Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart tolle is one of the most popular spiritual teachers today.
With his books and lectures he inspires millions of people around the world.
His teachings involve the ego as well and how to get aware of it and reduce its influence.

'Just as a fish lives his entire life in the water, most of humanity lives their entire life in the ego personality. The fish doesn't know anything about the water, unless a fisherman captures him and pulls him onto dry land. The fish flops and wiggles and seeks desperately to return to the water. A human being doesn't know that he or she is immersed in an ocean of ego (their own and every one else's), unless some rare and unusual experience pulls them out of it into a higher or deeper dimension of experience. Usually, this experience is welcomed, but after a little while, we start to squirm and flail about in discomfort. We long to return to the safe confines of the ego mind. We secretly love our ego because it gives us our identity. Without the ego and its rich and varied content, we feel as though we are nothing at all. We may even feel that we don't exist.

The ego provides us our sense of identity through objects we own that make a statement about who we are: a nice car, a beautiful home, pretty clothes, the newest electronic gadgets, the best music collection. We surround ourselves with objects that make us feel good about ourselves and make us look good to others. Many of the things that we buy and own are simply "identity enhancers". How many purchases have you made based on the reason that the item will improve your status or popularity?The ego also provides us our sense of identity through its attachments to particular qualities we may have. You can find out what these are by completing the sentence "I am intelligent, I am a star athlete, I am a talented painter, I speak four languages, I am the tallest boy in my school, I am the prettiest girl in my family, I am an engineer for a top secret space project, I am an award-winning journalist."

Ego is our identification with form, ideas, status, talents and even events. We live, trapped, in the surface level of these identifications. This is a cause of great suffering because so much of we identify with can and will change. The beautiful girl will eventually grown older and lose her looks. The athlete will eventually surpass his prime and lose his edge. It's very important that we recognize what we are attached to and that it will change. We must bring a deeper dimension of meaning into our lives so that we're not doomed to suffer the trappings of the shallow surface level of living, which will someday let you down.'

Death of ego

"Those who say Jesus is a universal symbol for all humanity are correct in this sense: all people have a pain-body that nails us to a cross of emotional pain and suffering. Many among us live their life on the cross, so to speak, never looking to see what the nails are made of and if they can be removed.

Why is it that the central symbol of one of the world's largest religious groups - the Catholic Church - is the suffering body of Christ, horrifically nailed to a wooden cross, his face turned in agony and despair, his body lithe, exhausted and surrendered?

Why has this scene appealed so strongly in so many people, century after century?Underneath all of their reasons, below all the meaning that is placed on that event, it remains that the sight of Jesus on the Cross is a powerful symbol of the pain-body itself.

Those who have build a religion on the crucifixion and who continue to believe in its significance, would not have done so if it didn't resonate with something within themselves. The crucifixion on the cross is an external representation of an inner reality - the pain-body.
We all at some times in our life have known people who are so unhappy, so miserable, so deeply fallen in despair, that they feel that death itself is all that will bring relief. You may have heard someone at one time say they feel crucified. This is very deep pain and it is pain that feels irreversible. A pain that cannot be healed. Most everyone who lives in the world feels this depth of pain at least once in their life. Some more frequently. Some with inconceivable regularity. Every person you know has or will experience this deep pain, a pain that feels like death, a pain that hurts so much that death looks appealing. Every person - your parents, your friends, your teachers, every famous person you see on television or in sports. No one is exempt from pain.

Everyone has a pain-body, and the pain-body has a life of its own. The pain-body is like a mischievous and at times devilish immature child. The pain-body thrives on drama and is addicted to unhappiness. To supply these hungers, your pain-body feeds on your negative thinking, on bad experiences you encounter, on misfortune, physical pain, bad news, the evening news, sad memories, and soap operas (whether on television or in your own life). Those Christians who say Jesus is a universal symbol for all humanity, are in at least one sense, correct: all people have a pain-body that nails us to a cross of emotional pain and suffering. Many among us live their life on the cross, so to speak, never looking to see what the nails are made of and if they can be removed. The nails are your own ego. They are not deadly and they can be removed. They can be removed and you can be liberated from your pain and suffering. And this is the meaning of the Resurrection. We are capable of freeing ourselves from the cross of pain and suffering. We can be released from that which binds us and walk and breathe and live. The very thought of this can be the initial impetus to begin the process.

When the ego dies, your own true self, which has been dormant in slumber, will be resurrected. Not necessarily all at once with a big noble transformation, no. It will happen many times in small measures, again and again. Many resurrections. And they will lead, in time, to a real and grounded transformation of your consciousness, one that will never leave you."