INTERVIEW

NDM: I would like to ask you some questions about this popular teacher’s bio and book.

http://www.eckharttolletv.com/about/eckhart/

He says.

At the age of 29, a profound inner transformation radically changed the course of his life. The next few years were devoted to understanding, integrating and deepening that transformation, which marked the beginning of an intense inward journey.

In this description he uses four words:

A. Profound.

B. Inner.

C. Transformation.

D. Radical.

But looking at his "store" in particular, for example. He seems to not only sell Books but also

·  Cards & Calendars

·  CDs

·  Downloads

·  DVDs

·  Eckhart Tolle TV

·  Event Downloads

·  Intensive Series

·  Kim Eng

·  Music

·  Retreat Series

·  Talk Series

www.eckharttolletv.com/store/

What is your view on this sort of thing?

Mel Patrick: It looks like a very good business, but I don’t see in the shop T-shirts and mugs with the Mantra :

“The power now is money.

Nothing new on earth!”

Are they on special offer only for Christmas?

From a complete failure who was almost going to kill himself, Eckhart Tolle became a multimillionaire businessman. I think he is right to claim that “a profound inner transformation radically changed the course of his life”.

But when he states further “The next few years were devoted to understanding, integrating and deepening that transformation”, he’s just telling us without realizing it that he is not what he pretends to be, that is to say liberated, awakened, enlightened and Self-realized.

It’s very simple to understand why. When he claims in front of millions of people “My ego has dissolved” as he did on the Web during an interview with Oprah who immediately interrupted him and change the course of the talk because she understood right away his stupid mistake, what does it really means? If the ego of Tolle has effectively dissolved, he has realized the Self which means that he is at present the Self. Vedanta explains it in a very clear way "In order to know the Self, you must be the Self". So now after his Self-realization, who is claiming “My ego has dissolved”, “I’m liberated from my ego”? The Self itself? Or in other words, the Atman, Brahman, God?

Do you realize the insanity of such statement? God is not only able now to speak through Eckhart Tolle, but God is also liberated from his ego and from his suffering which means that God was suffering before the liberation of Tolle. What kind of God or joke is that?

This kinds of statement can only be lies and pretensions. And you can find them in the mouth of every Neo Advaita guru without exception. No doubt, that's a very interesting spirituality. From the most precious and oldest spiritual heritage of humankind that Vedanta and Advaita are, we arrive today to the most stupid, hypocrite and absurd statements of the Neo Advaita ken-gurus of the West. And only for making money out of nothing. This is what the Hindus call the Kali Yuga, the dark age of decadence and corruption.

Just one simple question for sincere spiritual seekers:

"What is the value of a spiritual teaching coming from a hypocrite and liar who only thinks to make money from the suffering of the people who trust him or her?"

Before to start a spiritual quest with a fraud and true impostor like Eckhart Tolle, ask to yourself this question. You may save a lot of time and money and enjoy much more yourself and your life as it is.

What do you expect from an ego-maniac? If these gurus who pretend to be liberated, which is in fact the only true substance of their teaching, don't find another way to make money, be sure that they are not only hypocrite, but also mentally very sick because somehow they truly think to be God as this insane Andrew Cohen believes.

NDM: "Later he began to work in London with individuals and small groups as a counselor and spiritual teacher. Since 1995 he has lived in Vancouver, Canada. "

How do you interpret the word “work”. Also "Counselor and Spiritual teacher "

Mel Patrick: I guess that most of the psychologists who spent years of study and practice in order to really help people, or at least try sincerely their best to do it, must be dumbfounded to see the “work” of Eckhart Tolle as a counselor and spiritual teacher. We have again good examples of the quality of his teaching and advice in his interview with Oprah. I have to say that I’m not very convinced with the efficiency of this kind of counsels. And somehow that’s what I like with New Age spiritual therapy: it cures people who are not sick; it helps psychologically those who feel pretty alright and it doesn't make people less spiritual than before. Broadly speaking, it’s a better entertainment than watching TV when there is no good reality show. So what could be the problem with the “work” of Tolle as long as people feel good and don’t forget to pay for the performance of the teacher whatever the price is because as you know, it’s not about money but only exchange of positive energy, very positive indeed, 250€ (370 US$) for just one ticket of his lecture in Denmark for instance? “Keep cool man!” is probably the key of his highest esoteric teaching when you realize the price of it.

