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Jottings on The New Earth by Tolle

Tolle concerns himself a great deal with what he calls the Ego and has some very interesting and also valuable comments on this aspect of our psyche. However he appears to fall into the trap of making the Ego if not the only, certainly the main source of our ills as a species and something that must be done away with in some way or another. For me it is difficult to envisage anything that is so much part of us, whether it be Ego or Anger or Fear – and all these indubitably are very much part of us – as in any way bad or something to be gotten rid of. What we surely need to look at is the way in which we deal with or manage these energies. All are part of the skill set we are given and therefore presumably need for our existence here in the physical plane and we will surely diminish ourselves in some way if we do in fact succeed in actually eliminating them. Tolle says at page 78 that “ego and awareness are incompatible”. There is a problem with this statement because as soon as you say this you create an arena in which Ego and Awareness are now antagonists with Ego being, in some way or another, in conflict with Awareness - and vice versa of course. According to Tolle it seems that as we become more aware then Ego will somehow vanish. Would anyone argue with the idea that it appears that we do not have to be taught how to have an Ego or to be Angry or Fearful? These are part of us. What is not part of us and what we DO have to be taught is how to be loving, kind, gentle, empathetic and the rest!
What we should rather be looking at is the reality that for anything to be strong it needs – yes needs – something to counter, to strive against. Jesus was in (according to the Gospels) in pretty much continual “war” with the Devil or Evil and spent quite a lot of His time “driving it out” in one way or another. Buddha was always aware of and seeking to “put down” or “contain” the self or ego. It is precisely this PROCESS of wrestling that gives form and existence to what we call Life. Victory or elimination of either one cannot be the aim or desire. The problem that we are faced with is not the elimination of the Ego. In that direction lies true insanity for we will destroy the very alembic within which the process of Life itself takes place, but rather to learn to live with and manage – not control - it. This requires great Awareness. Awareness and Ego can rather be seen as engaged in some amazing and wonderful dance rather than a conflict.
In the desert Jesus neither destroyed Satan, nor did He ask his Father to, though presumably either one of these actions would have been well within his ability and available to Him. He put him behind him where presumably he remains to this day as His shadow. Something that throws no shadow is in either perpetual darkness or has no real existence.
If we go back to the idea that I have expressed elsewhere that we are essentially schizophrenic in nature – with the Being on the one hand and the Human on the either and that the relationship between these two is at best an uneasy alliance, that both wrestle with – the dance I referred to above - then what Tolle calls the Ego is actually the energy created by this relationship. When two things get together in a relationship a third thing comes into existence and that is the Relationship or, in this case, what we can call the Ego. It is this PROCESS of learning to accommodate and live within the Relationship of Human to Being that is the very stuff of Life itself. Our problem is not the existence of the Ego – this is both vitally necessary and the inevitable result of the process of incarnation or birth – but rather our lack of Awareness on what is actually taking place when we arrive here via the birth process and our resultant lack of skill in managing the situation in which we find ourselves as the composite or meld that we call a “Human Being”.
We can only theorise as to why this extraordinary relationship between the Being – the god-nature – and the Human, or animal-nature came into existence at all. There are however some useful pointers in our mythology. We can look primarily at the Graeco-Roman myths simply because these are the most easily accessible, though there is a golden thread that connects the myths of all origins.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the gods of myth – and these are the archetypes to whom we relate – is that they are simply not friendly and anything but well disposed to one another. At best their relationships with each other can be described as fractious. They are most decidedly not characterised by the qualities of Love, Gentleness, Kindness, Friendship, Compassion – it is quite a long list - that we say we value. If we look at the mythology that has been handed down to us most of the time, what we call the gods, appear to be at war with one another or at best in uneasy alliances and quite willing to, sometimes literally, stab each other in the back on very slight provocation. There is a quite remarkable absence of the qualities that I mentioned earlier. What there most decidedly is, is a fierce individualism and a drive to realise and give effect to the Self –can we say Ego? They really do not seem to have too much time for one another. The whole idea of relationship as we understand it and demand from one another is largely foreign to the gods of our mythology. Paradoxically we admire the fierce individualism and other egotistical characteristics the gods epitomise and call forth.
It seems that we must look to our Human or Animal side for the other characteristics that we admire. From what we can gather of our evolutionary past there seems to little doubt that we would simply not have survived had we not learnt to live in groups. Perhaps because of the animal heritage of having to cooperate for our very survival what has come down to us from our Human side is the caring, gentleness, kindness, companionship, sharing, empathy, cooperation, caring – in fact all the characteristics that we sum up with that word numinous Love.
The power of the Human Being lies in the ability that we must apparently learn and that is to meld the fierce individualism or Ego of the Being with the Love of the Human. It is in the combination that our real Divinity lies and it is here that our challenge lies. To do away with either will not serve. Awareness of the vast wonderful, exciting, painful, magical process that we are engaged with is the key and the creation of this Awareness is that first challenge that we must all undertake. This is Life.

Posted on January 2nd, 2009 by christopher
Filed under: Uncategorized