Eckhart Tolle (1948) is an inspiring spiritual teacher. He is not connected to any particular tradition or belief. His simple yet profound teachings are most closely related to Buddhism and are very practical and have helped thousands of people find inner peace. The core of his teaching is that every human being has a personal choice for a more conscious life and if enough people make this choice, humanity will awaken spiritually.
Eckhart Tolle was born in Germany, where he lived until he was thirteen. After that he lived with his father in Spain. After his studies in London, he became a research assistant at Cambridge University. At the age of twenty-nine he experienced a deep spiritual turn and since then he calls himself enlightened. He changed his name to "Eckhart", after the 13th century mystic Master Eckhart. Today he lives in Vancouver and works as a counselor and spiritual master.
As befits a true Buddhist, Tolle presupposes not the existence of a soul, but a God who is the Being in the background of every living being. This (awareness) being is our being and it manifests itself especially in the silence. After our birth, we as beings also have to protect ourselves against a hostile nature and for that we have the ego: our self-defense mechanism. The ego, unlike consciousness, feels alone in the world and sees others as the enemy to be conquered. The ego infiltrates our mind with all kinds of thoughts such as “I am right”, “the other person is doing this to me”. When we do not consciously perceive this, the ego takes over. The ego seeks surrogates for Being, such as "being happy", status, power. The quality of a connection made from the ego is also debatable. Positive emotions generated by the ego already have their opposite in them and can easily turn into it. For example, what ego calls love is possessiveness and an addictive clinging that can turn into hatred in a second. Tolle argues that the ego can only be turned off by being aware of it. However, the ego is cunning and sneaks in through the back door unnoticed. When you defend yourself in a conflict situation, your ego is busy. And if you think you are more spiritual than others, and look down on selfish people, then the ego is in your power again. The ego is a very powerful force within you, which you will have to learn to recognize and control if you want to continue on your spiritual path.
Conscious living, according to Tolle, has nothing to do with the search for happiness or with love that is connected with conditions. A conscious person first of all accepts what is, no matter how miserable the situation. A more active form of consciousness Tolle calls pleasure and with enthusiasm the cosmic energy flows through you.
Tolle introduced a new spiritual term with the concept of pain-body. Every unenlightened human being has a pain-body. It has arisen from all the non-consciously experienced pain you have gained from experiences in your life. It is full of anger, fears, sadness, hatred and jealousy and it wants to cause more pain to others and to yourself. Usually the pain body is in a dormant state but with the right trigger it wakes up and takes over. Because you feel your pain body, we immediately identify with it and find it difficult to resist. The pain body activates the ego and these two figures cause pain, violence, illness, drama, addictions and (self) destructive behavior. The individual pain body resonates with other pain bodies making it a collective being that acts as the karma that keeps us stuck in a vicious cycle of pain. By recognizing and becoming aware of this mechanism, the pain body becomes weaker.