If Eckhart Tolle has succeeded to help anybody in the world with his “work”, apart himself of course on a financial level, it’s certainly in telling to people what they want to hear and writing to them what they want to read. That’s the true genius of Tolle. But as far as I know, to tell or write to people what they want to hear or read, it’s called marketing, advertising, commercials, flattery, demagogy, popularity seeking, but not counseling or spiritual teaching. And as any well made advertisement, the teaching of Tolle “works” very well and brings him a lot of money. That’s its only true quality.

In his so-called “work”, you can find a little bit of everything in order to please everybody and a lot of nothing to make the teaching as light as possible. No headache guaranteed! And no method, no knowledge, no practice, no ethics too, but many cute stories to make the “work” amusing, enjoyable, pleasant and very commercial. It’s nothing more than a hotchpotch of the most basic tenets of many traditional teachings such as Buddhism, Zen, Vedanta, Advaita, Christianity, Taoism, Sufism, Gnosticism and some principles coming from philosophy, literature and studies of psychology not very well digested. The real point with the “work” of Tolle and many other New Age teachers as those who teach Neo Advaita or modern non dualism is to satisfy their customers with some amazing statements and not to forget that “the customer is always right”. That’s the core of their teaching; the rest is more or less a melodious and hypnotic blablabla stuffed with NLP tricks to fill in the blanks.

But I have to admit that the climax of the “work” of Eckhart Tolle, his true flash of inspiration, is to put every single problem of a person on the back of the ego, the little devil according to his teaching, a very new idea indeed about the concept “ego”. I guess Tolle never opened a dictionary of psychology to read the definition of this word during the many years he spent studying in university. Never mind! It means in his teaching that whatever you are – you could be the worst bastard in the world or the most selfish, greedy and hypocrite jerk living on the planet – it just doesn't matter. There is no problem because it doesn't concern you, but only your ego. The true genius of Tolle is to have found a trick to make people feeling absolutely right even when they cannot be worse and wrong. And you know what? It seems to “work”! Of course, what could be more attractive in our western culture based on competition, individualism, selfishness and the absence of morality than a spiritual teaching such as “I’m pure and perfect. Only my ego got some problems”? Here you can understand that Tolle is a real master and a true impostor. He created a teaching perfectly adapted to our time and culture, a so-called “Feel good” technique that is so popular today, but which never really works. Even if you succeed to teach to people how to be totally irresponsible of their problems as Tolle does in many ways, life doesn't care. One day, you will have to face yourself and that’s how spirituality really starts. That’s the job of a true spiritual teacher who points to the truth and not to “A New Earth of New Delusions”.

Another interesting point concerning Eckhart Tolle and the Neo Satsang gurus, teachers, facilitators and so on is to find out by what authority they are teaching. It seems that by virtue of an epiphany, a spiritual or mystical experience, a so-called shift of consciousness or awakening which lasted a few seconds or in some cases a little bit more, these teachers instantly download in their mind the knowledge to help others and even to guide them until their ultimate spiritual liberation, as Buddha did it, but only after years of a long initiation and very strenuous practices. Isn't it amazing? And they are themselves instantly purified from any wrong doings because the magic word in these New Age spiritual circles is “Crazy wisdom” which means that, because they are so liberated, they don’t have to respect any rules. Game is over for them. So why not to become a perfect hypocrite and to teach any kind of insanity as long as it always brings more money, more notoriety and more power?

Everybody knows that coming from a liberated soul, the teaching can only be absolutely true. Anyhow, your suffering comes from the ego story; they are the problems of the ego, not yours. Never forget that you are absolutely pure and perfect. “Take it easy man” is the refrain of these New Age teaching like the one of Tolle. No wonder if he sold millions of books to spread such a good word. And as he writes in his book “A New (crazy) Earth” in order to make his “work” even clearer : “This is my secret. I don't mind what happens”, quote he took from J. Krishnamurti, a very interesting little fellow too.

NDM: In the Dhammapada, the Buddha said:  One is the quest for worldly gain, and quite another is the path to Nibbana. Clearly understanding this, let not the monk, the disciple of the Buddha, be carried away by worldly acclaim, but develop detachment instead.

But today seeking worldly acclaim evidenced by the “Watkins review.” www.watkinsbooks.com/review/watkins-spiritual-100-list-2013 seems to mix both these paths.

They say, to get on this list:

“there are several factors that were taken into account when compiling the list. The main three criteria are:

1) The person has to be alive

2) The person has to have made a unique and spiritual contribution on a global scale

3) The person is frequently googled, appears in Nielsen Data, and is actively talked about throughout the Internet.

