Oprah and Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, discuss a fresh way to understand our relationships and ourselves. This conversation was taken from the new book The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations.

Oprah: Have you lost your ego?

Eckhart Tolle: Yes.

Oprah: You have completely?

Eckhart: Well, let's see. Who knows? Tomorrow it may suddenly appear again. You let me know if it does, because I wouldn't know it if it's really the ego.

Oprah: This is one of my favorite quotes of yours: "You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you and allowing that goodness to emerge." Again, we're talking about going to presence, the divine within you, and bringing that forth to whatever it is you do.

Eckhart: Yes. Because trying to be good is often to improve one's self-image.

Oprah: Right. That's ego-driven.

Eckhart: Ultimately, it's ego. For example, some people have been trying for centuries to love their neighbor as themselves. But they have been finding it difficult because loving your neighbor as yourself really means, first of all, you need to be in touch with yourself, the self that you are beyond the form. And then you can love your neighbor as yourself because you recognize your oneness with your neighbor.

Oprah: Yes. And so, what you're saying is so beautiful. I get it. Lots of bing-bing ahas here. You're not saying love your neighbor as yourself—not as yourself the personality. It doesn't mean give your neighbor tickets to the theater or whatever. It means the deeper inner self. The higher self.

Eckhart: Yes. So, I call love the recognizing of yourself in the other, and yourself your essential self. Then, when I meet people and interact with people, I see them on two levels or feel them on two levels. On one level, they are the form, which is the body and their psychological makeup. On another level, they are the consciousness that I also am, that pure essence.

Oprah: You see that in every person that you encounter?

Eckhart: Yes. And that makes it much easier to interact with people and much more pleasant, because sometimes the personality, the psychological makeup, is not that wonderful. And then one is able to let that go because you can sense that beyond that there is an essence to that human being.

Wisdom of Sundays This excerpt was taken from the new book The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations. Eckhart Tolle is a spiritual teacher and the author of the number one New York Times best-seller The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment and the highly acclaimed follow-up, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.

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