This is just a sample of the comparisons made between authors Eckhart Tolle and Maurice Nicoll on this site. For more articles with tables like these, go here.
| Maurice Nicoll | Eckhart Tolle |
| ‘The power of self-observation is an inner sense, rarely used. . . . We are unaware of what we are doing.’[1] (1952) | ‘You need to have some power of self-observation, which is another word for awareness.’[2] (2008) |
| ‘Self-observation is an act of attention directed inwards—to what is going on in you.’[3] (1943) | ‘Monitor your mental-emotional state through self-observation. . . . Direct your attention inwards.’[4] (1997) |
| ‘Notice what thoughts crowd into your mind . . . what they are saying, what unpleasant emotions surge up, and so on.’[5] (1943) | ‘Have a look inside yourself. What kind of thoughts is your mind producing? What do you feel?’[6] (1997) |
| ‘You must try to observe everything in yourself at a given moment—the emotional state, thoughts, sensations, intentions, posture, movements . . . and so on.’[7] (1941) | ‘Give attention to your behavior, to your reactions, moods, thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires as they occur in the present.’[8] (1997) |
| ‘The impressions gained from self-observation are . . . from an internal sense . . . a silent witness, a spectator of what goes on in me.’[9] (1952) | ‘A clear and still space of pure awareness . . . come[s] into being . . . the silent witness, the watcher.’[10] (1997) |
| ‘People . . . mistake thinking for observing. To think is quite different from observing oneself.’[11] (1943) | ‘[This] does not mean that you start thinking about it. It means to just observe.’[12] (1997) |
| ‘Observe . . . without criticism or analysis.’[13] (1943) | ‘Don’t judge or analyze what you observe.’[14] (1997) |
| ‘By practice you can observe your mood more and more distinctly.’[15] (1953) | ‘With practice, your power of self-observation, of monitoring your inner state, will become sharpened.’[16] (1997) |
| ‘Now if you are observing your thoughts and your emotions . . . you may [after a time] laugh at these thoughts, these emotions, and wonder why you took everything in that way.’[17] (1945) | ‘When you detect egoic behavior in yourself, smile. At times you may even laugh. How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long?’[18] (2005) |
| ‘You are not your thoughts.’[19] (1943) | ‘You are not your mind’[20] [21] (1997) |
| ‘Consciousness is not the same as your thought, feeling or sensation. Through consciousness you become aware of them as contents, but . . . consciousness can exist without any content.’[22] (1951) | ‘Thinking and consciousness are not synonymous. . . . Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought.’[23] (1997)[24] |
| ‘By true self-observation we let a ray of light into ourselves. . . . Not . . . physical light but the light of Consciousness.’[25] (1945) | ‘Just observe the emotion. . . . Attention is like a beam of light – the focused power of your consciousness.’[26] (1997) |
| ‘By the method of self-observation . . . [we] bring this not yet known side of ourselves into the light of consciousness.’[27] (1946) | ‘You are the watcher, the observing presence. If you practice this, all that is unconscious in you will be brought into the light of consciousness.’[28] (1997) |
| ‘Nothing can change in us unless it is brought into the light of self-observation—that is, into the light of consciousness.’[29] (1943) | ‘If you don’t bring the light of your consciousness into the [emotional] pain, you will be forced to relive it again and again.’[30] (1997) |
| ‘Get to work and make it conscious by means of candid self-observation.’[31] (1952) | ‘Make it conscious. Observe the many ways in which unease, discontent, and tension arise within you.’[32] (1997) |
| ‘When you become conscious of something that you constantly say or feel or think . . . it begins to be ‘not I’. . . . You rise a little in your level of being through . . . the light of consciousness.’[33] (1949) | ‘By making this pattern conscious, by witnessing it, you disidentify from it. In the light of your consciousness, the unconscious pattern will then quickly dissolve.’[34] (1997) |
| ‘Whatever we bring into the light of consciousness loses the power it has over us if it remains unconscious.’[35] (1952) | ‘Anything unconscious dissolves when you shine the light of consciousness on it.’[36] (1997) |
| ‘The remedy is the light of consciousness.’[37] (1952) | ‘The light of consciousness is all that is necessary.’[38] (2005) |
| ‘“Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”. . . This is a pretty good example of what the Work says about observing yourself instead of finding fault with everyone else.’[39] (1950) | ‘The egoic compulsive habit of faultfinding and complaining about others. Jesus referred to it when he said, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?’[40] (2005) |
| ‘The faults we dislike most in others are usually those that we display ourselves without being conscious of them.’[41] (1951) | ‘The particular egoic patterns that you react to most strongly in others . . . tend to be the same . . . that are also in you, but that you are unable or unwilling to detect.’[42] (2005) |
| ‘Everything that you are so critical of in others is expressing itself in you.’[43] (1946) | ‘Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.’[44] (2005) |
| ‘People project [their] unaccepted psychology on to others.’[45] (1950) | ‘[You] project your own unconsciousness onto another person.[46] (1997) |
| ‘You take life-realities and your reaction to them as the same. They are not the same.’[47] (1951) | ‘They cannot tell the difference between an event and their reaction to the event.’[48] (2005) |
| ‘Life is a changing kaleidoscope of events. . . . The difficulty is that people take life and their reactions to life as the same thing.[49] (1948) | ‘The ego cannot distinguish between a situation and its interpretation of and reaction to that situation.’[50] (2005) |
| They find it difficult to realize that . . . a thunderstorm, is not the same as their mechanical reaction to it. . . . The storm, which . . . is a neutral, impersonal thing, and their mechanical reactions . . . [of], say, alarm, seem identical to them.’[51] (1948) | You might say, ‘What a dreadful day,’ without realizing that the cold, the wind, and the rain or whatever condition you react to are not dreadful. They are as they are. What is dreadful is your reaction.’[52] (2005) |
| ‘We have the power of choice internally [by observing our state].’[53] (1945) | ‘With the seeing [of inner dysfunction] comes the power of choice.’[54] (2005) |
| ‘Try to notice where you are in yourself at this moment, to what thoughts you are consenting. . . . Have you yet attained any power of inner freedom from . . . your mechanical thoughts and feelings induced by external circumstances?’[55] (1943) | ‘By watching the mechanics of the mind, you step out of its resistance patterns, and you can then allow the present moment to be. This will give you a taste of the state of inner freedom from external conditions.’[56] (1997) |
| ‘You are entirely dependent on the events of external life. . . . How can you think that inner peace depends on what happens to you?’[57] (1950) | ‘[Ordinary] happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.’[58] (1997) |
| ‘In our psychological world . . . we have gradually to become more responsible.’[59] (1945) | ‘You are responsible for your inner space; nobody else is.’[60] (1997) |
| ‘You become responsible . . . when one begins to apply [this Work] to oneself and to the state one is in at any moment.’[61] (1945) | ‘To end the misery … you have to start with yourself and take responsibility for your inner state at any given moment.’[62] (2005) |
| ‘The diagram of the Cross . . . represents a single moment in a man’s life. In this single moment the vertical line is cut across by the horizontal line of Time. . . . The point of intersection of the vertical with the horizontal line is now.’[63] (1942) | ‘There’s the vertical dimension and the horizontal dimension. One could even say that the cross . . . symbolizes that also. . . . Most people only know the horizontal dimension, unaware of the vertical dimension which is . . . the present moment.’[64] (2017) |
| ‘It is only this feeling of the existence and meaning of the direction represented by the vertical line that gives a man a sense of now.’ [65] (1942) | ‘And so you enter the vertical dimension by being—becoming present, by bringing your attention into the now.’[66] (2008) |
| ‘Eternity is vertical to Time and this is . . . the feeling of oneself now. . . . To remember oneself the feeling of now must enter. . . . Eternity is always in now.’ [67] (1946) | ‘Entering the vertical dimension requires a high degree of Presence. The Now needs to be the main focus of our attention.’ [68] (2016) |
| ‘[Real] I dwells in now, and not in passing-time.’[69] (1952) | ‘It is only now that you are truly yourself.’[70] (1997) |
| Real inner change is a development of essence . . . the most real and the deepest part of you.’[71] (1943) | “Discover and live from your true essence—what I sometimes refer to as the ‘Deep I.’” (2021)[72] |
| ‘Essence is not of passing Time. It is not a temporal thing. . . . [But external] life makes us identify with the Personality.’ [73] (1946) | ‘Most humans . . . are unaware of their own essence and identify only with their own physical and psychological form. ‘[74] (2005) |
| ‘One is not the same as one’s acquired Personality . . . this artificial figure that life has built up, and that one takes as oneself, not knowing any better.’[75] (1944) | ‘You behave and act as if . . . that were who you are. So you get trapped inside that conditioned personality. And whatever you do, then it’s the personality [that] is acting out.’ [76] (2008) |
| ‘This prison that [Gurdjieff] so often spoke about is first of all your Personality.’ [77] (1944) | ‘Your personality, which is conditioned by the past, then becomes your prison.’ [78] (2005) |
| ‘The Personality . . . is not you. . . . but it calls itself I. It says I to you and you say I to it.’[79] (1946) | ‘What you usually refer to when you say ‘I’ is not who you are.’[80] (2005) |
| ‘Essence cannot be stripped off. The real person, the person that remains after Personality is removed, is the Essence.’[81] (1946) | ‘Whatever is real or of true value in your personality is your true nature shining through. This is never lost.’ [82] (1997) |
| ‘Essence is the indestructible part of us.’ [83] (1944) | ‘I know that the essence of who I am . . . is indestructible.’ [84] (2008) |
| ‘The Gospels speak of a peace passing all understanding. Have you got this inner peace?’[85] (1948) | ‘Inner peace and serenity . . . come from a very deep place. . . . It is “the peace of God, which passes all understanding.”’[86] (1997) |
| ‘The quality of happiness that comes from being first, or having most . . . is not . . . genuine or deep.’[87] (1952) | ‘The happiness that is derived from some secondary source is never very deep.’[88] (1997) |
| ‘Love . . . as a [real] positive emotion has no opposite and attracts no contrary to it, having everything in itself as one.’[89] (1944) | ‘The love that you feel deep within, the love that comes with the realization of your oneness with all that is. This is the love that has no opposite.’[90] (1997) |