Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Since the news broke Sunday evening in the West, millions have been celebrating the elimination of Osama bin Laden, Number One on the most wanted list of the United States.

It’s deeply sad when a life becomes directed toward the destruction of other human beings, as did bin Laden’s. Yet this has been true of countless individuals during the course of the evolution of the human species, perhaps the most notorious of recent times being Adolph Hitler.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Judging people, evaluating them, criticizing them, and labeling them are everyday practices in just about every walk of life.

It’s so commonplace to form an opinion of others that we hardly even realize we are doing it. It’s just what we do, whether at work, in a social setting, with reference to the authorities, or in our family. Doesn’t everyone do it?

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Why do you suppose the human race is exhausting the Earth’s resources, polluting the land with chemicals, fouling the oceans, and dirtying the air to the point that our health is adversely affected?

Do you suppose any of this is coming from people who are conscious?
Does it seem at all enlightened to you?

Do people who recognize that they are “in the image and likeness of God” treat nature this way?

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

When we cannot change something, surrendering to whatever may be happening in our life becomes the way forward.

This doesn’t require great effort. It’s not another arduous thing we have to “do.”

Surrender is a simple matter of acceptance instead of resistance.

Says Eckhart Tolle in Stillness Speaks:

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Do you enjoy your life as you experience it now? Or do you wish your life was really quite different?

Wishing things were different is a totally futile expenditure of mental energy. This is because merely wishing changes absolutely nothing in our life.

Wishing is actually counterproductive to change because if you look closely at it, the act of wishing serves to keep us stuck. Yet a great many of us fritter away tremendous energy doing just this.

Daily Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

A lot of people who would describe themselves as “on a spiritual journey” are trying to “become conscious.”

It’s very hard to become conscious.

But it isn’t at all difficult to simply be conscious.

Have you ever realized that it’s much easier to be conscious than to be unconscious, trying to become conscious?

Daily Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Whenever you hear public figures, whether in politics or in the media, attacking other people, you already know they aren’t the right people to lead us into what Eckhart Tolle calls A New Earth and Jesus called “the kingdom of God.”

When we have a need to attack our fellow humans, we are coming from what Eckhart refers to as “the little me,” the ego, which is a highly unconscious state. No answers lie in unconsciousness.

An article appeared on the BBC World News website this past week that discussed whether it’s wise to take a significant other to a work holiday season party or to go on your own and leave your partner or spouse at home.

The article brings into focus the deep divide in many people’s minds between work and the rest of their life.

Daily Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

In any given moment, we have a choice. We can be here in this moment now, or we can allow our attention to be directed elsewhere.

Most of humanity seem to be unaware they have a choice.

And indeed, until we become aware that there is always a choice, we really don’t have a choice!

Daily Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

They joke that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. But actually, talking to ourselves is something pretty much everyone does until they become aware that they are having a conversation in their head.

A news report out of Yorkshire, northern England, spotlights the Lion Inn, a pub and restaurant that offers accommodation high on the North Yorkshire Moors where seven people were snowed in for the past eight days.