A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle on Ego, Presence & Purpose

In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle invites us to wake up from the grip of ego and discover the deeper stillness beneath our thoughts. This episode explores how presence, purpose, and consciousness reshape our inner and outer lives.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You ever get that feeling, that relentless voice in your head
just chattering away? Oh, constantly.
That internal monologue that just doesn't.
Stop. Exactly.
Or maybe it's just this, this feeling that something's a bit
off, you know, with the world, despite all the amazing things
we've done. Like we build and achieve, but
there's still this undercurrent of restlessness,

(00:23):
dissatisfaction. Yeah, that's it precisely.
Well, today we're doing a deep dive into a book that tackles
exactly that, but from a really radical angle.
It's Eckhart Tolle's A New Earthawakening to Your Life's
Purpose. And this isn't your typical self
help book. Tolle really invites us to look
under the hood, you know, at theactual operating system of our

(00:44):
minds. He talks about what he calls the
Edo not ego as an arrogance necessarily, but this deeply
conditioned sense of self, the one that's usually running the
show without us even realizing it.
It's a pretty profound look in Word, asking us to question who
we really are beyond all the thoughts and stories we tell
ourselves. Absolutely beyond the roles we
play. So our mission today is to

(01:05):
unpack the author's ideas about this ego, get a hander on how it
well grips us both individually and collectively, and then
explore the path he maps out towards what he calls a new
consciousness. Yeah, hopefully as we dig into
this, you listening might have some of those aha moments, get
some fresh perspective on yourself, the world.

(01:25):
Exactly. Think of this deep dive as maybe
a shortcut to understanding somereally transformative ideas.
Maybe unlock a different kind ofinner freedom.
Sound good? Let's do it.
OK, so to really get what Tolleyis proposing as the solution, we
first have to grapple with his diagnosis of the problem.
He calls it the human predicament, our collective

(01:46):
insanity. Which is quite a title.
It definitely grabs your attention.
And he starts off with somethingpretty striking.
He looks back at ancient wisdom traditions.
Right from all over the place, yeah.
Different cultures, different times.
But he points out the surprisingconsensus, despite all their
differences on the surface. They kind of converge on this
one core realization that the normal everyday state of the

(02:10):
human mind, well, it contains a strong element of dysfunction,
even, as you said, madness. Wow, so not just individual
issues, but something baked intothe standard human mind.
Pretty much not about personal weakness, but like a shared
blueprint for, well, for suffering and seeing things
wrong. It's almost like he's describing
a global software bug, isn't it?Something running in the

(02:33):
background of humanity for ages,just causing errors in how we
operate. That's a great analogy, and he
pulls examples. Hinduism, for instance, calls
this collective mental illness Maya.
Maya, right? The veil of illusion.
Exactly. And the sage Ramana Maharshi,
you just put it bluntly. The mind is Maya.
Stop and think about that for a second.
The mind is the illusion. And then you connect that to,

(02:55):
say, Buddhism. The Buddha use the term Duca.
Which often gets translated as suffering, right?
It does, but it's broader than just physical pain.
It's more like unsatisfactoriness, A
fundamental disease, a kind of background misery, the Buddha
said. You encounter it everywhere.
It's not random. It's just part of the human
condition until you wake up. That's yeah, that's a pretty
sobering thought. And then he brings in

(03:17):
Christianity with original sin. Now we usually hear that and
think, you know, blame guilt. Right, like something Adam and
Eve did. Yeah, but totally points out the
literal translation for the ancient Greek.
It means to miss the mark. OK, like an archery.
Exactly. To live unskillfully, blindly,
and because of that you cause suffering for yourself, for

(03:38):
others. It's not about being inherently
bad, but inherently unskilled inliving when you're unconscious.
So Maya, the original sin. Different words, different
traditions. But all pointing to the same
thing, this baseline dysfunctionor unconsciousness.
And the key take away here, he stresses, isn't about blame.
It's about recognizing this shared pattern inside all of us.

(04:01):
It's the blueprint that leads tothe trouble.
Right. It reflects our dominant
Interstate. So if this dysfunction is so old
and so widespread, what's its actual track record?
What's the impact been? Yeah, good question.
This leads into the next part, the ego's destructive legacy, a
history of madness, he acknowledges, You know,
humanity's incredible achievements.

(04:22):
Art, Science, Tech. Absolutely.
We've done amazing things. But, and this is the chilling
part, he says that intelligence is often tainted by madness.
And because our intelligence gives us so much power, the
madness gets amplified. And, he argues, it's getting
worse. Getting worse?
How so? Well, look at the 20th century
country. Where does he point for the
clearest examples of this tainted intelligence?

