The ego and the deeper Presence
The book begins with Tolle recalling his initial transformational experience when he was twenty-nine. This spiritual experience was one that not only jolted him into an intense awareness of the present moment, but also one that suggested his inner being or self had hitherto unsuspected depths: "am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the 'I' and the 'self' that 'I' cannot live with."
For Tolle the ego is a sense of self derived from the content and activity of the mind. It is "a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning." He notes that virtually everyone hears a "voice" in their head all the time, the involuntary and often repetitive thought-processes of our minds. As we live "the voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on." It may be reliving the past or rehearsing imagined future situations.
Tolle claims there is a deeper sense of self than the ego, a conscious presence which may be known in various ways. One method he recommends is simply to listen to the voice in the head without judging it in any way or getting caught up in its contents. Just by 'watching the thinker' in the head, he says, "You'll soon realise: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it." That I am realisation is "a sense of your own presence ... (arising) from beyond the mind." And as one becomes aware of this deeper self as a conscious presence, so the involuntary thinking begins to subside, giving way to stillness, peace and what he calls "the joy of Being."
The book begins with Tolle recalling his initial transformational experience when he was twenty-nine. This spiritual experience was one that not only jolted him into an intense awareness of the present moment, but also one that suggested his inner being or self had hitherto unsuspected depths: "am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the 'I' and the 'self' that 'I' cannot live with."
For Tolle the ego is a sense of self derived from the content and activity of the mind. It is "a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning." He notes that virtually everyone hears a "voice" in their head all the time, the involuntary and often repetitive thought-processes of our minds. As we live "the voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on." It may be reliving the past or rehearsing imagined future situations.
Tolle claims there is a deeper sense of self than the ego, a conscious presence which may be known in various ways. One method he recommends is simply to listen to the voice in the head without judging it in any way or getting caught up in its contents. Just by 'watching the thinker' in the head, he says, "You'll soon realise: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it." That I am realisation is "a sense of your own presence ... (arising) from beyond the mind." And as one becomes aware of this deeper self as a conscious presence, so the involuntary thinking begins to subside, giving way to stillness, peace and what he calls "the joy of Being."
