Eckhart Tolle and Sri Aurobindo

Preface

Originally this book was meant to share the thoughts of a seeker with those who, like him, feel drawn to the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. So, the first draft of the manuscript was written with a view to presenting Eckhart's teaching from the perspective of Sri Aurobindo's yoga, of which the writer has been a practitioner for over five decades. Eckhart, who graciously read the manuscript and expressed his appreciation for it, suggested that I make a comparison between his teaching and that of Sri Aurobindo. I had generally desisted from making such a comparison—even though pair of me was inclined to do so—in view of what Eckhart has said in the Introduction to his book The Power of Now: "The mind always wants to categorize and compare, but this book will work better for you if you do not attempt to compare its terminology with that of other teachings; otherwise, you will probably become confused." I have kept in mind these words of Eckhart while writing the present version of this book, in which I have tried to compare the teaching of Eckhart with that of Sri Aurobindo in a way that would not confuse the reader. The comparison is meant to help toward a better understanding of both Eckhart's teaching and that of Sri Aurobindo.

Eckhart's teaching, which beautifully combines elements from Zen Buddhism, Advaita (nondualist Vedanta), and Christianity, is relatively neutral. However, in its views of the nature of Reality and enlightenment, his teaching is predominantly Buddhist. It is a perspective that presents a sharp contrast to some of the dominant

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Hindu views such as those contained in the Bhagavad Gita. I have attempted to bring together the two perspectives in the light of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga.

The differences between the two perspectives consist in certain paradoxes or apparent contradictions, and in certain divergent viewpoints that are actual contradictions. Paradoxes, such as the statement that the attainment of enlightenment takes a long time and the statement that enlightenment is an immediate experience, are less difficult to resolve because they are based on the same experience viewed from opposite angles. Divergences, on the other hand, are due to differences in the nature of the spiritual realizations on which they are based. For example, the Buddhist view that the Reality is Non-Being or Non-Existence or Nothingness (Asat) is based on a different spiritual experience from the one that is founded on the Vedantic view of the ultimate reality as Being, Existence, or the All (Sat, the Brahman). Similarly, the Hindu view that both the world and the notion of an individual soul are illusions, Maya, is based on a spiritual experience that is fundamentally different from the equally valid experience on which is based another Hindu' view that regards the world as a divine play, Lila. Here, the eternal Supreme Being plays hide-and-seek with the eternal individual soul. In Eckhart's teaching, as in all spiritual teachings, there are certain paradoxes. There is also a fine combination of divergent views that he embraces without being troubled by the contradictory nature of their philosophical underpinnings. I hope that, in comparing Eckhart's teaching with Sri Aurobindo's integral perspective, this book will serve to resolve some of the paradoxes contained in Eckhart's teaching as well as reconcile some of the divergent viewpoints expressed by him.

The teachings of Eckhart are presented within the context of the story of a "seeker," and for this the author wishes to express an apology to him. For, Eckhart is one of those rare instances of a "finder" who had never been a seeker to start with. He therefore regards all seeking, including the quest for the spirit, as stemming from the illusory self, the little "me," out of which one must emerge in order to find one's true being. Eckhart's teachings start at the high level where one is ready to step out of the mode of all personal seeking. So does Sri Aurobindo's yoga, which, however, recognizes that, although we

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human beings are initially always motivated by the egoic self even in doing yoga, all spiritual seeking is at heart a yearning of one's true self to discover itself through liberation from the bondage of the egoic self.

The author must also apologize to Eckhart for presenting his teachings from a certain "perspective." As Eckhart has repeatedly said, a perspective is a mental position and is therefore quite inadequate to understand spiritual truths that transcend the purview of the mind. However, at the present stage of the evolution of our consciousness, most human beings are at best mainly mental beings. Therefore, we cannot help beginning with a more or less mental approach even to things that lie beyond the mind. As a concession to this limitation of the human being, spiritual teachers have had to resort to mental concepts and ideas to communicate by verbal means truths that are essentially unformulable in thoughts and incommunicable in words, but realizable only through experience. Some of the teachers, like Eckhart, have used only minimal mental concepts to serve as "pointers" or "signposts" on the spiritual path. A few others, like Sri Aurobindo, have provided elaborate intellectual maps as guides on the inner journey. However, all teachers have relied on the power of the consciousness behind their words to awaken in the seeker something more than concepts and ideas expressed by the words, and have cautioned against the pitfall of mistaking the signpost for the destination, or the map for the territory.

The most valuable aspect of Eckhart's teachings thus lies not in the concepts and ideas he employs but in the energetic charge of the spiritual consciousness from which his teachings emanate and with which his words are powerfully impregnated. For this reason, Chapter 2 of the book, which is a verbatim transcription of the author's interview with Eckhart, is the most powerful conveyor of what Eckhart has to offer to the spiritual seeker. Similarly, the power of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother lie far more in their actual words quoted throughout the book than in the author's paraphrases and expositions.

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