Confession

I have been struggling through Tolle's New Earth, but it's driving me crazy that he's villainizing the word, ego. I understand it's because people need to understand themselves as greater consciousness before they can reflect on their human existence from this perspective. He wants to make sure they get the first step...I assume that's why the writing's circular and repetitive. But on a realistic level, you can't just get rid of the ego because it's doorway that keeps us connected to this world and this level of life, at least this collective projection of it. It's kind of a silly notion, like saying you're going to not have a nose anymore. The problem is when the ego is hampering instead of expanding, when the mirror's reflection believes it's the person, or never knew it was a reflection in the first place. As long as we know which is which, and the greater self lives by the greater rules of consciousness, everything's balanced. But to say the problem of consciousness is the need to beware the ego is not precise. Just like guns don't kill people, egos alone aren't destroying the world. It's how beings are using their egos, or how dysfunctional egos have taken over beings. It's in that relationship, and then the relationship with the world around them. The ego's a powerful energy source. It defines how we project into this world. Balanced, it can be the source of great power. Misguided, it falls into the dynamics of the primitive illusions of this world. This book has been hard for me to read because I believe this is a positive book that gives people an opening, but it's doing a huge disservice by creating a stigma on the word "ego."