Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

It costs absolutely nothing to greet people we meet in the course of our daily life warmly and treat them with courtesy.

So why wouldn't we make sure we always do so?

If you talk to airline personnel who deal with the public at the check-in desks, to waitresses, or in fact to many in service industries, no small number of us don't do well when it comes to making their day enjoyable.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

The ability to truly listen to another person arises out of stillness.

Unless we are inwardly still, we simply have too much going on in our thoughts and emotions to allow the other to enter into our world.

Real listening isn’t first and foremost about paying attention to the words someone uses.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Have you ever realized that it’s not often we truly listen to each other? At least, not in the deeply meaningful way that Eckhart Tolle talks about in his book Stillness Speaks. He writes:

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

We’re used to living in a culture with a lot of noise and activity. People of our era are rarely still.

Even when we kick back, few of us are truly relaxed. There’s a great deal of tension in our muscles, and our mind is far from quiet—often in fact abuzz with thought.

If you want your relationships to thrive, one of the most helpful things you can do is to ground your time together in experiences of stillness.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

When a person is present in their life instead of caught up in thought or emotional reactivity, they use all dimensions of their being. The whole self is engaged.

Spirituality is often thought of in terms of focusing on a certain aspect of our lives, while ignoring other aspects—even disdaining some aspects of ourselves. But to be a spiritual person is to be present in each moment of our lives in the fullest sense, which means that no part of who we are is ignored.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

Do you really know the people in your life, even those who are close to you each day?

We’ve all heard of the couple who seem so perfectly matched, but one day one of them takes off leaving the other in total shock. Or the teen who ends their life without the parents having any clue that such a tragedy was about to occur.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

There are individuals who can be extremely difficult to get along with. It’s as if they live to be awkward, find fault, or pick a fight.

How do you handle someone who is so difficult that it’s taxing just to be in their presence?

It really doesn’t matter that the individual is hard to get along with, as long as we don’t take up a position of resistance to them.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

There are individuals who can be extremely difficult to get along with. It’s as if they live to be awkward, find fault, or pick a fight.

How do you handle someone who is so difficult that it’s taxing just to be in their presence?

It really doesn’t matter that the individual is hard to get along with, as long as we don’t take up a position of resistance to them.

Spiritual Insight from Eckhart Tolle's Stillness Speaks

So many relationships flounder and eventually founder because people imagine that a relationship is meant to meet their needs.

To relate to someone doesn’t mean they are there to do something for us. To relate is to enjoy someone for who they are, and to enjoy being who we are around them.