Eckhart Tolle revisted

["Martin" <martin@...>]

Dear group,

A while ago, I brought up the topic of Time in relation to the 
teachings of Eckhart Tolle. 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BardonPraxis/message/2425

(Message 2425 in case this link is truncated).

I outlined very simplistically that his teachings say that we do 
not require time to become spiritually aware, because everything is 
available to us in the Now. I will not repeat the whole argument 
here, but the replies I received from Rawn and others really helped 
me to re-evaluate Tolle's teachings.

I am still working on Step One of IIH and feel that I am at the 
stage of swifting over from the one-pointedness exercise to VoM/EoM.

This got me thinking about old Tolle again. I realize now that it is 
not practical to just tell someone "live in the Now" and expect that 
to be enough for them to stay centred in (as he calls it 
sometimes) "space consciousness" through the day. It's unrealistic 
in terms of making any lasting changes and as somebody mentioned in 
a reply at the time, without dealing with the underlying issues 
which have been built up in our past, simply living in the Now would 
amount to repression. However, I have been wondering whether Tolle's 
way of accessing the present moment, his various "gateways/doorways" 
into the Now, are a valid way of practising the VoM exercise of 
Bardon. This then would obviously be for the limited time of the 
exercise and not attempting to use this technique *in place* of 
character work and all the other exercises introduced by Bardon.

Rawn, at the time of the original discussion, you asked for some 
details regarding Tolle (website, book details and so on). Did you 
by any chance have the opportunity to look into any of his material? 
The reason I ask is because I would like to know whether what he is 
describing actually amounts to VoM in the Bardonian sense.

I have mp3s of some of Tolle's retreats and when I listen to them, 
he emphasizes focussing not on the words he is speaking, but on the 
spaces between the words... on the underlying stillness/silence 
within the room, on the inner energy field of the body and so on... 
now, would this be simply another version of the one-pointedness 
exercise rather than VoM? I know that I would have to achieve VoM on 
my own and not whilst listening to the mp3, but could I carry over 
the technique or would, for example, focussing my attention on the 
inner energy field of my body not constitute VoM? Perhaps if I 
manage this for long enough, that focus on the energy field would 
drop away - I haven't reached that point yet.

Another thing I should mention is that whilst listening to the mp3s, 
I have in the past experienced periods of feeling as if my 
consciousness were expanding somehow, beyond the physical 
restrictions of my brain/body... difficult to put into words.

I'm sorry that this post isn't very concise, I always seem to waffle 
on when I am trying to conceptualize such abstract things.

I'd really appreciate any comments, not just from Rawn, but from 
anybody in the group, especially those who may have had experience 
of Tolle.

Thank you,

Martin