Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

How a Torture Instrument Became Sacred

11 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief monologue, Eckhart Tolle explains that the central image of Christianity is the archetype of a suffering human being, followed by transcendence through resurrection or ascension. He emphasizes that this archetypal image exists independently of any specific belief system, offering a universal teaching about the journey from suffering to spiritual elevation. Tolle further describes how the cross, originally a tool of torture, is transformed through this narrative into a sacred symbol of the divine, illustrating the process by which a painful instrument becomes a sign of higher consciousness.

Chapters

What is the central image of Christianity? A suffering human being. It's an archetypal image. Whether you are Christian or not doesn't matter. You can understand that there is an archetypal image that contains a teaching. No matter what your belief structure around that is, you can see there is an archetypal image there There's the suffering and then there's transcendence, the resurrection or ascension. And as this happens, the torture instrument, which is the cross, becomes a symbol of the divine, transformed.