The Oprah / Tolle course can be A Hero’s Journey
“Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that.”
~ Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s
Power
At the beginning of the 10-week course that Oprah and Eckhart Tolle are currently facilitating with a focus on his book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Power, Tolle said that his book is a process. It is always comforting to me to have a road map for such a process. In fact, here’s what I believe. For many of us this historic event has been a real “hero’s journey” with all the standard components that go with such a courageous undertaking. [For more about the hero's journey and it's traditional stages, check out Joseph Campbell's book A Hero with a Thousand Faces.] Even for those of you who haven’t been attracted to following the Oprah / Tolle course, understanding the road map might be interesting.
First there was the initial excitement of “answering the call” (always the first step in the heroic journey) to shift our lives in a transformational way supported by Oprah and Eckhart Tolle as each week we explored the various chapters of the book. There was quite the buzz. In the first few weeks, over 2 million people logged on or downloaded the weekly webcast. There was a willingness to at least “intend” to awaken to a deeper awareness.
For some, there may have been “the refusal of the call”—in other words this wasn’t for them. It was too much of a time commitment or it didn’t resonate.
For those of us committed to the 10 weeks, our allies on the journey were world-wide, connected by the magic of the internet. It was truly “one conversation around the world.”
Then as the journey continued, we collectively dove deeper with a discussion of the common pitfalls of the human condition in the form of the ego and what Tolle calls the pain body. Tolle defines the ego as the false sense of self (sometimes experienced as the obsessive voice in the head) based on conditioned, programmed mental concepts
fully identified with the past and the future and the world of form. Tolle’s definition of the pain body is pain that has become internalized because we have not faced a negative emotion. He describes the pain body almost as if it were an entity that can take us over when it’s activated. The pain body is made up of negativity and thrives on negative thoughts and situations.
This discussion of our egoic nature and the pain body began the next stage of the hero’s journey often referred to as “the road of trials.” At this juncture of the journey, there were many people I knew who had a melt down or two. I experienced my own healing release of old negativity and limiting beliefs in the form of an intense cold. Even Tolle and Oprah had colds.
“The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose.”
~ Richard Leider Robert Byrne
But the good news is that the road of trials is never a wrong turn on the hero’s journey. In reality, it is an opportunity to let go of and surrender that which no longer serves in our lives. The promise of the road of trials is that it actually holds the keys to our healing and is the part of the journey that guarantees the shift of transformational insight that we had hoped to achieve. Tolle’s message is that bringing awareness into the present moment can diminish the egoic conditioning and the negativity of the pain body. Wisdom is birthed from exploring the stillness within. The truth of who you are is revealed in the conscious acceptance of the present moment and this truth of the awakened aliveness within us will indeed set us free.
Now in the final few weeks of the course, the energy feels lighter to me. Traditionally, in the hero’s journey, this is the time of “the return.” The invitation is to embody the insights learned so far on the journey and become a living
example of your new found wisdom in the world. This is an important part of the heroic odyssey which always involves the self-realization that everything we’ve been seeking is within us. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz we discover that what we were longing for was not over the rainbow but was always in our own back yard. Tolle’s message is that our highest primary purpose in life is the inner state of awakened awareness. He says the road map to walking the talk of this awakened awareness and then aligning with your outer unique purpose is to fully align with the present moment.
Here’s the rub though. In this week’s class, Tolle commented that many people live in a constant state of dissatisfaction, unhappy with the present moment because they are either stuck in a story of the past or they have expectations or anxiety about the future. This dissatisfaction is the main reason for being out of an alignment
between your inner, awakened purpose and an outer purpose in which all that you want to manifest easily falls into place. Dissatisfaction leads to fear. Fear blocks the flow of your good. You might find yourself stuck and very confused. In a state of dissatisfaction, you can’t experience what you want to be, do or have either within or without.
As Tolle said, “life is meant to be an adventure.” To claim that adventure, along with Tolle’s recommendation to come home to the present moment, I am also recommending one of the most powerful website tools for alignment created by a colleague of mine called “The Prosperity Portal“. This website will assist you in the alignment of anchoring your inner soul’s purpose with the outer, practical, in-the-world embodiment of an easy and delightful flow of abundance. The time is now for the adventure of living a life fully awake and aware filled with joyous abundance. This is the call, the promise and the gift of the hero’s journey.
(For support in anchoring awakened awareness and an increase flow of abundance, read on about The Prosperity Portal)
“The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.”
~Joan Borysenko, author
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Max was inspired to create interactive Fireside Chats for discussing the Oprah / Tolle event. If the 10-week course offered by Oprah and Tolle has you galvanized and you want another way to anchor the experience and take the material deeper, please join Max and certified Prosperity Guides for a “fireside chat” designed to support you in further exploration of this unique event.
“For everything there is a season
And a time for every matter under heaven…”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:1-8