Yes, here is the correct link to the essay. I’ve also updated the link above in my post.

Joshua

This is a good site, enjoyable. I am interested in Tolle’s works.

I was wondering if the ‘essay’ mentioned above

quote “My thanks to Mark for his spirited kick-off essay introducing Chapter 1 in our discussion of The Power of Now.”

Also, is there a record of the discussion?

Many thanks

Nick

Sit still for 1 minute and you will see that thoughts simply arise out of nothinness. YOu are simply a watcher…watching the thoughts come and go. The same thing applies for sensing sensations in your body. YOu cannot stop sensations because you are not the one doing them.

peace

For example, take the concept of “no-mind”. Certainly a knee jerk Objectivist response to such an idea welled up within me. But once Tolle identified his premise – that “no-mind” is simply the consciousness without thought, specifically – a consciousness unclouded by habitually undirected and utterly random thoughts – I understand this to be a totally valid premise within Objectivism. Not all thinking is directed and focused. In fact most of it is not. It’s noise. When Tolle has us observe these thoughts in an objective detached way – it’s pretty clear. And they do conceal something. I’m not buying into the idea that it’s the power of the universe within me or that it is “God” – but it is calming to remove the static of random undirected thoughts that fill the mind – even if for a minute.

I think Objectivists tend to associate ego with efficasy and mind with ego. What Tolles is saying is that we are actually allowing our identity – our concept of ~I am~ to be directed by these random unfocused static of thoughts. In doing so we become slave to this phenomenon. It’s an illusion. Tolle makes the distinction between directed and purposful reason and thought – and the random unfocused titdal wave of thought that normally fills our minds to which we attach our concept of self.

In this way I don’t see it as dis-identify with the mind per se. Just a particular function of the mind. The mind is always present – it is a faculty that cannot exist absent the body nor the body without the mind. So when we detach and “listen” to the mind’s random thought – it is still the functioning of the literal human mind that is listening – just on another level. But it is a level that is a real life function of a real living human mind.

So when Tolle says “no-mind” and “beyond the mind” he sounds like he’s speaking mystic mumbo jumbo. There is no “no-mind” or “beyond the mind” in the literal sence. We are as much our minds as we are our livers. He is simply giving a name – an identity- (mind) to the phenomenon of mental noise and our attachment of ~self~ to that noise. So it sounds very mystical – but it’s really pretty basic psychology.

In this way I think the ideas Tolle offers can be a great compliment – and in fact synthesis with Objectivism which needs a stronger themes in psycho-epistemological praxis.

I’m really enjoying these ideas – (my first formal exposure to them) and I look forward to continuing with the audio book. Thanks to Joshua for creating this forum and blending these idea sets!