Eckhart Tolle & Hafiz
I came across this 90 minute YouTube presentation about Sufism as I was writing last night. I never knew it existed. And I have never read any of Eckhart's books, as I don't really read (I have only read 4 books, cover to cover, in 40 years— two of which my teacher asked me to read while staying with him in India); or ever watched one of his talks until this one. And the above title of this blog entry is mine; though for reasons one could understand if they watch this video.
I am not sure how old this video is. Eckhart looks very youthful here. This version was dated March 2023, and may be a repost by the Eckhart Tolle camp.
Most of the first hour of it was something, to my mind, of a wonderful seminar about Sufism, with Sufi stories and some quotes of Rumi. It also got into aspects of Christianity, Buddhism, religions in general, and the psychology or metaphysics of the spiritual path— or the alchemy of enlightenment.
He used the phrase: “Inseparable from who you are,” to describe your relationship with Reality, with God. And I was surprised how often he used the word God in this talk, but was delighted in that, as I am a God crazy one— longing to float around in some Cosmic Cowgirl wine barrel, in the Beloved’s embrace. Crazy to get back into the Sky’s—Heaven’s—belly again, and get digested into the Infinite, into the soul of Existence.
The very first five minutes of this video I felt like I was quietly sitting down with some Zen master over a cup of tea, and at some point he casually says (my rendering):
“O by the way, just reach into your pocket and lift Buddha out, and put him in your mouth like a cough drop that can cure everything. And as it melts, so will you into the Sun again. And then you won't have to bug me anymore into talking. We can just live the roles in that sweet Hafiz poem where he says:
God and i have become like two giant fat people
living in a tiny boat, we keep bumping into each
other— and laughing.
— Hafiz
I was amazed to see this remarkably respected world teacher— perhaps maybe even the most popular living spiritual teacher in the world today— hold up a copy of my Hafiz book, The Gift, about 16 minutes into this talk, and say: “How deeply meaningful this book was to him and he hoped it would be to others.” And then he even devoted the last 30 minutes of this video reading poems from The Gift, and breaking the poems more open— a tradition that has been going on with Rumi and Hafiz poems for centuries.
Such thanks to you Eckhart, such great thanks to you for sharing my life’s work with so many as you have, on a couple occasions I understand; like once on an Oprah special. You are Yoda— in the flesh, for so many. Wonderful. Wonderful.