In this talk, Eckhart Tolle answers a Muslim‑originated question that cites Quranic verses describing Allah as the One, all‑embracing, unbegotten, and without equal. Tolle interprets these verses as pointing to a non‑personal, all‑pervasive source of life that is identical with every individual’s true nature. He explains that the divine is not a controlling patriarch but an underlying field of intelligence that pervades and becomes all life forms. Suffering, he argues, is the "birth‑pangs" of a collective awakening—a nightmare‑like dream that signals the emergence of consciousness. He likens this to a bad dream that, as one awakens, reveals a deeper reality. Tolle also draws parallels with Buddhist teachings, noting that Buddhism speaks of the "uncreated, unborn, unmanifested"—a concept he sees as equivalent to the Quranic description of Allah as unbegotten and timeless. Throughout, he critiques the "childish" notion of God as a sovereign ruler who must prevent suffering, suggesting that such a premise misrepresents the nature of the divine.
Chapters
I'm suggesting to you that you look at suffering as a very bad dream that is part— but it becomes a nightmare. You're about to awaken. So when you're in a nightmare, it's totally real. But as you begin to awaken, you realize, oh, and then another reality suddenly unfolds. Eckhart Tolle. This is a question from— I'm answering this question briefly. It's for Muslims, all Muslims, because the Muslim asked me this question, which starts with a quote from the Quran: He is Allah, the One. Allah is the All-Embracing. He neither begat nor was begotten, nor has He any equal. What are your thoughts on these few verses of the Quran? He is Allah, the One. The One is the traditional term that also is used by many ancient Greek philosophers, they also use the word the good to describe it. Life in its essence is one. All life is one. And the source of life is one. There's only one source. And all life emanates. Every life form is an emanation of the one source of life. Every— your truest identity is oneness with the source. That's the essence of— if you even look deeply into your sense of how you experience yourself, the being of yourself, it's identity with the one life. So God is one. This is right. Allah is the all-embracing. The One, or God, the all-embracing, which I would call the all-pervasive, both within and without. The, the One emanates, becomes life forms, and pervades the universe as an underlying field of intelligence or aliveness. And then this one aliveness operates through every life form. All-embracing, all-pervasive would be my translation. He neither begat nor was begotten, nor has he any equal. He neither begat— to begat means, for those who are not familiar with that Old English word, to have offspring or to produce children. So whether this is a reference in the Quran to the Christian belief that God produced a son, which of course is denied in the Quran, although Jesus is recognized as a prophet, Jesus is not seen as the son of God, whether it's— it could be a reference to that, that The One does not produce children in the way that humans do. The One, we could say, becomes everything. It's not out there and does things as a controlling entity. It is the life in every life form. It lives in and through every life form. It's not— that's why people who have a childish concept of God say, "How could God allow all this suffering?" And then they say, "There can't be any God because if there were a God, he would have to be all-powerful, omnipotent, and omniscient. Therefore, he would— if he were all-powerful, he would not allow the suffering, but there is suffering, so either he's not all-powerful, then it means he's not God," Or he's evil if he allows the suffering, because even I wouldn't allow it if I were God. And so you get into all kinds of— not realizing that you started from a childish premise, imagining God as a controlling patriarchal figure who does things. Am I going to allow this accident or not? Let's see. The suffering is the birth pangs of the consciousness. The suffering of humanity is almost like giving birth to the awakening consciousness. There is no individual. Nobody has a— the life of every individual is the one life. Your life is not your life. it doesn't belong to you, you are not separate from life, there's only the one life. And yes, when we look at suffering, it looks dreadful here, but if it's— I'm just suggesting, it could be that if there's only one life that is awakening in this dimension, I'm suggesting to you that you look at suffering as a very bad dream that is part— but it becomes a nightmare. You're about to awaken. So when you're in a nightmare, it's totally real, but as you begin to awaken, you realize, oh, and then another reality suddenly unfolds. God also was not begotten, says here. In other words, of course, that agrees with all the other teachings where In Buddhism, as you know, the word God is never used. They don't talk about it. But they do have a term in some of the scriptures that is the uncreated, sometimes called the unmanifested. And that is exactly the same as here. The one, Allah, was not begotten, was never created, is timeless. Buddhists say— the closest Buddhists get to talking about God is to talk of the uncreated. And my favorite, one of my favorite scriptures from Buddhism is when— this is supposed to be the Buddha talking, and it could well be that it is one of the few scriptures that actually survived from the actual words of the Buddha. I don't have every word correct now. I'm just telling you the way I remember it. So he's saying, there is— well, to be accurate with the scripture, he is— there is, oh monks— oh monks is the old form of addressing the monks— there is, oh monks, the uncreated, the unborn, the unmanifested. If there were not the uncreated, the unborn, the unmanifested, there would be no escape from the created, the born, and the manifested. Now that's pretty clear.
