A NEW EARTH - CHAPTER 3: THE CORE OF EGO - ECKHART TOLLE

thank you A New Earth Awakening to your life's purpose [Music] chapter 3 the core of ego most people are so completely identified with the voice in the head the incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the emotions that accompany it that we may describe them as being possessed by their mind as long as you are completely unaware of this you take the Thinker to be who you are this is the egoic mind we call it egoic because there is a sense of self of I ego in every thought every memory every interpretation opinion Viewpoint reaction emotion this is unconsciousness spiritually speaking you're thinking the content of your mind is of course conditioned by the past your upbringing culture family background and so on the central core of all your mind activity consists of certain repetitive and persistent thoughts emotions and reactive patterns that you identify with most strongly this entity is the ego itself in most cases when you say I it is the ego speaking not you as we have seen it consists of thought and emotion of a bundle of memories you identify with as me in my story of Habitual roles you play without knowing it of collective identification such as nationality religion race social class or political allegiance it also contains personal identifications not only with possessions but also with opinions external appearance long-standing resentments or concepts of yourself is better than or not as good as others as a success or failure the content of the ego varies from person to person be you in every ego the same structure operates in other words egos only differ on the surface deep down they are all the same in what way are they the same they live on identification and separation when you live through the Mind Made self comprised of thought and emotion that is the ego the basis for your identity is precarious because thought and emotion are by their very nature ephemeral fleeting so every ego is continuously struggling for survival trying to protect and enlarge itself to uphold the it hot it needs the opposite thought of the other the conceptual I cannot survive without the conceptual other the others are most other when I see them as my enemies at one end of this scale of this unconscious egoic pattern lies the egoic compulsive habit of fault finding and complaining about others Jesus referred to it when he said why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye at the other end of the scale there is physical violence between individuals and warfare between nations in the Bible Jesus question remains unanswered but the answer is of course because when I criticize or condemn another it makes me feel bigger Superior complaining and resentment complaining is one of the ego's favorite strategies for strengthening itself every complaint is a little story The Mind makes up that you completely believe in whether you complain aloud or only in thought makes no difference some egos that perhaps don't have much else to identify with easily survive on complaining alone when you are in the grip of such an ego complaining especially about other people is Habitual and of course unconscious which means you don't know what you are doing applying negative mental labels to people either to their face or more commonly when you speak about them to others or even just think about them is often part of this pattern main calling is the crudest form of such labeling and of the egos need to be right in triumph over others jerk bastard all definitive pronouncements that you can't argue with on the next level down on the scale of unconsciousness you have shouting and screaming and not much below that physical violence resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mental labeling of people and adds even more energy to the ego resentment means to feel bitter indignant aggrieved or offended humans and other people's greed their dishonesty their lack of Integrity what they are doing what they did in the past what they said what they failed to do what they should for shouldn't have done the ego loves it instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others you make it into their identity who is doing that the unconsciousness in you the ego sometimes the fault that you perceive in another isn't even there it is a total misinterpretation a projection by a mind condition to see enemies and to make itself right or Superior at other times the fault may be theirs but by focusing on it sometimes to the exclusion of everything else you amplify it and what you react to in another you strengthen in yourself non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going Beyond ego in yourself but also of dissolving the collective human ego but you can only be in a state of non-reaction if you can recognize someone's Behavior as coming from the ego as being an expression of the collective human dysfunction when you realize it's not personal there is no longer a compulsion to react as if it were by not reacting to the ego you will often be able to bring out the sanity in others which is the unconditioned Consciousness as opposed to the condition at times you may have to take practical steps to protect yourself from deeply unconscious people this you can do without making them into enemies your greatest protection however is being conscious somebody becomes an enemy if you personalize the unconsciousness that is the ego non-reaction is not weakness but strength another word for non-reaction is forgiveness to forgive is to overlook or rather to look through you look through the ego to the sanity that is in every human being as his or her essence the ego loves to complain and feel resentful not only about other people but also about situations what you can do to a person you can also do to a situation make it into an enemy the implication is always this should not be happening I don't want to be here