forgotten the essence, that which is beyond content, beyond form, beyond thought. They are so consumed by time that they have forgotten eternity, which is their origin, their home, their destiny. Eternity is the living reality of who you are.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“When you say, I enjoy doing this or that, it is really a misperception. It makes it appear that the joy comes from what you do, but that is not the case. Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“If you feel your life lacks significance or is too stressful or tedious, it is because you haven’t brought that dimension into your life yet. Being conscious in what you do has not yet become your main aim. The new earth arises as more and more people discover that their main purpose in life is to bring the light of consciousness into this world and so use whatever they do as a vehicle for consciousness. The joy of Being is the joy of being conscious.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“Complaining is one of the Ego’s favorite strategies for strengthening itself.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“They are more inward looking by nature, and for them the outward movement into form is minimal. They would rather return home than go out. They have no desire to get strongly involved in or change the world. If they have any ambitions, they usually don’t go beyond finding something to do that gives them a degree of independence. Some of them find it hard to fit into this world. Some are lucky enough to find a protective niche where they can lead a relatively sheltered life, a job that provides them with a regular income or a small business of their own. Some may feel drawn toward living in a spiritual community or monastery. Others may become dropouts and live on the margins of a society they feel they have little in common with. Some turn to drugs because they find living in this world too painful. Others eventually become healers or spiritual teachers, that is to say, teachers of Being. In past ages, they would probably have been called contemplatives. There is no place for them, it seems, in our contemporary civilization. On the arising new earth, however, their role is just as vital as that of the creators, the doers, the reformers. Their function is to anchor the frequency of the new consciousness on this planet. I call them the frequency-holders. They are here to generate consciousness through the activities of daily life, through their interactions with others as well as through “just being.” In this way, they endow the seemingly insignificant with profound meaning. Their task is to bring spacious stillness into this world by being absolutely present in whatever they do. There is consciousness and therefore quality in what they do, even the simplest task. Their purpose is to do everything in a sacred manner. As each human being is an integral part of the collective human consciousness, they affect the world much more deeply than is visible on the surface of their lives.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“What did Jesus tell his disciples? “Heaven is right here in the midst of you.” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a prediction that to this day few people have understood.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“What did Jesus tell his disciples? “Heaven is right here in the midst of you.” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a prediction that to this day few people have understood. He says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” In modern versions of the Bible, “meek” is translated as humble. Who are the meek or the humble, and what does it mean that they shall inherit the earth? The meek are the Egoless. They are those who have awakened to their, essential true nature as consciousness and recognize that essence in all “others,” all life-forms. They live in the surrendered state and so feel their oneness with the whole and the Source. They embody the awakened consciousness that is changing all aspects of life on our planet, including nature, because life on earth is inseparable from the human consciousness that perceives and interacts with it. That is the sense in which the meek will inherit the earth. A new species is arising on the planet. It is arising now, and you are it!” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Create a Better Life
“See if you can catch, that is to say, notice, the voice in the head, perhaps in the very moment it complains about something, and recognize it for what it is: the voice of the Ego, no more than a conditioned mind-pattern, a thought. Whenever you notice that voice, you will also realize that you are not the voice, but the one who is aware of it. In fact, you are the awareness that is aware of the voice. In the background, there is the awareness. In the foreground, there is the voice, the thinker. In this way you are becoming free of the Ego, free of the unobserved mind. 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 old mind-pattern or mental habit may still survive and reoccur for a while because it has the momentum of thousands of years of collective human unconsciousness behind it, but every time it is recognized, it is weakened.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“If the shutters are closed, the sunlight cannot come in.” ― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
“Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it…this will miraculously transform your whole life.” – Eckhart Tolle
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