What we can learn about the human ego from Eckhart Tolle

A quote from Eckhart Tolle: You can change how you feel about a situation by breaking habits associated with the ego. Image credit: Paula May

At Yugen we have been dealing with the effects of the human ego for over three decades. I came across this article by Eckhart Tolle and thought we would share it with you.

The human ego can be a very destructive force in our life. The old expression comes to mind:

“he would cut off his nose to spite his face, rather than …. “

It has become the norm, sadly, for us to react in anger. Imagine the scenario: you are in your local shop that sells a range of phones, the customer in front of you, a man, say in his 30’s reaches the front of the queue and bursts into tears, saying “my phone doesn’t work and you promised me you had fixed it” and he continues to cry. How dumbfounded the customer service staff and indeed the rest of the customers in the shop would be. The real scenario is the same as above, but the man gets very angry starts shouting, is red in the face, bangs his fist on the table! Yes that’s what we expect but no one bats an eyelid.  

The anger reaction comes from our ego, it feels wronged, and want to make a big song and dance about this, our ego is conditioned from our upbringing and a bit of nature to react in the same way repeating the same pattern as before, because it has given us an apparent benefit.

As we become aware of our self, the ego, and the loving side of us and the need to respond rather than react, we often realise there is work to be done

As awareness grows some people begin to think they’re “getting worse,” so to speak, but they’re simply becoming more conscious of what has already been there for many years. People will often ask me if they are “getting worse” because they can still detect dysfunctional or reactive patterns within themselves. It’s not as if those patterns will simply disappear as awareness grows; you’ll just be more aware of them.

Ultimately as you become more aware of reactive patterns, you can see them whereas before you were them. There’s a huge difference between seeing a pattern inside yourself and being the pattern—or being used by it, merging with it, or acting it out totally.

Conditioned patterns—or egoic behaviors, one could say—don’t go away immediately as you become present. They have their momentum—especially patterns associated with emotional residues we call “pain-body.” They may act out for quite a while, even as presence is arising.

Usually the sequence is that after a person experiences anger—or any unconscious reaction related to the emotional body or to certain mind patterns—awareness comes in later, after the energy of the pain-body attack has subsided. This can be a while for some people; it could be an hour, two hours, three hours before you wake up and say, “what was all that?”

Fortunately, the time gap between the actual event and the return of awareness tends to get shorter as you become more present—and eventually it will arise immediately after it’s happened, or even while the energy is still there but no longer at its highest—at that point you’re already aware of what’s happening. And then the great step forward is when in the middle of it you become aware.

In the middle of it, there’s already an awareness while it’s still happening. The awareness is there just at the moment the anger, for example, comes in; and just before it externalizes itself and expresses itself. When the impulse comes to be angry, the awareness is there; and at that moment then, you will have a choice in how to express it—not to keep it down—but to take one conscious breath, or walk somewhere, or simply be there as the presence and let it pass through you.

Then after that, you may find the impulse is not as strong as before and you notice it just as it comes in—and immediately you’re there as the presence. And the impulse meets the light of presence and it melts. So be patient with yourself!

It may also happen that as presence begins to flow into other areas of your life—your relationships and so on—the ego joins with the pain-body, so to speak. It withdraws into one corner of your life where it takes up very firm residence and says, “I’m not going from here.” It’s as if the rest of your life may be undergoing great improvement, but there’s one area in one little corner where the ego and the pain-body are taking refuge.

For example, one person in your life towards whom you harbor a strong grievance. Everything else is fine; you forgive everybody else! But there’s that one person, and the moment you think of that person or the name is mentioned, an enormous influx of unconsciousness takes hold of you. It doesn’t have to be a person; it could be a group of people. Or it could be about money. “I’m okay with anything, as long as nobody mentions money!”

So, whenever you discover a dysfunctional, unconscious pattern in yourself, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed; it means you’re there. It’s always a great thing to see it in yourself.

© copyright 2008-2016. Eckhart Tolle. All rights reserved. http://www.eckharttolle.com/

At Yugen we know that you can learn to break old habits and to build an awareness that will help you to deal with the automatic reactions to people and situations that you have built up that feel like a part of your personality. We know that there are techniques that come from Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), hypnotherapy and qualified counselling techniques which can help to turn a corner in human behaviours and these hold the key to becoming more present and more in control of how you can deal with situations.

Are there behaviours that you want to break the habit of that you think you could help to manage your ego and improve your relationships?