ut, "Ego-identification with things creates attachment to things...which in turn creates our consumer society and economic structures where the only measure of progress is always more."
Unfortunately, however, things do not satisfy. Tolle (35) puts it this way: "I try to find myself in things but never quite make it and end up losing myself in them. That is the fate of the ego." Moreover, by using things in this way-as a means of trying to find ourselves-creates a situation in which we continually try to accumulate more things, which results in what Tolle (37) calls "object proliferation." We surround ourselves with things because we have lost touch with ourselves and can "no longer feel the life that [we] are" (Tolle 38). There is no life in things, so we keep trying by accumulating more things, but it never works.
In effect, attempting to substitute things for a real connection with others and ourselves is a manifestation of an empty life-a life that is spiritually dead. Philosopher Blaise Pascal noted that "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ" (Neidhardt). To carry Pascal's analogy one step further, it can be said that the more we attempt to find ourselves in things, the larger the God-shaped vacuum inside us becomes. Living a life focused on things is idolatry, and idolatry is the opposite of a relationship with the living God. There is nothing more lonely than walking around with a void inside where God should be, so we try to salve that loneliness by heaping up more things around ourselves. We become so alienated from truth that we place things on the throne of our heart, the throne that rightfully belongs to God, and then we cannot understand why we feel so empty. We lust for more things to try to fill the deepening void, but the feeling of emptiness just gets worse. The...