Ryon Sharette

I have to be the guy that says the emperor has no clothes. What Eckhart Tolle has done here is write a modern scripture jumbling inspiration from mostly Buddhist and Zen teachings and cramming Jesus quotes in for good measure. Like all scriptures, the concepts and phrasing are poetic and creative. Many will find comfort and inspiration in its ponderous and contradictory depths. But, like all scripture, the book cannot be called definitively true; indeed it is dangerous to do so. Mr. Tolle recites his dogma as if it is self-apparent, while asking that you don’t think too hard about it. I lost track of the times he insinuates that thinking is dangerous or useless. This is a necessary tactic for cult creation and maintenance, and I’d bet money, this is Tolle’s intention. Other traits similar to cult paradigms, is the assertion the Western Medicine causes more deaths than it cures (presumably because people who die are often being medically treated at the time). And an insistence that he is right, without evidence, research, or logic, because he is awakened; and if you disagree with this book or find it meaningless, you are evidently not awakened (what he calls unconscious). Luckily, if you like this book, you can write me off as irredeemably “unconscious” and go about your life being “conscious,” but not thinking about being “conscious” whatever that means to you.