Tolle & Spiritual Directors On PBS

PBS doing it's part to usher in the universal consciousness...

From 2009: An excerpt from a rare public lecture by Eckhart Tolle and introductory and follow-up interviews with Dr. Betty Sue Flowers, who examines the Tolle phenomenon in the new PBS special ECKHART TOLLE: AWAKENING IN THE NOW...

More than 8 million books by Eckhart Tolle have been sold. The Power of Now created a minor sensation; then Oprah Winfrey chose A New Earth as her book of the month, and went on to create her first webinar based on its teachings -- more than 27 million downloads have been recorded. His books have been translated into 33 languages. So: who is Eckhart Tolle, and why are all these people so entranced by his thinking?

The new PBS special ECKHART TOLLE: AWAKENING IN THE NOW examines the phenomenon surrounding Tolle by presenting excerpts from one of his rare public lectures -- this one from Los Angeles in 2007 -- and interview segments with Dr. Betty Sue Flowers, director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, who interprets the Tolle phenomenon from both a personal and a cultural perspective. In the Los Angeles lecture, Tolle focuses on his concepts of the "now", the role of the ego-ic mind -- a key mantra to use in everyday situations -- and other major themes of his continuing work. Flowers calls him "a world teacher... he not only teaches to the world, but he teaches from the world of all the spiritual traditions."






See the February 28, 2010 Spiritual Directors' segment and transcript here at PBS. Some excerpts:

SEVERSON: Liz Ellmann is the executive director of Spiritual Directors International, which has a worldwide membership of 7,000, a number that has been expanding rapidly.

ELLMANN: And our members are clergy, our members are rabbis, they’re Catholic priests, they’re Methodist ministers and Presbyterian ministers. They’re also lay people of all different faith traditions.

SEVERSON: The first step to what some call a personal experience of the holy, most agree, is to find a state of tranquility and silence. These two women, both spiritual directors, invited us to observe the process, or what they call “the journey.”

...SEVERSON: This retreat, over a series of Saturdays, was organized by one of the directors in Liz’s organization, Sheikh Jamal Rahman.

SHEIKH JAMAL RAHMAN (speaking to retreat group): “As we allow this to just sink within us, just end with a chant, Allahu Allah.”

SEVERSON: Sheikh Rahman is a respected scholar and teacher in the mystical branch of Islam known as Sufism. At this retreat, he is getting some help from two other spiritual directors—Don Mackenzie, a retired minister for the United Church of Christ, and Ted Falcon, a rabbi.

RABBI TED FALCON: I think more and more people are—have greater degree of awareness that the path exists within them. The institution has a tendency of protecting us from the immediacy of the spiritual encounter.

...SEVERSON: At this retreat, they are practicing prayer techniques that spiritual directors say are universal, that help clear the mind of distractions.

See related articles: Awakening The World To Oneness , The Global Interfaith Avatars .