Eckhart Tolle

Website, YouTube

Eckhart is a German-born spiritual teacher now living in Vancouver, BC. He may be one of the most popular non-dual teachers in the world and two of his several books - Power of Now and A New Earth - have each sold millions of copies. His teachings, which are informed by many traditions, focus on helping the individual recognize both the egoic sense of identity and the core awareness as separate entities within the mind. Eckhart provides a number of instructions to help one minimize the energy given to the ego in favor of bringing forth awareness, true insight and awakening.

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” --Eckhart Tolle, 'A New Earth'

What's been helpful: First, there are a lot of Eckhart's teachings available - his website features hours and hours of presentations, meditations and interviews and YouTube offers a whole bunch more. While I had earlier come across snippets of his videos and writings, I was not aware of the nature of his teachings until early this year - and then they were like a balm for a confused psyche. Eckhart's style is usually calm, quiet and largely non-dramatic and his insightful, powerful teachings include effective lessons about the ego; how it is formed, how it negatively influences our perceptions and therefore our actions, and most importantly, how to extricate oneself from egoic control. I found his writings and seminars as more like practical advice and less like spiritual texts; things I could do instead of just new ideas to contemplate. I consider Eckhart's teaching to be an excellent primer on the nature of ego and awareness and the role each play in the human life.

Eckhart is conversant in a number of spiritual traditions and asserts that, in their basic form, these traditions are all pointing to the same truth of a single shared awareness, a message which deeply resonates with me post-awakening. And he is careful to remind his audience that his own words are also just pointers to help you find your own truth. Having studied so many texts and teachings, Eckhart often gives examples from multiple traditions when illustrating a concept, providing the uninitiated with interesting glimpses into a number of ancient beliefs and how their messages are related.