Things fall into line when you are in alignment

Wow! Chapter 9 started with a bang & certainly did not end with a whimper. Despite Eckhart appearing again a little under the weather (perhaps the unwanted side-effect of all the fame & attention), Chapter 9 was by any measure the finest program in the series.

With 52 seconds of silent meditation on an Old Testament Bible quotation from the Book of Psalms, Eckhart fires the opening salvo on the recurring theme that has developed in these programs -- integrating contemporary Christianity with direct spiritual experience.

The show has barely started & Eckhart is reminding his audience that many contemporary Christians do not associate silence with their faith & yet for contemplative Christians this has been their principal form of worship for 2 millennia. The silent meditation on Psalms 46:10 immediately followed to prove the point.

There can now be no doubt that Oprah & Eckhart are openly responding to e-mails, Skypers, & callers with the specific purpose of inviting them to integrate their Christianity with the Power of Now.

It's not so much that they took the gloves off with fundamentalists, it's more like they don't care. Both made it clear that A New Earth may not be the book for people who believe the earth is only 6,000 years old.

And even though fundamentalists have accused Oprah on her message boards of being a sinner and a Scientologist, she goes right ahead on the very same program talking about her visit to the Colorado mountain retreat of her friend Tom Cruise -- a vocal Scientologist.

All of this is to say that each of us has to find out what path we are aligned with or as Eckhart taught in this class: "Things fall into line when you are in alignment."

The Timeless Now and Daily Life

Chapter 7 is advertised as the program that will help each of us understand who we really are.

After the opening moment of silence, which has grown to an all time record of 54 seconds, Eckhart leads all of us in an Awareness Meditation. He says that the most fundamental question of your life is knowing who you are and who you are not.

This is also the web cast where Eckhart introduces a wonderful new interpretation of the Christian cross. He explained that the horizontal bar represents daily life and the vertical bar represents spiritual life. The spiritual vertical is the Timeless Now and the daily horizontal brings the stress that comes from "not being in the present moment."

So once again, Eckhart indirectly hammers away at the negative connotations of Original Sin & the Crucifixion by saying "negativity is never a good way of dealing with a situation". You'll see all of this and more in Chapter 7.

Chapter 5 - The Pain Body

Many people believe Eckhart's concept of the Pain Body is his main contribution to spiritual thought. Other's disagree.

Some psychologists think the Pain Body concept is misleading & downright dangerous for the mildly to severely mentally ill. Yet, Eckhart openly talks about feeling suicidal at age 9 & then again in his 20s, in part because of his parents' constant arguing.

He once again reassured this week's audience that a dense or heavy Pain Body can be a passport to dropping the ego, compared to a life that is not so burdened.

He points out the obvious about the chronic discord in family, love, political, national, cultural, & religious relationships, and describes all of this as the Pain Body. The body of pain that humans endure because they are lost -- lost in thought and not enjoying the Power of Now.

The ability of the Tolle Teachings team to answer questions from a world audience that may or may not be familiar with Eckhart's esoteric terms was quite striking, as the personal stories of their suffering was intermixed with the stories of strangers calling from Australia to Denmark.

We find out in this webcast that Oprah's beloved dog died on the morning of the second webcast & that Eckhart lost his ego and Pain Body on the same night. Is all of this true?

The Grande Finale - Crossing the Finish Line

After 2 stunning classes in week 8 & week 9 we are on the eve of the last class. We talked last week about how many are asking for ANE II, a second edition of A New Earth. And we reported on how Oprah intends to webcast videos of her radio interviews during the same exact Monday time slot to keep the webcast going.

Those of you have signed up at Tolle Teachings to have the shows e-mailed each week in the YouTube format we are providing will begin receiving A New Earth Reprise -- the entire series of classes starting with the 1st class -- mailed out May 12th. If you haven't signed up, you can do it anytime. (See upper right column of this blog.) It's free and you don't have to join anything.

This blog will also continue with commentary on each class as they are repeated & report on what is happening with the Oprah-Eckhart phenomenon which on the Internet will continue to propagate & affect the world.


From all of us at Tolle Teachings, thank you for joining us on this paradigm-shifting adventure that has really just begun.

