Relative Bliss

Relative Bliss

Since Eckhart Tolle has been a point of heated discussion I thought I would pose a question directed at the heart of his teachings.

The core teaching that he puts forward and that seems to excite people is centered around the great peace and bliss one will feel if they take his advice and cease identifying with the false self or ego.

Now in the beginning of his book, “The Power of Now,” he tells of how he discovered the ego, put it aside and entered into such a strong bliss that he was so caught up he could do not much else than live in a park for a couple years.

I was curious whether his teachings had led others to this state so I read numerous reviews of his books on Amazon. I found a lot of positive comments but could not find anyone who said his writings had led them to a similar experience.

My question is this.

Have you or anyone you know had any such experience which is directly related to studying Tolle’s writings? I of one reader had a similar experience, but it was before he read Tolle’s materials. For him I would ask if studying Tolle enabled you to enter back into that state?

I thought I would analyze Tolle’s spiritual experience since this seems to be the carrot that attracts so many to his teachings.

Before he had his epiphany he was going through a great personal depression. He said he woke —

“With a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.”

The first thing that concerns me about his experience is this extremely unnatural depression seemingly for no given reason. Was he going through a divorce? Did his mother die or did someone run over his dog? It would be interesting to know if there was some reason for this unnatural depression or did it just come upon him? Whatever the case it sounds like he could have had a chemical imbalance of some kind.

Then he reached such a low that he came to the realization that the false self of ego was causing his problems and he removed himself from identification with it. He was sucked into a void that brought him a great bliss so after the experience everything he saw was a source of wonder and joy.

He felt such great bliss that he wasn’t motivated to do anything for himself. He says:

“I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.”

Now the first thing that makes his bliss difficult to evaluate is that it followed a depression so great that he did not even want to continue to exist.

If one is in great pain, then feeling normal is bliss. I know I have been in such great physical pain several times that when relief came, normal was bliss.

The question arises then as to whether Tolle just moved up to normal or a little above normal consciousness and, because it followed a deep depression, that it felt like a great bliss.

Perhaps it would be helpful to compare this to my own highest experience.

My highest bliss was something beyond what I can put in words. If I had to describe it I would say it was something like basking in the spiritual essence and power of a thousand suns. But the interesting thing in my case was that it did not follow any feeling of depression. My circumstances at the time may have depressed many but I was quite at peace with myself and quite happy with my life and enjoyed living it. From this consciousness of enjoying peace, soul contact and fulfillment I was taken to a bliss a thousand times greater than the minor bliss I had.

Even though I have been through many painful experiences I can only remember one time I was depressed and that was a time I was penniless and without food and starving. That depression lasted about five minutes and then my mind got a hold of me, slapped me around and told me to get a hold of myself and quit being a baby. I thus gathered myself together and moved forward and survived the experience and was the wiser for it.

This was not my most painful experience by far, or my most stressful, but it was the one with the greatest temptation to enter into the depressed state. I did not enter into the depressed state because I DECIDED not to. Our power of decision has the power to accept or reject any state of mind that is presented to us.

From my observations, here is the positive and negative that can result from a point of tension derived from a negative or depressed state.

The positive is that the person can change his direction toward a more productive life. For instance, an alcoholic or other addict usually has to hit rock bottom before he will change. Then after hitting rock bottom there seems to be nowhere to go but up and the person will often make a decision to change his life for the better.

The negative is this. During the negative state or during the shift to a more positive one the person often does not think that clearly and is subject to illusion. He will sometimes come away from the point of tension with a mindset that he has the solution to everyone else’s problems when he has not yet solved his own.

On the other hand, if one goes from a positive state to an even more positive state the seeker can maintain the presence of mind to put everything in its right proportion and perspective and illusion is much less likely.

“Labour therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.” Adam Smith, “The Wealth of Nations,” Book I, Chapter 5