Robert, Why Do You Claim To Be Awake?

And why do you say that Eckhart is not awake?

My recent post entitled What Materialism Isn’t, provoked this comment from someone called Bubble Gendut:

Robert, why do you Claim to be Awake? Is it the same Awake that others claim like Rupert Spira, Tony Parsons, Eckhart Tolle. They also claim further that Nothing Exists & Nothing Happens. Parsons even says there is No purpose or Meaning in life.

With your philosophical outlook your Awakeness, compared to other “Awakers” doesn’t seem to fit. I would put you more in the Sam Harris agnostic camp.

I replied this way:

I am not "claiming" to be awake. The condition I describe in my writing and speaking is a report, not a claim. I have defined what I mean by awake here and elsewhere, so when I say that I am awake, that is what I mean.

As for the three people you mentioned:

I consider that Spira is lost in a delusional, self-hypnotic trance, and I have said why.

As for Tolle, you can read about him in Depending On No-Thing, Chapter 69. I don't consider him to be awake in the way I use that word.

I don't know much about Parsons, but if he says there is no fixed meaning or purpose in life, he and I agree on that. If you find something meaningful, you do, but what is meaningful to you might be meaningless to the next person. As for purpose, what would you say it is?
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Less than fifteen minutes later, David Matt, the reader of the audiobook version of Depending On No-Thing, sent me for approval the very chapter about Tolle that I had mentioned in the above reply (another apparent synchronicity).

Here it is—an excellent reading by David, by the way.

69 - The Power of Now

Q: I’ve read all your posts about spirituality on your webpage and elsewhere on the internet. Thanks for the great work, Robert. Thanks for your outstanding work in psychology, too.

I’ve found some nuggets of wisdom in The Power of Now, but you dismiss it. Please tell me how it is an unworthy read.

A: Hello, and thanks. You are most welcome.

Except for a few brief quotes, I have not read The Power of Now, so I cannot criticize its content. My remark was not about any particular book, but about the way people like Eckhart Tolle sell themselves and their so-called “enlightenment” as a product: “You want to be enlightened too? Pay me.”

I was only pointing to a book purporting to be about so-called spirituality with the word “Power” in the title as a flagrant example of the commercialization, commodification, and merchandising of so-called “Truth.”

At that juncture, I am saying, any possible “truth” goes right out of it, no matter how good it might sound. Why? Because anything that might depress sales must be left out.

Too much actual “truth”—old age, illness, and death, for example—is unpleasant to hear, and will not sell books to the masses. Power sells to the masses—not the absence of power. Not the facts of the matter, not adumbrations of emptiness, and not the acknowledgment of existential ignorance and possible meaninglessness. No one is going to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to hear some guy on stage speaking that kind of truth. Only the best stand-up comedian can get away with that act, and he or she better be damn funny. George Carlin could get away with that.

Don’t get me wrong. All of us must find ways of surviving in a material sense. It’s in our DNA. So if selling water by the river’s edge is someone’s niche, well, we all have our niche.

Tolle, Deepak Chopra, and others like him are essentially entrepreneurs working the niche of “self-help.” Perhaps they were once onto something profound, but that was long ago and far away, apparently. Presently, they are like showmen, in competition with others in the same game, driven by ambition, repeating platitudes, and lying to themselves about their motives all the way to the bank.

Forget those guys. They have their own problems, and you have yours. Awakening is not about hearing the next pointer from an “enlightened” expert—it is about noticing something yourself here and now.

I am not saying that Tolle, or Chopra, or whoever, never uttered a sensible word. Those two and others like them are well-versed in the classical truisms, and that same old wine can always be poured into a new-looking bottle. I’m saying that the entire style of presentation—biased towards sales—elides, however subtly, the tough stuff, and offers promises, self-help, and hope instead of hard facts. That may feel good, but usually, it just deepens the hypnotic trance that one needs awakening from.

I know some people imagine that my words about one guru or another amount to personal attacks, and feel that “teachers” should not be criticized. But that’s not the intention. I couldn’t care less about Eckhart Tolle personally. If I call these self-described teachers out by name, it’s because, by promoting and commodifying their names, they have become public figures with powers of hypnosis. Pointing out their merchandising of perennial truisms, along with the hypnotic nonsense they teach on top of it, is my way of inviting people like that and their listeners to SNAP OUT OF IT!