The Pope, President Bush, Oprah, & Eckhart

The Pope just completed his visit to America, looking to the vitality of religion (& evangelical fundamentalism) as a sign of hope for Catholicism. With apathy rampant among the Catholic faithful in Europe, Pope Benedict was met with jubilation by tens of thousands of Americans.

At the same time our Oprah Eckhart YouTube videos continue to be inundated with apocryphal warnings from fundamentalists who warn of hell & damnation for those who listen to Eckhart's teachings & Oprah's exploration of them. Here are what some New Earth readers are saying on a message board thread called: "Why are Christian Fundamentalists dominating the message boards?":

"I am sure they are not reading the book because if they were, their arguments would be based on facts and not mythology."

"It is because of the ego trip that is religion. I used to wonder how intelligent, educated people could believe any of the religions. They use religion to feed their egos."

"To be quite candid and honest ... I think that there is growing evidence here that there is a collective pain body for this group of folk ... I would also point out that many are not even reading the book ... and the majority of these hold to the inerrancy of the Bible ... the pain bodies of this group are very active ..."

"You folks obviously understand how popular Oprah is. Many Christians are very hurt that she would host such an outlet for secular spirituality. Hundreds of thousands of people logging on to the internet on Monday nights to get whatever ya'll get out of it. That's why there is so much opposition."

So this is the world we find ourselves in. A place where the largest free webinar conducted by the most influential black woman about spiritual freedom & autonomy from all religion is simultaneously juxtaposed with a conservative new Pope. A Pope who is greeted at Andrews Air Force base by President Bush & then goes to Yankee Stadium denouncing abortion and rejecting "a false dichotomy between faith and political life," a reference to the Church's position that Catholic politicians cannot support abortion or gay marriage in the name of pluralism or democracy.

Perhaps the Pope needs to have, as Eckhart says, "the right relationship with present moment."

Know Thyself!

Last night's show, Chapter 7, was advertised as the program to understand who each of us really are. In the process of this discussion a lot happened during the webcast:

1. The opening moment of silence grew to an all time record of 54 seconds!

2. Oprah caught Eckhart's cold.

3. There were many interruptions in the feed to our Southern Arizona location. Interestingly, instead of completely stopping, the feed went from 450 kbs to 30 kbs. A very blurry Oprah & Eckhart could be seen while their voices degraded to a bad cell phone connection. Not good, but much better than the picture freezing with no sound that has happened in the past. Maybe they are trying to increase the number of viewers without increasing bandwidth.

4. The preponderance of young women as questioners has now grown to the overwhelming majority. So much for the mid-lifers - Oprah.com was not interested in their questions last night.

On the brighter side, Eckhart introduced a wonderful new interpretation of the Christian cross. He explained that the horizontal bar represents daily life and the vertical represents spiritual life. The spiritual vertical is the Timeless Now and the daily horizontal brings the stress that comes from "not being in the present moment."

So once again Eckhart indirectly hammers away at the negative connotations of Original Sin & the Crucifixion by saying "negativity is never a good way of dealing with a situation". You'll see all of this and more in this week's webcast.

Eckhart, are you Perfect?

This was Oprah’s final question to Eckhart at the conclusion of the 6th web cast. An interesting finale (as we reported on Tuesday) to a less than perfect program.

You’ll find Eckhart’s answer to Oprah’s question in the final Chapter 6 video segment below, but here are some striking things to look for. When Oprah asks Eckhart very direct, personal questions -- something she’s very good at -- 2 things happen:

1. Eckhart answers her in a very direct and sometimes non-politically correct way, evoking an atmosphere of openness, almost tenderness.

2. Oprah’s verbal responses & facial expressions soften as she appears to genuinely be touched by his reply.

To us this is repeated living proof that there is some kind of special connection between these two, & as we commented in the first post on this blog, we believe that Eckhart has personally touched Oprah in a way that compelled her to change the rules of her book club & select the Little Leprechaun over a more media savvy spiritual pundit like Deepak Chopra or Neal Donald Walsh.

Several times in this very interchange, Oprah is so amazed by Eckhart’s response she looks over at a camera person with a silent expression of “Can you believe he said that?”

Oprah-Eckhart is only for Midlifers? Well, "If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?"

