Wasn't there a bit from Illuminatus, something like: "If all is one, then all violence is masochism". "Yes", ? replied nastily, "and then all sex is masturbation". Also see here.
You actually make Tolle's work sound more worthwhile than my extremely superficial impressions of it led me to believe.
I have trouble considering something like "you are god" an error or lie, exactly. Both "you" and "god" have highly indeterminate meanings and may not refer to anything concrete at all; so equating them represents a certain attitude of mind, but not (in my view) a factual error. It's not necessarily an interesting or productive or enlightening attitude, so it may be a spiritual error, I suppose.
Maybe I'll pose that as a challenge to to you (or a suggestion for a topic/page in your evolving treatise) to address the meta-level issue of how exactly do you evaluate and filter these sorts of spiritual/metaphysical ideas? What standards are there, other than personal taste, or consquentialism (people who believe in monism are more unhappy or start more wars, or something like that) or authority?
Please keep posting this kind of challenge (if you keep reading!). I can't give a very good answer yet, because I'm still in the phase of presenting the background conceptual machinery needed to make sense of the central points.
The issue of evaluation of my critique, in this case, is closely connected to the difficulty, which I sketched, of replying to Tolle. He makes (almost) no factual claims and presents (almost) no arguments. It's just a string of assertions.
Coming from any sort of intellectual background, it would seem that it would be sufficient to say "the burden of proof is on Tolle, so everyone should reject what he has to say out of hand."
But it appears that tens of millions of people have been persuaded by him. If one thinks that matters—which I do—then a burden-of-proof argument is a non-starter.
Instead one has to ask why do those people buy what he is selling, if not due to evidence or reason?
And the answer seems to be that he issues a series of promises that people really, really want to believe, and they accept them because the monist framework has replies to objections that have a convincing logic once you are inside.
So a critique has to be couched within that logic; and it has to present an alternative that is more plausible or more attractive within the world-view.
The critique has to show that monism can't deliver on its promises even in its own terms; but that my brand can (partly).
The first part is the sense of "error" that is relevant.
Let me sketch one example. One of monism's promises is to eliminate the alienation people feel that results from social separation. Its purported method for doing this is to get you to realize that All is One, so in fact there is no separation in the first place. In fact, you are token-identical to everyone else.
Now, we have to set aside the obvious point that you are not token-identical to everyone else; and the implausible claim that you can get yourself into a mind-state in which you "realize" that (short of severe dysfunction). Those are the kinds of specific, reality-based observations that monists blind themselves to.
A better approach may be to ask: Suppose you were token-identical to everyone else, and you "realized" that; would that actually address the social isolation you feel?
My hope is that, with a bit of Socratic dialog, this could lead people around to the answer "No."
I am ashamed to say I never heard of Tolle until twho weeks ago when a Zen blogger said he loved his writing. I ignored this until today and then I saw your post. Wow, what have I been missing. It shows the limited demographics I run in nowadays. But after reading your article,
I still don't know anything about Tolle except that he offers monistic dribble instead of dualistic dribble. But wait, you thought he lots of stuff right. Oh and you did say it was "system free" (I loved that concept), and you exposed his technique of just saying something over and over without evidence. But are you going to write a follow-up "post" on this, or did you just want to tell us that Tolle is example of the monism which you are going to tell us more about later?
The Wiki article on Tolle helped. You tell us that Tolle's falsity is just obviously false -- but this seemed a bit of a cheap move since it is not "obvious" to millions -- including that Zen blogger. Mind you, having read you, I deeply suspect you are right. But I was hoping for more substance.
You then mention 2 ways to deal with Tolle's monism: (1) show it has bad consequences -- but that sounds like it is a tough strategy. I must say, the major problem I have with many religions is the dualism which results in exclusivism (we live forever, you burn in hell) and thus my Atheist site. But liberal Christians and New Agers and probably Tolle monists strike me as tolerant and not as harmful to society from the exclusivist angle. Yet I have not liked the intellectual habits of these folks though I have had a hard time pinning it down. I wondered if those habits would have long term consequence that could be exposed. But such a venture is far to ambitious, I am afraid.
So that leads to your 2nd option -- present a better alternative to monism and dualism. So I guess we wait. But a few examples of internal inconsistencies would have be nice, since you hinted at that (I think) as a 3rd method. One more post, please.
