Hi Ime223,
You are good as you are. Smoking or not, you're good. "Having an ego" or not, you're good. And everyone has an ego. Even Eckhart Tolle has an ego. He still responds to his name. He still knows in which body's mouth he needs to put the food he eats. He may have had a shift of perspective that allows him to recognize that he is not only the body-mind, but that's all. Enlightenment is recognizing that the body-mind is itself perceived as form by a formless awareness. Since that awareness is formless it can't change. Since it can't change it can't be affected by anything, so it's free from everything.
That's all enlightenment is, it's a recognition of a deeper dimension to the self. Enlightenment is ordinary, nothing spectacular. Spiritual teachers are salesmen and enlightenment is their product. So like any salesman, they hype up their product. That's just ordinary marketing, like the commercials on tv.
Enlightenment is not a solution to any problem. It's not something you need. It's not something you need to achieve. It's not bad in any way to not be enlightened. It's certainly nothing to feel guilty about.
And why the hell do you feel guilty for smoking? It's your body, you can consume whatever you want. That's your free choice. It's not immoral. If you prefer the health benefit of not smoking, try not to smoke. But don't feel guilty about smoking.
What Eckhart Tolle writes about enlightenment is not a prescription but a description. He can't tell you how to become enlightened because he doesn't know. It just happened to him, sort of by accident. He hasn't been trained in a spiritual tradition, like Zen Buddhism for example. In a tradition like that, you study scripture and do meditation practice for tens of years. A teacher in such a tradition knows how to teach students a path that can possibly lead to enlightenment, because it's a systematic path that he has learned and that can be taught. Eckhart Tolle doesn't know anything about a path or a system. That is not in his experience. So he can't teach you how to become enlightened. He can only describe what enlightenment is like for him. And like I said, he hypes it up, like so many enlightenment salesmen.
Just remember, whenever you notice that you make yourself feel bad with your thinking: don't be so hard on yourself. Lovingly accept yourself and all of the thoughts and feelings that arise.
You are good as you are. Smoking or not, you're good. "Having an ego" or not, you're good. And everyone has an ego. Even Eckhart Tolle has an ego. He still responds to his name. He still knows in which body's mouth he needs to put the food he eats. He may have had a shift of perspective that allows him to recognize that he is not only the body-mind, but that's all. Enlightenment is recognizing that the body-mind is itself perceived as form by a formless awareness. Since that awareness is formless it can't change. Since it can't change it can't be affected by anything, so it's free from everything.
That's all enlightenment is, it's a recognition of a deeper dimension to the self. Enlightenment is ordinary, nothing spectacular. Spiritual teachers are salesmen and enlightenment is their product. So like any salesman, they hype up their product. That's just ordinary marketing, like the commercials on tv.
Enlightenment is not a solution to any problem. It's not something you need. It's not something you need to achieve. It's not bad in any way to not be enlightened. It's certainly nothing to feel guilty about.
And why the hell do you feel guilty for smoking? It's your body, you can consume whatever you want. That's your free choice. It's not immoral. If you prefer the health benefit of not smoking, try not to smoke. But don't feel guilty about smoking.
What Eckhart Tolle writes about enlightenment is not a prescription but a description. He can't tell you how to become enlightened because he doesn't know. It just happened to him, sort of by accident. He hasn't been trained in a spiritual tradition, like Zen Buddhism for example. In a tradition like that, you study scripture and do meditation practice for tens of years. A teacher in such a tradition knows how to teach students a path that can possibly lead to enlightenment, because it's a systematic path that he has learned and that can be taught. Eckhart Tolle doesn't know anything about a path or a system. That is not in his experience. So he can't teach you how to become enlightened. He can only describe what enlightenment is like for him. And like I said, he hypes it up, like so many enlightenment salesmen.
Just remember, whenever you notice that you make yourself feel bad with your thinking: don't be so hard on yourself. Lovingly accept yourself and all of the thoughts and feelings that arise.