By If you haven’t heard of The Power of Now before reading this article, chances are you would have eventually. It’s become a bit of a phenomenon you see, well beyond the level of your average “new age” book. This is due to author Eckhart Tolle’s apparent lack of religious affiliation, and a huge amount of word of mouth marketing, now doubt helped along in more recent times by Oprah Winfrey’s discovery and endorsement of the author.
I myself came upon it on the unlikely recommendation of my father who is a born again Christian.
I was somewhat surprised to have him recommend such a book to me, and it is perhaps because of that fact that I even gave it a second though, let alone purchase the book, as I did.
The basic premise of The Power of Now is that we human being are unhappy because we live our lives constantly thinking about the past, or the future, thereby neglecting to enjoy the present. Were that all the book had to say, I would contend that it was really very true, and that learning to enjoy every moment is a skill we should all endeavour to have. Naturally such advice would make for a very short book, and in itself does not sound very profound, so naturally (and by necessity) Tolle’s message is far more complicated that that.
The book opens with a short personal history from the author in which he tells us about how miserable his life was until the age of 30 when he magically had some kind of breakdown, blacked out, and when he woke up he was in a state of pure joy which prompted him to spend several years doing nothing except sit on park benches being happy. For the first 163 pages Tolle, in a most repetitive fashion, explains how the key to happiness is to be. That is, to become aware that there is no past or future, only the now, as he calls it. He says that we as humans cause ourselves pain by not living in the now, and instead constantly thinking about the past or the future. If this sounds too esoteric, you can blame Tolle for overcomplicating something that is really very simple: You cannot be happy if you are dwelling on the past, nor can you be happy if you place all your hopes in the future, which hasn’t happened yet and exists only in your imagination. You must learn to enjoy and live only for the present moment, because that is all that every really exists. Up until this point, despite Tolle’s meandering and repetition, and sometimes ‘liberal’ interpretation of various religious texts, I was really enjoying the book. I truly was finding it insightful and inspiring.
That all changed on page 164 with a section that details why women are closer to enlightenment that men. As a man, I was naturally a bit put off by this sweeping and seemingly unfounded statement. Tolle justifies this with some claims relating to the Chinese Tao. The Tao it seems is described as being the mother of the universe. Tolle says that “Tao” can be translated as “being” therefore women naturally embody “being” which Tolle uses a synonym for God, or the Universe, or, well take your pick.
From this point on, the book seems to have an increasing disdain for anything masculine, or perhaps it did from the beginning and only became evident at this point. The mind, for instance is viewed by Tolle as negative, and also as male.
“What does remain true, however, is that the energy frequency of the mind appears to be essentially male. The mind resists, fights for control, uses, manipulates, attacks, tires to grasp for control and so on. This is why the Traditional God is patriarchal, controlling authority figure, and often angry man who you should live in fear of, as the Old Testament suggests. This God is a projection of the human mind.
He then goes onto a section about dissolving the female pain body. The pain-body, according to Tolle, is a false body the mind creates as a collective memory of everything bad that has happened to us. Everyone supposedly has one constantly being fed by the mind in order to keep us in an unhappy, unenlightened state. He contend that women in addition to their own pain-bodies, have a collective pain-body.
“every woman has her share in what could be described as the collective female pain-body – unless she is fully conscious. This consists of accumulated pain suffered by women partly through male subjugation of the female through slavery, exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over thousands of years. The emotional or physical pain that for many women precedes and coincides with menstrual flow is the pain-body in it’s collective aspect that awakens from its dormancy at that time.
Huh? Did men not suffer as slaves as well? Is child loss something only women must endure? How is childbirth the result of male subjugation of the female? Is it not simply a biological fact of life? Men can no more be held responsible for the design of the human system of procreation that can women be blamed for the intense pain a man can feel when he crosses his leg the wrong way and crushes his scrotum. And did he just blame the existence of PMS on the world’s patriarchal history? My oh my.
Then he comes out with this decidedly offensive whopper.
In the quest for enlightenment, is being gay a help or a hindrance, or does it make any difference?
As you approach adulthood, uncertainty about your sexuality followed by the realization that you are “different” from other may force you to dis-identify from socially conditioned patterns of thought and behaviour. This will automatically raise your level of consciousness above the unconscious majority.
Excuse me? Did he just say that gay people are automatically more spiritually enlightened than the rest of us? I have no issues with gay people, I don’t think it’s immoral or wrong or sinful, but to say that homosexual people are somehow more enlightened than me is not only ludicrous, it’s downright offensive if for no other reason that it is obscenely arbitrary.
In the end the book, which starts out with much promise, become yet another disappointing new age fluff fest littered with material that seems carefully devised to appeal to the main consumers of this type of book: Presumably well meaning but ultimately misguided feminists with an unfortunate resentment to anything deemed to be in the realm of maleness, which in Eckhart Tolle’s view includes such things as rational thought.
In the end, I’d say it’s worth a read for curiosity’s sake, but ultimately most would be much better served the the superior Conversations With God, which presents much of the same ideas, as well as many, many more, while being inclusive and dispensing with the anti-male crap.
You havent ‘gotten’ the jist of his message. Your reactions to his answers comes completely from your ego-identified sense of self. That your a man ‘so naturally you take offence’..blah blah..
his message is basically, who you think you are is nothing but a self-construct made up of thought and emotional interpretations of things that happened, are happening, or ‘may’ happen. Therefore your attention is engaged in a tug-of war of past and future because its the backdrop of your form idenitfy — in your case ” Jonathan – a guy who doesnt hate gay people blah blah ,who grew up over here, went out with such and such, expects and believes such and such…all that is based on past ‘occurences’ that have conditioned you.
Who you truly are is ‘spacious conscious ‘unconditioned’ intelligence’ That underlying ‘awareness’ That, I am that I am, not I am Jonathan, etc…That unconditioned conscious awareness is more essentially who you are, and who everybody is. That consciousness can manifest in 2 forms as you and me – and then get lost based on our form identity – boy/gir/gay/str8.. and that’s were the joys and sorrows of duality lie.
Read his book again.
Read my review again, clearly you didn’t get my message either.
It also seems to me that you have completely missed Tolle’s premises. I don’t believe he is saying that Gay people – or women – are more enlightened. Only that because of prejudices, these folk often have the ability to question damaging social norms and attain a broader insight. I too suggest you read this wonderful book again. Living in the moment is enlightenment.
Simon, I respect your point of view, and I certainly did not find the book to be a total waste of time, I believe the specific examples that I mentioned above present a very clear bias.
I specifically reject the idea that women in modern North American society (the primary target audience of his book being North America) are subjugated. If anything the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.
And connecting it to PMS is just outright strange.
Hello,
I think that you’re overassuming a bit. Even though Tolle is talking about the collective pain women carry with them, he’s not denying that men have collective pain too, that men have been (and are being) mistreated.
One could, perhaps, say that the oppression of women is easier to point out, easier to define, considering that it’s not been too long that women have even been considered equally human.
Also, I think the part about gays is basicly stating “the ones who most get beaten up by their surroundings, have the most experiential material for transformation” – that is, the more pain you have endured, the more likely you are to search for answers and alternatives.
I also did not feel that Tolle is per se attacking the mind or declaring it “wrong” or “negative” – my impression of Tolle’s viewpoint, which I agree with, is that he’s just defining the ways that the mind tries to control, lie and cheat to keep its self-image constant. However, used properly and cooperated with, the mind is a great tool.
Hi Henry,
Thank you for taking the time to offer your comments.
I would like to let you know that you presented your viewpoint in a very clear and well thought out way, and what you said was enough to open my mind to giving Eckart Tolle a second chance in the future.
I still think Eckart was far less clear, perhaps intentionally, about these points.
All persons, regardless of their gender, face hardship in life. As a woman, I would never presume to fully understand the male experience nor would I deny its challenges.
Likewise, I think its very hurtful for you to assume you understand the feminine experience and for you to discount the extraordinary difficulties related to womanhood.
Your statement “I specifically reject the idea that women in modern North American society are subjugated. If anything the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction” demonstrates an alarming lack of empathy.
If you were able to live as a woman for one day, you would understand the subtle discrimination which we consistently endure. Have things gotten better in the last 40 years? Of course they have. Is there equality? It breaks my heart, but no. Not even close.
I guess I can’t expect you to understand what its like to be female, but I simply ask that you refrain judging things that you can’t possibly know about. Walk a mile and then you can judge the relevancy of Tolle’s comments on gender inequality…or PMS for that matter. Which, incidentally, I found to be very helpful in learning to manage this difficult time.
