A New Earth

I think the beautiful side of our American approach to ethnic identity appears when it is inclusive rather than exclusive. This is why St. Patrick's Day is such a joyful holiday here. When we say everyone's Irish, we're also saying we are all sisters and brothers.

I'm just beginning to study and meditate upon the role of ego -- personal identity -- in our lives. Everyone has it and needs it in order to become a healthy adult. Yet unrestrained ego also is the source of most of the problems in society and today's world, when it causes us to devalue others who are "not like us". Ego is the source of hatred, greed, and indifference to the circumstances of others. Ego is not a secure foundation for life because it is exclusive, rather than inclusive. Ego senses its own incompleteness yet cannot make the leap of understanding to reach out to others to form a secure and stable bond. Instead, it seeks a false sense of security by gathering more to itself while denying or taking away from others.

Eckhart Tolle, author of "The Power of Now", calls for a new birth of Universal consciousness in "A New Earth". I was taken aback and reacted negatively at first when Eckart and "A New Earth" were embraced by Oprah. I have come to realize that this was an egoic reaction -- I wanted to keep Eckart "to myself" and didn't want to see him become popular. I now see it is imperative to bring his message to a wider audience.

His philosophy may have to be diluted for mass adoption. But without popularization he can never accomplish what so urgently is needed, which is to reverse the dominance of ego over Spirit that has accelerated in the modern world.

Carolyn Myss has described a way of living for "mystics without monasteries". Her point also is that we need to develop ways to incorporate deep spirituality into everyday life so that it is not confined to a few hermits living outside society. If human life is to survive long on this planet, Spirit -- not any narrowly defined religion, but simply a basic guiding awareness of the oneness of all beings and all things -- must become dominant. We must begin to live not predominantly for ourselves, our families, our ethnic groups, or our political units, but for each and every other, in great ways and small. Popularization of Eckhart Tolle's philosophy is one way we can hope to start a movement in that direction.