Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature - The rustling of leaves in the wind, Raindrops falling, The humming of an insect, The first birdsong at dawn.
Without our fully realizing it, flowers would become for us an expression in form of that which is most high, most sacred, and ultimately formless within ourselves. Flowers, more fleeting, more ethereal, and more delicate than the plants out of which they emerged, would become like messengers from another realm, like a bridge between the world of physical forms and the formless.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Flowers symbolize the intangible and sacred aspects of our existence, serving as a bridge between our physical reality and deeper spiritual truths.
In this quote, Eckhart Tolle suggests that flowers represent a deeper, more profound aspect of life that transcends the physical. They serve as a reminder of the delicate and transient nature of existence, offering a glimpse into the sacred and formless essence of our inner selves. Flowers, through their beauty and ephemeral nature, connect us to a higher realm, inviting us to reflect on the challenging interplay between the tangible and the intangible in our lives.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about finding beauty in everyday life, one might use this quote to illustrate the connection between nature and inner peace.
More from Eckhart Tolle
All quotes →Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego. It also strengthens the immune system and the body’s ability to heal itself.
Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.
Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.
Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.
Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.
Similar quotes
I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think. I am not whenever I am the plaything of my thought; I think of what I am where I do not think to think.
Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.
The mystic cannot wholly do without symbol and image, inadequate to his vision though they must always be: for his experience must be expressed if it is to be communicated, and its actuality is inexpressible except in some hint or parallel which will stimulate the dormant intuition of the reader.
King of the animals — as thou hast described him — I should rather say king of the beasts, thou being the greatest — because thou hast spared slaying them, in order that they may give thee their children for the benefit of the gullet, of which thou hast attempted to make a sepulchre for all animals; and I would say still more, if it were allowed me to speak the entire truth.
History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
To be a man, to have been born without knowing it or wanting it, to be thrown into the ocean of existence, to be obliged to swim, to exist; to have an identity; to resist the pressure and shocks from the outside and the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts - one's own and those of others - which so often exceed one's capacities? And what is more, to endure one's own thoughts about all this: in a word, to be human.