If you were able to live as a woman for one day, you would understand the subtle discrimination which we consistently endure. Have things gotten better in the last 40 years? Of course they have. Is there equality? It breaks my heart, but no. Not even close.
If you expected to sway me without providing a single shread of evidence, then you failed. Sorry.
I have to say there are plenty of female commentators who also reject the idea that our society is somehow unjust towards women. For recent example, read Barbara Kay’s column in the Globe and Mail regarding the Liberal party’s “pink book”.
Frankly, if you were man, you might also find yourself discriminated against in subtle and not so subtle ways. Just ask any man who’s been through the family court system, or who is afraid to give his own children a bath for fear of being accused of child abuse, the man who’s ordered to pay alimony to an ex wife who cheated on him with multiple men. Or the man who’s suffering spousal abuse but *can’t* tell anyone about it for fear of being ridiculed or simply not believed. That’s the reality of being a man, but I’d be willing to bet you don’t have any empathy for that, in fact I suspect your advice would be to shut of and stop whining. Which luckily for you, most men do.
If you want me to feel empathy for your supposed mistreatment by our society then you better start by showing me specific examples of just how are society wrongs you on a daily basis. The way I see it, women in our country can do pretty much anything men can do, and without restriction.
It’s high time the sexes stopped competing against each other and started realizing that we are simply different, and our differences are a strength, not a weakness.
yeah eckhart can say some pretty whacked out stuff sometimes…. sometimes i think he has no idea what he is talking about and he just likes to hear himself talk….
mostly though is is amazingly clear i find…
if you asked him, he’d probably admit to saying the same thing over and over again in a million different ways… thats what most spiritual teachers do…
the truth is that there are no problems… if we want to pretend there are problems we can… until we get tired of pretending… then the problems go away
(so… the external situation does not have to change for our problems to be negated… one second they are real and havey and oh so terrible… the next *pooof*… gone… and nothing has changed)
dezian
Jonathan
First of all let me congratulate you for a very insightful article. I realise I am coming pretty late to this party, but I wanted to add my 2 cents nonetheless. My comments in particular are directed at those posters above (i.e. Steve) who claim that you just “don’t get it”.
I will begin by saying that I think Tolle’s work in the main is wonderful. I am a big fan of his books and his teachings. I would echo the sentiments of those who encourage you not to give up on him and keep exploring his teachings. They will absolutely have a profound effect on your life, for the better.
Having said that, I must state that I categorically agree with the premise of your article, namely that in some parts of The Power of Now, Tolle clearly adopts a strongly feminist position. Its not just that he elevates the feminine, but he actively disdains anything male, ascribing to it a litany of purely negative states of consciousness, whereas the feminine is idealised as something pure, wonderful and infinitely more “powerful”. In the context of what had been a wonderfully uplifting and inspiring book, I found this kind of negative gender sterotyping to be jarring and just plain incoherent. I don’t have a problem with the idea that God is not a man, as I personally believe that God is genderless. However I do have a big problem with the outright denigration of one sex at the expense of the other, in this case the attack on maleness.
As I was reading the chapter you quoted from above, I was forcibly struck by exactly the same thought that occured to you: I felt I was reading a tract of anti male feminist propaganda, equating femininity with the divine and myopically railing against the “subjugation” of women by an abusive patriarchy . To those who accuse me of acting from an egoic state of consciousness and “missing” what he really said, allow me to quote Tolles own words:
“Women are closer to enlightenment than men….the number of women who are now approaching the fully conscious state already exceeds that of men and will be growing at an even faster rate in the future.”
Hmmm. At first glance, this seems an odd assertion. Where is the evidence for this? Absolutely none is given, its simply stated as though it were fact. On closer consideration, its an even more bizarre proposition. Tolle quotes freely from various sources, enlightened beings and holy texts to explain and support his teachings, including Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tsu, The Lord Krishna, The Bhagavad Gita, The bible…..see any pattern here? They are either male, or written by males! And lest we forget…..Tolle himself is a man, an irony which I hope hasn’t escaped his readers lol. Now, I am not suggesting that men are MORE enlightened than women, but to suggest that females are soaring ahead of males in the enlightenment stakes is quite nonsensical. But okay, lets trudge on.
“What does remain true, however, is that the energy frequency of the mind appears to be essentially male. The mind resists, fights for control, uses, manipulates, attacks, tires to grasp for control and so on.”
