Speak for yourself Oh Great Stinky OneBaba Bozo said:
None of us, repeat none of us, are going to become Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Krishna, or Abraham. It may indeed be true that such rare individuals have extraordinary insights, but they are so far out at the end of the bell curve as to be irrelevant to us.

I thoroughly loved your rant! Love love love it!!
Here's the thing - think Monty Python's Life of Brian here --- (undoubtedly one of my most favourite movies) - and ask the wonderful question --- Who Says?
Who says 'Jesus' was special - was it Jesus himself? No. From what I've read of his escapades he told everyone they too could choose love over fear - and from the stories of him he walked the talk and accepted the unfolding consequences of that. Who wants to be nailed to a cross anyway?

Who says Buddha's state of Enlightenment was unreachable by mere mortals... was it Buddha - a mere mortal who supposedly achieved that state of enlightenment - that would be illogical, so if it was him, then his thinking was illogical - likely it was those observing him overlaying their perspectives upon his name.
Does a wise person know them self as wise, or does a wise person know there is much that they do not know and cannot judge outside of their own experience?
Does any person state what is obvious to them within their own awareness, capacity & willingness just for fame and power and money --- pfffttt! or because we all do this, we all frame and communicate our perspectives based on our awareness, capacity & willingness.
If it is within our awareness, and we have the guts to be honest and fair with our perspectives, we might suggest that we are neither able to take credit or blame for our level of awareness, capacity (although willingness to share it is a little different - maybe.)
Again you are speaking for yourself BB, although I love it, I appreciate it with sincere gratitude & generosity in your sharing. Just as I did when a friend suggested - nay insisted - I pick up a book called A New Earth (which I read before PON - never heard of this Tolle dude). What I found within its pages was a veritable menu of all the reasons why people fear fear itself. It opened my eyes to ways of being that I had no capacity to understand in experience. If we see / know things to be a particular way, our course of action - response etc is automatic, we 'assume' that others have our awareness and capacity & assume they must just not be willing to take this particular path. That in itself is all ego, and fundamentally arrogant. What a laugh I had with that realisation.What we are is ordinary everyday regular normal little people who are somewhat neurotic and more than a little obsessed with ourselves. Being that way got us in to some kind of trouble and so we went looking for a solution and found Tolle. Tolle can help us manage our very ordinary little situation, and that's great. There's no need for all the dreamy greedy becoming trip stuff, that's the ailment, and NOT the cure.
In many ways I came 'backwards' to Tolle - from being in acceptance, enjoyment & enthusiasm for life in all its gory glory, from an awareness of equilibrium of all things encompassing constant change, to how folks saw and believed things to be different to that, which previously was alien territory. It very much highlighted the wisdom of asking --- who says? and why do they say that. Neither right nor wrong, better or worse, just allowing a different experience to arise.
eg: Whenever I see someone sprouting that something is New Age - (good, bad or indifferently) really? Who says?
Is there really anything new under the sun?
Tolle himself states that nothing he says is new and he quotes ancient texts and stories to illustrate this. He does not own the wisdom, he's just experienced the effects of it, was encouraged to share, folks had questions which he's answered to the best of his awareness and capacity and now some folks want to hold him on high, and others might want to nail him to a cross - but none of those things, those perspectives, are actually his perspectives. They are judgements of him sharing age old wisdoms based on the awareness, capacity & willingness of the judger, not the judged.
Many of the 'rebranded' wisdoms are those handed down from grandparents and ancestors and tested to be true or false - for me - not necessarily right or fitting for anyone else.
And well one might ask who are you to say these things with such candid confidence? Me? I'm just a very naughty little girl.
