Tag Archives: Eckhart Tolle

Ego

9 Unconscious Ways The Ego Takes Over Your Life

Reflected LightThe ego needs a lot of things.  Without wanting, the mind made self loses steam, and your true self beyond the voice in your head begins to emerge.  Finding out the nature of your true self beyond what your thoughts are attached to is one of the greatest adventures of being a human.  But how can this actually be done?

To the mind, it appears that there is nothing beyond itself, because it only recognizes things.  Space is incomprehensible to a thought whose meaning is always attached to some-thing.  Yet, space is our home.  We are consciousness, that which is aware and watching.  We are the space in which all things arise.  When you balance your life with space you have access to the power that created the universe.

In Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth he offers pointers to help create more inner space, and diminish the egoic mind.  One of these pointers is to become aware of patterns that operate in your life which attempt to inflate or repair the egoic sense of self.  The list of these patterns literally makes me laugh out loud, because I have seen each one operate in my life at one time or another.  Experimenting with letting go of these patterns whenever you become aware of them can at first feel uncomfortable, but then give rise to a powerful feeling of spaciousness and peace.  The true self then has room to emerge.   I hope reading these “ways in which people unconsciously try to emphasize their form­-identity,” as Tolle puts it, is as amusing and enlightening to you as it was to me:

  1. Demanding recognition for something you did and getting angry or upset if you don’t get it

  2. Trying to get attention by talking about your problems, the story of your illnesses, or making a scene

  3. Giving your opinion when nobody has asked for it and it makes no difference to the situation

  4. Being more concerned with how the other person sees you than with the other person, which is to say, using other people for egoic reflection or as ego enhancers

  5. Trying to make an impression on others through possessions, knowledge, good looks, status, physical strength, and so on

  6. Bringing about temporary ego inflation through angry reaction against something to someone

  7. Taking things personally, feeling offended

  8. Making yourself right and others wrong through futile mental or verbal complaining

  9. Wanting to be seen, or to appear important (Tolle)
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You

“Be yourself- not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.” ― Henry David Thoreau

Joey and KatieThe most vital component to your life’s purpose is being yourself.  I don’t say this to be kind or encouraging, but as a matter of urgent importance.  While you many never see it, you being yourself is changing someone else’s life.  Without you being who you truly are, the world is missing its only chance of you.

So who are you?  It is easier to start with who you are not.  You are not a bundle of thoughts.  You are not who you think you are, or who anyone else thinks you are.  You are not the name, weight, and hair color on your driver’s license.  Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, what is left?

You will know who you are by witnessing yourself free from these thought-made selves it is so easy to get attached to.  You don’t have to try to be who you are, and you definitely don’t have to “figure it out.”  Who you are emerges when you untangle your identity from your thoughts and circumstances.  Allowing yourself just to be in the world, experiencing life as it is, and following your own joy in whatever way it expresses itself, will show you yourself more truly and miraculously than your mind could have ever thought up.

I love this video.  This little girl is so inspiring, not because of a particular skill, but because she is being herself.  And what happens when you are who you are, without trying to be what you think you should be in the eyes of others?  People notice you!  People think you are doing something amazing!  You bring people joy!  You don’t have to be the best at this or that.  You only need let your true self act, and it will be better at whatever it does than any amount of practice could produce:

http://youtu.be/NUUQWCkumXE

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Inspiration

Living For The Weekend And The Secret To Joy

What is so wonderful about a vacation to the Caribbean? What is appealing about walking along a white sandy beach at sunset?  Why do we so often long for the next vacation, or live for the weekend?  To put it simply, we long for the feeling.

If you’ve ever had a wonderful experience on vacation, or a revitalizing weekend after a long week of work, you have experienced a beautiful inner feeling that keeps you coming back for more.  Many addictions begin just this way.  There is an experience of a feeling that you enjoy to such an extent that you want to feel it again and again.  What are you actually enjoying?

Your mind will tell you, “I love the margarita,” or, “I love laying on the beach in the sun with nothing to do and a good book to read.”  The mind confuses the state of joy with the outer experience it perceives while in that state.  But it is not the form of the experience that keeps you coming back for more.  It is the state of joy.  The joy of being.  I call it a “state” because it is not the same as an emotion that passes through your consciousness and then dissipates.  Joy is an inherent natural state of the being that you are.  Joy is discovered when layers of form, emotions, and thoughts are uncovered.  Joy is revealed, not created.

That longing for a vacation, or the weekend, is a longing to be back in that state of pure joy, your true state of being.  Once you have realized that what is so enjoyable about a good time is not the experience, but the state of joy itself, you open yourself up to being able to experience that which you desire regardless of circumstance.  Joy is your natural state, it is always present.  It merely gets covered up by thoughts and the “cares of the world.”  How did you feel on your last vacation?  How did you feel Friday after work was over?  Relax and allow that sensation to well up from within you, imagine you are on that beautiful sandy beach with clear waves rolling over your toes.  Joy can be uncovered at any moment in any situation; it doesn’t have to be Friday.

