Ease Your Grip on That Story

“Deny yourself,” Jesus taught. But what does he meant? Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, argues Jesus was pointing to the same realization the Buddha taught. The self we cling to, the ego, our psychological identity, is not the ultimate truth of who we are. To deny this self is to see it as it is and awaken to what lies beyond.

This perspective aligns seamlessly with the teachings of the yogis. In yogi philosophy, the personality is a functional appearance. A collection of thoughts, emotions, habits, and roles that allows us to move through the world. It serves a purpose, but it is not the Real Self. But that doesn’t mean the yogi wages war against the personality or attempts to suppress it. He just learns to look past it.

Yogi Ramacharaka illustrates this idea with a metaphor. He compares the human personality to a single cell in the body, mistakenly believing itself to be separate, unaware that its existence is an expression of a much greater life: “Would the cell feel any less real if it knew that behind its Personality as a cell, there was the Individuality of the Man—that its Real Self was the Man, not the cell?”

The false self feels real because it is experienced, but its reality is limited and relative. To “deny yourself” is not to deny existence, but to withdraw belief from the illusion of separation. In other words, it means noticing that the “me” you carry around is mostly a mental story, and easing your grip on that story so you can feel your natural connection to everyone and everything.

When the imagined self is seen through, what remains is the Real Self, the deeper “I AM,” grounded in universal life. Home.