Do you feel this is a way to make an assessment on if someone has made a unique and spiritual contribution on a global scale? Please see this list below. The ones in red are contemporary non duality teachers.

Mel Patrick:  To tell you the truth, I’m very disappointed with this list because I think that Mr. Donald Trump should be number three after the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh and he’s even not on the top 100. The reality show “The apprentice” of Mr. Trump teaches more about the spiritual level of people in the West today and why we desperately need a spirituality which could reintroduce some moral standards and ethics in our culture than any counsels coming from an egomaniac like Eckhart Tolle.

To your question “Do you feel this is a way to make an assessment on if someone has made a unique and spiritual contribution on a global scale?”, I guess the list speaks for itself and shows pretty well the insanity of the world we live in. There is no point to comment anything when I see that Stanislav Grof, famous psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness who devoted all his life studying the mind and alleviating people suffering is only 88th on the list and the buffoon Tony Parsons is 71th, the cyclist Adyashanti is 54th, the Shri Shri Shri psychopath Andrew Cohen is 23th and the impostor Eckhart Tolle is 3th just after the Dalai Lama et the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. I would find more meaning in seeing the portrait of Mother Theresa next to the one of Arnold Schwarzenegger hanging on a wall of a Modern Art Museum than in trying to understand this list apart from the fact that it reflects very well today spirituality.

It’s quite obvious that the words of the Buddha “let not … be carried away by worldly acclaim, but develop detachment instead” don’t concern the non-duality teachers. On the contrary, more fame means for them more customers. Let’s be clear on this subject, when we speak of non-duality teachers, we speak about self-proclaimed gurus who has decided to join the spiritual teaching profession as a business career but without any proper training and education only in order to make the most money possible. No wonder they don’t want to hear anything about traditional systems and rules!

NDM:  Are we living in the Kali Yuga, the dark age of decadence and corruption?  Markandeya says:

And people leading domestic lives, afraid of the burden of taxes, become deceivers, while Brahmanas, falsely assuming the garb of ascetics, earn wealth by trade, with nails and hair unpared and uncut.

http://oaks.nvg.org/pv6bk4.html

Mel Patrick: Some Hindu scriptures and Puranas claim that we are living in the Kali Yuga since the death of Krishna, some 5500 years ago, and this Yuga should last 432000 years, a very long way to go before starting a new cycle with a golden Age of truth, Satya Yuga, then the Krita Yuga, the Tetra Yuga and again the Kali Yuga, and so on forever. It’s quite different from what New Age and some Neo Advaita gurus predict with their Aquarius Age of “Shanti Shanti, be positive and don’t worry because everything will soon be fine and spiritual…, if you buy my books, CDs, DVDs, seminars, webinars, retreats, tee-shirts, mugs, cards, calendars, portraits, key rings with the lovely plastic guru, etc. and please, don’t forget that we appreciate very very much donation too, every months for instance and not less of 50$”.

Anyhow, it’s not because we are living in an Age of corruption and complete decadence – quite obvious when we just look at what’s going on in the world and not only in Neo Advaita teachings – that we have to be ourselves corrupt and decadent. And that’s the only point I think which really matters because who knows if these cycles of Yuga really exist?

I’m quite willing to believe in this kind of Hindu knowledge because for some intuitive reasons, it makes sense in my mind. But it doesn’t go anyway beyond a belief and as people says: “it doesn’t pay the bills”. What I mean is that the real point of any spiritual knowledge in the world since the beginning of time is to practice spirituality otherwise it’s nothing more than an entertainment, just like the Satsang of Neo Advaita gurus. The true purpose of spirituality is not to read books and to listen to the blablabla and NLP lullaby of these gurus who embody so well the Kali Yuga. It’s to have a spiritual life, that is to say, first and before anything else, to integrate in our daily life, which cannot and should not be separated from our spiritual life, a code of right conduct and right thinking, an ethic, Yamas and Nyamas or Dharma if you like, then to practice 24/7 our spiritual quest because spirituality is and has always been the study of spiritual knowledge and the practice of spiritual disciplines. Without practice and discipline, better “to watch TV and get high” as Tarantino would say in the movie “Jacky Brown”.