The following video on manifesting abundance operates under this very same principle.  Abundance, like joy, comes from within.  The experience of abundance in outer form is only its surface layer.  The state of abundance originates within you:

http://youtu.be/BD52vEw3ZUY

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Ego

The 6 Thoughts That Are Keeping You Unhappy

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“Whenever there is unhappiness in the background of your life (or even in the foreground), you can see which of these thoughts applies and fill in your own content according to your personal situation:

‘There is something that needs to happen in my life before I can be at peace (happy, fulfilled, etc.). And I resent that it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe my resentment will finally make it happen.’

‘Something happened in the past that should not have happened, and I resent that. If that hadn’t happened, I would be at peace now.’

‘Something is happening now that should not be happening, and it is preventing me from being at peace now.’

Often the unconscious beliefs are directed toward a person and so “happening” becomes “doing”:

‘You should do this or that so that I can be at peace. And I resent that you haven’t done it yet. Maybe my resentment will make you do it.’

‘Something you (or I) did, said, or failed to do in the past is preventing me from being at peace now.’

‘What you are doing or failing to do now is preventing me from being at peace.’” (Tolle 114)

Do any of these thoughts sound familiar?  Seeing them without content lays bare the structure of the egoic mind that does not recognize the present moment, living in the phantom past and future.  Shining the light of your own awareness on the voice of the ego is the beginning of its end.

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consciousness

How do you know if you’re being yourself?

Me as a child with my older brother.

Me as a child with my older brother.

When I was a little kid I longed to know who I really was.  I remember wishing someone could just tell me.  I envied my friends from foreign countries who had a strong national identity.  I thought they really knew who they were.  I tried finding my identity in things, like being a writer, an actress, a musician.  But nothing ever stuck.

Now I am grateful for that.  I didn’t yet realize that the self attached to thoughts and things was the ego, the parasitic mind that can only survive through attachment to forms.  It wasn’t until the summer I turned 23 that I suddenly realized what a gift it was to experience the self without definitions and attachments.  It was then, when I realized what I was not, that I became open to finding out who my true self was, how it expressed itself, and how the true self was more expansive and inclusive than I could have ever thought up with my mind.

At first, not buying into your own thought created identity can feel like a black hole with no end in sight.  There is another side.  You will know it through inexplicable feelings of joy, love, and the state of peace.  For me, it still becomes obscured by the ego at various points throughout the day.  The good news is, that once you’ve experienced your true self it continues to grow in presence and power, no matter how the ego may try to reassert itself.  So who are you?  Try asking yourself without answering with words, and let your self show you.

I love this short video with Eckhart Tolle because it can give you an experience of your true nature as pure consciousness, as the watcher:

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Inspiration

“Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle

Rainbow RoomI recently talked about experiencing negative emotions and how to sit with them until they dissipate.  Sometimes a situation triggers a host of negative reactions that are disproportionate to the event itself.  For me, this tends to be how my pain body awakens. The pain body is the energy of past experiences of pain that haven’t been fully processed and continue to live on in the body.  When the pain body wakes up it brings with it the opportunity to dissolve the pain you’ve been unconsciously carrying around.  It also means you have to feel it, sit with it, and not allow yourself to get distracted.

This happened to me just the other day, and as I was comfortably lying there I found myself wanting to scroll around on my phone, or see what was on TV.  If I had allowed myself to get up and go about my day the pain body would have subsided, and I would have gone on having a fine time.  But the energy I was experiencing wouldn’t have been dissolved.  It would have come up again when the opportunity was right.  So I gave myself permission to feel both the uncomfortable negative energy, and the inertia pulling me to get up and do something else.  This is an endlessly worthwhile practice.  I plan on living for many years, and the benefits of practicing how to deal with negative emotions will be of great assistance on a journey that largely includes letting go.

It is also helpful to learn how to be with negative emotions, and a feeling of restlessness, because it can show you how to accept these energy forces in your friends and partners.  I intend for this practice to help me allow my loved ones to experience whatever it is they are going through.  It can be just as difficult, if not more, to bring acceptance to the suffering of a loved one.  First trying out surrender for yourself can tremendously aid you when you see someone you love going through the same thing.  If your loved one is suffering, and there isn’t any physical solution you can bring to them, you can surrender to their pain and be a peaceful presence in their time of need.

As a child growing up my mother would always sit at my bedside when I would cry into my pillow for whatever reason.  Even if it wasn’t visible at the time, just having her there helped me heal faster and more profoundly than I would have on my own.

