Eckhart Tolle and Sri Aurobindo

Method of Spiritual Practice

As stated a little earlier, Eckhart does not consider the term "practice" to be quite appropriate in spiritual life because practice implies personal effort of some sort, whereas enlightenment is not something

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that can be brought about by any egoic effort; it comes about as a result of the surrender of the ego and a cessation of the ego's seekings. Therefore, the question of method of spiritual practice is not quite relevant to Eckhart's teaching. What Eckhart teaches are portals for entering into the state of enlightenment rather than methods or techniques for attaining it. In Sri Aurobindo's yoga, too, there are no specific practices such as breathing techniques, postures, devotional chants, prescribed mantras, or methods of meditation and the like, which are found in most spiritual disciplines. However, in both Eckhart's teaching and Sri Aurobindo's yoga, there are certain processes or general methods of practice. The difference between the two teachings is that, in Eckhart's teaching, the processes are more or less only implicit, whereas in Sri Aurobindo's yoga one finds an explicit and elaborate formulation of the general methods in various spiritual disciplines.

From a psychological viewpoint, methods of spiritual practice may be seen as approaches that use as leverage one or more of the three basic functions of the human psyche—-thinking, feeling, and willing—for the purposes of transforming ordinary consciousness into a higher or spiritual consciousness. From this point of view, spiritual disciplines may be broadly classified into three paths: the Path of Knowledge (Jnana Yoga), which uses thinking as the principal leverage; the Path of Devotion (Bhakti Yoga), which utilizes chiefly feeling or emotion; and the Path of Works or Action (Karma Yoga), which uses the will as the chief means of transformation. We will mention in some detail the methods of practice used in the three broad categories of paths just described so as to bring out the methods present—or not present-—in Eckhart's teaching and to compare them with those of Sri Aurobindo's yoga.

The Path of Knowledge, which aims at the knowledge of the self and the world, selects the reason as its chosen instrument and makes it, by certain methods of purification and concentration, its means for realization. Thus, Sankhya Yoga, taught by the Indian sage Kapila, proceeds by the Buddhi, the discriminating intelligence, and arrives by reflective thought and right discrimination at the knowledge of the true nature of the Soul (Purusha) and of the imposition on it of the activities of the instrumental Nature (Prakriti) through

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attachment and a false identification. Describing the "very powerful method" of the Sankhyas for the separation of Purusha and Prakriti, Sri Aurobindo says:

One enforces on the mind the position of the Witness—all action of mind, vital, physical becomes an outer play which is not myself or mine, but belongs to Nature and has been enforced on an outer me. I am the witness Purusha; I am silent, detached, not bound by any of these things. There grows up in consequence a division in the being; the sadhak⁷⁸ feels within him the growth of a calm silent separate consciousness which feels itself quite apart from the surface play of the mind and the vital and physical Nature.⁷⁹

Similarly, Jnana Yoga, based on the Advaita (nondualist) school of Vedanta, arrives by the same means at the right discrimination of the true nature of the Self and of the imposition on it of the mental illusion that leads to egoic identification and attachment. In the Advaita process of the way of knowledge

... one rejects from oneself the identification with the mind, vital, body, saying continually "I am not the mind", "I am not the vital", "I am not the body", seeing these things as separate from one's real self—and after a time one feels all the mental, vital, physical processes and the very sense of mind, vital, body becoming externalised, an outer action, while within and detached from them there grows the sense of a separate self-existent being which opens into the realisation of the cosmic and transcendent spirit.⁸⁰

Buddhism, another path of knowledge, lays stress on the impermanence and illusoriness of the self, which is viewed as an amalgam of the results of the cosmic energy (presented as Karma, just as in Sankhya it is presented as Prakriti), and it makes the recognition of

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this impermanence and illusoriness by the discriminating mind its means of liberation.

The chief methods used in the various paths of knowledge consist of meditation, concentration, and processes of disidentification.

The Path of Devotion selects the feeling aspect of the devotee and turns it Godward, and in an intensity of seeking makes the emotions a means of union of one's being with the Divine Being. The chief methods of this path consist in prayer, adoration, and worship of the Divine, and offering of oneself to Him through love and devotion.

The Path of Works, selecting the will in action as its principal tool, makes all one's acts and works in life an offering to God, a means for arriving at the union of the soul with the Lord. Its chief methods are a purification of the personal will and its surrender to the Divine Will.⁸¹

Among the various methods pertaining to the three categories of paths, two methods stand out most prominently in Eckhart's teaching: The first is the Sankhya process of becoming the Witness Purusha—a method very similar to Eckhart's teaching about being the witnessing Presence. The second method, which pertains to the Path of Works and which is prominent in Eckhart's teaching, is that of surrender of the egoic will.