If people today cannot stand the word “discipline”, spiritual discipline and so on, as Neo Advaita gurus do in their speech in order to keep their customers very happy and totally infantile, better to forget the whole gamut of spirituality because it’s all about practices, disciplines and purification. Who in the world could sincerely think “I’m so perfect that I need no improvement”? Even my Guru would never pretend that. The purpose of spiritual knowledge is to clarify mind and heart and get more power from this clarity for the very purpose of always going deeper into the practice: practice of love, devotion, goodness, self-inquiry, meditation, Asanas, Neigong, Taiji or whatever you like according your personal psychology and Karma. But the point of spirituality is and has always been for thousands of years and certainly much more if we believe in the cycle of Yuga “to practice, practice and practice” until practice itself becomes life, enlightenment and liberation. 

NDM: What are your thoughts on this ?

The law of Manu says:

186. Though (by his learning and sanctity) he may be entitled to accept presents, let him not attach himself (too much) to that (habit); for through his accepting (many) presents the divine light in him is soon extinguished.

187. Without a full knowledge of the rules, prescribed by the sacred law for the acceptance of presents, a wise man should not take anything, even though he may pine with hunger.

188. But an ignorant (man) who accepts gold, land, a horse, a cow, food, a dress, sesamum-grains, (or) clarified butter, is reduced to ashes like (a piece of) wood.

189. Gold and food destroy his longevity, land and a cow his body, a horse his eye (sight), a garment his skin, clarified butter his energy, sesamum-grains his offspring.

190. A Brahmana who neither performs austerities nor studies the Veda, yet delights in accepting gifts, sinks with the (donor into hell), just as (he who attempts to cross over in) a boat made of stone (is submerged) in the water.

191. Hence an ignorant (man) should be afraid of accepting any presents; for by reason of a very small (gift) even a fool sinks (into hell) as a cow into a morass.

Mel Patrick:  Manu in this saying makes his point very clear:

“Don’t mix up business and spirituality" because money, sex and power are absolutely incompatible with the Sacred.

I think that’s quite obvious without any explanation, but it doesn’t seem be so for everybody and especially not for Neo Advaita teachers. God and spirituality are not for sell. There is no crazy wisdom, but only true and traditional spirituality. And Manu explains it in a remarkable Hindu way… with a lot of passion and excess.

Nothing new under the sky! The traditional rule is still the same and will never change because money corrupts today as well as 5000 years ago, and when it doesn’t, it may do it so fast that it becomes impossible to know if the spiritual teaching of the Guru is still authentic. Just watch the example of true Gurus as Ramana Maharshi for instance. He never owned anything except a wooden stick. What’s about the Ashram? People understood the true value of this spiritual being and they built their own Ashram to bring their own Guru inside of it. Ramana Maharshi never asked for anything; he was a Sannyasin like every other true liberated beings.

If spiritual teachers pretend to be liberated as every non-duality guru does nowadays shamelessly in the West, it’s very easy for them to prove it because the rule cannot change. It means they are established in Brahman, the Self or pure consciousness (Brahmanishta) and in a permanent state of bliss (Turya or Sahaja Samadhi). The price of liberation is complete renunciation because this state of bliss which should not be confused with mystical ecstasy prevents of course the expression of every possible desire.

The instinct of survival is not the expression of a desire, but the natural program of every living creature. The body of a Jivanmukta is at this level of existence, only surviving and able to feel physical pain in order to react and protect itself. But the Jivanmukta doesn’t need more than surviving to be in heaven because the reflection of consciousness on his or her intellect is infinite and pure bliss. And he or she even doesn’t have to renounce to anything because in this state of bliss, there is obviously no difference between liberation and renunciation. It’s so simple to understand that Neo Satsang gurus are going to make it immediately the most complicated for only one reason, to explain that their liberation is just a little bit different. No kidding!

I can only laugh when I listen to Evolutionary spiritual teachers. They claim that we are so evolved today, we don’t need any more traditional spirituality and can become at last co creator with God and with new rules. What kind of joke is that? Do they leave sometimes their business and dreams in order to open their eyes on the real world and see how evolved we are? Of course they do, and surprise, surprise, the new rules are all turned to their personal advantage. And new rules bringing what? Money, power and most of the time sex too. And they are going after to speak of “quantum leap” in the evolution of consciousness. I guess it’s a backwards leap for them. No problem! In their new rules, there is no Karma and reincarnation either, no consequences to their hypocrisy, corruption and decadence.

Good morning Kali Yuga, it’s only the beginning.

What is your view on this. Why is the TM technique trademarked?