Picking
Peas from a Pod
- A Review of Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of NOW: A Guide to
Spiritual Development.
Sitting in the airport I relax back into
the wide faux leather strap that serves as a backrest, plant my feet just a bit
more forward and watch the people go back and forth along the concourse in front
of me. Within a couple of breaths
as I focus on the rise and fall of my chest and the current of air through my
nostrils the sensation of my body begins to diffuse with just a couple of
tension spots remaining distinct as if they are islands in a distant sea. The hustle and bustle of the travelers takes on an abstract
effect. I am aware of their
deliberateness, but I am removed from the gravitational pull of the underlying
anxiety. I have sunk into the world
on which others are moving. Somewhere
there is a plane on its way to take me to Denver, but I am no longer waiting
for it. I am complete.
In the words of Eckhart Tolle, I am Now.
§
I am grateful for having read The
Power of NOW, A Guide to Spiritual Development, by Eckhart Tolle.
He is right to work towards an instructional manual for the mind.
When people imagine training the mind, they usually think of specific
skills such as memorization and calculation.
And while these skills are important, there are other mental abilities
addressed by Tolle, which are neglected by Western education whether religious
or secular. Among the abilities
addressed by Tolle are the ability to quite thoughts, the ability to focus on
non-verbal mental states, the ability to become detached from a situation and
the incorporation of bodily sensations into our consciousness.
In my opinion there are a wide range of mental abilities, including
these, which should be part of Western education.
In the East, Buddhism offers a comprehensive system for training
the mind. Such a system is needed
in the West. While the West could
study Buddhism, the establishment of a secular Western system independent of
Buddhism would allow the development of studies designed for a non-Eastern
audience, allow use by Christian and other non-Buddhist groups without a
conflict in ideology and could incorporate the latest advances in the study of
brain physiology and psychology without having to update ancient Buddhist texts.
Tolle’s book is a step in this direction.
The development of a secular system of
training the mind for a Western audience there would require a general consensus
about both the goals and some core methodologies.
For such a consensus to occur, those who are working in this field will
need to identify other voices consistent with their own and offer a critique of
those who are advocating an alternative approach.
In this way similarities and differences among those generally writing in
the “self-help” genre will begin to be systematized. For instance is Tolle’s “Now” the same thing as Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi’s, Flow
or “Attention” in Timothy
Miller’s,
How To Want What You Have. Generally, “self-help” books tend to lie out on a table
like a smorgasbord and readers are invited to try a few bites to see if they
personally find the book to their liking. I
envision a system with a bit more to it than personal taste.
§
In the spirit of clarification I turn to
some of the central notions in Tolle’s book The Power of Now. Tolle’s most repeated encouragement is for us
to let go of the trappings of the past and the promises of the future and to
live in the present moment. Live in
the Now. Acceptance of the Now
promises happiness. “You cannot
be both unhappy and fully present in the Now.” (p. 62)
“As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle
dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.” (p. 68) But, what does
it mean to live in the Now? He
does not mean that you can now be fully attentive to a worry about some future
event. Only the causal events,
which arise in the Now, are available as legitimate concerns for the
present moment. It is worthwhile
noting that we do not experience “time”.
“Time” is the currency of change.
It is a model we impose upon the world to relate one changing situation
to another. To live outside of time
is to live outside of change.
One of the ways in which Tolle leads us
out of change is to focus on our bodily sensations or “feelings” as opposed
to thoughts. The feelings or bodily
sensations will be relatively stable unless some new emotional stimulus is
introduced. Feelings are contrasted
with thoughts, which are chaotic, flooding, and generally out of control. When we focus on feelings or bodily sensations change slows
and one can often self-induce a state of relaxation that further reduces change
and stills the mind. This is an
important technique to understand and master.
It is easy to become pulled into a frenzied state of mind as several
simultaneous events are unfolding around you and you feel varying levels of
responsibility and vulnerabilities related to the outcomes.
The ability to detach, quite the mind and relax will not only allow you
to avoid impulsive and sometime irresponsible actions, but will allow you
re-enter the decision-making process with a “clear mind” and greater
creativity.
While this much of Tolle is clear, his
language becomes confusing when he talks as though we are able to experience
time, that we can experience or should avoid “psychological time” and that
the experience of the Now is a portal to our “true nature.”
“…. If you made a mistake in the past and learn from it now, you are
using clock time. On the other had,
if you dwell on it mentally, and self-criticism, remorse, or guilt come up, then
you are making the mistake into ‘me’ and ‘mine’: you make it part of
your sense of self, and it has become psychological time, which is always linked
to a false sense of identity.” (p. 57) Oddly enough, for Tolle, the expression
“psychological time” refers not to something in a state of change, but an
undesirable yet stable feature of interiority.
What if the person in question has a stable sense of self that is
characterized by a heroic image of capability and character based on past
successes? Is this similarly
undesirable “psychological time”? Tolle’s
view of human nature is decidedly negative.
His approach is offered as a cure and he tends to characterize humans as
diseased. Life, he seems to say,
feels so good when it stops. And
going into the Now is a way to stop it.
§
It is worthwhile taking a step back and
looking at what the mind actually does. The
three primary events that take place in the mind are:
·
the occurrence of perceptions
·
the association of mental states, and
·
the shifting of focus.
The shifting of focus is the only one of
the three mental processes that is, at least arguably, intentional. Our perceptions are determined by stimuli of our sense
organs, including the sense of our own bodily condition. The association of
other mental states, such as the idea of the “3rd President” when
focused on the image of “Thomas Jefferson” may be physiologically
determined, but it certainly feels random and the ideas, images and feelings
associated with a particular mental state are involuntary.