I don't want to be doing this I'm being treated unfairly and the ego's greatest enemy of all is of course the present moment which is to say life itself complaining is not to be confused with informing someone of a mistake or deficiency so that it can be put right and to refrain from complaining doesn't necessarily mean putting up with bad quality or behavior there is no ego in telling the waiter that your soup is cold and needs to be heated up if you stick to the facts which are always neutral how dare you serve me cold soup that's complaining there is a me here that loves to feel personally offended by the cold soup and is going to make the most of it a me that enjoys making someone wrong the complaining we are talking about is in the service of the ego not of change sometimes it becomes obvious that the ego doesn't really want change so that it can go on complaining see if you can catch that is to say notice the voice in the head perhaps in the very moment it complains about something and recognize it for what it is the voice of the ego no more than a conditioned mind pattern a thought whenever you notice that voice you will also realize that you are not the voice but the one who is aware of it in fact you are the awareness that is aware of The Voice in the background there is the awareness in the foreground there is the voice The Thinker in this way you are becoming free of the ego free of the unobserved Mind the moment you become aware of the ego in you it is strictly speaking no longer the ego but just an old conditioned mind pattern ego implies unawareness awareness and ego cannot coexist the old mind pattern or mental habit may still survive and reoccur for a while because it has the momentum of thousands of years of collective human unconsciousness behind it but every time it is recognized it is weakened reactivity and grievances whereas resentment is often the emotion that goes with complaining it may also be accompanied by a stronger emotion such as anger or some other form of upset in this way it becomes more highly charged energetically complaining then turns into reactivity another of the ego's ways of strengthening itself there are many people who are always waiting for the next thing to react against to feel annoyed or disturbed about and it never takes long before they find it this is an outrage they say how dare you I resent this they are addicted to upset and anger as others are to a drug through reacting against this or that they assert and strengthen their feeling of self a long-standing resentment is called a grievance to carry a grievance is to be in a permanent state of against and that is why grievances constitute a significant part of many people's ego Collective grievances can survive for centuries in the psyche of a Nation or tribe and fuel a never-ending cycle of violence a grievance is a strong negative emotion connected to an event in the sometimes distant past that is being kept Alive by compulsive Thinking by retelling the story in the head or out loud of what someone did to me or what someone did to us a grievance will also contaminate other areas of your life for example while you think about and feel your grievance its negative emotional energy can distort your perception of an event that is happening in the present or influence the way in which you speak or behave towards someone in the present one strong grievance is enough to contaminate large areas of your life and keep you in the grip of the ego it requires honesty to see whether you still Harbor grievances whether there is someone in your life you have not completely forgiven an enemy if you do become aware of the grievance both on the level of thought as well as emotion that is to say Beware of the thoughts that keep it alive and feel the emotion that is the body's response to those thoughts don't try to let go of the grievance trying to let go to forgive does not work forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self to keep the ego in place the seeing is freeing Jesus teaching to forgive your enemies is essentially about the undoing of one of the many egoic structures in the human mind the past has no power to stop you from being present now only your grievance about the past can do that and what is a grievance the baggage of old thought and emotion complaining as well as fault finding and reactivity strengthen the ego's sense of boundary and separateness on which tis survival depends but they also strengthen the ego in another way by giving it a feeling of superiority on which it thrives it may not be immediately apparent how complaining say about a traffic jam about politicians about the greedy wealthy or the lazy unemployed or your colleagues or ex-spouse men or women can give you a sense of superiority here is why when you complain by implication you are right and the person or situation you complain about will react against is wrong there is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right being right is identification with a mental position a perspective an opinion a judgment a story for you to be right of course you need someone else to be wrong and so the ego loves to make wrong in order to be right in other words you need to make others wrong in order to get a stronger sense of Who You Are not only a person but also a situation can be made wrong through complaining and reactivity which always implies that this should not be happening being right places you in a position of imagined moral superiority in relation to the person or situation that is being judged and found wanting it is that sense of superiority the ego craves and through which it enhances itself in defense of an illusion facts undoubtedly exist if you say light travels faster than sound and someone else says the opposite is the case you are obviously right and he is wrong the simple observation that lightning precedes Thunder could confirm this so not only are you