Eckhart Tolle: Allowing for the New Earth to emerge..

> Perhaps if you clarify what you believe the proper definition of ego to be, I might be able to understand your point of view better.
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Ego, as it is thought of in the West, is synonymous with "personality." When folks think of "ego death", they imagine that to be a state where there is no personality present. Folks hear they need to remove their ego, and in most cases, they think that means to completely gut themselves, only to be remodeled with a new artifice of imagined egolessness, which in some ways is even worse than the original interior.

The proper term in Vedanta is ahamkara, or knot of the heart. It signifies the attachment to identity. When folks begin to ask themselves the question, 'who am I,' they have thousands of answers for each time they ask. I am the one who is hungry. I am the one who hates Madonna. I am the one who likes bacon. When the ahamkara is broken, they can clearly, directly and honestly answer the 'who am I' question with this answer: no one. There is no one who likes bacon. But that doesn't stop the liking of bacon. The "ego," in the sense that most people use the word, still exists. It is not dead. What IS dead is the attachment to the idea of ego's possession of identity. That is a permanent condition, according to the commentators on the Upanishads. Nonetheless, those who have been blessed with this condition find that nothing really changes. We are all always the Self at all times, anyway. Knowing that only brings that knowledge. It's an ongoing condition. Ego doesn't have a thing to do with that. The real issue is more specific. It's the attachment to the sense of self that the ego provides for us that's the problem.

I'm also not on board with Tolle's "pain body" concept. It's just another demonization of aspects of the personality, something to be disinfected with his program. He's marketing nonduality as self-improvement. He's not the first to do so, but self-improvement and our truth as the Atman are entirely separate. By allowing folks to believe they can self-improve themselves to nondual truth, he's selling a ton of books, but he's throwing mud into heads as well. I guess he's going to have to leave that for the next book.

This strikes me as an amazing opportunity to jump in and talk a lot about something and someone I don't know at all. (Though I admit I have been tempted on several occasions to read Tolle's new book.) Why? Because life goes on and its about as interesting to argue about non-duality as to watch the snow falling.

I wonder if Tolle's ego could beat up George Bush's ego?

I can see it now...
George takes a huge swing with his inflated sense of righteousness...

Eckert hits himself,

George hires a hit man to do the job,

Eckert hits himself...

... and the winner is???? THAT!

Who?.. Not who... THAT!
What?
THAT!
I cant see it...
Not IT ... THAT!
Where?
......
ohm