Also, though Zen would seem a very natural home for me within Buddhism since I am a Japanophile to some degree (speak Japanese, play Go, practiced Japanese martial arts, love some anime [especially the monistic/animistic stuff...), nonetheless, many American Zen authors and practitioners seem to have many of the traits you allude to in criticizing monism. And it is for that exact reason that I find them unfortunately unpalatable for a large part. Do you have any of this experience. How deeply has monism affected American Buddhism? I kind of remember reading about an academic that discusses Buddhism's adaptation to the West -- and thus its evolution away from Asian Buddhism. The evolution probably incorporates pragmatism, German idealism (monism) and scientific flavoring. Do you know the name of that text or one like it that you'd recommend? [or are you writing it?] Smile
I must say that after your teaser-review, I am a bit tempted to read him just to see how this apparent best-seller which escaped my demographics is such a temptation to others. I guess a lists of the strengths of Tolle was something else you did not offer. But it sounds like it is coming. Sounds like the first commentor found nothing of value.
Do you know the demographics of those enthralled with him?
As I said in my last blog post, I don't think you can argue with religion, generally speaking. But it isn't just a matter of personal taste either, some stuff does seem to be better than others, and some of it seems downright fraudulent, but I don't really know how to characterize the differences.
I do think it is an error (maybe just a tactical one) to call monism an error or a lie. Because there are senses in which it is true. I prefer Minsky's quip that it is a "mind-destroying idea", except with the non-Minskyean twist that sometimes destroying your mind is exactly what you want to do...in a manner of speaking.
If monism leads to an inability to make any distinctions, or to complacency, or ennui, then it's an error. But if it is instead employed judiciously, as an antidote to taking boundaries too seriously, too fixedly, then it may be useful.
So, monism as a system may be an error, but monism as a tool, maybe not so much.
@Sabio, thanks for the long, detailed comment. It raises several different points. I think I'll reply to them separately...
Maybe what I've failed to emphasize is that the project in this blog series is one of intellectual history. I started out thus:
I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if tens of millions of people suddenly started spouting nonsense. I fear something terrible has happened.
I could be wrong. I have no statistics. But in the past few years, suddenly I hear seemingly sensible people going about saying “ultimately, it’s all one, isn’t it?” and “when you find your true self, you find the whole universe,” and “all religions teach the same truth.”
If that's right, a huge cultural shift is occurring; one that hardly anyone else seems to have noticed. I view this with alarm (because I think monism is wrong). In order to respond to it, I first want to understand how and why it has happened.
My guess is that a big part of the "how" is Eckhart Tolle's invention of the sleek new system-free version of monism. It's a brilliant invention. Like many brilliant inventions, it is obvious in retrospect; monism tries to slough off specifics anyway, so dropping them is a natural move.
I wasn't trying to write a review of the book here; as of today, you can find 1,555 of those on Amazon.
About "obvious falseness". Eventually I'll write out a detailed critique of monism. (That will be in the "book", not here in the blog.) But for now, in the case of Tolle, it's straightforward. He says, explicitly, that you are (1) God and (2) the entire universe. Then he doesn't really explain further. Are these claims not obviously false?
Being a liberal intellectual gets in the way here. You are tempted to say "well, there might be some sense in which those claims are true—and since they are obviously false if taken literally, and he is a nice and smart guy, he must have in mind some interesting metaphorical meaning for 'you' and 'God' and 'the universe' according to which these are useful claims."
The old German approach was to take this "speaker's benefit" and run with it, trying to pull the wool over your eyes by generating thousands of pages of vague abstract philosophical-sounding prose that elaborated on what was meant by "you are God". That strategy collapsed when the bluff was called; in the end, it turned out that there wasn't an interesting metaphorical sense in which it was useful (= "pragmatically true").
Tolle, recognizing that the obfuscation strategy no longer works, doesn't even try. (Except in the two one-page passages I mentioned, where he just can't resist his lineage.) He simply says "you are God", and either you say "Oh, wow, now I get it! I was blind, but now I can see! Now I am enlightened! I'm God! I'm One with Everything", or you say "Whoa! Something really bad is happening here if people are buying this stuff."
the major problem I have with many religions is the dualism which results in exclusivism (we live forever, you burn in hell) and thus my Atheist site. But... Tolle monists strike me as tolerant and not as harmful to society from the exclusivist angle. Yet I have not liked the intellectual habits of these folks though I have had a hard time pinning it down. I wondered if those habits would have long term consequence that could be exposed. But such a venture is far too ambitious, I am afraid.
