Oprah and Eckhart's discussions about religion and evolution in part II of Chapter 10 have even more significance with creationist Sarah Palin running for vice-president. Suddenly the culture wars are back this fall as atheists like Richard Dawkins attacks religion with renewed fervor thanks to Palin's fundamentalist political positions, which include supporting the teaching of creationism along side evolution in science classes.
In this section of Chapter 10 you will see Eckhart resolving these differences, which as he says, "only add more content" and finding resolution to the war between science and religion in the notion of "the evolutionary impulse of the universe".
Showing posts with label christians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christians. Show all posts
Monday, October 13, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
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."
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."
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Christain protest-fest continues as McCain chooses a Creationist veep
Like Oprah's friend Michael Jordan, folks are publishing books to "be like Eckhart", Oprah's new spiritual friend.
After sitting on book store shelves pretty much unnoticed in 2005, Eckhart's book A New Earth is enjoying a fantastic revival, having sold over 3 million copies this spring during Oprah & Eckhart's joint webcast.
Other spiritual teachers, psychics, mystics--even fundamentalist Christians--are trying to ride the Eckhart phenom to bring attention to themselves, their books, workshops, & teachings.
Fundamentalist Christians have been the most organized & vocal in protesting Eckhart's teachings because he paraphrases Jesus & the Bible often. So it's no surprise that a book called A New Earth An Old Deception: Awakening to the Dangers of Eckhart Tolle's #1 Bestseller just happens to look exactly like the cover of ANE. (How handy for Google search rankings.)
Now that a Creationist vice-presidential nominee is running on the republican ticket, we'll see how that plays out with Oprah's endorsement of Obama. Next week we'll give a report on Palin on the Oprah.com message boards.
Other folks are offering classes, webcasts, even channelings, claiming to facilitate Eckhart's teachings. Their own Google ads sometimes appear in the advertiser column of this blog!
After sitting on book store shelves pretty much unnoticed in 2005, Eckhart's book A New Earth is enjoying a fantastic revival, having sold over 3 million copies this spring during Oprah & Eckhart's joint webcast.
Other spiritual teachers, psychics, mystics--even fundamentalist Christians--are trying to ride the Eckhart phenom to bring attention to themselves, their books, workshops, & teachings.
Fundamentalist Christians have been the most organized & vocal in protesting Eckhart's teachings because he paraphrases Jesus & the Bible often. So it's no surprise that a book called A New Earth An Old Deception: Awakening to the Dangers of Eckhart Tolle's #1 Bestseller just happens to look exactly like the cover of ANE. (How handy for Google search rankings.)
Now that a Creationist vice-presidential nominee is running on the republican ticket, we'll see how that plays out with Oprah's endorsement of Obama. Next week we'll give a report on Palin on the Oprah.com message boards.
Other folks are offering classes, webcasts, even channelings, claiming to facilitate Eckhart's teachings. Their own Google ads sometimes appear in the advertiser column of this blog!
Monday, September 1, 2008
Breaking Free of the Pain Body
The subject matter for Chapter 6 was "Breaking Free of the Pain Body" & yet a caller from Dubai got into a meaningless dialogue with Tolle about whether she should wait for her boyfriend to commit.
So even though it looks like the Oprah-Eckhart team kind of jumped the groove they had so powerfully settled into there still were some jewels in the media desert. Oprah kicked off the show with a beautiful reading from Eckhart's tiny tome Stillness Speaks.
Despite the thousands of e-mails of protesting Protestants, Eckhart gave a beautiful description of Jesus on the Cross symbolizing humanity's limitations & deep sufferings. He then contrasted that with just the cross symbol by itself symbolizing the Divine. He went on to say that being trapped in Ego = Evil and that another word for Satan is Ego.
Many viewers will agree, but I fear that the fundamentalists have been given even more cannon-fodder. With Sarah Palin the presumptive Republican Vice-Presidential nominee portrayed in the press as "an anti-abortion, pro-creationism, death penalty diva" raised in the Pentecostal Church, fundamentalism has a new entree to confront Oprah's endorsement of Barack Obama. More on that as the story develops.
So even though it looks like the Oprah-Eckhart team kind of jumped the groove they had so powerfully settled into there still were some jewels in the media desert. Oprah kicked off the show with a beautiful reading from Eckhart's tiny tome Stillness Speaks.
Despite the thousands of e-mails of protesting Protestants, Eckhart gave a beautiful description of Jesus on the Cross symbolizing humanity's limitations & deep sufferings. He then contrasted that with just the cross symbol by itself symbolizing the Divine. He went on to say that being trapped in Ego = Evil and that another word for Satan is Ego.
Many viewers will agree, but I fear that the fundamentalists have been given even more cannon-fodder. With Sarah Palin the presumptive Republican Vice-Presidential nominee portrayed in the press as "an anti-abortion, pro-creationism, death penalty diva" raised in the Pentecostal Church, fundamentalism has a new entree to confront Oprah's endorsement of Barack Obama. More on that as the story develops.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Be Like Eckhart
Like Oprah's friend Michael Jordan, folks are publishing books to "be like Eckhart", Oprah's new spiritual friend.
After sitting on book store shelves pretty much unnoticed in 2005, Eckhart's book A New Earth is enjoying a fantastic revival selling over 3 million copies this spring during Oprah & Eckhart's joint webcast.
Other spiritual teachers, psychics, mystics, even fundamentalist Christians are trying to ride the Eckhart phenom to bring attention to themselves, their books, workshops, & teachings.
Fundamentalist Christians have been the most organized & vocal in protesting Eckhart's teachings because he paraphrases Jesus & the Bible often. So it's no surprise that a book called A New Earth An Old Deception: Awakening to the Dangers of Eckhart Tolle's #1 Bestseller just happens to look exactly like the cover of ANE. (How handy for Google search rankings.)
Other folks are offering classes, webcasts, even channelings claiming to facilitate Eckhart's teachings. They even have Google ads that sometimes appear in the advertiser column of this blog!
After sitting on book store shelves pretty much unnoticed in 2005, Eckhart's book A New Earth is enjoying a fantastic revival selling over 3 million copies this spring during Oprah & Eckhart's joint webcast.
Other spiritual teachers, psychics, mystics, even fundamentalist Christians are trying to ride the Eckhart phenom to bring attention to themselves, their books, workshops, & teachings.
Fundamentalist Christians have been the most organized & vocal in protesting Eckhart's teachings because he paraphrases Jesus & the Bible often. So it's no surprise that a book called A New Earth An Old Deception: Awakening to the Dangers of Eckhart Tolle's #1 Bestseller just happens to look exactly like the cover of ANE. (How handy for Google search rankings.)
Other folks are offering classes, webcasts, even channelings claiming to facilitate Eckhart's teachings. They even have Google ads that sometimes appear in the advertiser column of this blog!
Monday, March 24, 2008
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:
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!
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!
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