When Tom Ewell had his midlife crisis with Marilyn Monroe in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, he was 35 years old. That's because life-expectancy was much lower back then. Now mid-lifers are age 40 & up!

Those of us who are children of the 60's expected the Oprah-Eckhart predominant demographic to be 45 and older.

Instead, teenagers as young as 13 have called into the show along with a lot of folks in their 20's & 30's with careers & young kids. We were wondering if the Harpo Production team that preps and screens every call-in was skewing the numbers by cherry-picking younger callers to make it appear that this material appeals to a broader demographic.

Not so! In a thread on the Oprah message boards called "POLL; If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?" over 3,000 volunteered their age.

Only 2% are in their 70's -- even though retirement and grown children make them the perfect spiritual seeker candidate. Only 5% are in their 60's, the official Baby Boomers born after WWII. 31% are in their 50's -- the largest and most expected segment. Yet, 2% more of the Oprah-Eckhart students are in their 30's (26%) than are in their 40's (24%) with a shocking 11% studying the book while in their formative 20's.

For those of us who are now retiring from the job market & looking forward to more grandchildren, this is good news indeed for the prospects of the next generations!

You'll see this in all the segments, including the most recent, Chapter 5.

The Pain Body: Love It or Leave It

As we discussed on Monday, some psychologists think the Pain Body concept is misleading & downright dangerous for the mildly to severely mentally ill. Yet, Eckhart openly talks about feeling suicidal at age 9 & then again in his 20s, in part because of his parents' constant arguing.

He once again reassured this week's audience that a dense or heavy Pain Body can be a passport to dropping the ego, compared to a life that is not so burdened.

He points out the obvious about the chronic discord in family, love, political, national, cultural, & religious relationships, and describes all of this as the Pain Body. The body of pain that humans endure because they are lost -- lost in thought and not enjoying the Power of Now.

The ability of the Eckhart-Oprah team to answer questions from a world audience that may or may not be familiar with Eckhart's esoteric terms was quite striking, as the personal stories of their suffering was intermixed with the stories of strangers calling from Australia to Denmark.

We find out in this webcast that Oprah's beloved dog died on the morning of the second webcast & that Eckhart lost his ego and Pain Body on the same night. Is all of this true?

Why is it that more people aren't questioning this book?

One of the longest threads on Oprah's message boards is the one titled "Why is it that more people aren't questioning this book?" Interestingly, here at Tolle Teachings, we have received a lot of feedback from licensed psychotherapists who seem to be upset with Eckhart's teachings from a number of perspectives.

One is that the notion of egolessness may be a worthwhile goal for those whose egos are well-developed, but not for those with deeply troubled childhoods that caused their egos to suffer from arrested development. In the latter case, this kind of advice might have catastrophic consequences. Eckhart himself achieved self-realization during a period of extreme suicidal ideation. Should he have had a psychotherapist turn him in to a suicide help-line or should he have been left alone as he was & achieved enlightenment?

This week Eckhart will be talking about the Pain Body, which many spiritual commentators consider his most significant contribution to "New Thought". Yet, one psychotherapist wrote to us & said that she thought the notion was "demonic". She says the Pain Body concept suggests the planet is swathed in some kind of dark cloak from which we can not arise – a depressing prospect she would not share with her patients.

We'll see what Oprah & Eckhart have to say about the Pain Body as this is the topic for this week's webcast- one that Oprah has said there is much excitement about.

OprahEckhart Webcast attacked by Christian Fundamentalists

Oprah Winfrey is not webcasting with Eckhart Tolle to increase her fundamentalist demographic considering how right-wing American Christians are reacting via the Internet.

In very short order, Oprah's message boards and our YouTube streamed video comment sections are filling up with mean-spirited Christian extremist hate mail. So much so that those students of the webinar who are trying to discuss the teachings have to wade through thousands of propaganda posts just to have a conversation with one another.

How is that different from Osama Bin Ladin bringing up the Mohammad cartoons 2 years after the fact & declaring a Jihad on the European Union? What is it about fundamentalists & their lack of a sense of humor or even any kind of tolerance? It's especially interesting since Eckhart loves Jesus & uses quotes from the New Testament to illustrate his teachings.

