Returning to Balance – Eckhart Tolle Discussion
The March Stillness Within Meetup got together to enjoy a recently released Eckhart Tolle talk on returning to balance. The group was comprised of some who were quite familiar with Eckhart Tolle’s material and some who were newer to the teachings. The talk’s main theme spoke to the challenges and opportunities for finding balance in our modern fast paced lives. Eckhart (as he often does) pointed to the depths of the present moment as our true home and also as the ultimate source of wisdom and balance.
There were some beautiful moments in this talk – and a gentleness that still seems to reverberate for me while writing. A wonderful lightness of being shone through Eckhart’s description of the small moments of his day and the profound sense of love he feels in the nuances of being human..
Many of us often find ourselves busily move through our days, trying to make sure we ‘ve accomplished our to do lists at work or home – and at times, thinking about the next task before having finished the current one. Eckhart reminded us that we can be fully with each activity in our day, seeing it as a quiet discovery of deeper beauty (rather than a means to the next end). Appreciating the wind moving through the trees outside our window, feeling our feet meet the earth as we walk towards a meeting with our boss…. there are tiny expressions of aliveness at each turn in our day. And each encounter might just be an opportunity to meet others with a deep appreciation and tenderness. I felt some of this quiet joy listening to Eckhart describing how the most mundane object such as a coffee mug or a sunbeam can feel like an intimate loving encounter with an almost profound sacredness.
J. Krishnamurti has a very similar message, pointing to a simple way of being with life and the world around us:
K: …your problem is not only to break away from society, but to come totally to life again, to love and to be simple. Without love, do what you may, you will not know the total action which alone can save man.
Student: “That is true, sir: we don’t love, we aren’t really simple.”
K: Why? Because you are concerned with reforms, with duties, with respectability, with becoming something, with breaking through to the other side. In the name of another, you are concerned with yourself; you are caught in your own cockleshell. You think you are the center of this beautiful earth. You never pause to look at a tree, at a flower, at the flowing river; and if by chance you do look, your eyes are filled with the things of the mind, and not with beauty and love.
Student: “Again, that is true; but what is one to do?”
K: Look and be simple.
J. Krishnamurti Commentaries on Living Series III
Being with each moment, each contact, each relationship not in a utilitarian, ‘get to the other side of the road’ mindset, but with openness and simplicity, we may begin to notice that there is an aliveness and an intelligence all around us – and that it is only our ‘self assertion’ or need to become or obtain that has prevented us from the exquisite gifts of this moment – here and now.