To flesh out what I am talking about, you may be interested in this personal account from an intimate friend of Tolle’s, who watched the whole Eckhart becomes Eckhart show from backstage:

“Hi, Robert. I don’t know where to begin to comment here. I am not exactly versed in this site and rarely do I participate in chat rooms. I just want to add some information about Eckhart Tolle here. I have read over some of the discussions with much interest. I am delighted to see so much good common sense at work! For many of these suspicions are right on target.

“I have known Eckhart since the fall of 1993. I met him through mutual friends back in England. At the time, Eckhart was a nobody. But a nice man and extremely intelligent. He lived very modestly, after moving from London to Glastonbury where I met him, and he was just the nicest person. He went by this name way back then. As far as his real name goes, it is Ulrich and he changed it after that life-altering experience he had, during the many years that went by when he started to study spiritual thinkers like Meister Eckhart. I think he changed his name because he was drawn to that teacher. And he also wanted to break from the former, unhappy person he had been.

“As far as speculation about his past, he did attend Cambridge as a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature. His emphasis was on Latin American Literature. We later reconnected when he came to Northern California, where I got to know him much better. His father, now deceased, lived in Mallorca. His mother, also now deceased, lived in the Black Forest, in Baden-Baden. He went to see them every year at Christmas. His dad was a real character—a free-thinker, a former journalist, who left Germany after he divorced Eckhart’s mother, when Eckhart was about twelve or so.

“Eckhart is a very emotional and complicated person. Believe me, I knew a whole different side to him. Kind, thoughtful, and very sincere in his rich interest and devotion to spirituality. I recall, at a mutual friend’s, he and I ended up having a five-hour conversation on everything from Latin American fiction writers to various mystics and eclectic thinkers. That conversation flew by. He is a very engaging, humorous and social person; and that came as a surprise because, normally, he seems so reticent and shy.

“Anyway, I remember when he was writing his first book. We were talking on the phone and he told me that he had started writing this book—all in long-hand, mind you. We continued to have a very pleasant friendship and, a year or so later, he ended up moving to Vancouver, BC, because it was difficult for him to emigrate to the US. He had no relatives here, and no real external purpose for coming here. He just wanted to try out the ‘new world.’

“Again, he was such a pleasure to be around in those days. We also kept in touch when he moved north to Canada. He was funny, he was a joy to talk to, even on the phone.

“To cut a long story short, Tolle started out very modestly. Truly. A woman he met in a small class he was giving to business people in downtown Vancouver ended up speaking with him after class, and one day, Tolle asked if she would read his book, which was still in manuscript form. She did, and later he asked her if she had ever thought about going into the publishing business. She considered what he said, and they pooled money together. (He owned a piece of property in London, and I remember him going back to London at some point, so he could have some money to live on. He never really lived on park benches, by the way, but he did drop out of that graduate program and meandered around, with not a lot in the till, so to speak.)

“Once this woman had brought out his first book, things slowly picked up. Tolle made as many appearances as he could at every Canadian bookstore. He very gradually achieved his success. We kept in touch and, always, in the early days of his success, he was happy to get together with me when he was in the area.

“Without saying too much about myself, I too, am a writer, but I am not in his field. I am a fiction writer. Though Eckhart and I shared an interest in things spiritual and in literature, I would disagree with my old friend on many things, and I still do. Not that I outright told him this, but I never thought highly of the New Age/‘feel good’ genre. I am not a fan of these books, although I do think there are some exceptions, and I absolutely loved his first book, The Power of Now. I still think it’s his best. I also think Eckhart is gifted in the way he gives his talks; some of them are amazingly brilliant.

“But I have to say, the last time I heard from my friend was several years ago, before things got to where they are today.

“Here it is: things have changed, and Eckhart has become obsessed with his own success and—I have to say it—monstrously so. He has shown a side of himself that scares me. He is determined to get as far up the mountain as he can go, surpassing his competitors like Deepak Chopra, Gary Zukav, and all those other souls who crank out these books,.