(04:44):
World War One comes up pretty starkly.
Right. Millions dead for what?
A few miles of churned up mud inFrance and Belgium?
Trench warfare? Poison gas, Toya calls it.
Intelligence in the service of madness.
That phrase just sticks with you, doesn't it?
Intelligence serving madness. It really does.
And it wasn't just WWI. He points out that by the end of

(05:05):
the century, over 100 million people died violent deaths
caused by other humans. 100 million.
That number is almost impossibleto grasp.
And that includes mass exterminations, genocides, 20
million under Stalin, the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, the
Khmer Rouge wiping out 1/4 of Cambodia's population.
It's horrifying. The same human mind that can

(05:26):
compose symphonies or split the atom can also devise
concentration camps. It really suggests something
deeply flawed into the surface. And you think, oh, but that was
then, the book says, just turn on the news.
This collective dysfunction, this madness, it's still rolling
right into the 21st century. It's not just human versus human
either, is it? Yeah, that's a key point.

(05:47):
It's the violence against the planet itself.
Destroying forests, factory farming horrors, polluting
rivers, oceans, air. All driven by what?
Greed. Ignorance.
He says it's driven by greed, yeah, but stemming from a
profound ignorance of how connected we are to everything
else, pushing us towards self destruction.
So if you looked at human history like a doctor looks at a

(06:08):
patient, what's the diagnosis according to the book?
It's pretty brutal, he says. The diagnosis would be something
like chronic paranoid delusions,pathological propensity to
commit murder, criminally insanewith a few brief lucid
intervals. Wow, that's a harsh assessment
of normal humanity. It really hammers at home,

(06:28):
though, that maybe what we accept as normal is actually
deeply unwell. So what drives all this?
What are the psychological gearsturning?
He identifies the Big Three, fear, greed and the desire for
power. The usual suspects.
Right. But he says these aren't just
abstract ideas. They're the engines behind wars,
conflicts between religions or tribes, even the constant

(06:49):
friction in our personal relationships.
How do they work? They distort how we see
everything ourselves, others. They make us act in misguided
ways, trying to get rid of fear or fill this emptiness, this
bottomless hole. To Lee talks about.
They can never really be filled from the outside.
But here's the crucial twist, right, He says.
Fear, greed, power. They aren't the real root cause.

(07:10):
Exactly. That's key.
They are created by the dysfunction.
They're symptoms of that deeper delusion within the human mind.
So just trying to be good or trying to eliminate greed, it
won't work on its own. Not according to Toli.
He suggests that's often just another subtle form of ego
trying to enhance itself, tryingto become a better version of

(07:30):
the same flawed structure. True goodness.
Real change, he argues, only emerges when there's a
fundamental shift in consciousness.
That's a massive insight. So changing society, changing
the world, It can't just be about rearranging the external
furniture. Precisely.
It has to start with changing our inner consciousness,
otherwise that egoic blueprint, that faulty software just

(07:52):
recreates the same old problems and new forms.
He uses the example of communism, right?
Yeah, noble ideals on paper, equality, collective well-being.
But it failed spectacularly because it tried to change the
outer world, create a new earth,without changing the inner
world, the consciousness of the people involved.
It completely missed the ego blueprint that everyone was
still carrying. Right.

(08:13):
You can shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic, but if the
ship's going down the underlyingstructure, the ego was still
running the show. It's like trying to fix a
corrupted file by just renaming it.
The faulty data is still there. Exactly.
So if the ego is this pervasive bug, the big question becomes
how do we even see it? And more importantly, how do we

(08:33):
start moving beyond its control?And this is where the book
shifts from diagnosis to, well, the path towards a solution.
And surprisingly, one of the first places he points us is
nature. Yeah, the section on flowers,
crystals and birds as silent teachers.
It's quite beautiful, actually. He suggests they offer these
profound hints, these printers towards a deeper reality, a

(08:56):
glimpse of enlightenment or a totally different way of being.
It's really compelling how he talks about the first flower
appearing on Earth like 114,000,000 years ago.
A huge evolutionary step. And for humans, they were
special, right? Not just useful.
That's his point, probably the first thing our ancestors valued
purely for beauty. Not for food or tools or
survival. Just beauty.

(09:17):
Think about that, valuing something just because it is
beautiful. And the book suggests this first
recognition of beauty was one ofthe most significant events in
the evolution of human consciousness.
It wasn't just noticing something pretty, it was linked
to deep feelings like joy and love.
And where do those feelings really come from?
Totally suggests they come from within us and the flower just

(09:38):
helps us connect to it. Flowers became, as he puts it,
an expression in form of that which is most high, most sacred,
and ultimately formless within ourselves, like messengers from
another realm. Bridging the physical and the
spiritual. Kind of a bridge between form
and the formless. And he points to historical
examples. Jesus saying, consider the
lilies of the field, learn from them.

(10:01):
And the Buddhist silent sermon with the flower.
Right, just holding it up. And one monk, Mahakashiyapa, got
it, Just smiled. That silence, that direct
seeing, supposedly started Zen Buddhism.
So these aren't just nice stories, they're invitations to
see differently. Exactly to see beyond the mental
labels. He even talks about the
Enlightenment of plants, callingflowers more fleeting, ethereal,

(10:24):
delicate. They hide the spirit within them
less than, say, a dense rock. And it's not has flowers.
He talks about crystals too. Yeah, how rocks transform into
these luminous, transparent forms, or carbon becoming
diamonds under pressure, it's a lessening of materiality, he
says. And birds evolving from
reptiles. Right.

(10:45):
Defying gravity, transcending limitations, he sees it as this
powerful symbol for our own potential to rise above our
dense egoic conditioning. What's the common thread this
ethereal quality? Flowers, crystals, birds, even
newborns, puppies, kittens. They're fragile, delicate, not
so rigidly fixed in the materialworld.
They're innocence and beauty just shine through.

(11:06):
So how do we use this? How do we learn from them?
The practice he suggests is simple but profound.
Contemplate one of these things.A flower, a crystal, a bird, but
without naming it mentally, without slapping a label on it.
Just be present with it. Exactly.
And in that space, he says, it can become a window into the
formless and opening into spirit.
So those big spiritual symbols, the jewel and the Lotus, the

(11:29):
white dove for the Holy Spirit, they're not random.
He argues they're deeply significant.
They've been preparing us, paving the way for this shift in
consciousness, this awakening that's happening now.
It's like nature is this incredible art gallery
whispering secrets, inviting us to look deeper.
Have you ever just been stomped in your tracks by a sunset, or
just lost yourself looking at a leaf?

(11:50):
Absolutely. Those moments where the mind
just goes quiet for a second. Yeah, totally suggests those are
little glimpses, moments where being just shines through
without the usual mental commentary.
Which leads us perfectly into the next big piece, that mental
commentary itself, the voice in the head.
Ah. Yes, back to the internal
chatterbox. Right, He basically says the ego

(12:11):
is largely that voice, that incessant compulsive thinking we
identify with as me. Let's use his own story here,
the one on the London Tube. It's quite vivid.
Yeah, he sees this woman talkingto herself really loudly,
angrily, clearly disturbed people are avoiding her.
And then he has this sudden realization.
He realizes his own mind is justas active, just as incessant,

(12:32):
only it's all happening inside. Her main emotion was anger, his
was anxiety, but the mechanism was the same.
And the thought hits him, if shewas mad, then everyone was mad,
included myself. It's a powerful moment, that
detachment from his own thoughts, just seeing them for
what they were. It made him laugh out loud.
The laughter of sanity, he callsit, realizing life isn't as

(12:55):
deadly serious as the mind makesit out to be.
It makes you wonder, doesn't it?How often do we mistake that
internal DJ spinning tunes in our head for our actual self?
All the time, probably, even if we're not talking out loud on
the tube. And another thing that shook his
faith in the purely intellectualmind was and when a professor he
admired, someone who seemed to have all the answers, committed
suicide, it made him realize that thinking, however

(13:18):
brilliant, is just one small part of consciousness, not the
whole picture. So how does this tie into the
idea of AI? When we say I think or I want.
Tolly argues that usually when you say I, it's the ego
speaking. It's this mental construct built
from thoughts and identification.
Like what? My job?
My nationality, my opinions. Exactly.

(13:40):
Gender, possessions, roles you play, memories, beliefs.
Your whole personality, he suggests, is basically this
accumulation conditioned by yourpast.
But when you awaken, you still say I, right?
You don't become a zombie. Of course.
But he says it comes from a muchdeeper place.
It's a shift from identifying with the content of your mind,
all those thoughts and stories, to identifying with the

(14:02):
awareness behind it all, the silent witness.
And that shift often brings. Joy, peace, a sense of release.
It's like, imagine your mind is that hyperactive radio station
always broadcasting your personal drama, your worries,
your opinions nonstop, and you've spent your whole life
thinking you are the broadcast, or maybe the DJ.
The shift is realizing, Wait a minute, I'm the listener.

(14:24):
I'm the one who's aware of the broadcast.
That's a great analogy. It really clarifies the
difference. So how else can we access that
awareness, that listener? This brings us to another key
practice in the book, connectingwith the inner body.
The inner body. What does that mean exactly?
It's about cultivating A conscious awareness of the
subtle aliveness, the energy field that permeates your entire

(14:45):
body, making it a habit to feel that inner energy.
OK. So just feeling the life inside
your hands, your feet, everywhere.
Yeah, and the book makes this fascinating point.
When you're deeply in touch withthis inner body, this aliveness,
you're actually not identified with your physical body as just
a solid object, nor are you lostin your mind's thoughts.

(15:05):
It's a paradox. A little bit.
You shift from identifying with form, the physical body, the
thoughts, towards the formless, towards being cure, presence.
And he claims this isn't just esoteric, it actually boosts
your immune system, helps healing.
Practical benefits too, not justphilosophical.
Right, because the ego, he repeats, is identification with
form. Physical things yes, but also

(15:27):
thought, forms, concepts, beliefs, labels are pure sense
of I am, which is formless. Awareness gets tangled up with
all these forms. And that leads to what he calls
forgetfulness of being. Exactly.
We forget our true nature as formless consciousness and buy
into the illusion that we are just these separate, limited

(15:47):
forms which, as we saw, is the root of so much conflict and
suffering. He brings in Descartes here,
doesn't he? I think therefore I am.
He does, and he critiques it quite sharply.
Descartes basically equated thinking with existence with
being, Tolle argues. He stumbled onto the root of the
ego, that very identification with thought, but didn't realize
what he'd found. He pinpointed the problem but

(16:09):
mislabeled it. Kind of, yeah.
Then centuries later, the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre
looked at Descartes statement and saw something deeper.
Sartre said the consciousness that says I am is not the
consciousness that thinks. OK, unpack that.
That sounds important. It is, Sartre realized, that
when you're aware that you're thinking, the awareness itself
isn't part of the thinking. It's a different dimension of

(16:31):
consciousness altogether. Like the listener and the
broadcast again. Exactly.
Without that awareness, you're like someone dreaming who
doesn't know they're dreaming, totally lost in the dreams
content, the thoughts, the images, the emotions.
And totally says many people live like that, like
sleepwalkers. Yeah, trapped in these old
dysfunctional mindsets, just recreating the same painful

(16:51):
reality over and over. But the moment you know you're
dreaming, the moment you become aware within the dream, that
means you're starting to wake up.
A new dimension has arrived. So the inner body practice, it's
like finding the energy that makes the house alive, not just
focusing on the bricks and mortar.
That's a perfect way to put it. Focusing on that inner aliveness

(17:11):
connects you to the source, not just the outer form.
It's a key way to break free from those old patterns.
OK, let's widen the lens now. How does this ego thing play out
not just inside us, but in our interactions, our relationships,
the reality we build together? Right the book it's really
practical here. Looking at the problem with I am
right egos need for separation. The I'm right you're wrong

(17:33):
dynamic, We all know that one. Don't we just?
And Tolly argues this is fundamental to the ego.
It needs separation. It needs an other, especially an
enemy or someone who is wrong todefine itself against.
That's what fuels that compulsive need to make yourself
right. It sounds like the ego is pretty
insecure it. Is because it's just made of
thoughts and emotions which are always changing, always

(17:54):
fleeting. So it's constantly fighting for
survival, needing opposition, eating problems, needing others
to solidify its own shaky identity.
And others become most other when they're enemies.
Exactly. Because the stronger the
opposition, the stronger the egofeels its own boundary, its own
sense of US versus them. And this shows up in everyday

(18:16):
stuff like complaining. Totally constant fault finding,
complaining about others. It's an ego pattern.
Jesus's thing about the speck inyour brother's eye while you've
got a log in your own classic ego.
And grievances holding on to past hurts.
Those long standing resentments,the ego keeps them alive by
compulsively thinking about them, retelling the story over

(18:38):
and over. What they did to me?
Like mentally chewing on old food.
Yeah, exactly. And Tully warns that just one
strong grievance can poison hugeareas of your life.
Just dragging you back into thatnegative energy.
It's like that smelly backpack analogy we used, filled with
rotten stuff from the past, burdening you, attracting more
negativity when you could just drop it.

(18:59):
Right. And his advice on forgiveness is
really interesting here. He says don't try to forgive.
Trying often doesn't work because it's still the ego
trying to do something. So what then?
Forgiveness happens naturally, he says.
When you see that the grievance serves no real purpose except to
prop up that false sense of self, the ego, the seeing is
freeing. So Jesus saying forgive your

(19:21):
enemies wasn't just a moral command.
Tully interprets it as a practical instruction for
undoing ego structures within yourself, letting go of the US
versus them that keeps the ego alive.
And that core belief? I am right, you are wrong.
He calls that dangerous. Extremely dangerous, not just an
argument between couples, but onthe world stage, between
nations, religions, ideologies. He points to history.

(19:43):
Like Christians, Bernie. Heretics.
Yeah. Believing their truth, which was
really just a set of beliefs, a story, was more important than
actual human lives, than compassion, because the ego
identified so strongly with being right.
Or Pol Pot in Cambodia, killing people with glasses because his
ideology, his truth, labeled them enemies.
It's terrifying. It shows how deadly ideas can

(20:06):
become when the ego completely identifies with them, which is
why it totally emphasizes thought can at best point to the
truth, but it never is the truth.
The finger pointing to the moon isn't the moon.
Exactly. The concept isn't the reality.
So religions, ideologies, they can be useful pointers or they
can become tools for the ego, creating division, superiority,

(20:29):
conflict. It depends entirely on the
consciousness using them in. The real truth is inseparable
from who you are, he says. You are the truth, not a belief
you hold but your actual being. When Jesus said I'm the way, the
truth and the life, Tolly suggests he was pointing to that
innermost I am the Christ withinthe Buddha nature, direct, non
conceptual knowing. Wow.
OK, so that's the individual andideological ego.

(20:51):
What about the collective ego? War as a mindset, the book calls
it. Yeah, he argues, the collective
ego that US against them on a massive scale is even more
insane than the individual ego. His startling conclusion on this
planet? Normal equals insane when you
look at collective human behavior through this lens.
So where does most violence actually come from, According to

(21:13):
him? Not just criminals.
No, he claims, most of it is committed by normal, respectable
citizens in the service of the collective ego, their nation,
their religion, their tribe. How did that work?
When we mistake the ego and others for their true identity,
our own ego gets a boost from feeling right and superior.
We react with condemnation, judgement which feels good to

(21:37):
the ego but just perpetuates thecycle of conflict.
It's a vicious cycle and he has that warning.
Whatever you fight, you strengthen.
And what you resist persists. Trying to stamp out evil can
turn you into the very thing you're fighting against.
Which is why he's so critical ofphrases like war on drugs, war
on crime, war on cancer. So they're condemned to failure.
Because of the war mentality itself is part of the problem.

(21:59):
Look at the results. Crime and drug use haven't
disappeared despite the war. Antibiotics created superbugs.
Even conventional medical treatments, he points out, can
sometimes cause harm when approached solely as a battle
against an enemy. So fighting the problem with
that aggressive mindset just makes it worse or creates new
problems like throwing gasoline on the fire.

(22:21):
That's the idea. The key is to withdraw the fuel.
Your identification, your resistance, your judgment.
The solution he proposes is to recognize the ego in yourself
and others as this collective dysfunction, this shared
insanity, not as someone's true identity.
Don't take it personally. Right then you can step back
from complaining, blaming, accusing, and from that

(22:41):
recognition, compassion can arise, seeing the shared
sickness we're all caught in to some degree.
This seems like a good place to bring in the pain body.
That sounds heavy. It is a heavy concept, but also
incredibly insightful. The pain body, as Tola describes
it, is this accumulation of old unresolved emotional pains
stored in our body cells. Like scar tissue from past

(23:02):
Hurts. Kind of.
It includes our individual pain from childhood, from adult life,
but also a collective pain inherited from humanity's long,
often brutal history of suffering, wars, slavery,
oppression. Wow, so it's personal and
ancestral baggage. Exactly, and it connects back to
that involuntary thinking. He talked about the fentil.
Static thinking happens to you. Identifying what that stream

(23:26):
creates the ego and the ego often gets entangled with this
pain body. Leading to that feeling of
alienation, feeling disconnected.
That feeling of always trying toget home but never feeling at
home. It's a theme many great writers
have explored. Kafka, Camus.
This modern sense of being adrift.
And how does emotion fit into this?
He makes a distinction, right? Yes, between emotion and

(23:48):
instinctive response. Instinctive response is
immediate, direct, like fight orflight in real danger.
Emotion, he clarifies, is the body's reaction to a thought.
Like the stolen car example, it's the thought it's my car
that triggers the emotion. Exactly.
The body can't tell the difference between a real threat
now and a scary thought about the past or future.
It reacts physically, tense muscles, racing heart, but if

(24:12):
there's no actual physical outlet, that energy gets
trapped, becomes toxic. Creating that vicious circle.
Right. The egoic voice spins a story.
The body reacts with negative emotion.
The emotion fuels more negative thoughts, emotional thinking and
emotional story making, he callsit.
And the sum total of all these negative emotions is just

(24:32):
unhappiness. Pretty much.
Fear, anxiety, anger, resentment, jealousy.
They disrupt our energy, affect our health.
Unhappiness is the generic term.He uses that great analogy of
the duck. Sir.
Oh yeah, the duck with a human mind.
It's brilliant. 2 ducks fight, flap their wings vigorously
afterwards releasing the energy and then just swim away
peacefully. Fight over.
Done. But if a duck had a human mind?

(24:54):
Oh would keep that fight alive forever.
Replaying it, analyzing it, judging the other duck, feeling
victimized. I can't believe he did that.
Days, weeks, years later, the mind is still churning, keeping
the body stressed, feeding the negative emotion.
And he says that's how most humans live.
Sad, but often true. No situation or event is ever

(25:14):
really finished for the mind caught in that loop.
Like the Zen monks, the one carrying the woman across the
mud. Tanzen and the other monk,
Aikido, is still fuming hours later.
Why did you do that? Monks aren't supposed to.
And Tansen says. I put the girl down hours ago.
Are you still carrying her? Boom perfectly illustrates how
we carry that emotional baggage,those past grievances.

(25:36):
Our personality becomes becomes our prison when we're ruled by
these old stories and feelings. And this personal pain gets
amplified by the collective painbody inherited trauma.
Yeah, encoded in our DNA, he suggests.
From tribal wars, slavery, torture.
It gets added to daily, he notes.
It's often stronger in older nations or places with long
histories of violence, like the Middle East.

(25:58):
And specific racial pain bodies exist too.
Like for Jewish people, Native Americans, Black Americans,
where historical trauma is deeply felt.
Right. And both victims and
perpetrators carry the scars of that unconsciousness.
He even sees the image of Christ's suffering body as a
symbol of this collective human pain body.
So this pain body isn't just passive residue, it's active.

(26:19):
Very active. He describes it as a semi
autonomous energy form, like a cunning animal that feeds on
negativity, negative experiences, negative thoughts,
drama. It craves them an addiction to
unhappiness. An addiction that's strong.
It is, but think about it. Do you know people who seem to
thrive on drama or negativity? Or times when you felt a strange

(26:42):
pull towards unhappy thoughts? That could be the pain body
looking for food. How does it get triggered?
Often by something minor, a casual remark, A stray thought.
If the pain body is hungry, it wakes up and suddenly your
thinking turns intensely negative.
A wave of old emotion washes over you.
It can only feed on negative stuff because that's its energy

(27:03):
frequency. Positive thoughts are
indigestible to it. Is that why things like road
rage happen? People just snapping.
That's one explanation he offers.
The accumulated pain body energyjust erupts.
Normal people suddenly acting totally out of character.
He'd say his pain body did it. Wow.
So how do we break free from this thing, from identifying
with it? The key again, is awareness.

(27:23):
Realize you have a pain body, but you are not it.
Stay present. Notice when that wave of
negative emotion starts to rise.Observe it.
Just watch. It watch it without getting
sucked in. When you recognize it, when you
shine the light of awareness on it, it can't pretend to be you
anymore. You cut off its food supply,
your identification and your negative thoughts.
And that dense energy can then be transmuted, transformed into

(27:46):
presence. Like starving the vampire by
turning on the light. Exactly.
You deny it. The darkness of your unconscious
reaction it loses is its power over you.
OK, moving from the internal pain to how we present ourselves
playing roles when authenticity disappears.
Right. We all play roles, consciously
or unconsciously, and these roles, Tully argues, often

(28:09):
become part of the ego, leading to fake interactions, feeling
disconnected from our true selves.
He actually congratulates peoplewho say I don't know who I am
anymore. That seems counterintuitive.
It does, but his point is that letting go of the need to define
yourself with thoughts, with labels, is actually liberating.
When you admit you don't know, that opens the door to
discovering who you are beyond the mental concepts.

(28:32):
Trying to box yourself in with adefinition is limiting.
So how do we tell the differencebetween just doing our job,
fulfilling a function, and getting lost in a role?
It's about identification. Are you identified with the
function? Does your sense of self depend
entirely on being the doctor, the boss, the parent?
When that happens, interactions become inauthentic.

(28:52):
The doctor sees a patient, not aperson.
He lists some common roles or archetypes we fall into.
Yeah, the middle class housewife, the tough guy, the
seductive woman, the non conformist artist, the cultured
person and the big one, the adult role where we become
overly serious and lose our spontaneity.
Even connects the hippie movement to this.
As a rejection of those rigid social roles and ego structures,

(29:16):
it was a time when the system's insanity, like the Vietnam War,
was becoming obvious, and that collective loosening created an
opening for Eastern wisdom in the West.
These roles can be really subtletoo, right?
Like how we talk differently to different people?
Absolutely unconscious shifts inattitude, speech depending on
whether we're talking to the CEOor the cleaner, a customer or

(29:37):
salesperson. It's not real people connecting,
it's conceptual mental images interacting.
As he puts it, the more identified we are, the less real
the connection. That Zen master Kazan story is
great here. Sweaty palms before the
nobleman's funeral. Because he realized he wasn't
the same inside, whether facing a king or a beggar, he couldn't
see past the social roles. So he left, studied, came back

(30:00):
enlightened, totally present, handing the baby back, saying,
is that so? No role just presents.
And what about playing the role of being happy?
Just great, Yeah. When you're actually miserable
inside. He warns against that, too.
That kind of denial, suppressingyour true state, can lead to
depression or breakdowns. Authenticity matters.
Parenthood comes up as a big one, the most universal role.

(30:21):
And the challenges, can you be aparent without totally
identifying with that role? Over identification leads to
controlling, spoiling, living through your kids needing to be
needed. That Ron Dos quote is spot on.
If you think you are so enlightened, go and spend a week
with your parents. Test your presence.
Definitely. So conscious parenting, totally

(30:42):
suggests, is about focusing on being present with your kids,
giving them space, allowing mistakes, offering that formless
attention, just being alert, still present with them,
recognizing the presence in them.
So giving up role-playing means just doing things for their own
sake, not to prop up some fake self.
Pretty much the ego always thinks I'm not enough so it

(31:04):
needs to play a role to get whatI need.
Letting that go is key. And the practice.
He suggests consciously de emphasizing who you are on the
level of form. Let go of some habitual pattern
or role. You become less so you can be
more. Experiment.
Drop A roll, see what happens. It's like taking off that stiff,
uncomfortable mask. It might feel weird at first,
but it lets your real face show and allows for genuine

(31:27):
connection. Exactly.
It's about moving towards authenticity.
All right, so we've seen the ego, we've seen the path to
awakening. What does actually living this
awakened life look like day-to-day?
The book really ramps up the urgency here.
Evolve or die? It's a stark choice he presents.
Humanity's at a critical point. The egoic mind, amplified by

(31:49):
technology, is now threatening the whole planet.
Awakening isn't just a nice ideaanymore, it's becoming
imperative for survival. Like those sea creatures forced
onto land, the crisis forces theevolution.
That's the analogy, The old way of being, the egoic
consciousness is becoming unsustainable.
The crisis is the evolutionary pressure and he suggests this

(32:10):
transformation is happening. More and more people are
experiencing the breakdown of old patterns and the emergence
of this new consciousness. And this new consciousness,
yeah, it's not another belief system, right?
Not a new religion. No, crucially, it's not about
new content for the mind. It goes deeper.
It's about the transcendence of thought itself, realizing
there's a dimension within you infinitely more vast than

(32:30):
thought. So you stop deriving your
identity just from your thinking.
Exactly. You realize you are the
awareness behind the thinking and the relief in that that, he
writes. What a liberation to realize
that the voice in my head is notwho I am.
Who am I then? The one who sees that?
That awareness prior to thought.And he defines evil very
precisely here as complete identification with form,

(32:52):
physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms.
This leads to that total unawareness of our connection to
the whole, that forgetfulness ofbeing is original sin,
suffering, delusion. If we don't change this basic
mind structure, we'll just keep recreating the same problems.
You can access to the new New Heaven and New Earth prophecy,
Yeah. Heaven being the inner realm of
consciousness, the awakened state, Earth being the outer

(33:15):
manifestation, our collective reality, They're intrinsically
linked as the old consciousness dissolves and new one emerges,
and this will be reflected outwardly, maybe even in
geological or climatic shifts. So humanity's at this
crossroads, like we grew lungs but are still trying to live
underwater. As the water disappears, we have
to adapt. We have to find our feet in this
new dimension of consciousness. OK, if it's that urgent, how do

(33:40):
we practically connect with thisnew consciousness?
Where do we start? The foundation, he stresses
again and again, is the present moment, your truest friend.
Your entire reality hinges on your relationship with the now.
And the ego hates the now. Why does the ego hate the
present moment? Because the ego lives in
psychological time, regretting the past or craving, fearing the

(34:01):
future, the now where life actually happens is timeless and
the ego can't really exist there.
He mentions Krishna, which is secret.
I don't mind what happens. Which sounds simple, but it
implies total non judgment acceptance, nonresistance to
what is or is then Master Haku and again responding to wild
accusations and later apologies with just is that so?

(34:22):
He just allowed the moment to be.
I'm getting drawn into the drama.
No victim. Exactly.
He didn't personalize it. And Tully says bad turns into
good through the power of non resistance to the present
moment. But what about time past,
future. They seem pretty real.
That's the paradox totally argues.
There is only ever this moment. Life is always now.

(34:43):
Past and future only exist as thoughts happening right now.
We never experienced yesterday or tomorrow.
We only ever experienced this moment.
Even though everything seems subject to time aging change.
It all happens in the now. That's the mind bending part.
Recognizing this impermanence like the King's ring, saying
this too will pass leads to non attachment.

(35:05):
You can enjoy things more fully,paradoxically, without the fear
of losing them. Creates inner space.
So we need to eliminate time psychologically, not make
enlightenment some future goal. Right, because making it a
future goal just creates more ego, more striving.
Time. Past and future is the egos
playground. The depth the connection to
being is only accessible vertically through the portal of

(35:26):
this moment. So saying yes to this moment,
allowing it to be as it is, it dissolves time and ego.
That's the claim. The ego always wants to use the
now as a means to an end, or sees it as an obstacle or even
an enemy. It's always trying to get
somewhere else. You can't just be here.
Nope. It's like life is this dream,
this play of forms. The dreamer, the consciousness

(35:47):
underneath it all, is who you really are.
And our purpose now, Tolley says, is to awaken within the
dream. And the doorway is always the
present moment. Like the canvas analogy, the ego
is busy critiquing the painting or worrying about the next
stroke instead of seeing the masterpiece that is the now.
Perfectly put. OK, so if we're present, how
does that change what we do? This leads to awaken doing

(36:12):
acceptance, enjoyment and enthusiasm.
Yeah, the quality of your actions flows directly from your
state of consciousness, he says.Consciousness can infuse what
you do in three main ways or modalities.
Acceptance, enjoyment, enthusiasm.
And he says not what you do, buthow you do what you do
determines whether you are fulfilling your destiny.
That's huge. It really shifts the focus,

(36:33):
doesn't it? So acceptance is for things you
just can't enjoy. Changing that flat tire in the
rain. Instead of resisting internally
fuming, you bring acceptance. And that changes the energy.
He says peace. This subtle vibration flows into
the action. It's active, not passive
resignation. And if you can't accept or enjoy
his advice is stark, stop. Otherwise you're just creating

(36:55):
negativity. Then there's enjoyment.
How is that different from just wanting something?
Enjoyment replaces wanting as the motivator.
It connects you to universal creativity.
When the present moment is your focus, not some future reward,
enjoyment naturally arises in the doing.
Joy is the dynamic aspect of being, he says.
It flows into the action, not from it.

(37:18):
He suggests practicing this evenwith boring tasks like laundry.
Yeah, make a list of tedious thing, then commit to being
fully present while doing them, Sensing that alert a live
stillness within. He claims the activity itself
can become enjoyable because you're enjoying the
consciousness flowing into it. OK.
And the third one? Enthusiasm.
That's when enjoyment combines with a larger vision or goal.

(37:39):
It brings this incredible energy, enormous empowerment,
but unlike egoic striving, whichis often pushy and manipulative
because it comes from lack. Enthusiasm comes from abundance.
Exactly. It gives freely.
It's non confrontational. If it hits an obstacle it flows
around it or even incorporates the opposing energy.
It turns foes into friends. And he says enthusiasm and the

(37:59):
ego cannot coexist. Because true enthusiasm comes
from that deeper place of being,not the needy self.
It has direction, but it's totally one with the present
moment. There's a core of peace, even in
intense activity. So the goals that come from
enthusiasm are different too. They tend to be dynamic, focused
on activity, connection, benefiting the whole, rather
than static goals like boosting yourself, image or just

(38:22):
acquiring stuff. They inspire others like
Hafisa's poem I am a hole in a flute that the Christ's breath
moves through being a channel. It's like that light bulb
analogy. Acceptance is letting the
current flow. Enjoyment is glowing steadily.
Enthusiasm is turning on the floodlights, eliminating
everything powered by that deep inner source.
Beautifully summarized. Which brings us right to the

(38:44):
final core idea. We'll explore abundance and true
self giving to receive. This really ties everything
together. Your fundamental sense of self,
whether you see yourself as lacking or as inherently
abundant, creates your reality. Abundance starts within.
But so many people feel like that needy little me, always

(39:05):
feeling slighted, unappreciated,taken for granted.
Right. Always suspecting others
motives, feeling like the world owes them something.
This misperception of who they are, this feeling of lack,
creates constant dysfunction. They believe they have nothing
to give, so the world seems to withhold from them.
And that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
If the thought of lack has become part of who you think you

(39:28):
are, you will always experience lack.
Exactly. You become blind to the good
that's already there, and then comes that really challenging
but transformative statement. Whatever you think the world is
withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.
That it's hard. So if I feel people don't give
me appreciation, it's because I'm withholding appreciation.

(39:48):
That's the logic you withhold because you feel small, like you
have nothing to give, and that perpetuates the experience of
lack. So the practice is to give what
you feel you're lacking. Yes, give praise if you want
praise. Give attention if you crave
attention. Give support if you need
support. Just act as if you had it and it
will come, he advises. Outflow determines inflow.

(40:10):
It sounds like Jesus teaching. Give and it will be given to
you. Press down, running over.
It's the same universal spiritual principle.
Generosity isn't just nice, it'sthe mechanism of abundance.
Because the true source isn't outside you.
It is part of who you are. Right.
Your being is abundance. You start by acknowledging the

(40:31):
abundance already outside the sun, the rain, nature's
generosity that awakens the dormant abundance within.
Then you let it flow out. So abundance comes only to those
who already have. It means you have to have the
Interstate of abundance first. Precisely.
It's an Interstate that then attracts and creates the outer
manifestation. Scarcity is also an Interstate
projecting outward. And this links back to knowing

(40:52):
yourself versus knowing about yourself.
Therapy might tell you a lot about your past, your
conditioning, but knowing yourself is being yourself,
stopping the identification withall that mental content.
And what's left? The space, the inner space of
consciousness that allows all the content to be.
Like the Zen saying the snow falls each flake in its
appropriate place, there's a hidden order.

(41:15):
An order are fragmented thinkingcan't grasp but that we can
align with through presence, through acceptance.
Like the wise man saying maybe to good fortune and bad
fortunate. Like his non judgement connects
him to that higher intelligence.Or Stephen Knocking, facing
immense limitation with that radical acceptance, saying who
could have wished for more? Embodiments of surrender to what

(41:36):
is. So abundance is like that.
Well, if you believe it's dry, it stays dry for you.
If you know it's full within, you draw from it, you give, and
the giving reveals its infinite supply.
A shift from scarcity to flow. That's the promise.
Wow. OK, as we start to wrap up this
deep dive into a a new earth, we've covered a lot of ground

(41:57):
from the ego's madness. To the wisdom whispered by
flowers and birds. The huge relief of realizing
you're not the voice in your head.
And the power of bringing acceptance, enjoyment or
enthusiasm into everything you do.
The core message seems to be that this transformation, this
awakening, isn't some far off goal.
It's available right now. Always it's about befriending

(42:17):
the present moment, recognizing the ego's games and choosing
awareness again and again. The choice is always here.
And that leads to his final, really provocative thought.
An invitation, really. A new species is arising on the
planet. It is arising now, and you are
it. That just stops you, doesn't it?
Yeah. What does it mean for you
listening right now, to be part of this emerging species?

(42:40):
How might your life, your relationships, your whole sense
of purpose change if you really embrace that identity not just
as an idea, but as a living reality, right here, right now?
It's a powerful question to sit with, and perhaps that's the
real take away from this deep dive, the ongoing exploration
within yourself. Absolutely.
The journey starts now.