I certainly want to go for clarity, but simplicity seems to me to be an over-rated, or at least grievously misunderstood, value. I personally have found a lot of "simplicity-addicted" people confusing simplicity with order, and thus rushing everyone around them unnecessarily and dysfunctionally. Officiating devotees of the "Keep it simple" slogan were extremely tyrannical of people who had something original to offer, and many were often only requiring simplicity, I feel, because they wanted, anxiously but not always rationally, to make judgments too fast (shades of the second invasion of Iraq?) and get them accepted even faster. This is primarily only to say "haste (which is usually underlying a demand for simplicity) makes waste" in language that invites one to bring the anciently resonant simple version of this adage into one's life in more circumstances than just those in which someone happens to recall "haste makes waste". On this subject I have an essay posted on my website that has received some favourable reviews from people who run businesses (who are therefore people especially pressed to make judgments quickly) and who are learning, as Authentix clients, that "fewer but more insightful judgments" can be a way to higher productivity and well-being:

http://www.authentixcoaches.com/ACReadingMaterial1.html

Einstein's relativity theories were indeed mathematically simple, and yes, there was both genius and great value in that mathematical simplification. Underlying his equations' simplicity was recognition of a unifying theme similar to what I sought, in my particular definition of self, to remind people of -- a theme that enormously expanded the portion of the universe that humankind could, after Einstein, discuss practically. Turning to the subject of self, I personally find that few people can have a conversation of even a few minutes without using the word self in different ways and without being aware of that having occurred. (An outgrowth of this is the politician's use of the word "you" when s/he actually means "I", under which shroud of inauthenticity all manner of irresponsibility is perpetrated). That is why I set aside in the extract that appeared in my letter to Eckhart Tolle the words "myself", "yourself", etc. to refer to the individuating factors associated with the concept of self. What might have been perplexing for TT readers in the post I made to which you refer was the fact that my book is more than just the extract I included in my letter to Mr. Tolle.

I accept your point about teachings being a word that does not strongly evoke the oxymoronic idea of one-way communication. And, yes, I could have been kinder to Mr. Tolle. My purpose was not, however, to be either kind or harsh. My purpose was to render the word "teach" obsolete, because its very essence is oxymoronic, and because I believe that oxymoronic essence has a dysfunctional impact upon the thinking of many people unaware of this oxymoronia. What word would you use to describe the com-munication that ideally does go on in schools and home where training is not desirable?