12-20-2010, 12:00 AM
Tolle, on responsibility, really good stuff! I love everything Ive heard him say.
Here is a bit from Wikipedia about his awakening. (Is he a Nagual ?)
"In 1977, at the age of 29, after having suffered from long periods of suicidal depression, Tolle says he experienced an "inner transformation".[6] He woke up in the middle of the night, suffering from feelings of depression that were "almost unbearable".[8] Tolle says of the experience,
I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this a question
arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self?
What is the self? I felt drawn into a void. I didn’t know at the time
that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness,
its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful
future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and
everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no
self. Just a sense of presence or “beingness”, just observing and
watching.[10]
Tolle recalls going out for a walk in London the next morning, and
finding that “everything was miraculous, deeply peaceful. Even the
traffic".[8] He says he began to feel a strong underlying sense of peace in any situation.[4]
For a period of about two years after this, he spent a great deal of
time sitting “in a state of deep bliss" on park benches in Russell Square, Central London, "watching the world go by.” He stayed with friends, in a Buddhist monastery, or otherwise slept rough on Hampstead Heath. His family thought him “irresponsible, even insane"
Here is a bit from Wikipedia about his awakening. (Is he a Nagual ?)
"In 1977, at the age of 29, after having suffered from long periods of suicidal depression, Tolle says he experienced an "inner transformation".[6] He woke up in the middle of the night, suffering from feelings of depression that were "almost unbearable".[8] Tolle says of the experience,
I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this a question
arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self?
What is the self? I felt drawn into a void. I didn’t know at the time
that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness,
its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful
future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and
everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no
self. Just a sense of presence or “beingness”, just observing and
watching.[10]
Tolle recalls going out for a walk in London the next morning, and
finding that “everything was miraculous, deeply peaceful. Even the
traffic".[8] He says he began to feel a strong underlying sense of peace in any situation.[4]
For a period of about two years after this, he spent a great deal of
time sitting “in a state of deep bliss" on park benches in Russell Square, Central London, "watching the world go by.” He stayed with friends, in a Buddhist monastery, or otherwise slept rough on Hampstead Heath. His family thought him “irresponsible, even insane"