Eckhart Tolle Quotes

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.

When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.

All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.

When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation or accept it, all else is madness.

Stop looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love - you have a treasure within that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.

When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life.

In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.

Observe your thoughts, don't believe them.

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.

Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.

Many people who are going through the early stages of the awakening process are no longer certain what their outer purpose is. What drives the world no longer drives them. Seeing the madness of our civilization so clearly, they feel somewhat alienated from the culture around them. Some feel that they inhabit a no-man's-land between two worlds. They are no longer run by the ego, yet the arising awareness has not yet become fully integrated into their lives. Inner and outer purpose have not merged.

You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don’t have a life. You are life.

Remember that your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness. You are not separate from it, and there is no objective world out there. Every moment, your consciousness creates the world that you inhabit.

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.

You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

Do not pollute your beautiful, radiant Being nor the Earth with negativity. Do not give unhappiness in any form whatsoever a dwelling place inside you.

Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.

Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.

We have forgotten what rocks and plants still know - we have forgotten how to be - to be still - to be ourselves - to be where life is here and now

You are the Universe expressing itself as a human for a little while.

Be aware of your breathing. Notice how this takes attention away from your thinking and creates space.

Watch the clouds. They will teach you about the world of form.

The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body - to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and transform your life. The more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher its vibrational frequency becomes.

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not 'yours,' not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.

As you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change.

The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.

When you want to arrive at your goal more than you want to be doing what you are doing, you become stressed.

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

If your relationship to the present moment is not right - nothing can ever be right in the future - because when the future comes - it's the present moment.

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. This spiritual truth is diametrically opposed to the values of our contemporary culture and the way it conditions people to behave.

If I find here and Now unacceptable, I have three choices: 1-Totally accept it. 2- Change it. 3-Remove myself from the situation. That is taking responsibility for my life.

Ultimately what you do is secondary. But how you do it is primary.

Whenever you step out of the noise of thinking, that is meditation, and a different state of consciousness arises.

Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry or hard-done by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon. It is also insane.

True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.

As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.

Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.

Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness.

You are here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. That is how important you are!

It may look as if the situation is creating the suffering, but ultimately this is not so - your resistance is.

Always work with the present moment, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.

To some people, surrender may have negative connotations, implying defeat, giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, becoming lethargic, and so on. True surrender, however, is something entirely different. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing about it. Nor does it mean to cease making plans or initiating positive action. Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life.

The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.

You all know the saying which is very true: What you resist persists. And I'm sure many of you have already found that out in your life. And then suddenly when you let go of resistance you let go of an attachment to something: I need this to happen in order to be happy; I don't want what is, I want something else. To be okay with what is, which is the simplicity of this moment, is the beginning of true change.

You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present.

Spiritual Awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.

Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel. See the link between your thinking and your emotions. Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.

Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death.

The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being.