Stillness Speaks
by Eckhart Tolle
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Book Reviews of Stillness Speaks
Book Review: A helpful revisit of the main signposts in The Power of Now
Summary: 4 Stars
The Power of Now is my all time favorite book. It has changed my life in ways no other book has. I first read it one and a half years ago and have read it diligently since then. I listen to the CD's in my car almost daily. Last year I had the priveledge of going on a 5 day retreat with Eckhart at the Omega Institute in New York. It was a powerful, life changing experience and I can say he is the real thing. He is an embodiment of what we're all looking for.So I looked forward to Stillness Speaks since I read about it months ago. It is a good book. However, like Practicing the Power of Now, Stillness Speaks supports and strengthens the ideas in The Power of Now, but doesn't continue on from them. In other words, there's nothing new in Stillness Speaks. Which is fine and as it should be. The Power of Now said it all. Stillness Speaks seems designed as a way to go deeper into the concepts of The Power of Now. It's the main signposts in The Power of Now communicated and packaged in a different way. Therefore, it's not the new, groundbreaking book The Power of Now is. The content of Stillness Speaks will be familiar to everyone who has read The Power of Now. For this reason I give it four stars instead of five.
I know I'll be reading, contemplating and meditating on Stillness Speaks for years to come. Stillness Speaks is not a conventional book, but a series of 200 short entries that are meant to be read one by one and meditated on. I would say one would have to fully read The Power of Now in order to get full benefit from Stillness Speaks. As with Practicing The Power of Now, I would recommend Stillness Speaks to those who have read The Power of Now and want to go deeper into it.
Book Review: A Great Book with Intuitively Recognizable Truths
Summary: 5 Stars
"Stillness Speaks" is a surprisingly good follow up to "The Power of Now". The message of being present and liberating oneself from the imprisonment of thought is largely the same, but the format of this book is more compact and accessible and also places Tolle's message in more specific contexts.
In "Stillness Speaks", Eckhart Tolle replaces the Q&A format found in "The Power of Now" with a direct and pithy narrative style modeled on Sutras. The first chapter essentially provides the book's entire message while subsequent ones place that message in more specific contexts such as how to bring stillness, awareness, and compassion to work or relationships.
This book, like its predecessor contains much truth. It is the kind of truth that you don't really have to think about because either you'll recognize it intuitively or you won't. While I found both "Stillness Speaks" and "The Power of Now" to be useful, powerful books, I was also a little put off by the author's subtle tone of righteous arrogance. A small but significant amount of the "energy" in each book is directed toward establishing Tolle's credentials as a guru. This, along with the intense sales and marketing found on his home page, seems wasteful, contradictory, and unnecessary.
Despite, these misgivings, I highly recommend this book for its invaluable teachings. The message has always bee here regardless of who continues to bring it or how it arrives. I understand that Tolle's next book is about bringing consciousness to one's flatulent behavior and that its title will be "Stillness Squeaks".
Book Review: The feel of an Upanishad
Summary: 5 Stars
Eckhart Tolle's second book has been awaited for a while by those who found the wisdom and grace of the first to be an extraordinary experience. This book is smaller on content and perhaps more complex in profundity. The Power of Now operated at all levels; it was one of those rare books which could actually get people to begin a spiritual practice with some seriousness, while those already in the swim found it to be a valuable guide. Stillness Speaks tilts a bit towards the already serious spiritual practitioner. Not that a beginner would not profit from it but my guess is that people who have done their processes and transformed themselves are likely to extract the most from this tight little spiritual classic.Stillness Speaks has some of the feel of an Upanishad. A master discourses on important spiritual issues and you access the level you are capable of. When you come back to it, you find that the book has changed too, speaking to you at a depth you might not have suspected even existed - in you! Tolle is evolving towards an aphoristic style of communication; anything longer would tend to be false to the essence of being in the Now which is his difficult/simple message. It is a book that triggers rumination in you even more powerfully than The Power of Now. My personal favorite, something that set off a liberating snort of laughter, is the conclusion to Chapter Six -"Leave Life alone. Let it be."
I feel that not learning from this book would be a blunder.
Book Review: Heard it, but wish I had read it
Summary: 4 Stars
A friend lent me the CD version of STILLNESS SPEAKS, writtenand read by Eckhart Tolle . . . this was my introduction to the
author, and because I was so impressed with what he has
to say, I now look forward to reading his classic book (THE POWER
OF NOW).
Tolle talks about living in "the state of the presence," a living in the
"now" that is both inspirational and practical . . . in doing so, the
pressures of future and past thinking disappear . . . fear and
frustration also vanish, conquered by the moment.
STILLNESS SPEAKS takes the form of 200 individual entries,
organized into 10 topic clusters that range from "Beyond the
Thinking Mind" to "Suffering and the End of Suffering" . . . the
entries are concise and complete in themselves, but heard
together, they make a powerful whole.
Be forewarned that Tolle speaks v-e-r-y slowly, so it might
take you some time to get used to his narration.
The other drawback to listening to the book was that I was
driving when listening to it and, as such, could not copy
down all the entries; e.g., to share with you . . . but I
was able to jot down the following that caught my attention:
Reincarnation doesn't help you if in your next incarnation you still
know who you are.
Love does not want or fear anything.
Naming something as bad causes an emotional contradiction
within you.
Book Review: A dose of sanity
Summary: 5 Stars
I have just read 'The Power of Now', and had actually read 'Stillness Speaks' before that. I would recommend buying 'The Power of Now' first if mindfulness is fairly new to you. The Power of Now provides more of a foundation for the mind, before going beyond mind and into presence. 'Stillness Speaks', on the other hand, is condensed snippets that are like immediate portals into stillness and sanity for those who have some familiarity with mindfulness/meditation already, as I did. That said, I found 'Stillness Speaks' an immediate and refreshing facilitator of stillness/presence/being for me....and it continues to be this each time I pick it up. A homecoming to 'sanity'. It cuts through mental noisiness, reminds me of my depths and that life is here and now.
In 'Power of Now' Tolle suggests we listen with more than the mind, almost like listening with the body when we read. I instantly recognised in this description my primary mode of reading spiritual texts, and you may too; and I find Tolle's writing very nourishing when read in this subtle way. If my mind is too dominant and I'm in resistance to the moment, however, his writing appears to lack depth or interest, and the way appears barred to me! This suggests to me that his writing does indeed come from a place of being, and not from an egoic, mental level. While I'll read others for more mind-food, I'll continue to dip into Tolle for soul-food and instant peace.