A New Earth - Chapter 2

The format of each web class is Oprah and Eckhart Tolle together discussing the chapter of the week while answering emailed questions as well as live questions from viewers via Skype.

Chapter 2 is titled "Ego: The Current State of Humanity." Ego is explained as a surface reality created from our thoughts, successes, failures, possessions, social status, roles (such as mother, father), nationality and other mental and cultural structures we have inherited or picked up along our way. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. In fact, we should "honor" them. The problem humanity faces is that we have identified so completely with this false definition of ourselves, we have forgotten who we really are. So, if we're not that, then who are we? Exactly the right question to ask says Eckhart. Ask the question, but don't answer it. Leave it blank. We can't think our way into knowing who we are. We have to feel it. "Who we are is that alive presence which is deeper than thinking."

An exercise he uses to help people experience their inner awareness is:

Close your eyes and hold out your hand. Without touching or moving anything, experience your hand. How can you know your hand is there? Can you feel that the inside of your hand is alive? We are that aliveness. There is a distinction to be made between thinking and attention. Again, we can't get this with our minds, we have to get it with our beings.

This is slippery stuff. It all makes sense to me, I believe it and I want it, but it doesn't come naturally to me. That's ok, says Eckhart to people like me who are calling in with their questions. Real life situations such as illness, aging, motherhood, shopping addictions and depression which get in the way of being are addressed. The first and most important thing we can do is to become aware that we have identified with a thought form such as "I am sick" or "I want to buy this." We don't have to change anything, just bring attention into the present moment and "yield internally." The ego cannot survive when we do that.

This is the part that many people don't get about the need to "be" more: when we choose to be present, we don't stop taking action in our lives. In fact, (this is the part that I find so exciting) if we make the choice to live from a place of conscious awareness, we tap into who we really are and our actions shift from reactive, repetitive conditioned responses into "alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence...Circumstances and people become helpful, cooperative. Coincidences happen." (pg. 58) This is where our true power lies. There seems to be a million ways to slice and dice it, but the bottom line is - be.