Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

Eckhart Tolle: Can Unhappiness Survive Surrender?

24 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief solo teaching, Eckhart Tolle invites listeners to experiment with fully accepting unhappiness by stating, “I don’t mind being unhappy.” He asks whether unhappiness can persist when one is in a state of complete surrender, or whether it requires resistance to survive. Tolle notes that some people find the approach effective, while others do not, and he frames the practice as an exploratory experiment rather than a definitive solution.

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I'm unhappy. I don't mind being unhappy. It's fine. I'm unhappy, so let me be unhappy. That sounds really weird. So let me be unhappy. I don't mind. I'm just unhappy. Now the question is, can the unhappiness survive in a state of complete surrender? Or does the unhappiness, in order to survive, need resistance? There's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with life. There's something wrong somewhere. You need some resistance, and if you— I don't mind being unhappy, I'm just suggesting it as an experiment. It works, I've had feedback from people, for some people it actually works very well, and for others it doesn't.