I was going through a rough patch in my life when I picked up the almighty Power of Now. I was so overwhelmed with joy and deep connection with this book that I became obsessed with it. I read it every day after school, watched his videos on youtube. I would even carry the thing around with me like a bible or something. Thinking about it now literally sends chills up my back. I completely stopped my thinking (sounds crazy i know) and lived in a care free state for a year. I stopped talking to my friends and my family. I developed an extreme case of depersonalization in which I lost sense of my self and surroundings. The world and people seemed very alien and scary. I'm not completely blaming Eckhart for my hard time, I'm just saying it definitely exacerbated my condition, in turn, making life intolerable. After realizing what had happened to me I started to question everything. I lost all emotional connection and confidence. I became attached to Eckhart and his videos. I started to look down on people, like I attained some magical truth. I became extremely socially awkward to the point where I couldn't go out. I know it sounds contradictory but it made sense at the time. I just hope Eckhart is enjoying his million dollar mansion which he attained through his zombie followers. Does anyone have any advice for someone who is trying to get out of this state? I feel like my mind is not functioning. I can't believe I bought all his bull shit! that I am just like a fucking flower...I am not a flower...he is the flower!

I don't know much about Eckhart Tolle but I do know a little about "restarting" life after a kind of pe4rsonal shut-down.

I had a good doctor who told me to get out of bed early in the morning (seven or so) even if I felt so bad I intended to get right back into bed. He said to sit in bright light, sunlight if possible or a couple of 100-watt bulbs if not, for at least fifteen minutes within ten minutes or so of waking up.

He said this triggers enzymes in the body to recognize that it is daytime and to completely wake up out of the sleep-state. He said the eyes actually have a nervous connection to the transition from sleeping to waking.

(I think a lot of these hypnotic kinds of cult behaviors must be throwing people partially into the sleep state, so maybe this will help.)

He was right: I found that I no longer would care to get back to bed to sleep more. I then would go for a walk and I set up little lists of things to gett done each day. Short lists.

I think if you do this you will start regaining your personality and you can also work on the social side as you become more active.

I hope this helps.

No question the Eckhart Tolle material can zombify people, its really very damaging material, similar to Byron Katie, and others.

There are a number of threads here about this, with links from this thread.

Eckhart Tolle -- Comments From Someone who Knows Him [forum.culteducation.com]

Thank you guys for the responses.

Read down those threads on Eckhart Tolle, where ET is pretty much explained top to bottom.

Also, the Byron Katie threads.
Byron Katie is more aggressive but they are both playing at the "you are a flower" nonsense.
By the way, as shown in the Byron Katie thread, they want to make people into wallflowers, as guess why? Those folks will then do what they are told, and buy what they are told to buy.

Both ET and BK fabricated their past history's, and both just have copied other people's material.

Byron Katie (the Work) and Eckhart Tolle Legit?? [forum.culteducation.com]

Byron Katie and "The Work" Participant Reports [forum.culteducation.com]

Eckhart Tolle (and his business partners) are not wallflowers, they are a multimillionaire entrepreneurs, and they are literally making millions, selling and upselling dozens of products.
Eckhart Tolle is an egomaniac, ironically.

There is a natural stage in infancy in which the baby will just watch faces. It does not last very long, but for some reason the thought just popped into my head that maybe what is going on with this "flower" stuff is that they are pushing people back to that brief period in our memories when we were pre-verbal and just watching life, just before we started to learn to grasp things and walk around and discovered the word "no!" at about age 2.

They are infantilizing people.

That is effing spot on! i felt exactly like this after reading his book. It's like all those memories you have as a child don't feel so distant anymore. I felt like i was 7 years old which at first was very appealing. I guess we all in some way want to retreat back to our childhood. That's what makes childhood nostalgia so bitter-sweet. But that is not the way life is. It's not supposed to be like that and people have to understand that.

