Podcast Recommendation: Speaking of Faith, Eckhart Tolle

I spend a lot of time listening to my iPod at work either because there are people around who I want to drown out or, ironically, because there are no people around and I need some noise. In any case, one of the podcasts that I download is Krista Tippet’s “speaking of faith” from NPR. Note that I said one of the podcasts I download, not one of the podcasts I listen to. I haven’t been listening to podcasts much recently because they often require a higher level of concentration than I can devote while simultaneously running experiments. This is all a roundabout way of saying that I’m not actually listening to the podcast from the show that aired, lets say, last week. Anyway, I listed to Tippet’s interview with Eckhart Tolle the other day and found it quite interesting.

A disclaimer: I own Tolle’s “The Power of Now”. It appealed to me because I think I spend quite a lot of time in the past and the future and not really enough time in the present. I can understand this concept intellectually (as I understand most things) but even with that understanding, I am perpetually trying and failing to change (more on that later). In any case, I bought the book, but am unable to get past the quasi-spiritual, Oprah’s book club, self-help “feel” of it, and therefore haven’t made it very far into the book in the six months that I’ve had it. I should also note that Tolle tries to address this objection directly by asking us, the reader, to suspend our preconceived notions but I have thus far been unable to do so. I recognize that this inability is related to my inability to let go of a certain view of myself that I have constructed as an ironic, cynical and wary of spiritual “mumbo-jumbo”. I am aware that this view of myself is at best only partially true and most certainly, as I said, only a mental construct and yet I must believe it offers me some sort of protection, because I cling to it. Right. Enough with the rambling introspection. What I’ve pointed out (if you are unfamiliar with Tolle or if you’ve somehow missed the point that, subtlety not being my strong suit, I’ve been slamming over your head) is that I have very neatly fallen into that trap of which Tolle warns, of mistaking my mental construct of myself, my mind, for my self. Not only that, but then when something threatens that mental construct, I feel threatened by it. But again, I digress.

The thing is, I think, despite my reservations about the style of Tolle’s book, that the point he is making is valid and I found Tippet’s interview of him a much easier way to enter into an internal discussion about it than his book was. I’ve read reviews of SOF and they often talk about Tippet’s style as asking her guests to tell their own stories. This is the first interview where I’ve completely understood what they mean. She does not ask Tolle to teach, she simply asks him to explain what and how his life led him to his beliefs. This for me is a much more powerful story. Anyway, I recommend the podcast and would be interested to know what other people think. Do you meditate? Do you wish you could live more in the “now”? How do you achieve that?

*Edit: It occurs to me that a link might be a nice thing to include. Here is a link to the show.