|
Hooray, now I won't be considered a newbie, although I have been on this board for over four years I haven't posted much until lately.
I was very interested to read the synopsis of Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, Week 2 from Oprah's website written so eloquently by Jeannette in FL. Let me preface my post by saying that I think it's wonderful that this subject is being discussed by Oprah and that it is my sincere hope and desire that many will be "awakened" by this process.
Jeannette summarizes Tolle's description of Ego as such:
This webcast dealt with the Ego. Tolle explains that the Ego is a compulsive thought processes of which 98% of is useless. Ego prevents us from living in the present. It concentrates on the past; keeping us stuck or on the future; pretending that there is where our happiness will be. Therefore keeping us trapped in endless loops. The Ego has no use for the present.
The Ego has labels for everything, our culture, our nationality, our families, our things, our opinions etc, which then in turn judges others as either someone who is either a friend or an enemy. It never is neutral or accepting.
The Ego constantly is comparing, “Am I as smart as the other person” “Is the other person smarter than me” “Am I as good looking as the other person” “Is the other person better looking than me”. On and on and on and on.
The Ego is never satisfied for long, it is always looking for more and more. He said that is one of the reasons that people are in so much debt. Once they have something, the thrill is gone quickly thereafter and then they need something else to feed the ego.
He spoke about how the ego develops in children is when we give things names. Once named, the magic is gone, as it now has a label. He said one way to prevent the Ego from overtaking children, when we of course we have to teach them names of things, is to keep the magic alive in them. For instance, when we teach them “oak tree”, we should let them feel the bark of the tree, touch the leaves, see the sun on the leaves, the water droplets.
Tolle spoke about each time we are in the present, the Ego loses more and more control over us allowing us to be awakened and free from the trap of the egoic mind.
Tolle then spoke about illness, when a woman called in about on dealing with her lupus and RA. He said that many people identify with their disease or illness, therefore giving the disease power. He said that people need to stop talking to other people about their diseases and illness, stop feeding and empowering the disease. First one should accept the disease as it is and find places in the body that are healthy and to go to those places and build upon it for healing. He also said that nature is another place to find a place to start healing one’s body. He said not to resist the physical pain because that will create psychological pain, again feeding the ego and the disease.
Here are my comments having studied and channeled this subject extensively for the past 15 years with my spirit guide: I do not believe the ego is useless. Ego is, in fact, a word that describes how we function on the earth plane. Ego-based actions are rooted in survival. Survival is a VERY GOOD THING, not useless or evil in any way. Without ego we would not survive. It is how we feed, clothe and shelter ourselves, how we make money and make our way in the earth plane.
To resist our ego is to resist our very selves and I think it is wrong of Tolle to encourage us to try and get rid of ego. We should embrace our ego-based emotions. His description of ego being useless and responsible for the evil in our lives smacks of a religion's description of sin to me. I don't believe in sin, which means I believe in the inherent goodness of all of us since we are all God's creatures and part of he god-source itself.
The awakening is about our becoming aware of our own essence self, the self that we cannot see or touch, but only sense is there. Our mission in coming to this earth is to get in touch with our essence, and then combine it with the ego self to create a new ego-essence self which can manifest in perfection on the earth plane and in the earth's energy.
The things that Tolle describes as bad in our lives, i.e. being stuck in the past, labels, judgment, comparisons, lack of satisfaction, (I would add fear, anger and all the fear-based emotions) are, in fact, issues that can be resolved. I call them filters. They are ways of behavior that each of us has learned over a multitude of lifetimes in order to survive. Because they may have helped us survive at one time, we cleverly tuck these filters into our cellular structure to be used again and again and we don't recognize that we have moved beyond their usefulness, so they repeat in our lives like a broken record.
It is these filters that we need to get rid of, not the ego-self. Merely trying to "wish away" or avoiding these filters won't do it. The more we resist them, the more they pop up in our lives. He is correct about resistance. The only way I have found to dissolve these filters is to align with them on an energetic level where they will dissolve.
Thank you all for listening to me (if you have read this far). I appreciate any comments on the information I have posted here.
Sending you all love and light, Bluestar
|