right but you know you are right is there any ego involved in this possibly but not necessarily if you are simply stating what you know to be true the ego is not involved at all because there is no identification identification with what with mind and a mental position such identification however can easily creep in if you find yourself saying believe me I know or why do you never believe me then the ego has already crept in it is hiding in the little word me a simple statement light is faster than sound although true is now in service of Illusion of ego it has become contaminated with a false sense of I it has become personalized turned into a mental position the eye feels diminished or offended because somebody doesn't believe what I said ego takes everything personally emotion arises defensiveness perhaps even aggression are you defending the truth no the truth in any case needs no defense the light or sound does not care about what you or anybody else thinks you are defending yourself or rather the illusion of yourself the Mind Made substitute it would be even more accurate to say that the illusion is defending itself if even the simple and straightforward realm of facts can lend itself to egoic Distortion and illusion how much more so the less tangible realm of opinions viewpoints and judgments all of them thought forms that can easily become infused with a sense of I every ego confuses opinions and viewpoints with facts furthermore it cannot tell the differences between an event and its reaction to that event every ego is a master of selective perception and distorted interpretation only through awareness not through thinking can you differentiate between fact and opinion only through awareness are you able to see there is the situation and here is the anger I feel about it and then realize there are other ways of approaching the situation other ways of seeing it and dealing with it only through awareness can you see th totality of the situation or person instead of adopting one limited perspective truth relative or absolute beyond the realm of simple and verifiable facts the certainty that I am right and you are wrong is a dangerous thing in personal relationships as well as in interactions between nations tribes religions and so on but if the belief I am right you are wrong is one of the ways in which the ego strengthens itself if making yourself right and others wrong is a mental dysfunction that perpetuates separation conflict between human beings does that mean there is no such thing as right or wrong Behavior action or belief and wouldn't that be the moral relativism that some contemporary Christian teaching see as the great evil of our times the history of Christianity is of course a prime example of how the belief that you are in sole possession of the truth that is to say right can corrupt your actions and behavior to the point of insanity for centuries torturing and burning people alive if their opinion diverged even in the slightest from church doctrine or narrow interpretations of scripture the truth was considered right because the victims were wrong they were so wrong that they needed to be killed the truth was considered more important than human life and what was the truth a story you had to believe in which means a bundle of thoughts the one million people that mad dictator Pol Pot of Cambodia ordered killed included everybody who wore glasses why to him the Marxist interpretation of History was the absolute truth and according to his version of it those who wore glasses belonged to the educated glass the bourgeoisie the exploiters of the peasants they needed to be eliminated to make room for a new social order his truth also was a bundle of thoughts the Catholic and other churches are actually correct and they identify relativism the belief that there is no absolute truth to guide human behavior as one of the evils of our times but you won't find absolute truth if you look for it where it cannot be found in doctrines ideologies sets of rules or stories what do all of these have in common they are made up of thought can at best point to the truth but it never is the truth that's why Buddhists say the finger pointing to the Moon is not the Moon all religions are equally false and equally true depending on how you use them you can use them in the service of the ego or you can use them in the service of the truth if you believe only your religion is the truth you are using it in the service of the ego used in such a way religion becomes ideology and creates an illusory sense of superiority as well as Division and conflict between people in the service of the truth religious teachings represent signposts or Maps left behind by awakened humans to assist you in Spiritual Awakening that is to say in becoming free of identification with form there is only one absolute truth and all other truths emanate from it when you find that truth your actions will be in alignment with it Human Action can reflect the truth or it can reflect illusion can the truth be put into words yes but the words are of course not it they only point to it the truth is inseparable from Who You Are yes you are the truth if you look for it elsewhere you will be deceived every time the very being that you are is truth Jesus tried to convey that when he said I am the way and the truth and the life these words uttered by Jesus are one of the most powerful and direct pointers to the truth if understood correctly if misinterpreted however they become a great obstacle Jesus speaks of the innermost I am the essence identity of every man and woman every life form in fact he speaks of the life that you are some Christian Mystics have called it the Christ within Buddhists call it your Buddha nature for Hindus it is ottman the indwelling god when you are in touch with that Dimension within yourself and being in touch with it is your natural state not some miraculous achievement