A New Earth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”
― Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
“If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.”
― John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Maybe, in an idealized world, somewhere else, in some far-off galaxy…this crap works. But, here, in this world, you’d have to be smoking or drinking something mind altering for that type of thinking to be realistic.
When Mr. Tolle asks how we know that we’re having the experience we need and responds to that with “because it’s the experience that you’re having at the moment”, it’s akin to responding to the question of why am I not a millionaire yet with the answer, “because you’re not a millionaire yet.”
Of course, those types of questions are easy to both ask and answer when you’re the one asking them and responding to them at the same time.
As for Mr. O’Donohue, saying that if we give out love, we’ll get it back ten thousand times over, I assume that Mr. O’Donohue has never been in a check-out line, holding a couple of items and let someone in ahead of him because they look antsy, only to find out that they’ve done an entire week’s worth of shopping, needed a price check 3 times and, can’t remember the pin for their credit card to pay.
Most of all, I beg to differ with Mr. O’Donohue’s theory that the more love you give away, the more love you will have. In what universe does that happen? I’d love to visit that place because in my world, the more love that I’ve given away, the more kicks in the ass I’ve gotten in return and, I think I can speak decently fair on behalf of a lot of people who have given their hearts to their partners or spouses, only to find that jerk, off with a younger or wealthier version, five, ten or thirty years down the road or, to give everything they have to their kids only to realize that the kids can never find the phone to call or, the time or want, to make a visit even when they live ten minutes away…by foot.
However, they do make great wishful fodder for desperate people to buy their books so, sure they’ll get back ten thousand times and of course, they know it’s the experience that they need. They’re laughing all the way to the bank with our money.
I’ve spent a lot of time with friends, trying to help them out with their problems. We’re not just talking a couple of hours here. We’re talking months and months and in some cases, years worth of sleepless nights, tears and worry over other people’s problems. You’d think that would make you something special to them, wouldn’t you? Uh, not at all. Try having a problem of your own and calling up one of them. You’ll quickly find one of two things. Either they’re suddenly too busy and will call you back (don’t hold your breath for that call to come in) or, they’ll listen for all of five minutes before they’ll quickly find a word, a phrase or something you’ve said as an opening for them to jump right back into their own situations and you’re off on another two or three-hour spree of listening. Now, you’ve not only got your own problems to still be dealt with but, you’re also carrying around theirs with you as well. So much for being kind, giving love and, knowing that it’s what you need because it’s where you are at the moment. I’d rather be cleaning my toilets. At least that would be productive for self.
A next door neighbour I had for over 30 years was a giant pain in the ass for the entire 30 years. She’d regularly call police about anything we did, including my husband and myself, simply sitting out in our backyard to have dinner on a lovely summer’s day, (barely talking) to say that we were causing a disturbance or, making up things to have a reason to call on us because she didn’t think we should have planted roses alongside the fence that bordered between our two yards.
After awhile, we knew every police officer on the force and became friends with a few after they’d make it look good by sitting for a coffee with us to say that they’d “made the call”. That aside, the fact remained that for the entire three decades worth, we were in misery with this woman and tried our best to stay away from her, not bother her in any way, to simply be at peace.
A couple of years ago, we got a knock on our door by a total stranger. Out of breath, he told us that a lady had fallen in broken English and tried to get us to follow him. Of course, of the billions of people in this world that can’t go to the bathroom without their cell phones, this man didn’t have one. Grabbing mine, we headed off behind him, only to find him pointing down the driveway of the pain-in-the-ass neighbour’s property and into her backyard. With great hesitancy, we entered her backyard where we found her, laying, semi-conscious and began first aid on her while calling 911 for help.
We’d never seen a relative or friend of hers come by in over 30 years so, we had no clue what health issues she had or what her circumstances were so, we searched through papers, looked for medication bottles, anything we could find as paramedics attended to her. We were left with the key to her house that we’d found by the paramedics as she had two cats that needed to be fed and cared for and didn’t know what her state was at that point in time.
After searching a bit more, we found phone numbers in an address book and started calling them one by one to find relatives, friends, anyone who knew more than we did about her as well as to take care of her property and cats. We figured that if she was to come around and find out we had been in her home, we’d be accused of stealing her deaf, dumb and blind. It was only a few days later when we wished that would have been the only thing to deal with.
Two days later, police and the coroner began and investigation on us and we were being questioned over and over again, not knowing why. One of her relatives called to tell us that we were “suspects in her murder”. We hadn’t even been informed that she had passed away the next day. Shocked and stunned, we got ourselves a lawyer, spending several hundred dollars as a retainer, only to find that the autopsy showed that she had passed on due to a massive heart attack and stroke because she hadn’t ever taken the prescribed meds she was given by her cardiologist. Not only were we out the several hundred dollars but, we ended up spending more of our own money to help one of her sick and ailing cats within the first day she was in the hospital.
Long story cut short, I’m sure that Mr. Tolle and Mr. O’Donohue have never met the people we have met and, I will go out onto a limb to surmise that neither of these men are sober when they write this stuff. Either that or, they have simply found a way to sell books by saying what people want to hear.
To Mr. Tolle and Mr. O’Donohue, I’d like to extend an open and welcome invitation to come to my neck of the woods and show me how to live life like this because besides opening a bottle of vodka and continuously drinking, I do not seem to be able to both understand nor, be able to re-create what they’re peddling in their advice.
I wonder how charmed their lives are beyond their royalty checks for such thinking? Maybe, Tolle, O’Donohue and Rhonda Byrnes (aka The Secret, The Magic and The Power author) are all neighbours, having a drink and toasting the idiots that buy into their pure crap?
They might be exactly where they need to be at this moment but, I’m sure not where I need to be and, if I am….I’ve got to wonder….what the hell am I thinking?
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- Anam cara (learningfromdogs.com)
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