Eckhart Tolle Teacher Quotations

If the only teacher you have is your suffering, you will need a substantial dose of it for the ego to dissolve. But if the power of spiritual teaching is already at work, then a minor event can dissolve the ego.

Teaching a practice can also be a hindrance if it becomes one's identity. To be a spiritual teacher is a temporary function. I'm a spiritual teacher when somebody comes to me and some teaching happens, but the moment they leave I'm no longer a spiritual teacher. If I carry the identity of spiritual teacher, it will cause suffering.

There have been many people for whom limitations, failure, loss, or pain in whatever form turned out to be their greatest teacher. It taught them to let go of false self-images and superficial ego-dictated goals and desires. It gave them depth, humility and compassion. It made them more real.

I have seen cases where people seemed to become totally free of ego, and at some point in their lives the ego came back. It has happened, for example, to some spiritual teachers. At some point in their lives, they began to identify again with form.

A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth of who you already are and what you already know in the depth of your being

When I'm with people, I'm a spiritual teacher. That's the function, but it's not my identity. The moment I'm alone, my deepest joy is to benobody, to relinquish the function of a teacher. It's a temporary function.

Now if a teacher gives you a practice, he or she would perhaps point out when you don't need it anymore or you realize yourself when you don't need it anymore.

Some of the first human beings in whom the new consciousness emerged fully became the great teachers of humanity, such as Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Jesus, although their teachings were greatly misunderstood, especially when they turned into organized religion. They were the first manifestations of the flowering of human consciousness.

That is the challenge of a spiritual teacher: not to take on board the projections of specialness people have. This is especially dangerous for spiritual teachers who only have contact with disciples or followers, who may live in an ashram.

People always form images of who others are, and they can be inflated images. People may not realize that the enormous energy and spiritual power that comes through a teacher, especially in a teaching situation, has nothing to do with that person.

For spiritual teachers, it is important not to identify with the image people inevitably have of them.

A teacher or teaching is not essential for spiritual awakening, but they save time.

When there's a teacher who embodies presence, then it seems to come for a while through that opening. The teacher is an opening to presence.

I've received more and more emails from teachers saying that they are beginning to teach presence in their classroom without necessarily calling it that or calling it anything, not as part of the official curriculum. It's like an underground movement not yet officially recognized by the educational authorities - at least not as far as I know!

Every spiritual teaching points to the possibility of the end of suffering - Now. It is true that most teachers have had to go through the "Dark Night of the Soul," although for one or two it was very, very quick.

One could say that everybody in this world has a spiritual teacher. For most people, their losses and disasters represent the teacher; their suffering is the teacher.

If I thought it was my identity to be a spiritual teacher, that would be a delusion. It's not an identity. It's simply a function in this world.

"Spiritual teacher" of course is not an identity. "Spiritual teacher" is a function. Somebody comes, the teaching happens. Somebody leaves, there's no spiritual teacher left.

It is very hard to tell when I started to be a spiritual teacher. There was a time when occasionally somebody would come and ask me questions. One could say at that point I became a spiritual teacher, although the term did not occur to me then.

Once the awakening happens, with it comes the realization that suffering is unnecessary now. You have reached the end of suffering because you have transcended the world. It is the place that is free of suffering. This seems to be everybody's path. Perhaps it is not everybody's path in this lifetime, but it seems to be a universal path. Even without a spiritual teaching or a spiritual teacher, I believe that everybody would get there eventually. But that could take time.