Here we have the EXPLICIT link between mind and maleness. Clearly this statement refutes Henrys view that Tolle somehow has a benign view of the mind. In all of Tolles books that I have read, the mind is implicitly and explicity regarded as something at best neutral when used properly, but mostly its effects are negative, presenting an obstacle to enlightenment that must be transcended in order for growth, joy and happiness to occur. I concur with this to a large extent.
But to then suggest that this equates only maleness….eh, hello? Controlling, using, manipulating, resisting etc etc are exclusively (or even primarily) male qualities?! Is anyone seriously positing the notion that females do not display these qualities in abundance? I love women, and I have had many relationships so far in my life, but I can categorically say that women share ALL of these characteristics and in some respects to a deeper degree than men do. How many women try to “change” (i.e. control) their man, versus the opposite? I rest my case. So it seems an utterly ludicrous proposition with no basis in fact. But he doesnt stop there:
“To go beyond the mind and reconnect with the deeper reality of Being, very different qualities are needed…..all these qualities are much more closely related to the female principle. Whereas mind energy is hard and rigid, Being energy is soft and yielding and yet infinitely more powerful than the mind.”
So there we have it. The female energy, which he equates to Being energy is infinitely more powerful than its male counterpart, Mind energy. So if we accept this bizzare thesis, could someone please explain to me how the “infinitely more powerful” feminine came to be “enslaved, subjugated, and exploited” over the ages by the weaker male, as he posits elsewhere? These are two irreconcilable positions. I am sorry but you cannot have your cake and eat it. Its either one of the other.
In summation, I was disappointed to find this denigration of the male in what is otherwise a profoundly enlightening set of teachings. Your article hit the nail on the head in relation to its gender bias. I also agree that I find the passage on the link between female pain body and mentruation to be off the wall. It appears that men are not only responsible for all the suffering and misery in the world, they are also partly to blame for the pain of menstruation. Not even the most ardent man-hating feminist would dream of making such a preposterous claim. I do think that Tolle has lost the plot in this regard. No doubt there are those who would accuse me of “not getting it”, despite the fact that I have quoted Tolles own words on the subject. If you want to refute my interpretation, please do the same. Statements of “you don’t get it” are totally inadequate. My reaction was not one of anger or outrage, but rather of incomprehension at something that I intuitively know to be wrong. I guess even spiritually advanced beings are not infallible.
Thank you, Robert!
I couldn’t agree with you more!
He is a new age con pandering to women because single, impressionable females are easy to dupe and of course, buy his book, making him lots of money. He sold his soul to oprah. Nothing good can come from him….
Thank you Jonathon for this article, giving me the opportunity to learn more about Tolle from a critical perspective without reading his book.
I think of the self as a conscious living being first, then the other characteristics follow being influenced by random chance, biology, genetics, hormones, upbringing, interactions, experiences, culture, etc. I don’t think the soul, spirit, or god has a gender, ethnicity, height, weight, or a preference for indie rock music. Gender, distinct from biological sex, is socially constructed to be a seen as a major distinguishing and divisive form of identity to which the ego may attach, not unlike skin color, religion, or age.
The quotes you gave of Tolle’s evaluative stance on the superiority of what he sees is feminine and bashing on his idea of masculinity is him attaching these ideas with the values and perceptions of his ego (formed by his experiences, culture, emotions, past hurts, observations, identity, etc.). I sense unresolved resentment from him, prompting him to have such a view. Why does he feel that way; Maybe patriarchy has harmed him, maybe he has not forgiven the men in his life, who knows? Knowing this about him, you can choose to listen to him or not, up to you! Hooray, you have the power!
That being said, I would also say that your reaction to his attachment (calling him a looney feminist) is a sign of your own attachment to your ego’s identification of being male. I honestly don’t judge you as a bad person for this. I know how it feels to want others to acknowledge or understand inequities that I face and it can become anger, prejudice, resentment, or jealousy. I see that this hurts me and creates more division rather than less. This debate of which gender is superior or which gender is more oppressed has less to do with justice and more to do with the ego attempt to heal its insecurities. Actually, O_o probably every serious debate about superiority has to do with ego, hehe.
Toodles!
Hello Chara,
I am glad you enjoyed my article.