all your actions and relationships will reflect the Oneness with all life that you sense deep within This Is Love laws Commandments rules and regulations are necessary for those who are cut off from who they are the truth Within they prevent the worst excesses of the ego and often they don't even do that love and do what you will said Saint Augustine words cannot get much closer to the truth than that the ego is not personal on a collective level the mindset we are right and they are wrong is particularly deeply entrenched in those parts of the world where conflict between two Nations races tribes religions or ideologies is long-standing Extreme and endemic both sides of the conflict are equally identified with their own perspective their own story that is to say identified with thought both are equally incapable of seeing that another perspective another story may exist and also be valid Israeli writer why halavite speaks of the possibility of accommodating a competing narrative but in many parts of the world people are not yet able or willing to do that both sides believe themselves to be in possession of the truth both regard themselves as victims and the other is evil and because they have conceptualized and thereby dehumanized the other as the enemy they can kill and inflict all kinds of violence on the other even on children without feeling their humanity and suffering they become trapped in an insane spiral of perpetration and retribution action and reaction here it becomes obvious that the human ego in its Collective aspect as us against them is even more insane that enemy the individual ego although the mechanism is the same by far the greater part of violence that humans have inflicted on each other is not the work of criminals or the mentally deranged but of normal respectable citizens in the service of the collective ego one can go far as to say that on this planet normal equals insane what is it that lies at the root of this insanity complete identification with thought and emotion that is to say ego greed selfishness exploitation cruelty and violence are still all pervasive on this planet when you don't recognize them as individual and Collective manifestations of an underlying dysfunction or mental illness you fall into the error of personalizing them you construct a conceptual identity for an individual or group and you say this is who he is this is who they are when you confuse the ego that you perceive in others with their identity it is the work of your own ego that uses this misperception to strengthen itself through being right and therefore Superior and through reacting with condemnation indignation and often anger against the perceived enemy all this is enormously satisfying to the ego it strengthens the sense of separation between yourself and the other whose otherness has become magnified to such an extent that you can no longer feel your common Humanity nor the rootedness in the one life that you share with each human being your common divinity the particular egoic patterns that you react to most strongly in others and misperceive as their identity tend to be the same patterns that are also in you but that you are unable or unwilling to detect within yourself in that sense you have much to learn from your enemies what is it in them that you find most upsetting most disturbing their selfishness their greed their need for power and control they're insincerity dishonesty propensity to violence or whatever it may be anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you but it is no more than a form of ego and as such it is completely impersonal it has nothing to do with who that person is nor has it anything to do with who you are only if you mistake it for who you are can observing it within you be threatening to your sense of self war is a mindset in certain cases you may need to protect yourself or someone else from being harmed by another but beware of making it your mission to eradicate evil as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against fighting unconsciousness will draw you into unconsciousness yourself unconsciousness dysfunctionally go at Behavior can never be defeated by attacking it even if you defeat your opponent the unconsciousness will simply have moved into you or the opponent reappears in a new disguise whatever you fight you strengthen and what you resist persists these days you frequently hear the expression the war against this or that and whenever I hear it I know that it is condemned to failure there is the war against drugs the war against Crime the war against terrorism the war against cancer the war against poverty and so on for example despite the war against Crime and drugs there has been a dramatic increase in crime and drug-related offenses in the past 25 years the prison population of the United States has gone up from just under 300 000 in 1980 to a staggering 2.1 million in 2004. the war against disease has given us amongst other things antibiotics at first they were spectacularly successful seemingly enabling us to win the war against infectious diseases now many experts agree that the widespread and indiscriminate use of antibiotics has created a time bomb and that antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria so-called superbugs will in all likelihood bring about a re-emergence of those diseases and possibly epidemics according to the Journal of the American Medical Association medical treatment is the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in the United States Homeopathy and Chinese medicine are two examples of possible alternative approaches to disease that do not treat the illness as an enemy and therefore do not create new diseases war is a mindset and all action that comes out of such a mindset will either strengthen the enemy the perceived evil or if the war is one will create a new enemy a new evil equal to and often worse than the one that was defeated there is a deep interrelatedness between your State of Consciousness and external reality when you are in the grip of a mindset such as War your perceptions become extremely selective as well as distorted in other words you will see only what you want to see and then misinterpret it you can imagine what kind of action comes out of such a delusional system or instead of imagining it watch the news on TV tonight recognize the ego for what it is a collective dysfunction the insanity of the human mind when you recognize it for what it is you no longer misperceive it as somebody's identity once you see the ego for what it is it becomes much easier to remain non-reactive toward it you don't take it personally anymore there is no complaining blaming accusing or making wrong nobody is wrong it is the ego in someone that's all compassion arises when you recognize that all are suffering from the same sickness of the mind some more acutely than others you do not fuel the drama anymore that is part of all egoic relationships what is its fuel reactivity the ego thrives on it do you want peace or drama you want peace there is no one who does not want peace yet there is something else in you that wants the drama wants the conflict you may not be able to feel it at this moment you may have to wait for a situation or even just a thought that triggers a reaction in you someone accusing you of this or that not acknowledging you encroaching on your territory questioning the way you do things an argument about money can you then feel the enormous surge of force moving through you the fear perhaps being masked by anger or hostility can you hear your own voice becoming harsh or shrill or louder and a few octaves lower can you be aware of your mind racing to defend its position justify attack blame in other words can you awaken at that moment of unconsciousness can you feel that there is something in you that is at War something that feels threatened and wants to survive at all cost that needs the drama in order to assert its identity as the Victorious character within that theatrical production can you feel there is something in you that would rather be right than at peace Beyond ego your true identity when the ego is at War know that it is no more than an illusion that is fighting to survive that illusion thinks it is you it is not easy at first to be there as the witnessing presence especially when the ego is in survival mode or some emotional pattern from the past has become activated but once you have had a taste of it you will grow in Presence Power and the ego will lose its grip on you and so a power comes into your life that is far greater than the ego greater than the mind all that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it since awareness and ego are incompatible awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment this is why we may also call it presence the ultimate purpose of human existence which is to say your purpose is to bring that power into this world and this is also why becoming free of the ego cannot be made into a goal to be attained at some point in the future only presence can free you of the ego and you can only be present now not yesterday or tomorrow only presence can undo the past in you and thus transform your state of consciousness what is spiritual realization the belief that you are Spirit no that's a thought a little closer to the truth than the thought that believes you or who your birth certificate says you are but still a thought spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive experience think or feel is ultimately not who I am that I cannot find myself in all those things that continuously pass away the Buddha was probably the first human being to see this clearly and so anata no self became one of the central points of his teaching and when Jesus said deny thyself what he meant was negate and thus undo the illusion of self if the self-ego were truly who I am it would be absurd to deny it what remains is the light of Consciousness in which perceptions experiences thoughts and feelings come and go that is being that is the deeper true eye when I know myself as that whatever happens in my life is no longer of absolute but only of relative importance I honor it but it loses its absolute seriousness its heaviness the only thing that ultimately matters is this can I sense my Essential beingness the I am in the background of my life at all times to be more accurate can I sense the I am that I am at this moment can I sense my Essential identity as Consciousness itself or am I losing myself in what happens losing myself in the mind in the world all structures are unstable whatever form it takes the unconscious Drive behind ego is to strengthen the image of who I think I am the Phantom self that came into existence when thought a great blessing as well as a great curse began to take over and obscured the simple yet profound Joy of connectedness with being the source God whatever Behavior the ego manifests the hidden motivating force is always the same the need to stand out be special be in control the need for power for attention for more and of course the need to feel a sense of Separation that is to say the need for opposition enemies the ego always wants something from other people or situations there is always a hidden agenda always a sense of not enough yet of insufficiency and lack that needs to be filled it uses people in situations to get what it wants and even when it succeeds it is never satisfied for long often it is thwarted in its aims and for the most part the gap between I want and what is becomes a constant source of upset and anguish the famous and now classic pop song I Can't Get No Satisfaction is the song of the ego the underlying emotion that governs all the activity of the ego is fear the fear of being nobody the fear of non-existence the fear of death all its activities are ultimately designed to eliminate this fear but the most the ego can ever do is to cover it up temporarily with an intimate relationship a new possession or winning at this or that illusion will never satisfy you only the truth of who you are if realized will set you free why fear because the ego arises by identification with form and deep down it knows that no forms are permanent that they are all fleeting so there is always a sense of insecurity around the ego even if on the outside it appears confident as I was walking with a friend through a beautiful nature reserve near Malibu in California We Came Upon the ruins of what had been once a country house destroyed by a fire several decades ago as we approached the property long overgrown with trees and all kinds of magnificent plants there was a Sign by the side of the trail put there by the park authorities it read danger all structures are unstable I said to my friend that's a profound Sutra sacred scripture and we stood there in all once you realize and accept that all structures forms are unstable even the seemingly solid material ones peace arises within you this is because the recognition of the impermanence of all forms awakens you to the dimension of the formless within yourself that which is beyond death Jesus called it eternal life the egos need to feel Superior there are many subtle but easily overlooked forms of ego that you may observe in other people and more important in yourself remember the moment you become aware of the go in yourself that emerging awareness is who you are Beyond ego the deeper eye the recognition of the false is already the arising of the rail for example you are about to tell someone the news of what happened guess what you don't know yet let me tell you if you are alert enough present enough you may be able to detect a momentary sense of satisfaction within yourself just before imparting the news even if it is bad news it is due to the fact that for a brief moment there is in the eyes of the ego an imbalance in your favor between you and the other person for that brief moment you know more than the other the satisfaction that you feel is of the ego and it is derived from feeling a stronger sense of self-relative to the other person even if he or she is the president or the pope you feel Superior in that moment because you know more many people are addicted to gossiping partly for this reason in addition gossiping often carries an element of malicious criticism and Judgment of others and so it also strengthens the ego through the implied but imagine moral superiority that is there whenever you apply a negative judgment to anyone if someone has more knows more or can do more than I the ego feels threatened because the feeling of less diminishes its imagined sense of self-relative to the other it may then try to restore Itself by somehow diminishing criticizing or belittling the value of the other person's possessions knowledge or abilities or the ego May shift its strategy and instead of competing with the other person it will enhance Itself by association with that person if he or she is important in the eyes of others ego and fame the well-known phenomenon of name dropping the Casual mention of who you know is part of the ego strategy of gaining a superior identity in the eyes of others and therefore in its own eyes through association with someone important the bane of being famous in this world is that who you are becomes totally obscured by a collective mental image most people you meet want to enhance their identity the mental image of who they are through association with you they themselves may not know that they are not interested in you at all but only in strengthening their ultimately fictitious sense of self they believe that through you they can be more they are looking to complete themselves through you or rather through the mental image they have of you as a famous person a larger than life Collective conceptual identity the Absurd overvaluation of Fame is just one of the many manifestations of egoic Madness in our world some famous people fall into the same era and identify with the collective fiction the image people and the media have created of them and they begin to actually see themselves as Superior to ordinary Mortals as a result they become more and more alienated from themselves and others more and more unhappy more and more dependent on their continuing popularity surrounded only by people who feed their inflated self-image they become incapable of genuine relationships Albert Einstein who was admired as almost superhuman and whose fate it was to become one of the most famous people on the planet never identified with the image the collective mind had created of him he remained humble egoless in fact he spoke of a grotesque contradiction between what people consider to be my achievements and abilities and the reality of who I am and what I am capable of this is why it is hard for a famous person to be in a genuine relationship with others a genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image making and self-seeking in a genuine relationship there is an outward flow of open alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever that alert attention is presence it is the prerequisite of any authentic relationship the ego always either wants something or if it believes there is nothing to get from the other it is in a state of utter indifference it doesn't care about you and so the three predominant states of egoic relationship are wanting thwarted wanting anger resentment blaming complaining and indifference [Music] thank you foreign

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Keywords: a new earth, eckhart tolle, chapter 3, spiritual awakening, ekchart, awakening to your life's purpose, audio book, spiritual

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Length: 50min 32sec (3032 seconds)

Published: Sun May 28 2023