“Death stripped away all that is not you.” –Eckhart Tolle.

Searching for Wholeness in All the Wrong Places by Eckhart Tolle

As long as your ego is running the show, you’ll never feel truly at peace, fulfilled, or at ease.

Why?

Because, as Tolle explains, the ego’s needs are endless.

It constantly craves validation, attaching itself to external things to feel a sense of identity. But here’s the catch—those things aren’t you.

When you tie your sense of self to your thoughts, achievements, or possessions, you create a false identity—a version of yourself shaped by the mind rather than by your true essence, which is rooted in pure Being.

Jesus described it perfectly: it’s like being a “branch cut off from the vine.”

Tolle isn’t asking you to blindly believe this.

He’s saying, if you live long enough, you’ll come to see the truth of it for yourself.

You alone plan to commit a sin, you alone plan to do evil; and you alone can escape sin and purify your thoughts. Only your inner self can damn you, and only your inner self can save you. —Dhammapada, a book of Buddhist wisdom.

You will know it at the latest when you feel death approaching.

Because in that moment, everything that isn’t truly you falls away. As Tolle puts it, death strips away all that is false, leaving only what’s real.

The secret is to “die before you die”—to let go of the false self now, so you can discover that what remains is something beyond death itself.

This isn’t to say the mind is bad.

In fact, it’s an incredible tool, as Tolle would say,—capable of creativity, problem-solving, and deep understanding. The problem isn’t the mind itself; it’s when we mistake it for who we are.

This dysfunction begins when you search for your identity within your thoughts, labels, and beliefs. When you cling to them, you trap yourself in an illusion—one that keeps you disconnected from the deeper, limitless presence that has been there all along.

In the end, it’s all about letting go of the noise in your head and realizing you’re so much more than your thoughts. It’s not about believing some big idea, rather it’s about experiencing it for yourself. When you stop identifying with the ego and start living in the present, that’s when real peace and freedom begin.

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Thanks for reading!

Wishing you a peaceful, blessed day. 🙏