Tolle, Huxley and Meister Eckhart: "On Connection"

Aldous Huxley
(1894-1963)

"There is a way to Reality in and through the soul," writes Aldous Huxley, "and there is a way to Reality in and through the world. Whether the ultimate goal can be reached by following either of these ways to the exclusion of the other is to be doubted. The third, best and hardest way is that which leads to the divine Ground simultaneously in the perceiver and that which is perceived."

["The Perennial Philosophy," pp. 56-57.]

Meister Eckhart
(1260-1327)

"When a man sees one thing separated from another," he is "in mere understanding," Meister Eckhart observed. "And when is a man above mere understanding? That I can tell you: "When a man sees All in all, then a man is above mere understanding.""

[Ibid., p. 57]

These observations, written in 1945 and the early 14th century, respectively, point to a timeless truth, that is very much at the heart of modern spiritual teachings. One of the world's most innovative, authentic and popular spiritual teachers, Eckhart Tolle (who took his name from Meister Eckhart, the great German mystic), speaks to this truth when he talks of the Presence and Being which exists eternally in the present moment of a universal consciousness.

"The problems of the world," Tolle observes in the video, below, "are there because we have lost touched with the Source out of which everything came. So by going into further differentiation, we cannot solve the problems, we actually increase them."

"Connected with the timeless, formless Source of all life within, the space of no thought," he notes, "connected with that, then we can create - not 'we' as individuals, but 'we' as a universal movement of consciousness."

"We need conscious connection with the Source," Tolle concludes. "That is your destiny, that is your life's purpose. That's why we are here. And if it sounds complicated to your mind, it is only to the mind. It is not complicated at all. It's very simple."




But, cautions Huxley: "To find the Kingdom of God exclusively in oneself is easier than to discover it, not only there, but also in the outer world of minds and things and living creatures."

"It is easier," he explains, "because the heights within reveal themselves to those who are ready to exclude from their purview all that lies without. And though this exclusion may be a painful and mortificatory process, the fact remains that it is less arduous than the process of inclusion, by which we come to know the fullness as well as the heights of spiritual life."