Excerpted from Oprah and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth Online Class Podcast transcript

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): But what surprised me is that you say that often people who are also shy are also acting out of their egos. And you say whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you. Why is that?

ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR, “A NEW EARTH”): Well, if you’re shy, then what you fear is to be found wanting. But so you’re not, you dare not…

OPRAH WINFREY: So the fear is that the attention may take the form of disapproval or criticism.

ECKHART TOLLE: Yes. So because you’re afraid of that, whatever the disapproval or the criticism would represent an injury of your mentally made sense of self which is the ego.

So it would, the image that I have of myself as the very capable person or whatever it is that I’m trying to uphold, if I encounter criticism, the ego immediately will be hurt.

And so a shy person would not dare to say anything because they’re afraid of ego loss. And.. sometimes that’s mistaken for an egoless person.

It’s not. And deep down inside the shy person or this person who is suffering from this sense of inferiority, there’s the desire, the unexpressed desire to be superior.

And inside the person who acts superior who seems to have a big confident ego, is always the hidden fear that he might be inferior. And his whole acting out is to compensate for that hidden fear of being inferior.

OPRAH WINFREY: Okay. Behind every positive self consent is the hidden fear of not being good enough?

ECKHART TOLLE: Yes.

OPRAH WINFREY: Behind every negative self consent is the hidden desire of being the greatest or better than others.

ECKHART TOLLE: Yes.

OPRAH WINFREY: And where does self-esteem fit into that? What is real self esteem? What would true self-esteem look like?

“Part of me suspects that I’m a loser,
and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.”
John Lennon

ECKHART TOLLE: Well, first there is the ego self-esteem. Which is really, even if you have high ego self-esteem, as we’ve just seen, there’s always hidden fear underneath it.

It’s always there to compensate for the fear you feel of not being good enough or perhaps failing. So you need to play a role of being big to compensate for fear of failure that’s deep down.

But that’s usually the world calls it.. the world would say he or she has high self-esteem. People who have big egos. But the world doesn’t realize that that’s not true self-esteem.

True self-esteem goes much deeper. It’s finding the source of power and aliveness deep inside. We talked about the lake. Realizing that within the depth of your being, there is that continuous source of intense aliveness and power, which is the stillness out of which everything comes.

The potential, the unexpressed potential for all form is there for every human being. You have to become still.

OPRAH WINFREY: So true self esteem is realizing that that sense of being, that presence is there?

ECKHART TOLLE: It comes out of the stillness.

OPRAH WINFREY: That it comes out of the stillness and that presence in me is the same as the presence in all people.

ECKHART TOLLE: Yes.

OPRAH WINFREY: And when you recognize that and act from that space within yourself, that is when you have true self-esteem.

ECKHART TOLLE: That’s true self-esteem and self esteem then is not, no longer derived from the belief that you are better than somebody else.

OPRAH WINFREY: And so you are not attached to the labels or the roles that you play. And you speak about the many various roles that everybody has.

ECKHART TOLLE: Yes. And then you’re no longer devastated by criticism or get very angry when you’re criticized as the ego does.

The ego is either totally devastated when you get, or it gets very angry when it gets criticized, this self image.

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From Oprah and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth Online Class - Chapter 4

Free podcasts available at Oprah.com and Learn Out Loud

The class is a discussion of his book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.

Also available as an audio CD.

Eckhart Tolle was educated at the Universities of London and Cambridge, and at the age of 29 experienced what he considered a spiritual transformation that marked the beginning of his life as a counselor and spiritual teacher. He is author of The Power of Now and Oprah’s Book Club selection A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.

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