Tolle's 'New Earth' ft. Oprah unpacking

Tolle states that the ego is a self-definition of ourself. He refers to this as the consciousness. I agree. He further elaborates that the ego arose from this ability to think. I don't believe he means this as in 'hey so do animals then, animals must have an ego too.' This is a complicated topic, let's stick with humans for starters. What he means is the more concrete our thoughts and identity becomes, the more our ego gets stronger. Our inner essence becomes lost as become more certain of our life. I found this incredibly fascinating, somewhat depressing but fundamentally almost magical. If we think about the average person, when they see robbery, some sort of crime, they often think "that is an act of a bad person, or that is a bad thing to do." Tolle argues that this very LABEL is ego in itself. What we react to in other people, we strengthen something in ourself. I believe this means that we strengthen our moral positioning to be superior, thereby inflating our own ego. We are in the judge's seat as we observe these 'wrongdoings'. I'm not trying to defend the actions of such actions, I'm only trying to unpack this concept of an ego. Notably, Tolle also states that this MENTAL LABELLING of people based on what they do or what they look like or how they are portrayed, desensitises ourselves to the humanity in them. Immediately, I thought of the "worst people" in society, maybe the ones we think have not an inch of a good reason to do harmful things. I think within my immediate reaction, I made a negative thought. Tolle parallels this to complaining. It is all producing the same FEELING or mental stimulation, and only exacerbates the ego. The problem with all of this is that it is all unconscious, but is feeding our consciousness with the wrong food and subsequently our conditioned response. All of which is seemingly beyond our control.

I like Tolle's example of "my soup is cold, could you please reheat it?" (in a restaurant for example where you paid $50 for it). Isn't that an okay form of complaint? Tolle quickly enlightens us about the main point: as long as it brings about change, it's fine to bring it up. DON'T PERSONALISE IT.

What about if someone puts their middle finger up at you? What if someone hits you on the street? Tolle states that the feeling of anger and retaliation is all 'ego'. He reassures us that we should not invalidate such a feeling. However, we should firstly ACCEPT what we are feeling and recognise it. At the end of the day, the biggest harm we experienced out of the above hypotheticals is our ego/conditioned response. Let's say we do retaliate. We believe we have been disrespected. I write this as I have been in that situation before and I based my retaliation as "I have been disrespected." The problem here is at some point, especially as time wages on, we often forget why we are retaliating or why we are upset. We are just holding onto something and we don't even realise. Again, this is a conditioned response. This is how the ego is kept alive for all these years. We keep conditioning an acute response when often the acute response is destructive. Interestingly, Tolle says "just trying to forgive/let go does NOT work." He says "forgiveness happens when you realise that being resentful, only fuels the ego." Forgiveness is not about trying to let go, but when you truly let go. I believe this means we cannot rush forgiveness if it does not come naturally to us. However, we should practice it and travel on our own journey to forgive.

An interesting point that was brought up was, well... where's the fun in life if everything we do seems to be just a big illusion then. How can we enjoy life? What about ambition? Is that just ego then? Tolle admits in his 20s, he too was ambitious, he too partied and had fun as many of us do. Tolle clarifies that he does not mean to take the joy out of life. If anything, he says by understanding the presence and consequences of an ego will deepen the way you live life. EGO IS A PROJECTION. Being ambitious is fine. It is just having a balance, and my own wording would be the 'middle path'. Personally, I believe the problems with being ambitious is that it is misinterpreted by those who hear it and those that say they are ambitious. Tolle uses the word ,'forms'. Those who are ambitious often put visual/tangible labels/forms such as a nice car, lot of money, a title at work, the type of social circles you have etc. You cannot identify who YOU ARE with the form. Seems pretty straight forward. However, this attachment to these 'forms' especially when you THINK you don't care but inherently you do, is dangerous as it produces negativity and fear of losing it (if you have it or almost have it). If we go back to my first paragraph (the more concrete our thoughts and identity becomes , the more our ego gets stronger). Ego is not always about a strong desire to gain something, but similarly, a strong desire to not let go of something (This can be interpreted in many ways both abstract and actual).

Another interesting point to the mix was distractions. Tolle bridged his 'Power of Now' well into 'New Earth' well as he says we must look at ourself first before others. Be with yourself, sit with yourself. We all have our distractions. For some it may be procrastination, for others it may be worrying, hedonism etc. That is all different amongst all of us. I believe that many of us already understand that these distractions are more psychological than physical but Tolle's summation of it was succint: "Distractions are when the mind tells us things that don't matter. Distractions are unconscious mind movements. It pretends to be necessary."

On the line of quotes... "whatever you fight, you strengthen. What you resist, persists." By OPPOSITION, you increase the polarity. It goes BOTH ways. Don't resist, surrender.

I like Tolle because he puts forth a solution with this whole ego discussion. Awareness and ego are incompatible. To quieten the ego, we must accept the moment as it is. If we don't have a good relationship with the now, you will have a bad relationship with life. The ego is often lived off the past and the thoughts of the future. Practice changing the present reaction and more so by living in the present. Sit with it.

Going back to this point about surrendering. Yet another interesting concept that was brought up was resisting 'bad things'. Specifically, I can think of things such as resisting over-eating, over-drinking, overdosing, cheating etc.

I mentioned that this whole discussion can seem rather depressing. Freeing ourselves from our mind, ridding this ego, Tolle argues it cannot ever truly be done. There is no sudden epiphany, although any carthasis may seem like one. But! The weight off the shoulders come from the ACCEPTANCE that we DON'T know who we are. Paradoxically and quite helpfully, Tolle says "the more we realise we don't know who we are, the closer we are to knowing who we are." Nothing is permanent. Don't try to get rid of the ego, recognise it for what it is. The ego's most quintessential purpose may just be that it is to help you realise, that is not who you truly are.