My Realization of the Existence of Ego

Or the Egoic mind, as some may call it.

The book, A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle opened this to me.

The book fell literally on my lap as my mother, an Oprah fan, bought this as one of Oprah's book club listings. I saw it on her bag and was intrigued. Upon seeing it, I said out loud to her, "This book is good!" which seems weird since I have not yet known or heard about Eckhart Tolle before.

You know that weird intuition wherein you feel something good about something you've only seen for the first time? Well I got that feeling upon seeing and holding this book. It had a certain energy in it.

One of the topics he discussed in his book is the existence of the ego.

From my understanding in reading this, the ego is an entity inside us that seeks excessively more than what you need, be it prestige or possessions, defends and builds-up "self-image", one that is highly attached to worldly stuff and would choose those stuff over true relationships and unconditional love. The ego loves the world and lets you make it your "god". Eckhart Tolle tells us that when we are aware of the ego in us and be a witnessing consciousness behind it, we prevent it to take over our lives and our decisions. The technique is to catch it doing its thing before it overtakes you as a person and let you do unnecessary things, harm others and harm yourself.

He also said that the human ego is one of the main causes of wars and conflicts that plagued humanity in the past centuries. But the ego is not to be judged or be made into an enemy. It is to be accepted as a part of the journey. It has its role and its place in our evolution as a specie.

Eckhart Tolle's teachings resonated well with something inside of me. It is as if he just reminded me of many things that I used to know before but had forgotten.

Aside from his books, there are lots of videos over the internet about Eckhart Tolle. And the discussion regarding the awareness of the ego is just one of his teachings. Here is one of them:

To be enlightened, is to lighten up! When? NOW. =)

Have a great week!

Carlo