tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8751964279420308191.post7807797011693288674..comments2024-02-26T12:53:35.542+05:00Comments on The Republic of Rumi Blog: The Aligarh MovementKhurram Ali Shafiquehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15329916182280619617noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8751964279420308191.post-29080024096908715232009-03-31T05:43:00.000+05:002009-03-31T05:43:00.000+05:00Connie, thanks for posting this very useful excerp...Connie, thanks for posting this very useful excerpt and also your insightful comment. I completely agree with you. Also, with the spirit of what Tolle is saying here although he is using "ego" in a meaning different from what is given in my discussion. If ego is perceived as selfishness, and collective ego as enslavement to the collective good of one group at the cost of another group then indeed that is the evil we need to overcome within ourselves (and your observation about the Holy Spirit being left out of Tolle's perception of God is quite candid and pertinent).Khurram Ali Shafiquehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15329916182280619617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8751964279420308191.post-27345269001058043592009-03-30T20:33:00.000+05:002009-03-30T20:33:00.000+05:00As some of our greatest sages & prophets have ...As some of our greatest sages & prophets have indicated, perhaps the greatest service we can offer humanity is our own inner transformation/self-realization, etc. and perhaps that goes as well for our various collective groupings, nations, religions, causes, organizations, etc.?<BR/><BR/>I have yet to find the history which this recent question addresses...yet this topic is a keenly significant one for our day...perhaps this may (or may not) shed light? <BR/><BR/>I offer here one man's thoughts who IF he were to be a particular religion, would probably come closest to Buddhism.<BR/><BR/>Although I am not thoroughly satisfied by what I understand of Tolle's conception of Allah - and there would appear to be sometimes a leaving out of Holy Spirit...still I have found in some of Tolle's work a glorious, layered, perceptive understanding of the Ego, of Collective Pain/Suffering and of self-realization & healing for common humanity:<BR/><BR/>Thursday, January 24, 2008<BR/>Eckhart Tolle on THE COLLECTIVE EGO<BR/><BR/>THE COLLECTIVE EGO<BR/><BR/>How hard it is to live with yourself! One of the ways in which the ego attempts to escape the unsatisfactoriness of personal selfhood is to enlarge and strengthen its sense of self by identifying with a group--a nation, political party, corporation, institution, sect, club, gang, football team.<BR/><BR/>In some cases the personal ego seems to dissolve completely as someone dedicates his or her life to working selflessly for the greater good of the collective without demanding personal rewards, recognition, or aggrandizement. What a relief to be freed of the dreadful burden of personal self. The members of the collective feel happy and fulfilled, no matter how hard they work, how many sacrifices they make. They appear to have gone beyond ego. The question is: Have they truly become free, or has the ego simply shifted from the personal to the collective?<BR/><BR/>A collective ego manifests the same characteristics as the personal ego, such as the need for conflict and enemies, the need for more, the need to be right against others who are wrong, and so on. <BR/><BR/>Sooner or later, the collective will come into conflict with other collectives, because it unconsciously seeks conflict and it needs opposition to define its boundary and thus its identity.<BR/><BR/>Its members will then experience the suffering that inevitably comes in the wake of any ego-motivated action. At that point, they may wake up and realize that their collective has a strong element of insanity.<BR/><BR/>It can be painful at first to suddenly wake up and realize that the collective you had identified with and worked for is actually insane. Some people at that point become cynical or bitter and henceforth deny all values, all worth. This means that they quickly adopted another belief system when the previous one was recognized as illusory and therefore collapsed. They didn't face the death of their ego but ran away and reincarnated into a new one.<BR/><BR/>A collective ego is usually more unconscious than the individuals that make up that ego. For example, crowds (which are temporary collective egoic entities) are capable of committing atrocities that the individual away from the crowd would not be. Nations not infrequently engage in behavior that would be immediately recognizable as psychopathic in an individual.<BR/><BR/>As the new consciousness emerges, some people will feel called upon to form groups that reflect the enlightened consciousness. These groups will not be collective egos. The individuals who make up these groups will have no need to define their identity through them. They no longer look to any form to define who they are. Even if the members that make up those groups are not totally free of ego yet, there will be enough awareness in them to recognize the ego in themselves or in others as soon as it appears. However, constant alertness is required since the ego will try to take over and reassert itself in any way it can. Dissolving the human ego by bringing it into the light of awareness-this will be one of the main purposes of these groups, whether they be enlightened businesses, charitable organizations, schools, or communities of people living together. <BR/><BR/>Enlightened collectives will fulfill an important function in the arising of the new consciousness. Just as egoic collectives pull you into unconsciousness and suffering, the enlightened collective can be a vortex for consciousness that will accelerate the planetary shift.<BR/>---Excerpt from A New Earth by Eckhart TolleCNhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10877484524704475807noreply@blogger.com