Well, I just turned 60 in July '13, and I don't feel like my death is immanent. My father had more major surgeries than any 4 people I know, never exercised, smoked 2-3 packs of ciggies a day, was fat and flabby and managed (like his mother) to live to 86. My father's uncle, my Great Uncle Herman, died a dozen or so years ago at age 106. My mother's side of the family didn't seem to live as long as my father's. But I digress. I also was forced into early retirement, which resulted in a double-whammy life crisis of turning 60 and becoming retired. After the shock and panic subsided, I am slowly adjusting to the person I was, maybe as a college student, before career, and marriage, and money, and responsibilities filled my life.
Eckhart Tolle (who took his first name from the German mystic Meister [Master] Eckhart), teaches Mahamudra as close as I can tell. His path is one of the two 'formless' Yogas in Buddhism (as opposed to the six 'Yogas of form' of Naropa). The path of a Self-Realizer is a solitary path whether you want that or not. Even if partnered, your state of consciousness has precedence over all else. Life is not about a life of the senses, traveling and acquiring possessions, even though these things happen. They are not the focus. If they are for your partner, you will not remain in relationship for very long. You are continually wielding Manjushri's Sword of Discriminating Wisdom, so-to-speak, and cutting at the roots of all kinds of socio-biological attachments that are the substance of the average 'family guy.' If you do marry/partner, it will not last unless your partner is into, and capable of, thwarting so many of the behaviors that are culled from your culture, the greater society, your nuclear and extended family, that you will appear to be aloof from the minutiae that characterizes everyone else's lives. Prestige, financial/social/political power has no place in the life of a Self-Realizer/Actualizer. I recommend that you read Abraham Maslow's Toward a Psychology of Being.
If you cultivate the acceptance that Tolle teaches, you may find it difficult to muster the assertiveness, the hunger for 'more,' but if you raise a family, your life will necessitate financial well-being. A hippy experiment will typically not take you through life, although you could explore the history of The Farm (of Stephen Gaskin fame) in Summertown, Tennessee. That place had everything from people living in tents, to geodesic domes, to standard houses. But that was the late 60s, early 70s. Most hippies moved on in order to better support their families. http://www.thefarmcommunity.com/press-Tennessean_2013.html ;
Family-rearing is a trip unto itself. I never desired it. I've wanted, and have a wife (and an ex-wife who was a terrible choice on my part), but I never had any desire to raise children. As a medieval saying goes, 'Either books, or babies,' becomes the choice. I am content with the former. If you put lifestyle first, you'll need to find a partner who shares your value or your relationship will be short-lived. C.G. Jung insisted on the importance of a relationship for Individuation to progress. If you put a partner first, you'll either acquiesce or compromise about how and where you'll live, which involves livelihood, degree of materiality/lifestyle, social groups you'll participate in. Be certain of whether you want to develop a "B-Cognition" over living a life of a "D-Cognizer" (these are Maslow's terms, but it is the former type that you allude to when you mention Tolle). This choice will lay the foundation of everything else that will follow in your life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow
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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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