Eckhart Tolle Ten Quotations

When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what's around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without.

You cannot give your full attention to something, and at the same time resist it.

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.

Attention is the vital thing and there is no tension in attention. It just happens to be a similar word. It's not concentration or straining. Attention has the openness of a young child not yet dominated by the conceptual mind.

Consciousness is evolving throughout the universe in billions of forms. So even if we didn't make it, this wouldn't matter on cosmic scale. No gain in consciousness is ever lost, so it would simply express itself through some other form. But the very fact that I am speaking here and you are listening or reading this is a clear sign that the new consciousness is gaining a foothold on the planet.

A short attention span makes all of your perceptions and relationships shallow and unsatisfying.

Enlightenment means choosing to dwell in a state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is.

Make it a habit to ask yourself: What's going on inside me at this moment? That question will point you in the right direction. But don't analyze, just watch. Focus your attention within. Feel the energy of the emotion. If there is no emotion present, take your attention more deeply into the inner energy field of your body. It is the doorway into Being.

Even my desire to become free or enlightened is just another craving for fulfillment or completion in the future. So don’t seek to become free or desire or “achieve” enlightenment. Become present.

An amazing realization is in the present moment there is only what is, but there are no problems. And if your attention remains in the Now, you no longer inhabit a world of problems. Challenges you may still face, but they come to you in the space of Now.

Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents.

To have your attention in the Now is not a denial of what is needed in your life. It is recognition of what is primary.

How’ is always more important that ‘what.’ See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it.

True listening is another way of bringing stillness into the relationship. When you truly listen to someone, the dimension of stillness arises and becomes an essential part of the relationship.

Become an alchemist. Transmute base metal into gold, suffering into consciousness, disaster into enlightenment.

We can learn not to keep situations or events alive in our minds, but to return our attention continuously to the pristine, timeless present moment rather than be caught up in mental movie making.

If you are in a state of intense presence you are free of thought, yet highly alert. If your conscious attention sinks below a certain level, thought rushes in, the mental noise returns, stillness is lost, you're back in time.

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.

Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. Even if there is noise, there is always some silence underneath and in between the sounds. Listening to the silence immediately creates stillness inside you.

You are not seeking to attain some future state. That is the fallacy of many spiritual seekers. They have an image of some state - enlightenment, or whatever they call it - they want to achieve.

There can be associations - enlightened businesses, for example - that do not work on the basis of us against them or wanting profit as the main motivating force behind what they do.

Thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence.

And so I came to understand why some masters sometimes say, "You are already enlightened."

Give yourself completely to the act of listening. Beyond the sounds there is something greater, a sacredness that cannot be understood through thought.

Attention is the key to transformation- and full attention also implies acceptance.

So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action-just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord.

So the single most vital step on your journey towards enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind.

Focus your attention on the Now and tell me what problem you have at this moment.

Being an outsider to some extent, someone who does not "fit in" with others or is rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force.

I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don't know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten.

Direct your attention inward. Have a look inside yourself. What kind of thoughts is your mind producing? What do you feel? Direct your attention into the body. Is there any tension? Once you detect that there is a low level of unease, the background static, see in what way you are avoiding, resisting, or denying life-by denying the Now.

If there isn't an emanation of love and joy, complete presence and openness toward all beings, then it is not enlightenment.