“I am afraid for him, and a little afraid of him. He is no longer recognizable to me. Some say this is not unusual for these guru types. That, sooner or later, things come tumbling down, thanks to a lot of hubris and just ego-overkill. That’s right. Ego-overkill.

“Tolle and I were out one day and ended up walking into a bookstore where Tolle knew the guy behind the counter. I busied myself browsing the books, but Tolle came across with an arrogance and know-it-all-ness that surprised me. I had never seen this side of him before—but I blew it off and didn’t give it a lot of thought, as he rarely acted this way with me. (I am a woman, by the way.)

“Now it seems Tolle is all ego. And yes, it is horrendously ironic how he has made the ego anathema, when he has become an ego-maniac himself. I am sad to see it all unfold the way it has. Sadly, being a true friend, a real friend, was not as important to Tolle as his voracious ambition.

“Let me tell you something. According to my own modest experience at being human myself, Tolle is very unhealed. I do believe he had that spiritual experience, that that’s true—but the weird thing is, it didn’t really change the core person. It seems that Eckhart was one of those ‘knows it all’ students; he is extremely smart, and that is the problem. He is arrogant if given the ground on which to become so. Know what I mean? When he was outside that academic milieu of a school like Cambridge, he was a nobody—and that was probably better for him.

“Let me put it to you this way: Hitler could have had a spiritual experience, but would his nature really have changed? I realize that sounds like a strange question. And, normally, people will assume that the person having these beautiful spiritual experiences is a good person—but you know what? It’s not necessarily so. And I know this from so many years of knowing Eckhart. But I also know this about other spiritual teachers and their dark sides, and I am sure many of you out there know a bit about this, too.

“For example, Krishnamurti could be very curt with people on the subject of morality, especially young people. But also, there’s a book that was written by the daughter of a woman who was Krishnamurti’s secret mistress for many years and whom he treated abusively, punitively. There are people who will refuse to believe this—and I am sure there are those who will not want to see the truth about my old friend, Eckhart.

“But if I could continue, about this aspect of him being unhealed: in all my years I have come to see that there is a huge discrepancy between this ‘spirituality’ so many seem to be seeking, and unhealed inner emotional issues. It’s strange. But the two shall never meet or mix. This seems to be very true about people, no matter what their spiritual path. And it’s true about Tolle. He had a very complex relationship with his mother. His father was a much better parent to him, but his mother was another story. There were times when he spilled his emotions out to me, and what’s become of him saddens me because he’s really a very lonely person. An extremely, and I want to say, dangerously isolated individual, who has become worse, far worse, since he achieved fame.

“Eckhart tells the public that this woman Kim Eng is his ‘partner.’ She’s not. She is more like a pupil and disciple. There is no relationship there except this ‘arrangement.’ She has been with him for many years, as an assistant and contact person for his trips and talks; and in exchange, he has shown her the ropes. Now she goes out and does these talks and seminars. It’s odd, but I think Eckhart doesn’t like women, or men, or anyone, really. Not enough to shack up with. Some have speculated about his past relationships. I know of a woman in London, I believe he lived with her when he was in his twenties. He is afraid, though, of women coming after him. And I really know about this. I am not just making it up. He has made some kind of arrangement with Eng, an agreement of sorts, so he could feel comfortable on a public level.

“He did seem to have an interest in me back in the early days, but nothing ever came of it. But it was very sweet and nice. Until fame got the better of him and he showed me that he was not going to do anything for anyone, unless it benefits him. This is all I can say.

“I think, though, that his unhealed issues are at the root of what motivates him in what has become a monstrously unfathomable ambition. (‘Napoleon complex’, anyone?) Frankly, he’s a homely fellow. He looks like ‘Despereaux the mouse.’ He’s a little guy, in a little body, with stooped shoulders, that no woman would bat an eye at back in the old days. Yes, he was a nice friend, but I had no interest in him otherwise. And I think he had a lifetime of that. He was 45 when I met him.

“The heart is a lonely hunter, ‘spiritual teachers’ notwithstanding. Ya know? Anyone remember the ‘man behind the green curtain?’ As in: ‘I am Oz. And I am the all-powerful, Oz! No one dares go against the all-powerful Oz!’ Now don’t pay attention to that little man behind the green curtain! Of course, we all know what happened next.”