Understanding the self has been a challenging pursuit throughout the history of mankind. The self has been variously defined in terms of the id, the ego, the mind, the spirit, and a number of other factors, and great thinkers in psychology and philosophy have written volumes on the subject, yet developing a real and workable understanding of the human psyche has always seemed just beyond reach. Eckhart Tolle's compelling book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose examines the function of the ego in human personality, and in the process it takes up the issue of what Tolle (140) refers to as "the pain-body," defined as "an accumulation of old emotional pain." What makes Tolle's analysis remarkable is the infusion of insight and his practical, easy-to-implement suggestions for how to escape from the burden of the pain-body and egoic thinking. This paper will discuss Tolle's concept of the ego, his idea of the pain-body, and the issue of whether ego can be an illness, drawing in ideas from Sardello and others.
In its simplest definition, Tolle (22) states that ego is "identification with forms, which primarily means thought forms," although emotional and physical forms also exist. These forms separate us from our wholeness, distracting us as it were from being connected to the universe at a deeper level. He points out that the ego is "conditioned by the past" and obsessed with things (Tolle 34, 35). In fact, the ego gains its identification through things rather than through any real-time experience within the self, thus promoting "the unconscious compulsion to enhance one's identity through association with an object" (Tolle 35). This preoccupation with things creates attachment and obsession with them and detracts from the person's connection with the world around him; he becomes trapped inside his conceptualizations instead of tuned in to the universe's pulsating life (Tolle 35). As Tolle (35) points o...