Great post, DTE.
Ego-Death is completely ridiculous in the modern world.
If you are a monk in a cave, or a rich New Age Guru who likes to play-act...then fine.
But the rest of us mortals would like to keep our wonderful Minds which are a miracle of Evolution.
The human mind is a fantastic thing, its not the enemy.
Its possible Tolle's mental illness which was driving him to suicide, then drove him to claim Egocide. Of course, as stated, Tolle's Ego is as big as Donald Trumps, even bigger! You don't hear Donald Trump claiming to understand the entire universe and world! So Tolle is 1000x the Egomaniac of even a Donald Trump!
And that ACIM stuff is classic. Just New Age Gibberish.
That type of language is called being Artfully Vague, which is used in Hypnosis, and in Poetry.
So fine, poetry is fun, hypnosis is interesting.
But NOT when its used as a weapon, as it is by these folks, to get people to be more PASSIVE and confused.
Who knows, maybe Oprah is just using Tolle as Step #1 in her online New Age internet followership?
Who's next?
I guess we'll find out.
But as far as Tolle, people are going to find out the hard way in the school of hard knocks, it seems.
As if Oprah practices ANY of that stuff! Even now, she uses some language patterns on TV, but all Oprah ever does is go Me Me Me. Even when some kids at her school got molested...her response was a strange Me Me Me response. Everything is about Oprah?
Think of the irony, Oprah is completely self-obsessed and preaching to the world to not be self-obsessed?
This attack on the Ego comes from ancient RENUNCIATION philosophies, when life was short and brutish, and you did not have enough food, etc.
That old book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse was along the same lines as Tolle is talking about..
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www.online-literature.com]
but at least the classical renunciation stuff is more realistic. They don't say...renounce your Ego, but you can still have 9 SUV's, a hot-sexy-body, private jets, butlers, housemaids, fancy clothes, etc. (the modern New Age stuff like Tolle is so ridiculous its comical really).
Be an Egomaniac...but without the Ego. (so you are just a Maniac then?)
That stuff is NOT psychologically sound, and it is going to MESS PEOPLE UP.
That stuff is going to possibly WRECK YOUR LIFE.
Eckhart Tolle is a fraud, his name is a fraud, his persona is a fraud, his past is a fraud.
You know, Walmart might not even hire Tolle, due to his lack of a resume!
Tolle certainly could not get any decent type of employment due to his shady past, which he hides.
But Oprah figures he's good enough for her to make into a multimillionaire Guru to the soccer moms of America.
Its disgusting, really.
Why doesn't Oprah have a course with Dr. Martin Seligman on Authentic Happiness? That would actually be HELPFUL to people. Just imagine, if Oprah did a course like this, that would HELP people, not screw them up for years.
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www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu]
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DownToEarth
Tolle has quoted A Course in Miracles in The Power of Now, if memory serves me correctly. ACIM defines 'ego' as "But a dream of what you really are. [ACIM teaches we are but a bad dream in the mind of God, a part of the mind that has split off from God and is having a nightmare.] A thought you are apart from your Creator and a wish to be what He created not. It is a thing of madness, not reality at all. A name for namelessness is all it is. A symbol of impossibility; a choice for options that do not exist. We name it but to help us understand that it is nothing but an ancient thought that what is made has immortality. But what could come of this except a dream which, like all dreams, can only end in death? What is ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something. In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real."
[By the way, as fragilely as I am out of cult thinking, it is an extreme risk for me to read and quote from this book as I just did! ]...
Going by dictionary.com's [minus #3, perhaps :-)], I don't see how anyone could possibly say, as you did, that the death of that 'ego' is harmless. We NEED these qualities to function in this world. Corboy has written some excellent posts about this style of spirituality such as what Tolle teaches and how that impacts on one's ability to function as a normal, effective human being in today's society. Yes, killing your ego WOULD be a disaster.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2008 04:42AM by The Anticult.