A New Earth, Ch. 2, Ego: The Current State of Humanity
Eckhart Tolle - Section 1, untitled.
The first time I read this book, I remember struggling with this chapter, especially the part about disentangling from words, labels. I love words, love how when put together in different ways, different ideas and concepts arise. I love how there are different shades of meaning, tones, colors even. I love when I can feel connected to the writer just through their distinct combination of words.
I also love words for their ability to be a bridge between people, time and places. Let me step into another time, another world in a novel, or into your world as you share your day. What a gift words can be.
Words…can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you.
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
Agreed, and I love being hypnotized. Take me back in time, or to another place on the planet. Show me another perspective! Reading is a way of listening to others and that’s great, right? But he’s talking about the limitation of words. ???
You can easily lose yourself in (words), become hypnotized into believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is…You don’t know what it is. You have only covered up the mystery with a label.
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
He then goes on to say that knowing something, someone, is not possible, because all is unknowable. Unknowable due to it’s endless depth.
Hmm, okay, so maybe when I label something I am describing one facet of it, and often then dismissing it as known without being present to see more. Already been here done that, seen that so time to move on.
And what do I miss as a result? Okay, I’m starting to feel some understanding. Maybe it’s like being with a child who delights in a caterpillar. I come along as an adult and identify said caterpillar, thus showing my extensive experience and knowledge, all of which may come in handy when I teach my university level class or write a treatise or whatever; there is a place for these words, labels, categories. And there is a time to learn to let them go. Right now, do I delight, can I delight in that caterpillar as the child does, as perhaps I once did?
Not if I’m labeling, categorizing, trying to slot it into my known understanding. When I do that, I stop really seeing what is in front of me.
This caterpillar, the stone I am holding, the person before me, the clouds I am seeing, this is a new relationship. I have never held, looked at or seen exactly what I am seeing here and now. Can I let that in? Can I release my need to show that I know for a moment and be with what is here with me right now, for the first time?
Underneath the surface appearance, everything is not only connected with everything else, but also with the Source of all life out of which it came.
When you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you.
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
Ok, I’m beginning to get it. But it feels like trying to hold water in my hands. I touch it briefly, and then it disappears again, that ability to, as Marcel Proust says, “have new eyes”1
So why do we so need to show that we already know, that we can label and categorize with the best of them? It’s wrapped up with the sense of me, my ego, that whom I refer to as I. I know, I have already seen, I want you to know that I am not a silly child, but that I have knowledge and am important, even in a situation where it isn’t really necessary or called for. And so I label, categorize, and diminish this thing in front of me into something one-dimensional and not worthy of further attention.
The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality, the miracle of life that continuously unfolds within and around you.
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
Sigh. Kinda sad. My intelligence, such a gift, can so get in the way of me experiencing wonder. Good to know. Awareness is the first step. Now to disentangle. To let go of thought sometimes and allow in more being.
That’s why I’m here, why I’m writing, to learn this stuff, again and again. Maybe that’s why you’re here too.
So words. Like most things, a gift and a hindrance. Everything in its time. My invitation to myself (and you if you want to play) is to wake up to when I’m using words to enhance my self-worth, my standing, and consider letting them go. I can pause, be, and maybe say nothing, at least for right now.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust