Hassan Gamal

“Fear and the ego

"All fear is ego's fear of death."

"Ego is vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat."

"The emotions is the body's reaction to your mind. What message is the body receiving continuously from the ego, the false mind-made self? DANGER, I am under threat. And what is the emotion generated by this continuous message? Fear, of course"

"Even such a seemingly trivial and "normal" thing as the compulsive need to be right in an argument and make the other person wrong - defending the mental position with which you have identified - is due to the fear of death. if you identify with a mental position, then if you are wrong, your mind-based sense of self is seriously threatened with annihilation. So, you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die."

"Once you have disidentified from your mind, whether you are right or wrong makes no difference to your sense of self at all, so the forcefully compulsive and deeply unconscious need to be right, which is a dorm of violence, will no longer be there. You can state clearly and firmly how you feel or what you think, but there will be no aggressiveness or defensiveness about it. This is the end of all arguments and power games, which are so corrosive to relationships”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, The Art of Happiness 10th Anniversary Edition, You Are a Badass, Life Leverage 4 Books Collection Set

“If you then become excessively focused on the goal, perhaps because you are seeking happiness, fulfillment, or a more complete sense of self in it, the now is no longer honored. it becomes reduced to a mere steppingstone to the future, with no intrinsic value. Clock time then turns into psychological time. Your life's journey is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive, to attain, to "make it.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“In ordinary unconsciousness, habitual resistance to or denial of what is creates the unease and discontent that most people accept as normal living. When this resistance becomes intensified through some challenge or threat to the ego, it brings up intense negativity such as anger, acute fear, aggression, depression, and so on. Deep unconsciousness often means that the pain-body has been triggered and that you have become identified with it. Physical violence would be impossible without deep unconsciousness,”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, The Art of Happiness 10th Anniversary Edition, You Are a Badass, Life Leverage 4 Books Collection Set

“The first thing to remember is this: As long as you make an identity for yourself out of the pain, you cannot become free of it.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment