Is Eckhart Tolle a Seinfeld Fan?

If you read A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, the answer to this question seems clear. In a passage about how television induces a programmed unconsciousness, Eckhart hails the benefits of some offerings. Let's take a listen:

There are some programs that have been extremely helpful to many people; have changed their lives for the better, opened their heart, made them more conscious. Even some comedy shows, although they may be about nothing in particular, can be unintentionally spiritual by showing a caricature version of human folly and the ego. They teach us not to take anything too seriously, to approach life in a lighthearted way, and above all, they teach by making us laugh. Laughter is extraordinarily liberating as well as healing.

Seinfeld, the show famously about nothing? Eckhart says, "although they may be about nothing in particular"? Coincidence? "You better think again, Mojambo."

And what could be a more spot-on description of that show than "a caricature of human folly and the ego"? George, the on air alter-ego of Larry David, is one big ball of mean-spirited, self-centered ego pushed to the very essence of caricature.

I remain a Seinfeld junkie to this day, and I've wondered what roll that show may have played in my own awakening-in-progress. I used to watch it intently, trying to discern what it was about that show that was so compelling.

And now I get it: George is me.

Seinfeld and David, probably without realizing it, were communicating directly with the Presence that dwells in all of us, that field of consciousness in which the ego plays its games. They were trying to get a message through to us at that deeper level, trying to wake us up to the stupidity, the pettiness, the smallness that we are when we identify with our egos.

We may have thought we were just laughing week after week (and now day after day with the show still in syndication) but seeds were planted then, millions and millions of seeds.

The show went off the air in 1998 at the height of its popularity. And then the following year, Eckhart published his first book, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Coincidence?

"You better think again, Mojambo."

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