Whereas methods of practice pertaining to the Paths of Knowledge and of Works can be discerned in Eckhart's teaching, methods pertaining to the Path of Devotion are not present. This is consistent with Eckhart's view of the Reality. As he once made it clear in answering a question regarding prayer, his teaching is nondualist (Advaita). From the Advaita viewpoint, there is nothing but the One Reality; prayer (as ordinarily understood), worship, and adoration imply a duality, and are therefore inconsistent with the nondualist view.

Sri Aurobindo's yoga, which integrates the various spiritual paths, employs all their methods in essence, without regarding any method, whether pertaining to knowledge, devotion, or works, as indispensable.

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Work, bhakri⁸² and meditation are the three supports of yoga. One can do with all three or two or one. There are people who can'r meditate in the set way that one calls meditation, but they progress through work or through bhakti or through the two together. By work and bhakti one can develop a consciousness in which eventually a natural meditation and realisation becomes possible.⁸³

However, like the Gita, Sri Aurobindo's yoga gives Bhakti the highest place and regards it as the swiftest path.

The kinship between Eckhart's teaching about the witnessing Presence and the process of the Sankhya—a path of knowledge— may seem surprising in view of Eckhart's de-emphasis on the role of knowledge or "information" in a spiritual teaching. But the knowledge aimed at in the Path of Knowledge is not an intellectual understanding. The intellect does play an important role in the Path of Knowledge because, right thought consisting in correct notions about the self and the world, and right discrimination between the real and the unreal, are indispensable preliminaries for arriving at spiritual knowledge, which is supraintellectual. As Sri Aurobindo explains:

It is true that intellectual deliberation and right discrimination are an important part of the Yoga of knowledge; but their object is rather to remove a difficulty than to arrive at the final and positive result of this path, Our ordinary intellectual notions are a stumbling-block in the way of knowledge; for they are governed by the error of the senses and they found themselves on the notion that matter and body are the reality, that life and force are the reality, that passion and emotion, thought and sense are the reality; and with these things we identify ourselves, and because we identify ourselves with these things we cannot get back to the real self.⁸⁴

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Eckhart's introductory talks generally address the preliminary task of removing the stumbling block spoken of in the extract just quoted and establishing right thought about our true identity. His talks thus typically begin with themes such as the illusory self, the "me" born of identification with the mind; the distinction between the temporary form—body, emotions, and mind, with which we identify ourselves in our normal consciousness—and the Formless, which is the essence of our true being and is the Being of the universe; the dysfunctional nature and insanity of the normal egoic consciousness, and the like. Such themes are based on the foremost principle of the Path of Knowledge, namely, Vinekar, discernment between the real and the unreal. The conceptual superstructure in Eckhart's teaching, unlike that of the traditional Indian paths of knowledge, such as Advaita and Sankhya, is not an abstract cosmological and metaphysical system but consists of psychological truths that appeal more to one's inner experience and intuition rather than to the speculative intellect.

In Eckhart's teaching, to be present implies more than just becoming the observing witness. Presence, says Eckhart, is a state when attention is completely in the Now; to be fully present is to walk along the razor's edge of Now. This aspect of Presence brings out the kinship between Eckhart's teaching and that of the Zen view and method, Zen also being a path of knowledge that leads to the realization of the illusory and impermanent nature of the self and things in the world. The Zen view of meditation as a state of attention in the here and now, and living fully in the present act, is well illustrated by the following story:

A group of foreign travellers, keenly interested in spirituality, went to see the Zen Master Fudoshi during their visit to Japan. Deeply impressed by his wisdom and equanimity, one of the visitors asked him about the secret of his spiritual attainment.

Fudoshi answered: "When I sit, I sit; when I stand, I stand; when I walk, I walk; when I eat, I eat, and when I speak, I speak." The visitors were very much surprised by his answer. Their little minds could not understand that truth could be so simple and obvious. So they said to the Master,

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"That's all right, but what else do you do?" expecting a more profound reply.

Fudoshi again answered: "I do nothing else. When I sit, I sit; when I stand, I stand; when I walk, I walk; when I eat, I eat, and when I speak, I speak."

Not satisfied with Fudoshi's answer, the visitors impatiently retorted: "We are all doing the same thing, but we have not attained what you have attained."

Then Fudoshi answered: "No, no, you are all doing things differently from what I said. When you sit, you are already thinking about going; when you go, you are as if running; while you are running, you are pushing a hot dog into your mouth, and while you are eating it, you are talking about what happened yesterday or what you will do tomorrow. You are not where you are. That is your only problem."

Fudoshi then explained the meaning of meditation in everyday life as being present in the here and now in everything one does, whether it is sitting, standing, walking, eating, or speaking.

