The Power of Eckhart

I read a current article in the magazine What Is Enlightenment? about Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now.  I could hear his voice in my head as I read, just as it sounded on the DVD of one of his teachings (I forget which one).  Eckhart always affects me the same way when I hear him or read something by him -- I am suddenly able to focus on the moment, whereas a few moments before I was mentally running in circles.

I'm not the only one amazed by this German mystic.  In an recent article by Tom Huston entitled, "Getting Clear on Enlightenment," Huston raves about Tolle's book:

Published a few years ago, but just recently released in paperback, German mystic Eckhart Tolle's lucid and accessible exegesis on the highest of spiritual attainments has sold over two million copies (sales that were due, in no small part, to Oprah Winfrey's 2002 televised endorsement of the book as one she has read eight times and keeps on her bedside table). The endless popularity of New Age and self-help books notwithstanding, these figures are surprising because Tolle's mystical manifesto is popularizing and conveying a level of spiritual depth that has typically remained inaccessible to all but a chosen few. In fact, with its constant emphasis on transcending the “egoic mind” and powerful transmission of the awakened state of timeless presence, The Power of Now is like pop spirituality on steroids. Yet it is also merely the most visible book in a genre that over the past decade, has been working harder than ever to bring enlightenment down from the mountaintop of esoteric traditions like Zen and Sufism and cast it free into the secular mainstream.

Of all the "enlightened masters" I've read about, or read articles by, or saw on TV or on DVD, Eckhart Tolle leaves no doubt in my mind that he is exactly what he says he is.  Just looking at him speak, you can see that he lives truly in This Moment.  His presence, or should I say Presence, transmit his teachings just as well, if not better, than his words do.  I'll have to cause myself to meet him someday.