His
most recent book,
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, a sequel to his earlier best seller,
The Power of Now, has sold 6 million copies. When Oprah Winfrey read it, she was so inspired that she invited him to co-host a 10-week set of Internet seminars on how to simply be. So far, 35 million people worldwide have viewed these “webinars.”
In July, he launched Tolle TV, an Internet channel featuring his videotaped teachings and meditations. And his 2010 speaking tour, from Australia to five countries in Northern
Europe to the USA, winds up in
Madison Square Garden this fall.
Religious critics have called him the Antichrist for claiming you can save yourself, no God or Jesus required. Secular critics call his ideas and looping ways with language New Age twaddle.
This is someone who in conversation uses the term “is-ness” (the state of “being in the now”) who, when he says “human being,” means “being” as a verb. “I
am, you
are” — and nothing more need be said.
Sort of. Actually, it takes many words to map out an earthly path to Tolle’s “new heaven.”
On a sunny afternoon, strolling in a hillside garden landscape intensely designed to appear wild, Tolle explains how silence and stillness can lead you there.
The garden, with its ponds, fountains, wind chimes and statues, surrounds the home where he stays in the winter, a modern art-filled villa owned by a friend who lives nearby. Tolle and his partner of nearly a decade, meditation and yoga teacher Kim Eng, spend summers at their home in
British Columbia.
Tolle, 62, is a model of serenity: a small, fit man with glowing skin and clear, ice-blue eyes, the color of his Jaguar.
Sell millions of books and you, too, can replace your old car. But this is not a gig designed to funnel him wealth, or a new religion with him as chief guru. Subscriptions to Tolle TV, at $14.95 to $19.95 a month, cost less than a movie and popcorn, and a growing amount of the content — his lectures, teachings and meditations — is free.
Most of the proceeds of his books and teaching tours are plowed back into Tolle TV’s elaborate professional productions, or the overhead for lecture halls. This enables him to reach an ever-widening audience without forcing solitude-loving Tolle to travel constantly, says Anthony McLaughlin, CEO of Eckhart Teachings and co-founder of Tolle TV. McLaughlin is also a disciple and Eng’s son-in-law.
Amid oak and lemon trees, cactus and jade plants, ferns and flowers, Tolle finds an ideal setting to talk about his insights.
They’re a far cry from the Catholicism of his childhood…
