Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)

The new spirituality, the transformation of consciousness, is arising to a large extent outside of the structures of the existing institutionalized religions. There were always pockets of spirituality even in mind dominated religions, although the institutionalized hierarchies felt threatened by them and often tried to suppress them. A large scale opening of spirituality outside of the religious structures is an entirely new development. In the past, this would have been inconceivable, especially in the West, the most mind dominated of all cultures, where the Christian church had a virtual franchise on spirituality. You couldn’t just stand up and give a spiritual talk or publish a spiritual book unless you were sanctioned by the church, and if you were not, they would quickly silence you.

— Eckhart Tolle on Spirituality

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The new spirituality, the transformation of consciousness, is arising to a large extent outside of the structures of the existing institutionalized religions. There were always pockets of spirituality even in mind dominated religions, although the institutionalized hierarchies felt threatened by them and often tried to suppress them. A large scale opening of spirituality outside of the religious structures is an entirely new development. In the past, this would have been inconceivable, especially in the West, the most mind dominated of all cultures, where the Christian church had a virtual franchise on spirituality. You couldn’t just stand up and give a spiritual talk or publish a spiritual book unless you were sanctioned by the church, and if you were not, they would quickly silence you." in the context of "Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Spirituality" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Eckhart Tolle

About Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle (born Ulrich Leonard Tölle on 16 February 1948) is a German / Canadian spiritual teacher, motivational speaker, and writer.