Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Especially on the heels of catastrophes such as the huge earthquake in Japan, following the destructive quake in Christchurch, New Zealand, people everywhere are searching for peace of mind.

A lot of us are afraid that radiation may spread. For instance, the news reports that in the United States, even on the East coast, there has been a rush on potassium iodide, which can help protect the thyroid in a radiation leak. Some are also stockingpiling supplies, especially water.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Are you clear about the difference between bringing your attention to something and thinking about something? For many people the two are equated, but they are really quite different.

Eckhart Tolle writes:

To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an animal does not mean to think about it, but simply to perceive it, to hold it in your awareness.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

So many of us are imprisoned in our thinking, to the point that anxious, repetitive thought haunts us day and night.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have a tranquil mind in which thought is no longer a pest and in fact rarely happens?

What takes the place of thought is awareness, which has none of the torturing characteristics of thought.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

There are times when all answers, all explanations fail. Situations arise that we don’t understand and can make no sense of.

At such times the key is to surrender to what is, rather than fighting it or stewing over it, which is our tendency.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

When life clouds over and there’s not a thing we can do to blow those clouds away, it can feel extremely depressing—just like the month of January is for many in the northern hemisphere due to the lack of sunshine.

At such times it may seem like life is against us instead of supportive of us. This isn’t an easy feeling to cope with.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

How happy are you? Do you enjoy your life, or do you find it more challenging than enjoyable, perhaps even painful?

In the northern hemisphere, many have been experiencing long days, even weeks of cloudiness in this exceptionally cold weather. You begin to wonder whether the Sun is still up there! People in places like Queensland, Australia, have also been experiencing extremely overcast weather.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Have you ever considered how, all day long, we categorize things? It’s so automatic for most of us, we hardly realize we are doing it.

There are things we like, so we classify them as “good.” There are things we don’t like much, so we judge them to be just “okay” or “so-so.” Then there are things we don’t like at all, so we call them “bad.”

We want “good” things to happen to us, whereas we try to avoid “bad” things.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

What can you not accept about your life just as it is right now?

You may respond that there are all kinds of things about your circumstances, including the way you feel inside yourself, that you can’t accept.

But what if you were to accept everything, absolutely everything—including how you feel—exactly as it is at this moment?

In his book Stillness Speaks, Eckhart Tolle puts it this way:

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Awareness is empowering. But the fact that becoming conscious of something empowers us doesn’t mean we just sit back and do nothing.

The reason awareness is empowering is that it shows us we have a choice concerning how we respond to our present situation, which is something we may not have recognized until now.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Have you ever realized how many of us are constantly trying to change something in our life because we aren’t happy with it?

Often we aren’t happy with ourselves, let alone with other people or some of the circumstances of our external life.

The result is that instead of enjoying a flowing, peaceful internal experience each and every day, we feel torn much of the time.

Some of us even feel at war with ourselves at times.