Tag: tolle

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Small Business Marketing: Lessons from Eckhart Tolle

awakening - an exploding light

awakening - an exploding light

As far as I know, Eckhart Tolle does not write about small business marketing.  However, his focus on creating a better life through consciousness has profound implications for small business owners and their marketing efforts.  So profound, in fact, that I am unlikely to offer more than a surface exploration of Eckhart Tolle’s writing and its implications for small business marketing.

Photo credit: The birth of consciousness by Kevin Dooley 

Small business marketing: Being controlled by your thoughts

A fundamental principle espoused by Eckhart Tolle is that you spend so little time in consciousness, if at all.  He talks a lot about the tyranny of your mind and emotions – often the emotions are generated by your own thoughts.

So his proposition is that you are captive to your own thoughts and these, in turn, are driven by Ego – a hard proposition for anyone to swallow for sure.  However, just reflect! – when was the last time that you were free from the tyranny of thinking about the past or the future? When are you just conscious of the present moment, your own existence, your breath, your surrounds (including the sounds)?  Even when you see something or hear something, you immediately attempt to interpret it or categorise it. 

The march of the Ego – non awareness 

When Eckhart Tolle explains what he means by Ego and its impact, it is easy to understand and relate to what he is getting at.  He suggests that much of your thoughts flow from the need to justify your actions, compare yourself with others, strengthen your perceived position relative to others or delude yourself by ignoring the hard realities. 

It is a useful practice to just listen to your own thoughts – what messages are you giving yourself.  Is it that you are not good enough or recognised enough?  Is it that you cannot tolerate someone ‘junior’ pointing out mistakes or another way?  Is it that you refuse to explore other options for marketing your small business because you ‘think’ that it might not turn out well and show you in a bad light? 

It is very enlightening to listen to your own self-talk and to become aware of how your self-talk sabotages your own efforts.  It is particularly instructive for you to listen to how you justify your actions and to identify what is the reference point for those justifications.  It is even more instructive to explore why you ‘feel’ a need to justify yourself at all. 

Small business marketing – the impact of Eckhart Tolle’s ‘being conscious’ 

Eckhart Tolle argues that you are not your thoughts, you just ARE!  Your thoughts, along with your derived emotions, are part of your external reality – they are not ‘who you are’.   Being conscious is a state of stillness – of awakening to your inner reality.  

He offers you ways to be conscious, to awake to the power of your present moment – to break free of the limitations of your thoughts and emotions.   Eckhart Tolle argues that it is only through being conscious that you can tap into your creative spirit.  It takes but a moment to be conscious – and a series of conscious moments to start transforming the way you live. 

Eckhart Tolle has some sobering lessons for small business marketing – it is not in frenetic activity or thought, but in conscious stillness, that true creative endeavour is realized.

 

 

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Eckhart Tolle Talks to Google: Technology and Consciousness

 

Bradley Horowitz interviewed Eckhart Tolle at Google and discovered Tolle’s views on technology and consciousness.  The interview in front of Google staff is available on YouTube or can be played directly from this blog (90 minutes – 60 minutes interview and 30 minutes Q & A).

It would be a bit of a stretch to call it an ‘interview’ – for example, Horowitz asked Tolle, “What is Wisdom?’ and 20 minutes later was able to ask another question.

The responses from Eckhart Tolle to a limited number of interview questions were both profound and practical.  He started off by extolling the openness and transparency of the Google work environment and its conduciveness to creativity.  However, he had a warning, ‘We are in danger of losing ourselves in technology’.

Eckhart Tolle’s Question: Are you losing yourself in technology?

A key point that Eckhart Tolle makes in the interview is that you are constantly bombarded by information and get sucked into the endless stream of new knowledge.  The consequence, he suggests, is that you can lose yourself in technology.  He argues that you end up living in your mind and not in your consciousness which fundamentally determines who you are.  So if you are not connected to your real self, you can become confused, over-powered and disorientated by more and more information.

Tolle advances the idea that living in your mind all the time creates a number of core issues.  You become preoccupied with problems and with the future or the past – you are not in the present.  He maintains that it is only in the Power of the Now (the present moment) that you become truly creative.  Being in the moment taps into your consciousness and your creative existence.  It ultimately contributes to your productivity because you are able to better use your time.
 

Eckhart Tolle: The return to consciousness

Tolle suggests that you can stop yourself even for a minute or two (or 30 seconds) to tap into the present moment.  You can do this on a number of levels:
  1. your sensory perception – seeing and feeling your surroundings and the energy embedded in the objects in your environment
  2. your inner body – getting in touch with your own body and inner sensations (e.g. how you feel in the moment)
  3. your consciousness – the essential you.

Tolle offers a number of simple ways to access this consciousness and your essential self.  He proposes a number of simple steps that you can take to still your mind and get in touch with your consciousness:

  • fix your gaze on something natural, e.g. a plant, the sky, the trees outside your window
  • look at some image on your computer screen that you have added to serve as a meditation reminder or catalyst
  • be conscious of your in-breath and your out-breath for a moment – conscious breathing.

He maintains that if you practise being in the moment often enough you will attain a new level of consciousness, increased creativity and a better quality of life – you will actually live, not just think.  The other key benefit that Eckhart Tolle offers is that your problems will fall away because you will have new insights and perspectives that will help to dissolve your issues.

It is intriguing to watch Eckhart Tolle talk to managers and staff at Google (the epitomy of technology), about the dangers of technology and the need for a return to consciousness to maintain the quality of our human lives.