Even further, you can bring surrender to the suffering of those you don’t know but witness day-to-day.  When I see homeless human beings on the street I don’t pity them.  I see them for the true radiant being that we both are, let go of any judgment of their situation, and smile with a genuine sense of connectedness.  If I have a dollar bill I offer it, but even then it is not the money that is healing.  The healing takes place in the moment that we are present with each other, without the judgment of the thinking mind, in the kind of communion that sees through the veil of form into our shared reality.  Every attempt to “just be” is different, whether it is with myself, a loved one, or someone I just met.  No matter how it goes, to let go of judgment and allow the experience to be as it is, is what I call success.

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consciousness

Don’t Let It Go To Your Head

WinterNegative emotions are low frequency energy currents that pass through the body, and often surface from within the body if they weren’t fully felt and “digested” when they were created.  I sometimes feel negative emotions unconnected to thoughts, which surface randomly.  They are uncomfortable.  But they can also be dispelled.  The trick is, don’t let negative emotions go to your head.

It is easy to not want to feel negative energy currents and try to numb them, or come up with various schemes about how to rid yourself of those emotions.  When this happens, thoughts end up feeding the negative energy currents with more energy of a like frequency, creating a cycle of negativity within the body.  Not only do thoughts create more negative emotions, but they also prevent them from being dispelled.

When I feel negative energy rising up within me I find the most helpful way through it is allowing myself to feel the emotions fully.  I let myself sit with them.  It is not comfortable, but it is also not difficult when I tell myself that it is okay to feel negative emotions.  There is nothing inherently wrong with feeling “bad.”  I give myself permission to feel what I’m feeling, without trying to explain it away or come up with a solution.

Negative emotions are just another frequency of energy we can experience.  So I let myself have the experience.  By accepting what I’m feeling in the moment, space is created around the emotions.  I don’t give more energy to the negativity by wrapping myself up in it, and letting it feed my thoughts.  Instead of becoming the negative emotions, I experience them.  (This didn’t happen overnight, it is an ongoing practice!)

As an energy current, negative emotions naturally try to feed and grow, but this can be prevented by retaining the awareness that they don’t actually help.  I know that feeling bad isn’t going to make me feel better, or improve my circumstances.  Only high frequency energy can take me where I want to go.  So even as I’m feeling the emotions fully, I am aware that I needn’t let it go to my head, because after they pass through I will once more be on my way to feeling peaceful.  One of the most life changing observations I learned from Tolle is that behind all negative emotions is the belief that they will somehow get you what you want.  But they can only feed on the same low frequency of energy that they are, and cannot improve your circumstances.  What happens when you have a surge of negative emotions?  Does it trigger your thinking mind?  Next time you experience a “bad” feeling, see what happens when you allow it to be there.  It may pass through quicker than you think.

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Inspiration

How To Reap The Benefits Of Meditation Without Meditating

FlowersOne of my favorite pieces of advice from Eckhart Tolle is to take a few conscious breaths throughout the day. Don’t have a regular meditation practice?  No problem! While meditation can be infinitely beneficial, purposely pausing to take a deep breath, whenever you remember to, can create space, clarity, and peace in your daily life.  Before you open the fridge, make a phone call, or turn on the car, take one or two deep breaths.  Over the course of time you might find your days going smoother, your moments of peace lasting longer, and your intuitive faculties growing stronger.  The only way to experience the benefits of taking a few conscious breaths throughout each day, is to test it out!  

This video created by my father, Peter Spero, provides a blissful moment of clarity and peace akin to a deep breath.  I hope it brings you as much joy and relaxation as it has brought me!

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Inspiration

“Who is it that’s aware that I’m thinking?” – Jim Carrey

I love this video of Jim Carrey because it reminds me that I have no idea what is truly going on inside other people.  We are each on an epic journey of personhood, each the star of our own play.  It is a beautiful thing to be invited to hear about the journey of another.  It is also wonderful to recognize that you don’t know the journey of another.  For me the “not knowing” helps to quell judgment, and allow people to present themselves in a way I couldn’t have imagined.  Thank you Jim Carrey, and Eckhart Tolle for sharing this inspiring video!

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Inspiration

“There are no dark nights of the soul; there are only dark nights of the ego.” – Robert Holden

Shift Happens!

I saw this posted on Dr. Wayne Dyer’s Facebook page, and loved the clever way the words pointed towards the truth! When I experience pain, there is that still small voice at the back of my consciousness reminding me that suffering is created by the ego.  My true self is still whole; nothing can be given or taken away from being.  When in pain reminding myself that my attachment to the situation is causing the suffering, and that the situation already is how it is regardless of my reaction, a small space opens up around the pain that allows healing to work its way through.  To paraphrase Tolle, suffering is ego created but is ultimately ego destructive.  To say it another way, no matter what you are going through a world of greater peace and joy is perpetually blooming in the midst of the ashes.

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