Q: Eckhart Tolle “seeks to reconcile God and his creation”, why does he not include animals, the dead bodies of which he obviously eats? He also quotes the Dalai Lama, who “eats meat when he is away from home” because he is “used to it”. If there is an inconsistency in morality there, this might also explain why the questioner wanted to know the following: is there an inconsistency in Eckhart Tolle’s “God is undifferentiated consciousness” as compared to “consciousness is part of a sankhara involving a sense organ and a sense object. If either the sense organ or the sense object is missing, so is consciousness.”

A: Issues about “Eckhart Tolle” and the “Dalai Lama” and their eating habits are best raised with those human beings themselves.

What “Eckhart Tolle” understands by “God is undifferentiated consciousness” should be asked of him.

Viññāna (trans. “consciousness”) as part of a sankhara containing a sense organ and a sense object is best understood as the image of a physical object in a mirror. No object, no image. Vijjā means “seeing”. It can be understood as the mirror itself, which exists whether or not it reflects objects. Its significance, when it is not reflecting objects, can be pointed to by words but it needs to be experienced, for example by going in through the centre of the body, through all the spheres which appear —one inside the other— until the stage is reached when there are no more spheres. Entering into this state of “no more spheres” results in the state of Awakening, Vijjā. Although there is no longer any separate being who can claim to be awake.

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