Eckhart Tolle

Tape 5 

(Continuation...)

So, these things need to be known.  It's a very basic simple principle so you can watch when it happens.   

If you don't know about pain-body you can meditate 10 hours a day.  I know people who have been to 15 or more Vipassana retreats, not that there is anything wrong with Vipassana, it's a beautiful medication.  But they've...and Vipassana retreats are long - I think 10 days or something like that - every day you mediate for something like 15 hours.  It's a boot camp for meditation. (laughter)  Sometimes it works beautifully.   But people do 15 of them and they go through the same unconsciousness as everybody else periodically.  But you've...haven't you observed yourself for so long?  The pain-body tricks them every time.      

Michael Brown

From PART V: 2. 

(Continuation...)

Consequently, the reality we construct for ourselves now, is that in this world we perceive it as normal to hand the intimacies of our well-being over to be facilitated by others without question. We hand the hope of our souls over to our parents, teachers, priests, lecturers, doctors, nutritionists, astrologists, therapists, politicians, corporate leaders, movie stars, and anyone else with a suitably impressive resume. We assume because another studies books in an expensive institution with a fancy name they know more about what is better for us than we do. This is because in a time-based paradigm we assume information is knowledge. This is also because we contain no capacity for discernment; a side-effect of lacking felt-perception. We therefore turn ourselves over and outward to others instead of inward to ourselves. We have lost faith in ourselves, therefore we have lost faith.

Chapter 84

Your Goal Is Your Guru

(Continuation...)

[M:  Compassion is the foundation of earnestness.  Compassion for yourself and others, born of suffering, your own and others.]

Q:  Must I suffer to be earnest?

M:  You need not, if you are sensitive and respond to the sorrows of others, as Buddha did.  But if you are callous and without pity, your own suffering will make you ask the inevitable questions.