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A group needs enemies, because without enemies its identity cannot continue to be defined.

Eckhart Tolle

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Eckhart Tolle
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: February 16
Author
Philosopher
Writer
Luenen
Ulrich Leonard Tölle
Without
Enemies
Needs
Defined
Group
Identity
Continue
Groups
Enemy
Cannot

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When you recognize that there is a voice in your head that pretends to be you and never stops speaking, you are awakening out of your unconscious identification with the stream of thinking. When you notice that voice, you realize that who you are is not the voice - the thinker - but the one who is aware of it.
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Accept the present moment and find the perfection that is deeper than any form and untouched by time.
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Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.
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What is commonly called 'falling in love' is in most cases an intensification of egoic wanting and needing. You become addicted to another person, or rather to your image of that person. It has nothing to do with true love, which contains no wanting whatsoever.
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The foundation of greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment, instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.
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Religion and ritual can be vehicles for entering stillness. It says in Psalm 46:10, 'Be still, and know that I am God.' But they are still just vehicles. The Buddha called his teaching a raft: You don't need to carry it around with you after you've crossed the river.
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Enlightened groups can exist, as long as the individuals' sense of identity is not derived from a mentally defined image of us.
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When each thought absorbs your attention completely, it means you identify with the voice in your head. Thought then becomes invested with a sense of self. This is the ego, a mind-made me. That mentally constructed self feels incomplete and precarious. That's why fearing and wanting are its predominant emotions and motivating forces.
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Since ancient times the term awakening has been used as a kind of metaphor that points to the transformation of human consciousness. There are parables in the New Testament that speak of the importance of being awake, of not falling back to sleep.
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I call animals guardians of Being, especially animals that live with humans. Because, for many humans, it's through their contact with animals they get in touch with that level of being.
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When you are not making the present moment into a means to an end, you also are not making every human being you meet - in your business and even at home, in your family - into a means to an end.
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Fear seems to have many causes. Fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of being hurt, and so on, but ultimately all fear is the ego's fear of death, of annihilation. To the ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear of death affects every aspect of your life.
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The mental suffering you create is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgement. The intensity of the suffering depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment.
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Our animal friends’ non-reactive and forgiving natures can teach us positive spiritual lessons on a daily basis.
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It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.
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The great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for. Everybody's life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego. The paradox is that the foundation for greatness is the honoring of small things of the present moment instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.
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You create a good future by creating a good present. How do you do that? By recognizing the goodness that is already inherent in the present moment, even in the midst of challenges. Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make.
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I sometimes say to people, I am a window frame - no more. The window frame is not that important. What is important is the light that comes through the window.
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The more you make your thoughts and beliefs into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.
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Once bliss becomes normal it's no longer bliss, it's just peace.
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