Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

What is it we are so vehemently in resistance to? What is it that, inside us, we fight the most?

Well, you might think that it’s pain, disappointment, that sort of thing. But these aren’t what we so powerfully resist.

On the contrary, many of us are quite expert at wallowing in our hurt feelings, our sadness, our rage. Instead of resisting these emotions, we are inclined to give such emotions a full venting!

When we go through a negative experience usually we form a belief as: “I have a problem,” or, “I am not able to make it,” or “I have to run out of it.” If you believe in these statements, you are allowing imprints in your energy field, and they start having a separate life from the rest of your being. ‘Problems’ always trigger intense emotional reactions of being flooded, in between being numb and unable to feel fully alive; it keeps reinforcing non-thriving, untruthful negative beliefs about you and life; it motivates destructive maladaptive behaviors.

When fear takes hold, it’s so very easy to draw back from bold initiatives. We tend to conserve, horde, protect.

But this kind of reaction doesn’t come from our essence. It isn’t a present, centered response to the crisis we are in.

On the contrary, the fearful mentality that’s taken hold of so many is a betrayal of our true being.

In essence, we are creatures who naturally care for one another. This is because we are self-manifestations of the infinite Presence that’s the heart of reality, the very definition of which is love.

Driving past little Pine Lake in Hudson the other day, I was listening to the oboe’s baleful lament in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez and recalling my mother. Just a few years ago she’d stood on this shore staring at the red-tinged foliage and a nearby heron, still as a statue—both Mum and the bird, that is.

She was rapt, taking in the view for the last time—taking in viewing for the last time. We knew there wouldn’t be much more. Alzheimer’s had her brain, though not entirely; she knew what was coming.

Bizah shared a story with Tonga. There was a father who sent his daughter down to the river to get some water for tea.

As the father was waiting for the daughter to return, a neighbor ran in and said that someone had just been found dead in the river.

“Oh, no,” the man moaned. Then he broke into tears. Soon after, he became hysterical. “My one and only daughter, I have lost her. And it is all my fault. I was the one who sent her to the river to fetch water. Oh, what will I do now? How can I go on?”

Eckhart Tolle shared a memorable personal story with me. 

In the mid-1990s, Eckhart was visiting San Francisco for the first time and booked into a small, comfortable hotel in the downtown area. Wishing to explore the city, he approached the concierge with several questions.