Eckhart Tolle Has Messed Up My LOA

[Acting Like Godot]

I used to be pretty good with my LOA.

But now, thanks to Eckhart, I have difficulty even thinking of what I want to manifest.

[impaul99]

GoDot! You're back! When did you come back?

I've been gone for a while too. I know what you mean... Everytime I watch or read Eckhart stuff, I just want to sit on a chair and not move.

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

I used to be pretty good with my LOA.

But now, thanks to Eckhart, I have difficulty even thinking of what I want to manifest.

Ah, it's that word again: 'want'.

To want means to lack, to be in need of. Therein lies the problem.

I was running a bit late driving to work this morning and I had to stop for petrol. My first thought was that there would be a queue at the pumps. Then, I visualized there being no queue. But I was trying too hard, I was trying to force something. It was taking me out of the present moment.

Then, I thought, 'This is rubbish. I accept the moment which is now. I don't care whether there is a queue or not. I'm not going to think about it'.

As it happens, there was no queue. Even if there had been, I wouldn't have been bothered.

The 'wanting' is the illusion.

[liverpool footballer]

messed up your mind more like

[Lisa McGregor]

[

QUOTE=Acting Like Godot;245251]I used to be pretty good with my LOA.

But now, thanks to Eckhart, I have difficulty even thinking of what I want to manifest.

[/QUOTE]

Explain please.
L

[cylon]

It's true that Tolle seems to ignore dreams and wishes and just experiencing the present moment, but isn't that where everything happens anyway?

[Angela]

Well, the thing is, when you're present, you tend to notice that this moment contains everything you need and want right here and now.

[liverpool footballer]

After practising presence or rather, living it as much as possible, i realise that a lot of my past dreams and needs such as my nickname liverpool footballer were derived from the ego; looking back, i don't feel the urge to accomplish them anymore and there's no longer a need to use LOA to get them

I have a lot of free time now and i spend a lot of it playing games, being still, or just lying on my bed. There's no urge to accomplish or achieve anything.

[Lil Chris]

Originally Posted by Angela

Well, the thing is, when you're present, you tend to notice that this moment contains everything you need and want right here and now.

Is this just a mind game...? I'm trying to be sincere about this, perhaps I'm misunderstanding, because maybe I'm not here in this moment to notice my great healthy body, as I walk around with my physical ailments... Does the present moment also contain my Ferrari...? (I know, material things again...), Does it also contain loving everybody and feeling connected to everything...?

Everything I need and want huh... But what about what I'm experiencing...? I'm confused...

[marinik]

Originally Posted by liverpool footballer

After practising presence or rather, living it as much as possible, i realise that a lot of my past dreams and needs such as my nickname liverpool footballer were derived from the ego; looking back, i don't feel the urge to accomplish them anymore and there's no longer a need to use LOA to get them

I have a lot of free time now and i spend a lot of it playing games, being still, or just lying on my bed. There's no urge to accomplish or achieve anything.

I don't want to loose the zest for life, the passion… I love the moment but I also love the drive to have another even better moment and a better and....

[Bliss Sage]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

I used to be pretty good with my LOA.

But now, thanks to Eckhart, I have difficulty even thinking of what I want to manifest.

Why?

[Drulian]

I started to read Tolle's The Power of Now. I stopped reading about 20 pages in. I found one of his concepts impossible for me to swallow.

"""
But don't seek to grasp (Being/Source/All That Is) with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally.
"""
Godot, I can't claim to have comprehensive knowledge of the merits of Tolle's ideas (which seem to be good in general); is this idea of non-understanding pervasive, and is it part of the problem for you?

[Wax Frog]

I'd just like to manifest a recipe for Tolle House cookies

[cylon]

Guys don't you know time is an illusion?

[JaredR]

After reading The Power of Now I have paused my LOA practice to experiment with being present and "getting out of the mind."

A few weeks ago I made a post about positive thinking and subliminals. Jarrod linked me to a post on his blog about the limitations of positive thinking, and while I thought it was interesting I totally dismissed it.

Then this weekend I bought Tolle's book (mostly out of impulse) and one chapter in it all clicked. I started observing how out-of-control thinking makes me miserable and how tiring it is to constantly be living in the past and the future. Slowing down to watch my breath and listen to the sounds around me has done far more to relieve my anxieties than any amount of time spent convincing myself everything is okay.

Now I'm finding it soothing to NOT think unless I need to, even if it's choosing no-thought over positive thought. I think I will stick with cultivating awareness for a while and see how it goes.

[SunnKali]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

I used to be pretty good with my LOA.

But now, thanks to Eckhart, I have difficulty even thinking of what I want to manifest.

ALG - you've been so playful with your manifestations in the past.... Perhaps if you change the words "what I want to manifest" to "what would be fun to manifest"?

Even living in the now, and being content with what I have, and my life the way it is, there are plenty of things that are fun to create or bring into my realm. There is so much to savor in this life -- and I mean that with all senses, not just the tongue.

[Dannyboy1]

is not the way to get motivated. If you've truly taken in the entire book, you wouldn't be blaming him. Staying in the moment doesn't mean you can't be motivated. Read the book again and search for what you've missed, or read A New Earth and hear it in a different way.

[catalyst]

I hear the term LOA being tossed around a lot, but I'm a bit confused about how people use it on this forum. It sounds like some mystical wishing stone, which will grant you all your desires. (eg. I'm going to use LOA to become beautiful, rich, famous)

If you focus so much on obtaining something in the future, that today just becomes nothing more than a stepping stone to get there, then you've lost the present moment. You'll wish you weren't here now, and instead in the future when your desire will be fulfilled.

I think it is possible to stay in the present moment and make future plans, but the attention has to be what you are doing NOW. Do the best now, so you can move towards a future goal, but the journey is primary and the destination secondary.

