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Self Quotes by Eckhart Tolle

69 Self quotes by Eckhart Tolle

All Self quotes Eckhart Tolle’s page

Thoughts that trap us can build an ego that feels out of control. The quote notes that most people spend their lives imprisoned by their own thinking, and that suffering grows when we fully identify with every thought and emotion. It also says the ego has a built‑in self‑destruct mechanism that can dissolve when pain becomes intense.

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“Deny thy self!”

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In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.

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Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make.

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“Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’…

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Many people identify their sense of self with the problems they have, or think they have.

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The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.

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“Ego is the complete identification with form. Physical forms, thought forms, emotional forms.”

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The ego doesn't know that the source of all energy is within you, so it seeks it outside.

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The false self lives mainly through memory and anticipation. Past and future are its main preoccupation.

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To me the ego is the habitual and compulsive thought processes that go through everybody's mind continuously. External things like possessions or…

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In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the…

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The power is in you. The answer is in you. And you are the answer to all your searches: you are the…

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Forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self, to keep…

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"Getting away from it all," many people want that, and of course ultimately the only way to get away from it all…

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On the deepest level, what I know for sure is that who I am, essentially, is consciousness and consciousness is timeless and…

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The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old,…

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Non-reaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but…

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When each thought absorbs your attention completely, it means you identify with the voice in your head. Thought then becomes invested with…

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If you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation.…

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If a fish is born in your aquarium and you call him John, write out a birth certificate, tell him about his…

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Humanity as a whole has already gone through unimaginable suffering, mostly self-inflicted, the culmination of which was the 20th century with its…

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When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in…

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“Why does the ego play roles? Because of one unexamined assumption, one fundamental error, one unconscious thought. That thought is: I am…

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If you are content with being nobody in particular, content not to stand out, you align yourself with the power of the…

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Christ is your God-essence or the Self, as it is sometimes called in the East. The only difference between Christ and presence…

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Transcending the world does not mean to withdraw from the world, to no longer take action, or to stop interacting with people.…

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Instead of being lost in your thinking, when you awaken you recognize yourself as the awareness behind it. Thinking then ceases to…

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A self - a me - exists in every thought and every emotion. Suffering arises through complete identification with thinking and emotions.

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Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as…

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If I accept the fact that my relationships are here to make me conscious, instead of happy, then my relationships become a…

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Fulfill me, make me happy, make me feel safe, tell me who I am. The world cannot give you those things, and…

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Through being "right", you feel superior and through feeling superior you strengthen your sense of self. In reality, of course, you are…

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A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there…

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When your sense of self is no longer tied to thought, is no longer conceptual, there is a depth of feeling, of…

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In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in…

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Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it…

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“Nonreaction to the ego in others is one of the most effective ways not only of going beyond ego in yourself but…

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Not all thinking and all emotion are of the ego. They turn into ego only when you identify with them and they…

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When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. The mind in…

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When the pain that the little me creates for itself becomes intense enough, the ego will self-destruct. It has a self-destruct mechanism…

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More by Eckhart Tolle

“The voice in the head that never stops speaking becomes a civilization that is obsessed with form and therefore knows nothing of the most…

Thinking, or more precisely identification with thinking, gives rise to and maintains the ego, which, in our Western society in particular, is out of…

“A powerful spiritual practice is consciously to allow the diminishment of ego when it happens without attempting to restore it. I recommend that you…

To become aware of the subtlety of nature you need to be alert. The moment you become alert you become still... thinking subsides. That…

When you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama.

On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a joyous energy behind what you do.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you…

You may not yet be able to bring your unconscious mind activity into awareness as thoughts, but it will always be reflected in the…

“War is a mind-set, and all action that comes out of such a mind-set will either strengthen the enemy, the perceived evil, or, if…

Whenever you step out of the noise of thinking, that is meditation, and a different state of consciousness arises.

Get the inside right, and the outside will take care of itself.

It is very hard to tell when I started to be a spiritual teacher. There was a time when occasionally somebody would come and…

Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of…

Let the end of the world be inside you, then you don't need to fear the end of the world out there.

“Jeste li zabrinuti? Razmišljate li često: »Što bi bilo da sam...?« To znači da ste se poistovjetili s umom, koji se projicira u neku…