Saturday, March 06, 2010

A Little Book on Stillness

This is my second Echart Tolle Book, and third listening to his unpretentious voice speaking out simple truths we know, but we used to forget...



"Stillness speaks" is indeed short, as compared to "The Power of Now". Yet it is good, concise summary of Tolle ideas. In some sense it is about one idea, that is elaborated deeply in both of his books. This simple idea can be expressed in saying: "We are not our minds". Tolle rediscovers truths known to almost all great meditative traditions of all religions, to tell, in simple words, that beyond and below our discursive and noisy stream of thought, there IS certain realm, that exists, but which existence is of different dimension than the existence of forms in this world.


Yet this simple idea is fruitful and deep. Tolle elaborates on it, and the consequence are far reaching, from appreciation of meditative practice, through betterment of our relations, to the overcoming of suffering and death.


As I stressed in my two previous reviews, the true value of Tolle is in his simple language, modest approach to difficult problems and intellectual honesty. So don't expect here cryptic expression of some mysterious truths. This book is about things of common life and common experience - that are, as it often happens, concealed by our talkative and blusterous culture.


As I said before, I do not quite agree with Tolle's approach to past: "Past and future are thought forms, mental abstractions. The past can only be remembered Now". While his view is reasonable, the negation of the existence of Past, the frozen world of our good and bad choices, is to me, unnecessary....

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