21. ECKHART TOLLE: THE POWER OF NOW
Eckhart Tolle (/ˈɛkɑːrt ˈtɒlə/ EK-art TOL-ə; German pronunciation: [ˈɛkhaʁt ˈtɔlə], born Ulrich Leonard Tölle, February 16, 1948) is a spiritual teacher. He is a German-born resident of Canada[1][2] best known as the author of The Power of Now and A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. In 2008, The New York Times called Tolle "the most popular spiritual author in the United States".[3] In 2011, he was listed by Watkins Review as the most spiritually influential person in the world.[4] Tolle is not identified with any particular religion, but he has been influenced by a wide range of spiritual works.[5]
Tolle said he was depressed for much of his life until age 29, when he underwent an "inner transformation". He then spent several years wandering "in a state of deep bliss" before becoming a spiritual teacher. He moved to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1995[6] and currently divides his time between Canada and California. He began writing his first book, The Power of Now, in 1997[7] and it reached The New York Times Best Seller list in 2000.[8]
The Power of Now and A New Earth sold an estimated three million and five million copies respectively in North America by 2009.[9] In 2008, approximately 35 million people participated in a series of 10 live webinars with Tolle and television talk show host Oprah Winfrey.[9] In 2016, Tolle was named in Oprah's SuperSoul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders.[10]
Early life and education[edit]
Born Ulrich Leonard Tölle in Lünen, a small town located north of Dortmund in the Ruhr Valley, Germany in 1948,[3][11][12] Tolle describes his childhood as unhappy, particularly his early childhood in Germany. His parents fought and eventually separated, and he felt alienated from a hostile school environment.[13] He also experienced considerable fear and anxiety growing up in post-war Germany, where he would play in bombed-out buildings. He later stated that pain "was in the energy field of the country".[14] At the age of 13, he moved to Spain to live with his father.[13] His father did not insist that he attend high school, so Tolle elected to study literature, astronomy and various languages at home.[11][13]
At the age of 15, he read several books written by the German mystic Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, also known as Bô Yin Râ. Tolle has said he responded "very deeply" to those books.[13]
At the age of 19, he moved to England and for three years taught German and Spanish at a London school for language studies.[15] Troubled by "depression, anxiety and fear", he began "searching for answers" in his life.[13]
In his early twenties, he decided to pursue his search by studying philosophy, psychology, and literature, and enrolled in the University of London.[13] After graduating,[13] he was offered a scholarship to do postgraduate research at Cambridge University, which he entered in 1977 but dropped out soon after.[5][11]
Inner transformation[edit]
One night in 1977, at the age of 29, after having suffered from long periods of depression, Tolle says he experienced an "inner transformation".[5] That night he awakened from his sleep, suffering from feelings of depression that were "almost unbearable," but then experienced a life-changing epiphany.[13] Recounting the experience, he says,
I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this a question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void! I didn’t know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or "beingness," just observing and watching.[15]