(Although, we can learn to associate as in the study of the order of the
Presidents of the United States.)
When Eckhart Tolle talks about quieting
the mind, he is, I believe talking about slowing or stopping the process of
association. It is not entirely
clear whether he is recommending that we still all associations or just
“thoughts”, which I take to be verbal mental states, which are or invariably
associate words. Since he talks
about transcending the use of images or non-verbal mental states, I am going to
assume he is asking us to still all associations both verbal and non-verbal.
Our associations tend to be related to
whatever mental state our mind is focused.
A general or diffused focus will generate general or diffused
associations. A narrow focus will
generally result in a more narrow range of specific associations.
Although, there is always the chance that at any time one will think
about Neil
Armstrong landing on the moon. Tolle
suggests is that we focus on our perception of our own body, preferably in a
relaxed state. This mental maneuver
along with his further suggestion that we exclude past events and future
expectations from our focus will often have the desired result of quieting the
frequency of associations.
And so we enter the quite mind. There are still perceptions, but only occasional
associations. If we don’t give
our focus to arising associations they quickly wither and fade.
Even our narrow focus on our bodily awareness may be relaxed.
It was after all just a tool, not a goal in the attainment of quietude.
As I have mentioned there are several benefits that can flow from a quite
mind and the ability to quite the mind is important.
Tolle presses forward into areas I
believe are unwarranted and claims that he is talking about something beyond
words and that the words he uses are like stepping stones to be discarded once
we reach the Now. (p. 14) I suggest that the process of attaining the Now
is not beyond words and that Tolle rejects the rationality that words imply
because his claims about the NOW are unjustified.
Tolle contends that having entered the quite mind of the Now, we:
I admit to being an anti-essentialist in
the sense used by Richard
Rorty. I see no viable
justification for the contention that the state of having a quite mind is our
natural state or our “true nature’. I
reject the notion of “true nature” in any context, but in the case of Tolle
why would we suppose that sitting with a quite mind is more “natural” or
more “true” than walking around anxious with a mental cacophony of thoughts,
images and memories. The former may
be more peaceful, but I see no reason to believe that peacefulness is a feature
of my “true nature”. For
millions of years humans have enjoyed peaceful moments and endured anxious and
fearful times.
Tolle claims that when we are Now we enter a state where the illusions of separateness dissolve and awake to our true interconnectedness with Being. I believe the appropriate approach to this seeming conflict was described by Ken Wilber with his notion of the holon. Wilber explains that in the same way that an electron is a distinct and coherent object and is also part of an atom or larger system, humans are distinct and separate individuals and yet part of larger systems such as communities, families and cultures. We are both separate and connected. The difference is one of perspective. The sense of connectedness appears to us as an image or sense of self as part of pattern or system. Pattern recognition or global thinking is a right-brain, rather than left-brain activity. Despite the claims of Tolle, it is not necessary to appeal to a mysterious source in order to explain our felt sense of connectedness. I suspect that in a state of quite mindedness we are not actively goal oriented and the sense individuation or separateness is less pronounced so that the image of the self as interconnected becomes more evident.
§
Tolle claims that fear is the basic
emotion and that the fear of death underlies all fears.
(P. 43-44) And he also claims that in the Now we are connected
with the oneness of Being and something indestructible. (p. 12) If he means that we feel embedded in the world and
its teaming life and that life and the world will continue, for all practical
purposes, forever, then I concur. If,
however his is trying to hint that in the Now we glimpse our true
identity as an immortal soul, then I believe he pushes his own insights beyond
their usefulness.
Tolle asks that we not identify
ourselves with the mind, by which he means the thoughts, ideas and images that
associate one other in a river of experience.
Yet all of our experience, including the experience of self is simply
another association whether an idea, a feeling or bodily impression or
non-verbal image. When we
“watch” our self or, in the nomenclature I prefer, we assume the perspective
of the “witness”, we assume the perspective of one aspect of our self as it
observes, whether judgmentally or not, another aspect.
The logic of this is dualistic and could not lead to wholeness unless,
like Tolle, you discard the process of living with mental content as
illusory and false. In my
opinion it is better to simply accept all self-conscious awareness as another
association, neither more, nor less real than any other.
There are times when it is important to look at our behavior and
accompanying intentions. Are we
kind? Selfish? Are we generous?
Dismissive? Looking back on our selves with a critical self-conscious eye
is a necessary part of growth and maturation.
Certainly there are times when we are too harsh on ourselves.
There are also times when we are in denial or not sufficiently demanding
on ourselves. Rather than dismiss
the entire process of critical self-examination, I believe it would be better to
work toward a process of honest, yet compassionate evaluation of our behavior
and intentions.
§
Eckhart Tolle offers sound advice and instruction on some of the important mental skills that offer a way to detach from the gravitational pull of cultural and relational angst. Using his technique to quite the mind can lead to greater confidence, greater creativity and greater satisfaction in responding to the our human situations. Unfortunately, Tolle, following an all too typical trend among self-help authors, tries to do too much. Eckhart Tolle suggests that he is an enlightened being and that may be the case, depending on what is meant by “enlightened”. However, there is no guarantee that an enlightened being will be a successful enlightener of other beings. His book tells us the story of how a simple notion has created a profound change in his life. I believe that Now and the world-view he has created around this notion work for Tolle. Yet, in order for Tolle’s teaching to transcend the autobiographical and become the pedagogy he intends, we must extricate his important insight from his world-view just as we would shell peas from a pod to limit ourselves to the digestible. There is just a bit more to Tolle’s writings than I am able to swallow.
Page numbers in this review are to the September 2004 paperback edition of The Power of Now.
December 1, 2006
Mike Mallory