I'm the sort of fool that occasionally rushes in where angels fear to tread... So I plan to do this.
Yes, I think that monism's apparent tolerance is a big part of its appeal. Technically, this is called "Perennialism"—the idea that all religions have value and are ultimately One Faith. This is one aspect of the Unity monism promises.
This sounds very nice, and monism attracts nice people—i.e. those who are so frightened of conflict that they avoid it in situations in which it's actually called for.
Monism sees all religions as having some value—but only to the extent that they agree with monism. Monism sees all other religions as distorted versions of monism, which is the One Faith. It is actually an extremely aggressive, hegemonic strategy. (It's interestingly similar to the Microsoft "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy for destroying competitors.)
Monism is highly intolerant of anyone who says "no, actually, my religion/philosophy is not the same as yours." Because monism presents itself as nice and inclusive, it is impossible to say "no, I disagree"—however politely—without being painted as aggressive and narrow yourself.
The book you are thinking of is David McMahan's The Making of Buddhist Modernism. It is brilliant and I can't recommend it highly enough.
McMahan follows up on another brilliant piece, by Thanissaro Bikkhu, an article called "Romancing the Buddha", which appeared in Tricycle, Winter 2002 issue. Thanissaro raised the first alarm about German Romantic Idealism infecting Buddhism. McMahan traces the history of this in more detail. I've spent much of my time in the past six months following their lead; this metablog series on the intellectual history of current pop monism is an early output from that.
Skipping a lot of fantastically interesting details, the essence of the matter is this:
In the 19th Century, Asian states realized that they were being crushed by the West, and that Western power derived largely from Western ideas. Several states decided to appropriate those ideas to use as weapons in turn. Japan was the clearest example. Japan took Germany as its model, and imported German ideas wholesale. By state decree, Zen was reformed to make it consistent with then-current German philosophy, which meant Romantic Idealism, which is monist through and through.
Buddhism traditionally was explicitly hostile to monism; but under pressure, some sort of synthesis was developed, mainly in Zen and some versions of Theravada. Buddhism also was reconfigured to make it more compatible with the scientific/rational worldview and with Western social/ethical values.
These "modernist" versions of Buddhism were, naturally, the forms that have been most influential in the West. Because they come from Asia, and since much of the work of synthesis was done in the 19th Century, very few Westerners realize that they are not traditional, and are based largely on Western ideas, sold back to Westerners are "timeless Eastern wisdom." Timeless Eastern wisdom that feels very comfortable because it mainly recycles Thoreau and Emerson and Schelling.
On the one hand, I'm really glad to see Buddhism reformed to remove traditional claims which science makes clear are nonsense—for example, the belief that the Buddhist hells are caves beneath the earth that you could physically reach simply by digging. Science is, actually, right.
On the other hand, I'm alarmed to observe that many famous mainstream American Buddhist teachers are promulgating monist ideas, without even realizing that these were considered anti-Buddhist before they were forcibly incorporated into Buddhism just over a century ago. That's because monism is, actually, wrong.
But if it is instead employed judiciously, as an antidote to taking boundaries too seriously, too fixedly, then it may be useful.
Yes. That's part of the "resolution" I will offer to the monism-dualism opposition.
Each confused stance is attractive in part because it has an accurate insight. And what you wrote here is the accurate insight in monism: that we are not separate from each other, from the natural world, or from the sacred. Those are the dualistic errors, which monism is right to reject.
The problem is that monism just flips it, and asserts identity. It rejects distinctions and differences and all details and specifics. That's also entirely wrong.
A highly condensed statement of the resolution:
There isn't any objectively correct way to partition the world into objects. However, it is non-uniform, and therefore pragmatic partitioning is often valuable or necessary for action. Different partitionings may be useful on different occasions. It is useful to look for non-obvious connections, but not useful to insist that everything is connected (especially not without specifying what the connection is).
I think the reason so many people find Tolle's books appealing is that he addresses a problem characterisic of our modern age: that of the incessant stream of patterns of conditioned thinking leading to anxiety and worry. His books help one cope with these types of thinking. Being so popular and commanding a pretty wide range or admirers, I am sure that people find different things in his teachings, but fundamentally, he mainly address these sort of mental overthinking problems that people are prone to and gives concrete advice on how to overcome them.
