# Quote — Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks

> A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth of who you already are and what you already know in the depth of your being.

- Author: [Eckhart Tolle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle.md)
- Book: [Stillness Speaks](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle#Stillness_Speaks_(2003)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/a-true-spiritual

## More from this book

> By knowing yourself as the awareness in which phenomenal existence happens, you become free of dependency on phenomena and free of self seeking in situations, places, and conditions. In other words, what happens or doesn't happen is not that important anymore. Things lose their heaviness, their seriousness. A playfulness comes into your life. You recognize this world as a cosmic dance, the dance of form. (Ch 5)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/by-knowing-yourself.md)

> The habitual and reactive “no” strengthens the ego. “Yes” weakens it. Your form identity, the ego, cannot survive surrender. (Ch 6)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/the-habitual-and.md)

> Most people's lives are run by desire and fear. Desire is the need to add something to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All fear is the fear of losing something, and thereby become diminished and be less. These two movements obscure the fact that being cannot be given or taken away. Being in its fullness is already within you, now. (Ch 5)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/eckhart-tolle/stillness-speaks/most-peoples-lives.md)