I am also glad you don’t judge me as a bad person for calling Tolle a looney feminist. I must admit though that I disagree with your assessment of that point entirely. It was nothing do do with my ego’s attachment to being male, nor does it relate it any way to any debate over which sex is superior. It should be quite obvious to anyone who isn’t blinded by bitterness that neither sex is superior, but wonderfully unique and different. Feminism does not represent the views of a gender, but rather the views of a small subset of a gender carrying around a gigantic chip on their shoulder, the origins of which are rather hard to pinpoint. There are ceraintly a lot of well meaning women out there calling themselves “feminists” who have no idea what feminism is all about. These women are not feminists, they are humanists who don’t realise it. Real feminists are rather radical and hateful.
So I stand by calling Tolle a looney feminist, as only the completely irrational could ever examine what feminism actually *is* and still desire to align themselves with it.
Cheers,
Jonathan
The menstruation theory is the only thing original in Tolle’s book. The rest of it is a dumbed down re-hash of Vedanta and A Course in Miracles. Tolle is well-meaning, but he is the last person I would follow if I wanted ‘enlightenment’.
One day I will have to revisit the book with a more critical mindset. I have not completed the course in Mircales, but I have participated in education based on it, and I can see how Tolle’s work is very similar indeed, but with the added layer of feminist misandry.
Having time to reflect I have found a number of points where Tolle contradicts A Course in Miracles principles, and these are not fluid concepts you can take or leave – it is a very carefully structured metaphysical system.
For Tolle there are levels of reality, we can become more or less ‘real’, more or less ‘conscious’. He presents an evolutionary model of enlightenment completely at odds with the philosophy that he borrows from A Course in Miracles. The Course is very clear that truth and illusion are complete opposites -the world we percieve is completely unreal and there is nothing in it that is not a product of the insane ego. Practicing the kinds of techniques Tolle describes (ie. imagine you are transparent to negative criticism and let it pass through you) do not bring one any closer to the ‘truth’, because they are just attempts to manipulate the illusion, or in Course terms they are ‘magical thinking’. Tolle has garbled Course concepts in my view. I could go on but would bore you I guess.
Anyway it is quite worrying to me that someone who has obviously had some kind of spiritual experience can construct a jimcrack system of ideas around what are some very simple and profound truths. And so he misrepresents and trivialises the very truths he aims to promote. He claims to write from a state of ‘timeless presence’ not from the ‘ego’, but there is no evidence at all of lack of ego in his book. It is highly concept driven and weighed down with quotes from almost every spiritual tradition. Tolle is expressing his opinions based on a combination of experience and ego-based intellectual thought. He wants his audience to believe and behave otherwise, and in that sense he is self-deluded at best, at charlatan at worst.
Not boring at all, Haorb.
What really got to me about Tolle was his supposed mysterious backstory, which is completely unverifiable by anyone.
An all to common trait among so called “gurus”.
I was too harsh suggesting Tolle might be a “charlatan”. I don’t think he claims to be directly chanelling divine truth. Nor does he rely on his mystical experience as proof that must be accepted without question. In fact he states in his first book that the reader should investigate the ideas for themselves. I agree and salute him.
My main beef is that I think he wrote a mediocre book, not that he has misled anyone. It’s the way it’s packaged that irks me – the message is artifically smooth and shiny and all difficulties are erased. He appreciates ‘being’ and ‘presence’ which are profound realities of our life as human beings, but at the same time I feel he lacks appreciation for human frailty and limitation. It reminds me in some ways of Anthony Robbins and his ‘do it or die’ school of human improvement.
Lastly, you write that most gurus’ backstories are “unverifiable by anyone”. You could say that about most experiences. Ultimately it depends on using reasonable standards of evidence suited to the issue at hand. Science is a materialist system and as philosopher of mind B. Alan Wallace writes, “there is no scientific evidence even for the existence of consciousness”.
Tolle is not claiming anything supernatural. He was not visited by aliens or ‘ascended masters’ . His mystical experience is one we can find throughout history. I suggest we can observe his behaviour and see if it supports or contradicts his claims. Ultimately the only way to verify his message is to test the mystic experience for oneself.
It’s been far to long since I read the book for me to offer fresh critique in a fair manner. I do recall reading somewhere that Tolle had created some kind of mystery around his early life, and that not much was known about it. However upon making a vist to Wikipedia I see that that was not really true.
So I suppose I am in agreement with you, my only real beef with Tolle is that I think his work is really not that good. That of course, and the feminist nonsense he supplies along with it. He’s certainly a much more honorable man than the likes of Joe Vitale, whom I have written about elsewhere on this site.