“To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an animal does not mean to think about it, but simply to perceive it, to hold it in your awareness.”

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003)

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Do you have more details about the quote "To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an animal does not mean to think about it, but simply to perceive it, to…" by Eckhart Tolle?
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Eckhart Tolle 251
German writer 1948

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“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.”

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Context: People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…

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“The first step is the last step. The first step is to perceive, perceive what you are thinking, perceive your ambition, perceive your anxiety, your loneliness, your despair, this extraordinary sense of sorrow, perceive it, without any condemnation, justification, without wishing it to be different.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Source: 1970s, Krishnamurti in India, 1970-71 (1971), p. 50
Context: The first step is the last step. The first step is to perceive, perceive what you are thinking, perceive your ambition, perceive your anxiety, your loneliness, your despair, this extraordinary sense of sorrow, perceive it, without any condemnation, justification, without wishing it to be different. Just to perceive it, as it is. When you perceive it as it is, then there is a totally different kind of action taking place, and that action is the final action. Right? That is, when you perceive something as being false or as being true, that perception is the final action, which is the final step. Now listen to it. I perceive the falseness of following somebody else, somebody else’s instruction — Krishna, Buddha, Christ, it does not matter who it is. I see, there is the perception of the truth that following somebody is utterly false. Because your reason, your logic and everything points out how absurd it is to follow somebody. Now that perception is the final step, and when you have perceived, you leave it, forget it, because the next minute you have to perceive anew, which is again the final step.

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“Things hold your attention hostage until you give them the appropriate attention.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

27 June 2011 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/85187098725974016
Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy
Variant: Your attention will continue to be grabbed by anything until you give it the appropriate attention.

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“By my attention I hold it all in being. Nothing exists unless it is perceived.”

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Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

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Context: The point of public relations slogans like "Support Our Troops" is that they don't mean anything... that's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody is going to be against and I suppose everybody will be for, because nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. But its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something, do you support our policy? And that's the one you're not allowed to talk about.

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