Ekhart Tolle and Christianity

“Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel. ” The Gospel of Thomas

Have you noticed that the people with whom it is most easy to empathize are those who have been through the same as you?  Your perspective is altered by life experience.

Some of my favorite times in the women’s groups are before or after when someone comes up to me with something that unsettled her in one of our readings. Or, if she has one of those “aha” moments from a conversation with another woman about our book or about an Enneagram insight.

Last week, someone came up to me and was feeling unsettled. We are reading Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth” in one of our women’s groups. Eckhart Tolle’s notions of religion called her Catholic faith into question.

“How does it all fit?” she asked.

I understood her question as I have asked the same question. In fact, almost everything I teach is born from a question. ”

When I saw incongruencies in religious teaching, I was never one who bought, “You just got to have faith.” I saw too much potential for abuse hiding behind that line.  When I learned that the gospels we read are only partial…so many gospels were hidden…it began to make sense.  I knew this Jesus had to be more than what I was getting from mainline Christianity.  When I read the hidden gospels, I saw another portrait of Jesus.

Questions.  He was loaded with questions.  He wasn’t a big fan of dogma.  He seemed to breathe the line from Anne Lamott that says, “When God hates all the same people you do, it’s an ego God.”

Jesus directly answered only 3 of the 183 questions asked of him. It seems he wanted to invite the questioners into their own experience. It’s almost as if he were asking, “Where is God in this for you NOW at this time in your life? What are your blindspots that keep you from seeing the truth?”

So, I was thinking about the question from one of our group participants. Does Eckhart Tolle’s new book, “A New Earth” conflict with Christian teaching? It depends on your focus. If the focus is doctrine and dogma, then you may run into obstacles. Doctrine and dogma tend to have fixed boundaries.

But, if you practice Christianity (and I tend to look at Christianity as a spiritual practice and as an embodiment rather than as a belief system) in the spirit of inquiry (for the mind), action and embodiment (for the body) and love (for the heart), then Tolle’s book fits like a glove.

I thought much of this woman’s question because I have asked it myself.

Here are some of my thoughts and I share them with hopes they draw you into your own experience:

1. Spirituality is evolutionary. The more we awaken, the more we can take on different perspectives because we are letting go of our egoic, attached way of interfacing with the world. Christian spirituality is evolutionary too. James Fowler’s book, “Stages of Faith” identifies 6 stages of the journey.

We are always growing and the tradition is always changing. It is so exciting that in 1945, ancient sacred scriptural texts were found that were shown to be published before the canonical gospels! They give us deeper insights into Jesus, the contemplative and revolutionary. And, as women study and interpret the texts in the past 40 years, we discover new insights that we hadn’t considered before. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is profoundly beautiful in its expression of the intimate weaving of human and divine love.

2. The essence of Christianity was expressed in Philippians which was Paul’s invitation to “Put on the mind of Christ.” When we put on the mind of Christ, the rest overflows from that consciousness–surrender, love, compassion. The practices we have been doing facilitate putting on the mind of Christ.

Scholars are beginning to reveal that Jesus was less about believing in him and more about believing in his way of Being. (The focus on believing in Jesus came from the evangelists whose experience of Jesus’ “realization” or “awakening” of his divinity and humanity was so profound that they insisted if we followed this path, the world could be radically altered. Contemporary Christian scholarship suggests that notions of exclusivity-Jesus is THE only-way came much later after his death and did not come from Jesus himself).

3. Christianity was brought into the world during a time when people understood only a mythic God…that is a God out there, separate from us, who intervenes when we ask for what we need. There was no notion of God inside the human heart. The fundamental focus of Jesus’ message was often missed by those who could not understand it at the time. It didn’t fit into their old constructs.

4. At a time when people were at this mythic level of consciousness (they weren’t stupid…rather, humans simply had not evolved yet to a rational stage of consciousness), the church focused on a God “out there.” The Council of Nicea and other councils following, developed a prescribed list of beliefs in order to create a cohesive community.

These beliefs were understood in a literal, concrete way rather than as myth and symbol: Virgin birth, God creating the world in 7 days, Moses’ parting of the Red Sea, rather than as symbols to invite us into our own individual and communal experience.

5. Globalism and science have challenged these literal beliefs and things have never been the same. It rocked the world. Some, like John Shelby Spong, have responded by writing books such as “Jesus for the Non-Religious” which basically state that Jesus was just a real good guy and dismisses Jesus’ divinity.

Others, like Pope Benedict, have written books like “Jesus of Nazareth” which focuses solely on Jesus’ divinity and barely gives a nod to Jesus’ humanity.

Others, fight the notion of evolution and shift to a fundamentalist interpretation of scripture in which each statement is taken literally, an attempt to fit science into the Bible is made and there is a resistance to new insights.

All of the above responses miss the contemplative dimension of the gospel which invites the following insight:

6. If we focus on replacing the “old Adam” (egoic consciousness) with the “new Adam” (Christ consciousness) and awaken to our own Christ consciousness, we move toward a unity with God in which our humanity merges with our divinity. The Christian spiritual path is to raise our consciousness to Jesus’ level. When you “put on the mind of Christ” as Paul writes, we recognize our Oneness with all and Oneness with God.

As we gradually experience our unity, we recognize all the distinctions and categories come from the limits of the human mind. Tolle’s book is an invitation into this consciousness. The focus is slightly different, but not dissimilar. The Christian focus is heavily skewed towards attention of the heart.

7. The Christian focus is on what Paul called kenosis or self-emptying. As we become aware of our false self, we surrender to God’s grace in a radical act of love and self emptying. Jesus exemplified self-emptying in everything he did–radical generosity, radical compassion, radical acts that challenged the notion that the rule of the law came before the spirit of the law.

He also asked question after question after question in order to draw you into your own experience and your own attachments. A spirit of kenosis identifies all that holds us back. The Enneagram is a map that helps us identify the habits that keep us clinging to our false assumptions and false self. Self-emptying is congruent with Tolle’s notion of observing the egoic attachments that hold you back.

8. Christianity’s primary practice is this deep, contemplative prayer and self emptying rooted in radical love of God, love of Love, love of the Oneness that is within all of us. Centering Prayer, lectio divina, spiritual direction, and self-observation all are contemplative practices which help us lovingly illuminate the difference between the false self and Self that is God.

9. Other practices include: kindness, compassion, empathy (the ability to understand and share the feelings of another), working for peace and justice, solidarity with those on the margins of society (the poor, the sick, the elderly, the disabled, the dying, those who are different in some way) who have unique taste of self-emptying.

Why? Because our conventional systemic structures don’t support their way of being in the world. This is why Jesus mentioned the poor and sick so often. This doesn’t mean they are better or more lovable. It simply means they possess an insight that bears a powerful witness that illuminates insights into the Christian spiritual journey. They invite us into our own resistances and fears.

10. Finally, much of contemporary Christian expression is rooted in the mythic understanding of God.

Kenosis is unfamiliar to many Christians. It is important to find support from others who travel this journey with you so we can experience this path and pass it onto future generations hungry for deeper meaning.

Our Integral women groups can be one of the communities to provide this support. We are many I’s who create a WE. We can offer one another support, love, insight and understanding as we travel this journey together.

If you are in our groups, I invite you to continue praying for each woman in your group by name. Pray that she lives into her own questions and my guess is, her questions will intersect with yours, and together, you can be guiding lights for each other.

If you are not, we invite your prayers for us as our interconnection knows no bounds.