Suzanne Tucker Chivers > Suzanne's Quotes

“When you walk through a forest that has not been tamed and interfered with by man, you will see not only abundant life all around you, but you will also encounter fallen trees and decaying trunks, rotting leaves and decomposing matter at every step. Wherever you look, you will find death as well as life. Upon closer scrutiny, however, you will discover that the decomposing tree trunk and rotting leaves not only give birth to new life, but are full of life themselves. Microorganisms are at work. Molecules are rearranging themselves. So death isn't to be found anywhere. There is only the metamorphosis of life forms. What can you learn from this? Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“The playfulness and joy of a dog, its unconditional love and readiness to celebrate life at any moment often contrast sharply with the inner state of the dog's owner — depressed, anxious, burdened by problems, lost in thought, not present in the only place and only time there is: Here and Now. One wonders: living with this person, how does the dog manage to remain so sane, so joyous?”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking, you are avoiding what is. You don't want to be where you are. Here, Now.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion, peace. The ego doesn't like to hear this, because if it cannot be reactive and righteous anymore, it will lose strength.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Built into the very structure of the egoic self is a need to oppose, resist, and exclude to maintain the sense of separateness on which its continued survival depends. So there is “me” against the “other,” “us” against “them.” The ego needs to be in conflict with something or someone. That explains why you are looking for peace and joy and love but cannot tolerate them for very long. You say you want happiness but are addicted to your unhappiness. Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“To know another human being in their essence, you don't really need to know anything about them — their past, their history, their story.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Become at ease with the state of “not knowing.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“A moment of danger can bring about a temporary cessation of the stream of thinking and thus give you a taste of what it means to be present, alert, aware.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash — one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone. To the egoic self, this is a depressing thought. To you, it is liberating.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“The truth is: you don't have a life, you are life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or a blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy. Can you sense deep within that you already know that? Can you sense that you already are That?”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now. I Am.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“What it doesn't say — but only points to — is more important than what it says.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don't take your thoughts too seriously.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Whenever you deeply accept this moment as it is — no matter what form it takes — you are still, you are at peace.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Jesus’ words, “Forgive them for they do not know what they do,” also apply to yourself.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Death is not an anomaly or the most dreadful of all events as modern culture would have you believe, but the most natural thing in the world, inseparable from and just as natural as its polarity — birth.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“How easy it is for people to become trapped in their conceptual prisons. The human mind, in its desire to know, understand, and control, mistakes its opinions and viewpoints for the truth. It says: this is how it is. You have to be larger than thought to realize that however you interpret “your life” or someone else's life or behavior, however you judge any situation, it is no more than a viewpoint, one of many possible perspectives. It is no more than a bundle of thoughts. But reality is one unified whole, in which all things are interwoven, where nothing exists in and by itself. Thinking fragments reality — it cuts it up into conceptual bits and pieces. The thinking mind is a useful and powerful tool, but it is also very limiting when it takes over your life completely, when you don't realize that it is only a small aspect of the consciousness that you are.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Upon closer scrutiny, however, you will discover that the decomposing tree trunk and rotting leaves not only give birth to new life, but are full of life themselves. Microorganisms are at work.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought and see clearly that the thinker is not who you are.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Become at ease with the state of “not knowing.” This takes you beyond mind because the mind is always trying to conclude and interpret. It is afraid of not knowing. So, when you can be at ease with not knowing, you have already gone beyond the mind. A deeper knowing that is non-conceptual then arises out of that state.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“El amor no desea ni teme nada.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“For most things in life, you need time: to learn a new skill, build a house, become an expert, make a cup of tea. . . . Time is useless, however, for the most essential thing in life, the one thing that really matters: self-realization, which means knowing who you are beyond the surface self — beyond your name, your physical form, your history, your story.

You cannot find yourself in the past or future. The only place where you can find yourself is in the Now.

Spiritual seekers look for self-realization or enlightenment in the future. To be a seeker implies that you need the future. If this is what you believe, it becomes true for you: you will need time until you realize that you don't need time to be who you are.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“If you are in the habit of creating suffering for yourself, you are probably creating suffering for others too. These unconscious mind patterns tend to come to an end simply by making them conscious, by becoming aware of them as they happen. You cannot be conscious and create suffering for yourself.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Si puedes aprender a aceptar, e incluso a dar la bienvenida a los finales de tu vida, tal vez descubras que el sentimiento de vacío, que inicialmente te pareció incómodo, se convierte en una sensación de espacio interno que es profundamente apacible.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“And the miracle is that when you are no longer placing an impossible demand on it, every situation, person, place, or event becomes not only satisfying but also more harmonious, more peaceful.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past.”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

“Naming and labeling are habitual, but that habit can be broken. Start practicing “not naming”with small things. If you miss the plane, drop and break a cup, or slip and fall in the mud, can you refrain from naming the experience as bad or painful? Can you immediately accept the “isness”of that moment?”
― Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks