The Ego Not an Enemy ~ Inquirer "I just started reading one of
your books for the first time A New Earth
<http://www.peterspearls.com.au/books.htm#eckhart> . I am still having a
hard time understanding why we have an ego and why it seems to be our
enemy. Can you explain it more simply for me so I understand the ego's
purpose?"
Eckhart Tolle "The ego is a stage in the evolution of human
consciousness. It is not your enemy. To perceive somebody or something
as an enemy is in fact one of the main misperceptions or delusions of
the egoic unconsciousness. So, you cannot fight against the ego and win
that fight. If you think you have won the fight against the ego, it is
the ego in you that thinks so and it has enlarged itself.
So the ego is not an enemy, but a dysfunction. Looked at from one point
of view, it is an entity that the mind created. From another
perspective, however, it is simply a delusion, resulting in a distorted
way of perceiving reality and consequently in dysfunctional behavior.
This second perspective is probably a more helpful one.
A delusion dissolves when you recognize it as delusion, and so does the
ego. The ego is the by-product, as it were, of the rapid development of
our faculty of thought over the past six thousand years. We lost
ourselves in thought, that is to say became identified with it to such
an extent that we now derive our sense of who we are from thinking.
Thought is a particular way for universal intelligence to express
itself. It is no more than a tiny aspect of that vast intelligence.
Thought, through naming things, analyzes, dissects, and separates
reality into bits and pieces. Thinking can be a helpful practical tool,
but when you identify with thinking the delusion of separation arises.
Your reality becomes fragmented. You lose your original sense of
connectedness with Being ("paradise"). You become unhappy, needy,
discontented, full of ever unfulfilled desire, and you are always
unconsciously attempting to regain your lost sense of being, of who you
are.
Life is one and I am one with all life.
When you know this truth, the ego dissolves. To know means to realize.
How, then, do you realize this truth?
At this moment the only moment there is there are some
thoughts moving across your mind (the words you are reading and whatever
your mind is adding to them). However, you can also KNOW that these
thoughts are moving across your mind. That knowing is the dimension of
awareness. It has nothing to do with thinking. While thinking happens,
you can know yourself as the awareness behind the thinking, the alert
stillness in the background ungraspable, indefinable, elusive.
When you disidentify from thinking, you may also discover a growing
ability within you to perceive things and people without immediately
naming them. In this way, the ego, which is the unconscious habit of
identifying with every thought that arises, begins to dissolve.
Dealing With Ego ~ "One day I will be free of the ego." Who is talking?
The ego. To become free of the ego's control is not really a big job,
but a very small one.
All you need to do is be aware of your thoughts and emotions as
they happen. This is not really a doing, but an alert seeing. In that
sense, it is true that there is nothing you can do to become free of the
ego's domination.
When that shift happens, which is the shift from thinking to awareness,
an intelligence far greater than the ego's cleverness begins to operate
in your life. Emotions and even thoughts become depersonalized through
awareness.
You are the light of Presence, the awareness that is prior to and deeper
than any thoughts and emotions."
