Eckhart Tolle

“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.”

“The brain does not create consciousness, but conciousness created the brain, the most complex physical form on earth, for its expression.”

“Authentic human interactions become impossible when you lose yourself in a role.”

“Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.”

“Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”

“The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.”

“Nothing has ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?”

“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”

“Each person's life – each lifeform,in fact – represents a world, aunique way in which the universe experiences itself.”

“Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.”

“You may remember the paradox of time we mentioned earlier:Whatever you do takes time, and yet it is always now. So while your innerpurpose is to negate time, your outer purpose necessarily involves future andso could not exist without time. But it is always secondary. Whenever youbecome anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sightof your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness isprimary, all else secondary.”

“Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" ofego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.”

“What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.”

“Inner resistance to whatever arises in the present moment pulls you back into unconsciousness. Inner resistance is some form of negativity, complaining, fear, aggression, or anger. This is important because whenever you complain about what somebody else does you're already beginning to fall into that trap of unconsciousness.”

“Deny thy self!”

“The foundation of greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment, instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.”

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”

“You have so much to learn from your enemies.”

“The pas has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that.”

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”

“Life isn't as serious as my mind makes it out to be.”

“As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action.”

“The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”

“You are here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. That is how important you are!”

“A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever.”

“The ego wants to want more than it wants to have.”

“Man Made 'God' in his own image. The eternal, the infinate, the unnameable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as 'my god' or 'our god'.”

“If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die. Wars have been fought over this, and countless relationships have broken down.”

“In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.”

“The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.”

“All problems are illusions of the mind.”

“True Power is within, and it is available now.”

“On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a joyous energy behind what you do.”

“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”

“All you realy need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself.”

“You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity.”

“Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.”

“This is my secret," he said. "I don't mind what happens.”

“...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whaterver form. Both are illusions.”

“The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality”

“Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.”

“What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.”

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”

“The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.”

“Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.”

“A significant portion of the earth's population will soon recognize, if they haven't already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die.”

“Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.”

“The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction.”

“Don't Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness”

“One thing we do know: 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 this moment.”