I am glad that I have been "awakened" to all of this information. If this guy really has no ego and has no needs or desires then why doesn't he give his sacred information out for free? Or why doesn't he give the millions he made to charity? How the FUCK did I or anyone else buy into this stuff? He just seemed so honest and innocuous. I would actually watch this guys videos for hours feeling somehow "connected" to him and what he was saying. I felt like I had to buy his next book. Like I was somehow in debt to him for revealing to me the truth. What a load. "clear your mind from everything...and buy my next book" what i am hearing now

You are not stupid or a fool.

You are one single intelligent person, up against the mighty forces of mass marketing, used to market and sell a book.

Mass marketing works by hiding itself and conning us into feeling we have agency while massaging our emotions so that we crave, feel scared or excited--and hide the whole process while getting us to think the desire to purchase the book or see the guru is our
freely made decision, while its actually the goal of a marketing strategy aimed at the social networks where we hang out.

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How the FUCK did I or anyone else buy into this stuff? He just seemed so honest and innocuous. I would actually watch this guys videos for hours feeling somehow "connected" to him and what he was saying. I felt like I had to buy his next book. Like I was somehow in debt to him for revealing to me the truth.

It wasnt just you. This fellow has marketed himself with persistence and skill for at least the past ten years. His face is everywhere, his book is mentioned everywhere.

(And marketing means massaging the emotions of craving in seekers, which aggravates ego rather than bringing insight to ego.

Its like mixing a medicine (ego transcendence) with something that neutralizes that medicine (marketing that functions by instilling craving)

Any guru who uses marketing is cancelling out his or her stated message, just the way
mixing bleach with color will eradicate the color-or distort it..

Its called brand recognition and marketing.

This 'gets under the skin' into our subliminal awareness which is exactly what the process is designed to facilitate.

The Anticult has repeatedly recommended Cialdini's book on Social Influence.

This stuff is sophisticated as hell and advertising companies HIRE social psychologists to study us, as though we are gerbils.

And because these marketing firm psychologists are working outside of academia they are not bound by the code of ethics that the American Psychological Association requires for research conducted in laboratories and clinics.

They say Edward Bernays "invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses"

This use of psychology has been going on for 90 YEARS. And, its become yet more sophiscated.

So, you were up against something very powerful--and this forum is a great place to learn how to identify these forces and defend your liberty and agency as a human being.

[www.google.com]

Good spiritual teachers are like gas stations. You plan your trip (say, Yellowstone), go to the gas station to get what you know you need (water, gas, oil check, food, the crapper), then you continue on your trip.

You dont forget Yellowstone and end up camping at the gas station for the rest of your life thinking its the only place that's worthwhile.

But with great PR and other such techniques, thats what happens in too many human potential projects.

Gas stations turn into Destinations.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2017 10:49PM by corboy.

You have described what goes on perfectly.

Eckhart Tolle has constructed his HOURS of internet videos to do exactly that.
Build rapport with the viewer, put them into a light-deep hypnotic state, and deepen the rapport.
Then install post-hypnotic SUGGESTIONS to buy his books, DVD's, CD's, seminars, and dozens of his other products.
Tolle now sells his own online TV-video channel, all ET all the time.

Tolle has done the exact same thing done by countless other "enlightenment salesmen".
Tolle wanted to be rich, and also have a following of people looking up to him (from afar) for his "wisdom", while he lives on his private estate.

Eckhart Tolle is very skilled in New Age brainwashing.

By the way, the swearing and anger would be a healthy thing coming out of a sham-scam like Eckhart Tolle. That is probably about reinstalling healthy, natural boundaries, which were violated by Eckhart Tolle's techniques.

Once a person has experience and training in this area, its quite easy to see exactly the scam being pulled by ET. Of course, ET probably believes most of his own bullshit, due to his own egomania.

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Brainwashed90
I am glad that I have been "awakened" to all of this information. If this guy really has no ego and has no needs or desires then why doesn't he give his sacred information out for free? Or why doesn't he give the millions he made to charity? How the FUCK did I or anyone else buy into this stuff? He just seemed so honest and innocuous. I would actually watch this guys videos for hours feeling somehow "connected" to him and what he was saying. I felt like I had to buy his next book. Like I was somehow in debt to him for revealing to me the truth. What a load. "clear your mind from everything...and buy my next book" what i am hearing now