So I don't think you need to look too far, if you are trying to understand Tolle's appeal.
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Comments
I am he and you are me and we are all together
26 Dec 2010
Wasn't there a bit from Illuminatus, something like: "If all is one, then all violence is masochism". "Yes", ? replied nastily, "and then all sex is masturbation". Also see here.
You actually make Tolle's work sound more worthwhile than my extremely superficial impressions of it led me to believe.
I have trouble considering something like "you are god" an error or lie, exactly. Both "you" and "god" have highly indeterminate meanings and may not refer to anything concrete at all; so equating them represents a certain attitude of mind, but not (in my view) a factual error. It's not necessarily an interesting or productive or enlightening attitude, so it may be a spiritual error, I suppose.
Maybe I'll pose that as a challenge to to you (or a suggestion for a topic/page in your evolving treatise) to address the meta-level issue of how exactly do you evaluate and filter these sorts of spiritual/metaphysical ideas? What standards are there, other than personal taste, or consquentialism (people who believe in monism are more unhappy or start more wars, or something like that) or authority?
Evaluation
26 Dec 2010
Please keep posting this kind of challenge (if you keep reading!). I can't give a very good answer yet, because I'm still in the phase of presenting the background conceptual machinery needed to make sense of the central points.
The issue of evaluation of my critique, in this case, is closely connected to the difficulty, which I sketched, of replying to Tolle. He makes (almost) no factual claims and presents (almost) no arguments. It's just a string of assertions.
Coming from any sort of intellectual background, it would seem that it would be sufficient to say "the burden of proof is on Tolle, so everyone should reject what he has to say out of hand."
But it appears that tens of millions of people have been persuaded by him. If one thinks that matters—which I do—then a burden-of-proof argument is a non-starter.
Instead one has to ask why do those people buy what he is selling, if not due to evidence or reason?
And the answer seems to be that he issues a series of promises that people really, really want to believe, and they accept them because the monist framework has replies to objections that have a convincing logic once you are inside.
So a critique has to be couched within that logic; and it has to present an alternative that is more plausible or more attractive within the world-view.
The critique has to show that monism can't deliver on its promises even in its own terms; but that my brand can (partly).
The first part is the sense of "error" that is relevant.
Let me sketch one example. One of monism's promises is to eliminate the alienation people feel that results from social separation. Its purported method for doing this is to get you to realize that All is One, so in fact there is no separation in the first place. In fact, you are token-identical to everyone else.
Now, we have to set aside the obvious point that you are not token-identical to everyone else; and the implausible claim that you can get yourself into a mind-state in which you "realize" that (short of severe dysfunction). Those are the kinds of specific, reality-based observations that monists blind themselves to.
A better approach may be to ask: Suppose you were token-identical to everyone else, and you "realized" that; would that actually address the social isolation you feel?
My hope is that, with a bit of Socratic dialog, this could lead people around to the answer "No."
Never heard of Tolle
27 Dec 2010
I am ashamed to say I never heard of Tolle until twho weeks ago when a Zen blogger said he loved his writing. I ignored this until today and then I saw your post. Wow, what have I been missing. It shows the limited demographics I run in nowadays. But after reading your article,
I still don't know anything about Tolle except that he offers monistic dribble instead of dualistic dribble. But wait, you thought he lots of stuff right. Oh and you did say it was "system free" (I loved that concept), and you exposed his technique of just saying something over and over without evidence. But are you going to write a follow-up "post" on this, or did you just want to tell us that Tolle is example of the monism which you are going to tell us more about later?
The Wiki article on Tolle helped. You tell us that Tolle's falsity is just obviously false -- but this seemed a bit of a cheap move since it is not "obvious" to millions -- including that Zen blogger. Mind you, having read you, I deeply suspect you are right. But I was hoping for more substance.
You then mention 2 ways to deal with Tolle's monism: (1) show it has bad consequences -- but that sounds like it is a tough strategy. I must say, the major problem I have with many religions is the dualism which results in exclusivism (we live forever, you burn in hell) and thus my Atheist site. But liberal Christians and New Agers and probably Tolle monists strike me as tolerant and not as harmful to society from the exclusivist angle. Yet I have not liked the intellectual habits of these folks though I have had a hard time pinning it down. I wondered if those habits would have long term consequence that could be exposed. But such a venture is far to ambitious, I am afraid.
So that leads to your 2nd option -- present a better alternative to monism and dualism. So I guess we wait. But a few examples of internal inconsistencies would have be nice, since you hinted at that (I think) as a 3rd method. One more post, please.
Also, though Zen would seem a very natural home for me within Buddhism since I am a Japanophile to some degree (speak Japanese, play Go, practiced Japanese martial arts, love some anime [especially the monistic/animistic stuff...), nonetheless, many American Zen authors and practitioners seem to have many of the traits you allude to in criticizing monism. And it is for that exact reason that I find them unfortunately unpalatable for a large part. Do you have any of this experience. How deeply has monism affected American Buddhism? I kind of remember reading about an academic that discusses Buddhism's adaptation to the West -- and thus its evolution away from Asian Buddhism. The evolution probably incorporates pragmatism, German idealism (monism) and scientific flavoring. Do you know the name of that text or one like it that you'd recommend? [or are you writing it?] Smile
I must say that after your teaser-review, I am a bit tempted to read him just to see how this apparent best-seller which escaped my demographics is such a temptation to others. I guess a lists of the strengths of Tolle was something else you did not offer. But it sounds like it is coming. Sounds like the first commentor found nothing of value.
Do you know the demographics of those enthralled with him?
Monism as a tool
27 Dec 2010
As I said in my last blog post, I don't think you can argue with religion, generally speaking. But it isn't just a matter of personal taste either, some stuff does seem to be better than others, and some of it seems downright fraudulent, but I don't really know how to characterize the differences.
I do think it is an error (maybe just a tactical one) to call monism an error or a lie. Because there are senses in which it is true. I prefer Minsky's quip that it is a "mind-destroying idea", except with the non-Minskyean twist that sometimes destroying your mind is exactly what you want to do...in a manner of speaking.
If monism leads to an inability to make any distinctions, or to complacency, or ennui, then it's an error. But if it is instead employed judiciously, as an antidote to taking boundaries too seriously, too fixedly, then it may be useful.
So, monism as a system may be an error, but monism as a tool, maybe not so much.
Intellectual history
27 Dec 2010
@Sabio, thanks for the long, detailed comment. It raises several different points. I think I'll reply to them separately...
Maybe what I've failed to emphasize is that the project in this blog series is one of intellectual history. I started out thus:
If that's right, a huge cultural shift is occurring; one that hardly anyone else seems to have noticed. I view this with alarm (because I think monism is wrong). In order to respond to it, I first want to understand how and why it has happened.
My guess is that a big part of the "how" is Eckhart Tolle's invention of the sleek new system-free version of monism. It's a brilliant invention. Like many brilliant inventions, it is obvious in retrospect; monism tries to slough off specifics anyway, so dropping them is a natural move.
I wasn't trying to write a review of the book here; as of today, you can find 1,555 of those
on Amazon.
(I have written a page about Eckhart Tolle and Buddhism elsewhere. But I wrote that before I started to understand the roots of this stuff in German Romantic Idealism, which is key to understanding it.)
Monism: "obviously false"
27 Dec 2010
About "obvious falseness". Eventually I'll write out a detailed critique of monism. (That will be in the "book", not here in the blog.) But for now, in the case of Tolle, it's straightforward. He says, explicitly, that you are (1) God and (2) the entire universe. Then he doesn't really explain further. Are these claims not obviously false?
Being a liberal intellectual gets in the way here. You are tempted to say "well, there might be some sense in which those claims are true—and since they are obviously false if taken literally, and he is a nice and smart guy, he must have in mind some interesting metaphorical meaning for 'you' and 'God' and 'the universe' according to which these are useful claims."
The old German approach was to take this "speaker's benefit" and run with it, trying to pull the wool over your eyes by generating thousands of pages of vague abstract philosophical-sounding prose that elaborated on what was meant by "you are God". That strategy collapsed when the bluff was called; in the end, it turned out that there wasn't an interesting metaphorical sense in which it was useful (= "pragmatically true").
Tolle, recognizing that the obfuscation strategy no longer works, doesn't even try. (Except in the two one-page passages I mentioned, where he just can't resist his lineage.) He simply says "you are God", and either you say "Oh, wow, now I get it! I was blind, but now I can see! Now I am enlightened! I'm God! I'm One with Everything", or you say "Whoa! Something really bad is happening here if people are buying this stuff."
Monism and tolerance
27 Dec 2010
I'm the sort of fool that occasionally rushes in where angels fear to tread... So I plan to do this.
Yes, I think that monism's apparent tolerance is a big part of its appeal. Technically, this is called "Perennialism"—the idea that all religions have value and are ultimately One Faith. This is one aspect of the Unity monism promises.
This sounds very nice, and monism attracts nice people—i.e. those who are so frightened of conflict that they avoid it in situations in which it's actually called for.
Monism sees all religions as having some value—but only to the extent that they agree with monism. Monism sees all other religions as distorted versions of monism, which is the One Faith. It is actually an extremely aggressive, hegemonic strategy. (It's interestingly similar to the Microsoft "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy for destroying competitors.)
Monism is highly intolerant of anyone who says "no, actually, my religion/philosophy is not the same as yours." Because monism presents itself as nice and inclusive, it is impossible to say "no, I disagree"—however politely—without being painted as aggressive and narrow yourself.
I need to find ways to minimize that problem.
Monism in Zen and Buddhism generally
27 Dec 2010
The book you are thinking of is David McMahan's The Making of Buddhist Modernism
. It is brilliant and I can't recommend it highly enough.
McMahan follows up on another brilliant piece, by Thanissaro Bikkhu, an article called "Romancing the Buddha", which appeared in Tricycle, Winter 2002 issue. Thanissaro raised the first alarm about German Romantic Idealism infecting Buddhism. McMahan traces the history of this in more detail. I've spent much of my time in the past six months following their lead; this metablog series on the intellectual history of current pop monism is an early output from that.
Skipping a lot of fantastically interesting details, the essence of the matter is this:
In the 19th Century, Asian states realized that they were being crushed by the West, and that Western power derived largely from Western ideas. Several states decided to appropriate those ideas to use as weapons in turn. Japan was the clearest example. Japan took Germany as its model, and imported German ideas wholesale. By state decree, Zen was reformed to make it consistent with then-current German philosophy, which meant Romantic Idealism, which is monist through and through.
Buddhism traditionally was explicitly hostile to monism; but under pressure, some sort of synthesis was developed, mainly in Zen and some versions of Theravada. Buddhism also was reconfigured to make it more compatible with the scientific/rational worldview and with Western social/ethical values.
These "modernist" versions of Buddhism were, naturally, the forms that have been most influential in the West. Because they come from Asia, and since much of the work of synthesis was done in the 19th Century, very few Westerners realize that they are not traditional, and are based largely on Western ideas, sold back to Westerners are "timeless Eastern wisdom." Timeless Eastern wisdom that feels very comfortable because it mainly recycles Thoreau and Emerson and Schelling.
On the one hand, I'm really glad to see Buddhism reformed to remove traditional claims which science makes clear are nonsense—for example, the belief that the Buddhist hells are caves beneath the earth that you could physically reach simply by digging. Science is, actually, right.
On the other hand, I'm alarmed to observe that many famous mainstream American Buddhist teachers are promulgating monist ideas, without even realizing that these were considered anti-Buddhist before they were forcibly incorporated into Buddhism just over a century ago. That's because monism is, actually, wrong.
Monism as antidote
27 Dec 2010
Yes. That's part of the "resolution" I will offer to the monism-dualism opposition.
Each confused stance is attractive in part because it has an accurate insight. And what you wrote here is the accurate insight in monism: that we are not separate from each other, from the natural world, or from the sacred. Those are the dualistic errors, which monism is right to reject.
The problem is that monism just flips it, and asserts identity. It rejects distinctions and differences and all details and specifics. That's also entirely wrong.
A highly condensed statement of the resolution:
There isn't any objectively correct way to partition the world into objects. However, it is non-uniform, and therefore pragmatic partitioning is often valuable or necessary for action. Different partitionings may be useful on different occasions. It is useful to look for non-obvious connections, but not useful to insist that everything is connected (especially not without specifying what the connection is).
Tolle and monism
1 Feb 2012
I think the reason so many people find Tolle's books appealing is that he addresses a problem characterisic of our modern age: that of the incessant stream of patterns of conditioned thinking leading to anxiety and worry. His books help one cope with these types of thinking. Being so popular and commanding a pretty wide range or admirers, I am sure that people find different things in his teachings, but fundamentally, he mainly address these sort of mental overthinking problems that people are prone to and gives concrete advice on how to overcome them.
So I don't think you need to look too far, if you are trying to understand Tolle's appeal.
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