Tolle on experience

genie

Eckhart Tolle says: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

I find this insightful. In a way, it is like the buddhist idea of karma - whatever you've done in the past, you're experiencing it now in the immediate present. So each experience has to be gone through, since there's no escape from karma anyway. Of course, Tolle doesn't use the word karma, but 'experience' sort of conveys a similar meaning anyway.

federica

Given that Karma means 'Action' I think one could equate that with 'experience' ,yes.

Whatever is happening in this moment, now, is an experience open to all possibilities of our manipulation of it...

DairyLama

@genie said:> Eckhart Tolle says: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

It's probably simpler to say that we need to accept the present for what it is.

Shoshin

It is what it is and can not be any different....

lobster

It is what it is

Wait a minute ... shouldn't this be in the cliches thread?

... ah well, it is what it is

Shoshin

@lobster said:
It is what it is

Wait a minute ... shouldn't this be in the cliches thread?

... ah well, it is what it is

Or is it ?

lobster

@genie said:
I find this insightful. In a way, it is like the buddhist idea of karma - whatever you've done in the past, you're experiencing it now in the immediate present.

Yes indeed.
Karma is more to do with how we experience. How we experience will result in the opposite of a vicious circle - a beneficial circle ... This is why we follow precepts, the moral idealism of the 8 Fold Path and fish for supper (sorry my lobsterian karma slipped out at the end)

genie

@SpinyNorman said:
It's probably simpler to say that we need to accept the present for what it is.

Yes, but he's explaining why we should. I think that's important, don't you?

Earthninja

It's a fair point it's always good to say why.
Thanks @genie

Jeffrey

It's a moot point if the present moment is designed by the univerese for us. Whatever the present moment is it is the only one we have. Whether a sentient universe designed it for us or not we only have the present moment. Thus it is the only moment for us.

DairyLama

@Jeffrey said:> It's a moot point if the present moment is designed by the universe for us.

Well, it would seem a little egocentric to assume that.

zenff

Personally I resent the idea that Tolle words here. It appears to be saying that when you get cancer (for example) it is because the experience is good for you. The universe in its infinite wisdom decided that.

What I prefer instead is the idea of not judging. Not judging – the way I understand it – doesn’t even begin looking for reasons for acceptance or resistance. It doesn’t need the cliché mentioned nor some irrational faith in the wisdom of the universe.

DairyLama

@zenff said:> Personally I resent the idea that Tolle words here. It appears to be saying that when you get cancer (for example) it is because the experience is good for you. The universe in its infinite wisdom decided that.

Yes, that's how it comes across to me, a bit too new-age for my taste.

Zenshin

I agree with at @SpinyNorman it smacks of the new age view that karma is here to teach us what we need to evolve "spiritually". I don't think that's the case.

DairyLama

I think the Buddhist view of "shit happens" is more to the point.

David

I do like Tolle but I couldn't take these words here as truth.

Causation surely dictates our circumstances at birth but more along the lines of environmental cause and effect instead of punishment and reward.

Shit happens... We are not responsible until we decide what to do with it.

federica

@zenff said:
Personally I resent the idea that Tolle words here. It appears to be saying that when you get cancer (for example) it is because the experience is good for you. The universe in its infinite wisdom decided that.

That's not what he is saying at all.
Read the quotation again:

"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.
How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment."

He never states that it is good for you.
He states that it is MOST HELPFUL for the evolution of your consciousness.
Whatever is happening at the moment may be pleasant or unpleasant. But you have to witness its effect on your Mind-workings, and modify your perception to accommodate whatever the moment is teaching you. And that could be either pleasurable OR painful.
He is using the term 'life' as an expression of Conscious Existence, not as a euphemism for the Universe.
See, this is how teachings can get twisted, misinterpreted and misconstrued. People make assumptions about the intentions of words, by interpreting them hastily and making assumptions...
What he is saying is actually very sound, and really not 'new agey' at all...

robot

It's easy to say in retrospect. That is unless what the universe doled out was a whack on the head that turned you into a vegetable.

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A
warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless
challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad.
Challenges are simply challenges
Don Juan Matus

Telly03

But isn't our experiences based on our beliefs, decisions and actions?

If so, this may be helpful to remember when we are not showing compassion for those experiencing a different religion or political view than what we feel is helpful... it is what they need at this moment... it's progress, it's all good.

DairyLama

To me it just sounds like a variation on that comforting cliche: "Everything happens for a reason", a way of coping when bad things happen.

Telly03

Things happen... "bad" or "good" are just judgements we place on them, and who judges whether or not we judged them correctly?

DairyLama

I'm not clear how a cancer diagnosis would be a "good" thing.

federica

It wouldn't. But it's talking about the ATTITUDE to the diagnosis.... It's the twin arrow thing....

Telly03

A cancer diagnosis is not a bad thing, it is just a thing... I'm 50 years old, and have been blessed with many experiences. So then I receive news that my experiences are now numbered? I would be a fool to think that they were not. Death is as natural as birth, why do we fear it? Easier said than done, but this is where I'm trying to be at the thought of dieing. I may be fortunate to know when that day will be, or perhaps fortunate to not know.

I'm trying to be thankful for all my experiences, for the alternative is to have no experiences... that would be "bad". Makes me feel kinda privileged when I look at it this way.

Shoshin

@Telly03 said:
Things happen... "bad" or "good" are just judgements we place on them, and who judges whether or not we judged them correctly?

Karma.....

lobster

Eckhart Tolle says: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

Is this New Age drivel? Mostly Tolle is very worthwhile. 'Evolution of consciousness' is just different sleep scenarios, some good, some not. The most helpful experience is that which wakes us up, karma has nothing to do with it and Tolles spontaneous awakening is a rare example.

... and now back to the 'evolving' ...

pegembara

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

How do you know this is the experience you were meant to have? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

First, try to understand the word suchness. Buddha depends on that word very much. In Buddha’s own language it is tathata, suchness. The whole Buddhist meditation consists of living in this word, living with this word so deeply that the word disappears and you become the suchness.

For example, you are ill. The attitude of suchness is: accept it and say to yourself, “Such is the way of the body,” or, “Such are things.” Don’t create a fight, don’t start struggling. You have a headache - accept it, such is the nature of things. Suddenly there is a change because when this attitude comes in, a change follows just like a shadow. If you can accept your headache, the headache is no longer a problem.

Try it. If you accept an illness it starts dispersing. Why does it happen? It happens because whenever you are fighting, your energy is divided: half the energy moving into illness, the headache, and half the energy fighting the headache - a rift, a gap and the fight. Really, this fight is a deeper headache.

This word suchness can work so deeply that with physical illness, with mental illness and finally with spiritual illness - this is a secret method - they all dissolve. But start from the body, because that is the lowest layer. If you succeed there, then higher levels can be tried.

Something is wrong in the body: relax and accept it, and simply say inside - not only in words but feel it deeply - that such is the nature of things. A body is a compound, so many things are combined in it. The body is born, it is prone to death.

Jeffrey

@pegembra who is the author of the second quotation? It is interesting for me as 'living with' illness and medicines.

pegembara

@ Jeffrey Does it matter who? Alright, it's Osho

lobster

^^^ Tee Hee I am tempted to write a short reply using the wisdom of Deeply Packed ChOprah ...

Many thanks @pegembara