2 Problems with Eckhart Tolle That No-one Ever Seems to Talk About

There is a big problem with Eckhart Tolle, and it’s staring us all right in the face. But before you Tolle fans rip me a new one, let me just backtrack a bit.

Eckhart Tolle has said some helpful things. The essence of his teachings is valid. If you are focused more on the present moment rather than thinking about the past or future, you will get more out of life. You will actually be there as life is happening to you.

But we should be careful not to accept everything he says as 100% truth, because there are some problems.

Problem #1: He didn’t become enlightened using the methods he teaches

The biggest problem with Tolle is hiding right in plain sight. In the introduction of his book The Power of Now he describes his enlightenment process. Basically, he had an extreme mental breakdown which blew apart his mind.

I highly recommend Todd Murphy’s 2011 presentation Enlightenment, The Self, and the Brain. How the brain changes with final liberation. At 1:26 he talks about Eckhart Tolle:

This explains how the intense psychological distress Tolle experienced caused sudden changes in his brain. The unbearable suffering forced him into an enlightened state.

Yet Tolle never says, “if you want to be enlightened like me, become so distressed you literally can’t live with yourself anymore.” Instead, he does a form of bait-and-switch. He says: here, try doing these things instead.

Would Tolle have become enlightened if he’d not experienced that intense psychological distress but somebody gave him a book like The Power of Now?

Problem #2: He makes extreme, unproven claims

On page 53 of The Power of Now, he says “all problems are illusions of the mind” and “it is impossible to have a problem when your attention is fully in the Now”. This is obviously bullshit.

Sure, if you’re focused on the present moment, you won’t be ruminating on your problems. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have any problems. If you don’t have any money and you’re homeless, that problem doesn’t go away merely because you stop thinking about it.

I know Tolle spent some time homeless, and he didn’t feel like he had a problem. But it’s possible to have problems and not realize it. Being in a state of ignorant bliss is no use if your life falls apart around you. If I close my eyes while driving, the other cars are still there.

And what if you’re out walking and an angry dog chases you and bites hold of your leg? You can focus on your breathing all you want, but the problem still exists.

On page 118 he makes this extraordinary claim:

“Apart from dreamless sleep, which I mentioned already, there is another involuntary portal. It opens up briefly at the moment of physical death. Even if you have missed the other opportunities for spiritual realization during your lifetime, one last portal will open up for you immediately after the body has died.”

How can he possibly know this to be true? It cannot be proved or disproved. He is merely speculating. Those who like the sound of it will accept it as fact. Those who think it’s nonsense will just ignore it and move on.

If you find Eckart Tolle’s advice helpful, that’s great. All I’m saying is, don’t take everything he says as true. Just because a calm, softly spoken person gets a book published, doesn’t mean everything they say is 100% fact. Sure, some of the things he says are valid, but that doesn’t mean he has a full understanding of everything.