Home
Buy Spiritual Books, Tapes, CDs & Sacred Art
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Eckhart
Tolle
(1948-present, Germany)
Biography Excerpt:
Once you have met Eckhart, you realize the paradox of discussing his background and personal particulars. For Eckhart is quite understated, and one of the least attached to persona of any teacher you will find. Born in Germany, where he spent the first thirteen years of his life, Eckhart was fairly ordinary until the age of twenty-nine. After graduation from the University of London, he became a research scholar and supervisor at Cambridge University. It is just that everyday type of suffering that we all endure. Overcome by a sense of purposeless and on the verge of suicide, Eckhart experienced a profound spiritual transformation that radically has changed the course of his life and the lives of many others.
Enlightenment Story Excerpt:
Until my thirtieth year, I lived in
a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal
depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or
somebody else's life.
One night not long after my twenty-ninth
birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread.
I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it
was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague
outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing
train-everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless
that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome
thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing
to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle?
I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was
now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.
"I cannot live with myself any longer."
This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly
I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. "Am I one or two?