One method that is implicitly or explicitly practiced in all spiritual disciplines, and is most prominent in the Path of Knowledge, is that of concentration. The normal state of consciousness is the opposite of concentration—it is a state of dispersion. As the Mother observes:

One throws oneself out all the time; all the time one lives, as it were, outside oneself, in such a superficial sensation that it is almost as though one were outside oneself. As soon as one wants even to observe oneself a little, control oneself a little, simply know what is happening, one is always obliged to draw back or pull towards oneself, to pull inwards something which is constantly like that, on the surface. And it is this surface thing which meets all external contacts, puts you in touch with similar vibrations coming from others. That happens almost outside you.

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That is the constant dispersal of the ordinary consciousness.⁸⁵

The state of dispersion is also a state of exteriorization in which consciousness is turned outwards instead of inwards. As the Mother says:

The ordinary human consciousness, even in the most developed, even in men of great talent and great realisation, is a movement turned outwards—all the energies are directed outwards, the whole consciousness is spread outwards; and if anything is turned inwards, it is very little, very rare, very fragmentary, it happens only under the pressure of very special circumstances, violent shocks, the shocks life gives precisely with the intention of slightly reversing this movement of exteriorization of the consciousness.⁸⁶

To live a spiritual life is to open oneself to the inner world within the depths of one's being. It involves a reversal of the normal consciousness from its ordinary state of dispersion and exteriorization to one of concentration and interiorization. Therefore, Sri Aurobindo states, "Concentration is indeed the first condition of any Yoga."⁸⁷

Though concentration in the general sense of a self-gathered state just described is involved in all spiritual practice, it is used in a more specific sense in the Path of Knowledge as practiced in India. It connotes a way by which thought is removed from all distracting activities of the mind and fixed on the idea of the One Reality so as to rise out of the ordinary dispersed consciousness into the consciousness of the One. To this end, various specific methods of concentration are used as a "means by which one identifies oneself with and enters into any form, state or psychological self-manifestation {bhāva)⁸⁸ of the Self."⁸⁹

One of the processes of concentration emphasized in the Path of Knowledge—that of standing back as a witness and watching the

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action of the mind until the mind falls into quietude—is akin to Eckhart s teaching about observing the mind as the witnessing Presence in order to bring about eventually a cessation of thought and a state of stillness. However, unlike the Indian paths of knowledge, Eckhart does not teach this process as a specific method to be practiced at particular times but only as a general attitude to be maintained at all times. In Sri Aurobindo's yoga where, too, there are no specific methods of practice, concentration is of prime importance. Speaking of his yoga, he says,

There is no method in this yoga except to concentrate, preferably in the heart, and call the presence and power of the Morher⁹⁰ to take up the being and by the workings of her force transform the consciousness; one can concentrate also in the head or between the eyebrows, but for many this is a too difficult opening. When the mind falls quire and the concentration becomes strong and the aspiration intense, then there is a beginning of experience.⁹¹

In all spiritual disciplines, including Sri Aurobindo's yoga, purification or cleansing, like concentration (in the sense of a self-gathered state), is regarded as an essential means towards liberation. As Sri Aurobindo puts it:

Śuddhi is the condition for mukti. ⁹²

Purity and concentration are indeed two aspects, feminine and masculine, passive and active, of the same status of being; purity is the condition in which concentration becomes entire, rightly effective, omnipotent; by concentration purity does its works and without it would only lead to a state of peaceful quiescence and eternal repose⁹³.⁹⁴

Eckhart's method of dealing with what are regarded as impurities is the same as for dealing with anything that tends to obscure the Presence: It is to bring Presence into whatever arises at the moment, simply watching whatever may arise, even though one may not, at the outset, succeed in preventing oneself from losing the Presence, falling into unconsciousness, and acting out what obscures the Presence.⁹⁵

The methods of purification in Sri Aurobindo's yoga have been briefly touched upon in the previous section of this chapter in connection with the role of personal effort and will be presented more fully in the next section, which discusses the process of inner change.

One method of spiritual practice—surrender—stands out foremost in both Eckhart's teaching and Sri Aurobindo's yoga. Eckhart regards surrender—saying "yes" to whatever is—as the primordial portal for entering into Presence. Until one practices surrender, says Eckhart, one's life is run by the mind energy; it is through surrender that spiritual energy enters into one's life and transforms it. From the viewpoint of Sri Aurobindo's yoga, purification, concentration, detachment, and rejection of ego and desire are all useful aids for the discovery of one's inmost being, "but the strongest, most central way is to found all such or other methods on a self-offering and surrender of ourselves and of our parts of nature to the Divine Being. ..."⁹⁶

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