Ah Crap, Eckhart Tolle I Am Not

You know, I really try. I try to be an openminded individual that is conscious of my surroundings; how I treat myself, and my impact on others. I try to be a minimal consumer and take care of my environment the best way I can, while still being practical. I try to keep balance in my life, yin yanging frivolity with common sense. It only made sense along my life path that a caring friend would pass Eckhart Tolle's "A Whole New Earth" on to me, adamant that I would LOVE it. I read it in the spring, and have been mulling it over ever since. I am really thinking about things like the Ego, the I, the Being, the Now. Yeesh. My brain hurts from all of this discussion about what happens when you think about the space around time that leads to nothingness. Huh?

It's kinda funny; it's like this sub-culture club of people that "get" Tolle's book and "don't get" Tolle's book....the Existentials vs. the Existential Wannabee's. There's a group of people out there somewhere in the world right now that are sitting in a quaint little coffee shoppe, (the walls are painted a deep mocha brown, there are jazz album covers framed on the walls, you can order a skim-frappe-mocha-latte-chino-with-agave-and acia, and Galaxy radio is permanently turned to the "world music" station....oh, you've been there too?) and they've all read the book, and all of them are afraid to say, "Did you get it?" One of them will purposely burn their tongue on the steamed drink to avoid speaking.

Ok, so here's what I DO get about what Tolle is saying in his quintessential new age hippie language:

a) Tolle says, "Life isn't as serious as my mind makes it out to be."  I get this, that it is very easy to transform innocent conversation into something bigger than it really is. Our perspective, and as Tolle would define it, our EGO gets in the way and takes everything personally. So, we're supposed to walk around with a "Meh-whatever" attitude and let everything slide off our back. I wish I could do that, because man, life really would be a lot easier, wouldn't it? And I get that it means that we need to ease up a little and stop being so self centred to think that everything is about us all the time. Yes, I get that. We're supposed to just enjoy the moment. Every moment should be a situation of enjoyment and living in the now. But you know, when I'm stepping in dog shit, or my son just puked on me, again, for the seventh time and it's the middle of the night and I now have to drag a whole Futon mattress out of the house when it's minus 40 outside and my heat keeps kicking on because the door is open, I'm not really thinking, "Meh - whatever." (I know all of you Tolle-ites right now are saying, "Well, you should, Rhonda." and to that I say, "Bite me.")

b) Tolle also discusses the zen like qualities of the phrase, "This too, will pass". I also understand what Tolle is getting at here. Life is all about the moment. Tolle says that there are three modalities of awakened "doing". They are acceptance, enjoyment and enthusiasm and we must be in at least one of these states when conscious of the "now" otherwise we are creating suffering for ourselves and others. He says that even when we are doing something mundane like washing the dishes, we should either accept it, enjoy it, or be enthusiastic about it. Whoa, I get these visions of shattered plates smashed to the floor in my enthusiasm of dish washing. (Remind me to tell you about my alter ego, Ramona, the housewife from hell, sometime....)But yes, I get it. If we don't accept the fact that tires will deflate, and people will have bad hair days (like sometimes they're bad hair months), and the last cookie will be taken from the cookie jar, then we set ourselves up for a little bit of disappointment or even trauma on a regular basis. There are some wonderful, fleeting moments that need to be enjoyed right at the very moment they occur, or they too, will pass without the possibility of joy. (Psssst....share that last cookie with someone in your house so that there is fleeting joy for the both of you.)

3) Finally, I'll discuss this thought; "If you can be absolutely comfortable with not knowing who you are, then what's left is who you are - the being behind the human, a field of pure potentiality rather than something that is already defined." I laugh at the absurdity of Tolle's language, really. He really just needs to simplify this by saying, "Be yourself". He is discussing the stereotypes that people find themselves fitting in to, either through self identity or labelling. I had a friend come over for a visit this summer who was a Vegan. I am cool with that, and we did some Vegan cooking together that day. There's basically an "ism" for whatever type of diet you have; I'm a vegetarian, I'm a meatatarian, I'm a poultry-atarian, I'm a fruitatarian, I'm a Eggo-waffle-atarian.....After all of these labels flew around, I quietly stated, "I'm a Rhonda." And I am more than aware of the labels that have been given to me in this community...don't even get me started, and NO COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY (heh heh) but really, I yam what I yam. I even got a tattoo that reflected this concept at the mere age of 23. It's of Winnie-the-Pooh holding the blue balloon. Do you remember the story? It's when he tries to disguise himself as a cloud by holding on to a blue balloon so that he can steal honey from a tree. Well, he fails miserable, and yes, you will fail miserably if you try to live life in the structure of a label.

I get it. I get it, Tolle!

So eventhough I try really hard to live under the mantra of "ananda" which is the bliss of being, I am not sure if it is completely possible unless you live in a cave by yourself with just your thoughts and perhaps some berries to graze upon when you're hungry. Sometimes we just have shitty days, and sometimes we just want to dwell, or pine, or scream and NOT stop and think, "Am I accepting this? Enjoying this? Enthusiastic about this?" I wish I had the time to be that reflective.... ;)