Tolle – A New Earth

 

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Ever since humanity developed a consciousness of self it has recognised that our normal mental processes may neither reflect the world as it really is nor deal with our perceptions of the world, whether or not accurate, in an advantageous manner. We continuously search for happiness, comfort and wealth and avoid pain, stress, misery and poverty. All western political systems are designed around this premise. Governments would not be elected if they stated otherwise. And yet we all know, once we think about it, that every lasting human endeavour is the fruit of the very things we pretend to eschew. The magnificence of the Taj Mahal, our greatest literary and art works, the climbing of the world’s highest mountains, all stem from or utilise discomfort and misery. Nobody painted a great work of art because he or she was happy and comfortable. The art came from the spirit, the need to express some deep emotion. Why do we read novels and attend plays? Because they contain all those things we say we don’t want. They have friction, misery, contention. Lives are devastated and some resolution, often unsatisfactory, is outlined. We love it. Some people go to plays or films knowing that they will be miserable and very likely will cry (a good old ‘weepy’). Indeed, they go for that very purpose. The act of feeling unhappy provides the satisfaction. Nobody would buy a book where everyone was comfortable and happy and remained so throughout. The music I love appeals to my emotions, sends tingles down my spine and fills my soul. Even humour has an emotional and discomforting element.

 

Tolle implies that this search for happiness and comfort easily morphs into greed and the need for power and influence. We live ‘unskilfully’ and ‘blindly’ and are the cause of much of the suffering and misery. He is surely right. But I do not believe that we suffer an inherent defect in our state of mind. Our minds are what we have. There is certainly a defect in the way we sometimes use it but that is another matter. And we certainly are not totally aware of the way our minds work but that is also another matter. The experience of, even need for, and pleasure in, suffering and misery is something we have never fully grasped. They are not necessarily bad things. If a loved one dies, our misery is an essential experience. Nothing of note would be accomplished without them.

 

Tolle says that the ego is destined to dissolve. He defines ego as ‘identification with forms of thought’. He says if evil has any reality it equates to identification with emotional, physical and thought forms which results in an unconnected-ness with the whole and an unawareness of the oneness with every ‘other’. Is he really implying that the ego is evil? What is so wrong with thought forms? Our ego and our identification with thoughts and emotions, like happiness and suffering, are not defects. They are what makes us human. Why does thought result in unawareness and unconnected-ness? Surely thought is the only way we can recognise our limitations and the only way we will be able to correct the mistakes that we are no doubt making and have made since the beginning of civilisation. Tolle’s own authorship of this and other books belies his own argument.

 

It seems to me that if Tolle wishes to change the path we are now taking towards our self destruction, and I agree that he is right about that, he should not be tackling the ego and suggesting that it disappear. He should find a way of utilising what we are rather than what he would like us to be. Perhaps he is making a similar mistake for which he criticises Communism – that you cannot change a system without taking into account human nature, particularly the ego. It’s not the same mistake because communism ignored the reality of the ego and Tolle very markedly does not. He wants to eliminate it. It won’t happen.