[Jarrod]

Originally Posted by JaredR

I started observing how out-of-control thinking makes me miserable and how tiring it is to constantly be living in the past and the future. Slowing down to watch my breath and listen to the sounds around me has done far more to relieve my anxieties than any amount of time spent convincing myself everything is okay.

Now I'm finding it soothing to NOT think unless I need to, even if it's choosing no-thought over positive thought. I think I will stick with cultivating awareness for a while and see how it goes.

Wonderful JaredR.

I really think it was great when people realise that thinking is a serious problem and not thinking is a viable solution.

One of the interesting things that I have noticed since trying to abandon automatic thoughts and emotions is that things I need tend to fall into my lap.

This is especially so with removing negative thoughts and emotions but also removing the 'positive' ones seems to allow room for things to appear and for me to see them and take a hold of them.

Good luck to you and I will be interested to see how it goes

[cylon]

Something I have literally just started doing... is when the thinking gets me confused, or I feel like I'm getting too emotional about something on my mind, I tell myself "this is the time to observe the ego".

When I'm really worked up I know that's the time to slow down and step back. When you're really upset or all worked up, not the best space to make important decisions, even though those are the times you feel more compelled to make major decisions.

Basically if I don't have the answer that's my sign to stop.

[Dharma]

Originally Posted by Jarrod

One of the interesting things that I have noticed since trying to abandon automatic thoughts and emotions is that things I need tend to fall into my lap.

Excellent awareness Jarrod! Yes, things tend to just happen... with ease.

- - -
Congrats to everyone for giving presence a try. It's much better than wanting.

[Vasilisa]

I found his books wonderful. If the purpose of LOA and other spiritual practices - to be happy, then Tolle's teaching is the short and straight way to the happiness.
Just be in the moment and everything falls in place.

[munish]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

I used to be pretty good with my LOA.

But now, thanks to Eckhart, I have difficulty even thinking of what I want to manifest.

If Tolle has messed up , i suggest reading J.Krishnamurti. Then you will not even have a desire to manifest.

"It is desire that creates illusion - through desire one wants fulfillment, one hopes for something more.

“Freedom is to stand alone, unattached and unafraid, free in the understanding of desire which breeds illusion.” -Krishnamurti.

[Parthon]

Originally Posted by cylon

Guys don't you know time is an illusion?

Brilliant! I love it!

Time is just the thing that stops everything from happening at once anyways.

Could it be struggling to match up the incongruencies of life?
The truth that we are a projection of a greater source into a universe of form and time, made up of atoms and molecules together to form an experience of life, death, beginning and ends in a quasi-immortal state where the present moment, and present experience is the only one that really exists.

In the end, plan for tomorrow, remember the past, but live in the present.

[Cantando]

Originally Posted by Dharma

Excellent awareness Jarrod! Yes, things tend to just happen... with ease.

- - -
Congrats to everyone for giving presence a try. It's much better than wanting.

Yay to that, Dharma and Jarrod! Once you are at rest in the moment, in the silence, just 'being', then anything that manifests is true and the right thing for you. If you accept that joyfully, then the next thing that manifests is also the true and right thing for you. We don't have to 'try' to manifest. It just happens.

We are constantly manifesting, whether we are aware of it or not, since all manifestations are but symbols or reflections of what our inner feelings and beliefs are.

Perhaps 'wanting' anything is the cause of all man's woes - the cause of all separation - I am lacking in something, so I must have it. Then, once I have it, I start pining for something else!

[Acting Like Godot]

I briefly felt like responding to some of your responses.

However, Eckhart's influence is too strong. My urge to respond is merely a thought. Your replies are merely events of the past. I dismiss them and remain in the now.

Goodbye.

[Parthon]

Now that's a pickle of a conundrum to cause the scratching of the old noodle.

How can you reply to something from the past? Aren't you replying to the future so those people from the past can one day read it?

Are you saying goodbye to your present self writing it, or to the present figments of your memory?

If now is all there is, and the past is gone, then how can this exist if it's from the past? Does this exist in the present, the past or the future. Even if I wrote it in the past, that action is gone, so where do the results exist?

Perhaps this is all meaningless, because it's not meaningful dialogue between two people anymore, it's electromagnetically aligned particles being displayed to you through the illusion of a computer screen.

If that's all true, then who are we as humans?

[cylon]

"Earth may be trapped in an abnormal bubble of space-time that is particularly devoid of matter."


Isn't that how the old saying goes?

[Dannyboy1]

Originally Posted by Parthon

Now that's a pickle of a conundrum to cause the scratching of the old noodle.

How can you reply to something from the past? Aren't you replying to the future so those people from the past can one day read it?

Are you saying goodbye to your present self writing it, or to the present figments of your memory?

If now is all there is, and the past is gone, then how can this exist if it's from the past? Does this exist in the present, the past or the future. Even if I wrote it in the past, that action is gone, so where do the results exist?

Perhaps this is all meaningless, because it's not meaningful dialogue between two people anymore, it's electromagnetically aligned particles being displayed to you through the illusion of a computer screen.

If that's all true, then who are we as humans?

You can't experience results in the past, for they have already happened. You can't experience them in the future, for you are not there yet. You can only experience anything NOW. You can get lost running scenarios of the past and future over and over and become a walking zombie, or, you can open your eyes, listen with your ears, smell with your nose, taste what's now in your mouth, feel your breathing, and sense the connection all around you with everything right now and act upon it.

[MissK]

I think it would help to remember that when you are fully present in the now your vibration is already in tune with who you truly are. You are like a living intention and thats why people find exactly what they need is still attracted to them and falls into their laps. Look at Eckahrt. He was not looking to become a spiritual teacher at some point in the future. But his focus on the present attracted that situation to him. I hope that helps some.