Why Did You Choose the Name “Eckhart”? | Eckhart Tolle

Hello, Eckhart. My question is not about your breakfast, but a little bit personal. It's about something that I read about you, that at one point in your life you picked up the name Eckhart for yourself.

Yes.

So you were talking about today in your books about, about form, identity, about pain, body, about the surface self accumulating the stories of the past. And I just want to know what was the motivation or the urge behind that choice, that urge.

Right.

And were there any impacts on your well being afterwards of making that change?

Right. Well, one has to come with some kind of arrangement with the world of form, the world of labels and so on. Sometimes it's convenient when somebody asks you, what's your name? Before I answer your question. I'll get there in a minute. Somebody asks you what is your name? And then it is more practical and avoids a lot of complication to say my name is so and so. It doesn't mean that you identify with that particular sound. But it works better than to say I have no name and no form. Now that would throw them and it will probably be the end of the conversation. So it helps to have a name in normal life. But there's another thing. These are forms, thought forms. And your name, of course, is something connected with your form identity. And as you grow up and go through life, you have all kinds of experiences. And your name then kind of absorbs, one could say, the flavor of all those experiences that you have. They become part of what the name absorbs. A name can be, can become heavy after years and years, especially of suffering. Then the name reflects the suffering of your whole past. There's a reason why in many or most spiritual traditions, when you enter the formal spiritual past, whether it's in Christianity or in Hinduism or Buddhism, you adopt a different name. And the idea behind it is that you let go of your past completely because the name kind of symbolizes your entire past and sometimes even carries an energetic charge to it that comes from the past, all the things that cling to that name. So the idea in many spiritual traditions is as you embark on the spiritual path, you adopt a spiritual name, which you then regard as more real, or it's not ultimately real because it's just another sound, but more real than your old birth name. And definitely it's something that does not have this weight of past to it. But the danger with that, of course, is the moment you adopt a spiritual name, then everybody will know that it's a spiritual name. And so very quickly there could be an egoic identification with you as having a spiritual name which immediately superior to all these other people who have not yet chosen the spiritual path and are still using their birth names, all these unawakened people. But I now have a spiritual name because I'm spiritual. And so the ego again always comes in through the back door. In my case, there has been a. I felt, as the awakening happened, a shift in consciousness. There was a certain or considerable degree of discontinuity with my past. And I felt that my past, my childhood was predominantly unhappy. With a few happy moments, of course, but predominantly unhappy caused by parents unconsciousness. They were not bad parents, they did their best. I never experienced any kind of physical punishment. And yet there was continuous drama in my parents home. I was the only child. My pain body grew through that. It was nightmare living there. And I sometimes felt how did I get here? This is so crazy. So there was a lot of suffering, a lot of ideas of suicide. My first idea of suicide came at the age of about 8 and I was very happy when scaffolding. They built the house where we lived. They painted the exterior of the house and they were scaffolding up to the third or fourth floor. Not very ladder going up. And I said, oh, as long as it's there, I can always climb up and jump down. That's great. So I'm lucky that scaffolding is. I can always end it. I'm laughing now because it's gone. It's kind of dissolved completely. I wasn't laughing then. And then there was already a sense of dissociation from my name and my entire personal past, although I could remember it. And then the two events that led to it were two synchronistic events. One is a dream I had in which I walked up the stairs into some circular tower. And in that circular tower there was a table. And on the table there were some books. They had the name Eckhart and some. I can't remember what visual, what picture was there. And they had the name Eckhart. And I knew I had written those books. But at that time my name was not Eckhart. So that was a strange thing that I saw these books, I had written them, but the name was Eckhart. So I woke up the next morning. How strange. And a few days later I was walking down the high street. The town I was living in, I mentioned it yesterday, was a town that attracts all kinds of spiritual as well as weird people. So I felt quite at home there. It was Glastonbury in Somerset, England. And I was walking down the high street, of course, if you live there for a few years, you know, almost everybody. And almost everybody is either a channeler or a psychic or a clairvoyant or a reincarnation of King Arthur and so on. At any given time, there are several reincarnations of King Arthur living in Glastonbury. And so I ran into this person, and he was a psychic, but he wasn't doing any psychic work at that moment. But he said, hi, Eckhart. What? Oh, he said, oh, I'm sorry. I don't know why that came into my head, that name. And that was. That. That was a synchronistic thing that happened a few days after the dream. And I was ready to let go of the past and to let go of the old name. And that seemed to be a sign to me that it is time for that. And only later did I. I knew I was aware at that time already of the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart. If you have not read Meister Eckhart, I highly recommend that wonderful, deep teachings. And I often say, if you really want to. Of course, Meister was a monk in the Christian tradition in medieval times, but I often say, if you really want to understand Buddhism, Meister Eckhart, of course, had never heard of Buddhism. If you really want to understand Buddhism, read Meister Eckhart because he really shows you the essence of Buddhism and Christianity, is a very strange figure. He was lucky he was not burnt or anything. So he survived until he passed away. And only later did I realize interesting things that ek is Sanskrit for one, and heart is lovely too. So that became. Then the. It's still just a name. It's not at some point that dissolves and it's fine. And I don't. It's something that. It's like a piece of clothes that you wear until you don't wear it anymore. So it's fine. And basically, that's how it happened. Are you considering changing your name or have you done it already?

I am considering.

Right. Are you waiting for some kind of sign?

Not really, no.

Okay.

I just wanted. I read it in your biography and I was just wondering your personal perspective.

Yes.

Thank you very much for sharing it, so.

Oh, you're welcome. So I was given a kind of sign that's a synchronistic thing. Often is very interesting when synchronistic events like that happen. So I wish you well and maybe at some future retreat, if there are any future, or there are no future retreats, but another retreat. Let me know if you have adopted a new name. But of course, realizing the essence of who you are is Anami. Nameless, no name. Thanks.