“If you cannot remove yourself from a situation, and there is no action you can take, then use the situation to make you go more deeply into surrender, more deeply into the Now, more deeply into Being.” Eckhart Tolle (from A New Earth)

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Tolle Teaching is Alchemy, which was the science of the Middle Ages. Alchemists were searching for the Philosopher’s Stone (this is not a literal but metaphorical understanding here) that transmuted base metal into gold. What is the base metal of our life? Suffering, irritation, all negativity, resentment, discontent—oh, we have lots of base metal, don’t we.

When suffering rises in the mind as a negative reaction to a situation, if you can’t just leave and drop it, and you can’t fix it, then you practice Alchemy and transmute the suffering into the joy of Being through surrender. Surrender is Alchemy.

Wouldn’t it be marvelous if this were true? Wouldn’t it be grand if I could transmute my base and negative mind into inner peace, creativity and the lightness of Being? Actually, it is so true, so immediate, that we really don’t believe it. Tolle Teaching is the Philosopher’s Stone.

When we are caught in a double-bind where everything we do is lose/lose, right there is where the Philosopher’s Stone can be activated. This stone, however, is a metaphor. The stone is not something you can hold; it is an action of relaxing, of letting go of the need to either leave a situation or fix it. When the Stone is activated, the situation is just this, just this. When resistance to Now is released, you are Now…and your base mind has been transmuted into wisdom or whole mind.