We will not dignify this behavior by showcasing these comments, you can find them yourselves. We will share with you some of the more positive and life-affirming comments that have been sent to us:

"Good to see the truth has reached such a large scale of publicity Makes me optimistic we can change our world to the better!"

"thanku thanku thanku.....veryyyy much!!!!!"

"thank you very much for posting these. I love brain food because we have so much garbage trying to influence us."

"In recent years I have truly begun to exercise the Power of Now...savoring the juicy moment, reveling in the joy of creation and seeing my vision being enacted in the world. Of course, a very key ingredient has been my ability to shift the ongoing thought process from struggle and automatic response (based on past conditioning) to one of positive expectation, true appreciation and the knowledge of who I am and how powerful are my thoughts and feelings in unfolding the preferable reality of joy, love and conscious manifestation. So, there it is, a true life testimonial of how some simple teachings, coupled with a lifetime of desire for truth, can bring about a most favorable result."

I guess the reason we have a 27 million dollar Creation Museuem in Cincinnatti and why federal employees at the Grand Canyon are not permitted to contradict a book sold at the visitor center explaining that the Grand Canyon is not millions of years old but created by the Great Flood 6,000 years ago is because the fundamentalists in our midsts speak louder and more often. This is exactly why these Internet broadcasts are so important; and why a major media figure on the world stage like Oprah is offering the planet at this time a reasonable, peaceful alternative to all this insanity.

You can see how fun & reasonable Oprah & Eckhart are in this last section from last week's webinar that aired on 3-17-08. See you all tonight!

A New Earth Web Event: It Worked!

After a bumpy start, Oprah & her crew easily corrected the inherent problem of webcasts with wide appeal-bandwidth.

By reducing the optional image size & compressing the signal to more YouTube-like quality, the Oprah production team managed to maintain a steady 460 kbps stream throughout the program. Did she limit the viewership so that those who were watching could continue watching? That information is not yet available.

What we do know is that not only did the program stream flawlessly to our southern Arizona location, but the content improved as well. Some folks in our circles complained that Oprah dominated the first webcast, filling in the gaps or natural pauses that occur during a spiritual transmission to make sure there was no "dead air."

This was conspicuously absent in the 2nd installment, where Tolle was doing most of the talking not only during the Oprah-Eckart dialogue but also dominating the answers to listener questions. Early in this second program, Tolle asks Oprah if she could be silent for 10 seconds & she agreed while sharing how difficult it is for someone in broadcasting to simply allow complete silence.

Oprah demonstrated a depth of knowledge & familiarity with some of the subtler material which was delightfully surprising-allowing Eckhart to unequivocally set his own depth. It didn't matter how superficial a listener question might be; both of them seemed unrestricted in following their thread. Oprah also did an excellent job of "Devil's Advocate", questioning his teachings in a way that made them clearer. In short, the paradigm shift has arrived.

Blowing out the Internet

"I'm just hoping to have a successful class and that we don't blow out the Internet."

Oprah Winfrey, USA Today 3-3-08


Oprah's webcast "A New Earth" with Eckhart Tolle did not blow out the Internet, but it sure did blow up the servers she had dedicated to stream her webcast live.

The much anticipated webcast - a paradigm shift for Cultural Creatives world-wide - scored 500,000 simultaneous log-ins.

That would be all well and good, but the gathering multitudes resulted in 242 Gbps of information moving over the web at the same time, resulting in jerky, buffered reception at best & completely stalled feeds at worst.

The obvious solution is more bandwidth & more servers.

Interestingly, when we received the next notification e-mail "Week 2: Your Special Link to Oprah's Live Web Event", we are told that "our goal is to provide as many of you as possible with a positive experience. If we should see a significant decline in video quality, we may limit the size of the class that evening."

Is Oprah clogging the pipes of the Internet backbones? Or is there a ceiling on the bandwidth budget for this project? For those "midlifers who are seeking spiritual growth", their inexperience & frustration may dampen enthusiasm at least for the live interactive aspect of the class. It looks like Oprah is learning about this right along with us. We'll just see what happens tonight. Until then, to help pick-up where we left off, here's the last section of last week's class: