What do you make of Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now?

[Starman]

Spirituality was the original psychology. Then psychology moved into religion and the church, where exorcisms were done and people with mental instability were considered possessed by demons, or out right put to death on the say of religious clergy.

Hippocrates took medicine and mental illness away from the church and introduced a more scientific approach. Psychiatry grew from medicine and psychology grew from psychiatry, but the origins were in spiritual practices. Sigmund Freud came along and introduced new, and more socially acceptable models of treating mental illness.

Psychology developed as a reaction against psychiatry. Psychiatry was doing psychosurgery, electric shock treatments, using lots of heavy drugs to sedate people, and stigmatizing people with psychological diagnostic labels, among other things. Psychology came along with a lot of different schools of thought.

Psychologists do not prescribe medication, do not do surgery or electric shock, and many of them only use diagnostic labels to get paid by insurance companies. Although there are psychologists who are closely aligned with psychiatrists. There are lots of different schools of thought on psychology, most that are not mainstream.

A person can get a masters or doctorate degree in Buddhist psychology and become a therapist. Esoteric psychology is not mainstream but lots of people embrace it. Other schools of thought like Gestalt psychology, which was developed back in the early 20th century, has become more acceptable in the mainstream.

The word “psyche” in Greek means soul and the dictionary says it means human soul, mind, or spirit. That the name of this professional scientific field of endeavor choose a prefix that directly points to the soul and or spirit, says a lot about the origins of mental health treatment. The stigma of mental illness today stems from it being viewed in ancient times as evil possession.

Originally Posted by Spiritual_Light

I've watched quite a lot of videos of Eckhart Tolle and read parts of his books... some people, but it didn't resonate for me spiritually.

hm, interesting thanks for sharing. I will have to look more deeply into Tolle's teachings

Originally Posted by Starman

Spirituality was the original psychology... as evil possession.

And if course thank you Starman for your insightful comments

And to everyone else as well

[ajay00]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Schizophrenia and Spirituality light up the same areas of the brain. It could also be argued that declaring oneself as a 'Spiritual Being' is dissociative, and you'd be surprised how much psychology there is in Spirituality. The ancients didn't distinguish between what we call psychology and their religion/philosophy, to them there was no difference.

Psychology is the framework for one's Spirituality and if people don't want to understand that then......

This is incorrect from the eastern perspective.

Psychology is considered to be the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behaviour in a given context.

Spirituality, especially from the eastern context, deals with the Self or no-mind, which is what Tolle also talks about to a large extent using the term Being instead. One has to go beyond the mind and its thoughts and emotions, to access this state of consciousness.

Eastern enlightened sages like Buddha and Ramana had stated that peace and bliss is one's own intrinsic nature and provided methodologies for accessing it.

Pruning the mind and its activities through psychological techniques will not work in the long run due to the infinite nature of thought and imagination It is a sort of hacking at the countless leaves rather than trying to perceive the roots of the issue and tackling it there.

Originally Posted by Greenslade

The Power of Now is dissociative because what it doesn't do is tackle the real issues, which are often caused by dissociation in the first place. Sometimes people simply don't want to deal with their created internal realities so they look for an avoidance/denial mechanism, which is often Spirituality.

Dissociative disorders are mental disorders that involve experiencing a disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions and identity. People with dissociative disorders escape reality in ways that are involuntary and unhealthy and cause problems with functioning in everyday life.

Such dissociative disorders arise because of psychological time, wherein one lives compulsively in his thoughts in the past through memories or future through imagination, thereby losing touch with present moment reality , which is the now.

Tolle's emphasis on present moment awareness actually helps to tackle this issue of dissociation by anchoring oneself in present moment reality rather than avoid it.

Truth is obviously exact correspondence with reality, and present moment awareness is considered synonymous with truth in eastern philosophies.

Most errors at work or accidents take place because one is lost in thoughts and emotions arising from past memories or future imagination, rather than being in present moment awareness and attending to the work at hand.

If you keep a diary and log, you can easily detect and trace lapses or errors in work to such mental distractions.

Zen and present moment awareness is also emphasized in eastern martial arts so as to provide the right response in a situation rather than an inappropriate and flawed reaction.

This is very simple, but often needlessly complicated by unconscious thinking and emoting arising from past memories and imagination which is again a denial of reality.

Psychological damage further inhibits the ability to discipline the mind.

I repeat that a certain level of mental health is needed just to understand and comprehend this fact, and to diligently work on ensuring proper restraint and direction of the mind through meditation and self-awareness.

However some people, as my own enlightened friend reported, suffers from psychological damage due to too much of grief and suffering in their minds, that they are not able to operate it appropriately and in a proper fashion.

Some soon take to drugs and alcohol to escape the psychological agony of their own minds, and further impair this delicate instrument. Diseases like bipolar and so on also complicate the problem.

For such meditation, vipassana or other spiritual techniques will not be of much utility at present. These systems created by ancient masters were not designed to handle this sort of damage. The same would go for Tolle's teachings.

Present eastern enlightened masters have also stated that modern civilization puts tremendous stress and pressure on man which is unprecedented and which is a major reason for the rising cases and rates of psychological disorders.

Unless people make drastic changes in their lifestyle and personal culture prioritizing their physical and mental health, these rates will continue to increase.