How Eckhart Tolle Helped Me Overcome the Fear of Death

“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” - Eckhart Tolle

Since the dawn of my counselling career, no topic of psychology has continued to terrify, humble and excite me more than existentialism - the “philosophical theory or approach which emphasises the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of will”, according to Google.

It makes sense that we should fear the thought of being a “free agent”, capable of determining our own path in life because it places the responsibility of our wellbeing entirely upon us. We are individuals in an infinite universe, drops in a vast ocean. With so much freedom and choice, where do we begin? What should we do? What must we do? The Roman stoic Seneca said, “If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favourable.” Forget the port, how do we even find a boat?

Existentialism Chose Me. I Didn’t Get A Say

When I think about my childhood, I think about my trampoline. I spent hours and hours on that thing. This was the way it was in the summer. Only the sun would draw the curtain and tell us to stop playing. Summers, for my friend Bryce and I, were unimaginably fun. The trampoline was large, and it was in my backyard. We’d bounce on that trampoline for hours playing Crack The Egg. One of us lay on the trampoline in a tight, foetal position. The goal for the other was to loosen the grip we had on our legs, thereby “cracking the egg”. Our trampoline wasn’t like the ones they make today. We didn’t have safety nets and the springs would often weaken, making it easier to, quite literally, fall through the cracks. Oftentimes we would, and this would result in uncontrollable laughter. Being stuck between the springs and the trampoline was an uncomfortable and dangerous predicament; still, we were young. We didn’t think much of it.

We often tried to “double-bounce” each other as high as possible. Usually, one of us ended up in the backyard lemon tree which was, as far as my memory goes, always ripe, always overdelivering. When one trampolining session ended in significant collateral damage, I distinctly remember being told to eat the lemons that I’d broken off as a sort of ironic punishment. You’d think that would have left a sour taste in my mouth, but eating raw lemons is something I enjoy to this day.

We had unstoppable energy. We never stopped playing. When I reminisce about my childhood, memories of trampolining, laughing constantly, are quick to appear. That’s because a panic attack experienced shortly after playing on it one day would change the course of my life forever.

It was an ordinary day. I wore a Piping Hot t-shirt and navy blue track suit pants. My belly was full, having eaten fritz (sausage meat) and tomato sauce sandwiches for lunch. I was on the trampoline. I was jumping, not wanting to miss a second of the fun despite having to relieve myself. Although the toilet was both free and only a short distance away, my excitement was doing its best to overrule the demands of my bladder and bowels. In the end, however, I figured going to the toilet would be the smarter option.

The toilet was dark. It was small too. I remember the wooden door, splintered at the bottom as old wood fractured from the corners. I sat down, hating that I wasn’t outside whilst Bryce played with a few others who lived on the same street as us. As I was barely nine, the specifics of the memory are lost on me; however, I distinctly remember hating being in the dark, doing what my body demanded of me whilst everyone else was outside, doing what they wanted. Being on the toilet felt like an eternity. And that was when the panic began.

I looked down at my hands. For the first time ever, my hands seemed distinct and separate, as though they were someone else’s. “I” no longer felt like “me”. Rather, I saw my body as a sort of suit, something I put on as last night’s dreams faded away and I returned back into the avatar people referred to as “Tom”. That the stories I tell myself keep me safe and in suffering would be a lesson for the adult me. For now, I was terrified, feeling outside my body; disorientated, separate, de-personalised. The overwhelming concern was that if I could get into my body, then there must inevitably come a time when I would leave it. This was my first interaction with the concept of death: Alone. In the dark. On the toilet, waiting to poo.

I’ve never stopped thinking about death and dying. It both haunts and makes me who I am. It terrifies me and makes life worth living. There can be no lotus without mud.

Who Are You?

Our identity is an elusive thing. Philosophers have asked the question, “Who am I?” for millennia. Still, the question remains at the forefront of personal insight. Identity goes by many names, the most famous being “ego”, a word Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis, took from Latin, meaning “I”. The ego is how we identify ourselves. It’s the word we use to separate ourselves from ourselves, such that we may be able to perceive ourselves objectively. The ego is anything that comes after “I am . . .” We might say that we are workers, husbands, mothers, drinkers or parents. We might say that we are funny, dumb, bad at maths, indecisive or capitalists. As the specificity of our describing words increases, so too does the understanding of other’s insights into who we are beyond mere human beings. The power and influence of self-description cannot be understated and, if we aren’t careful, they will control our lives making it very difficult to change routines, adapt our thinking and be open to new ideas and ways of living.

The ego isn’t bad or good. It just is. We need an identity because we need a way to function in the world. We don’t want an “ego death” - a term used in the psychedelic and spiritual communities to describe a state of personal transcendence. To function in this world, we need an ego; we just need to make sure it’s our servant, not our master.

Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, had this to say about the nature of the ego in an interview with Russell Brand:

“Let’s say you are a room, and you want to know, ‘Who am I?’ So, you would say, ‘Well, there’s this furniture here: there’s the sofa and the chairs and the table; and there’s the wall and the ceiling and the floor and there’s this and that - that’s me!’ You describe yourself in terms of the content. And then you’re asked, ‘Is there anything that you have missed that you are?’ ‘No’, you say, because you’re looking for more content. But you have listed and said all the content: ‘That’s what I am’. And then suddenly someone points out: ‘Haven’t you missed the essence of who you are?’ And that’s the space; it’s the essence of you - the room. It’s not the content within you, it’s the space of the room. You had never been aware of that, that you’re actually this space that can never be destroyed; it’s actually timeless - and in this analogy, that space is the space of consciousness. You are not the content of your mind as that is your form identity.”

Pitfalls of Egoic Identification

When we identify with our egos - and, unfortunately, this isn’t usually a conscious decision unless we practice the skill of mindfulness - we derive our sense of self from something or someone externally. In other words, we identify with our attachments. Tolle continues by explaining that, 

“The ego ultimately seeks some kind of superiority; it compares itself to others”. 

When we identify with our egos, we see the world only through a filtered lens of our own conditioning and biases. Metaphorically, we stand at the foot of a large pyramid with infinite faces and declare to the rest of the world that the only way to the top is from our side. We are ignorant to the perspectives of everyone - some we can see, others we can’t. Still, the ego doesn’t care. It is right and everyone else is wrong. The key is in recognising that the ego’s perspective is a perspective, not the perspective. It might be right; it might be wrong. The only way to tell will be to hear other people’s perspectives.

A room becomes a bedroom when a bed is placed in it. If the room became attached to the bed, it might posture-up against other rooms, declaring itself as the greatest room not only in the house, but in the neighbourhood. “Look how pretty I am”, it announces, as the room glances over the arrangement of pillows against the mighty bedframe, linen draped neatly over a quilt with a throw placed at the foot of the bed highlighting contrast and depth. But what if the tenant were to re-arrange the house and change the bedroom into the storage room? Now, the room loses its identity. The room is no longer a beautiful bedroom; merely a place for things left to accumulate dust. The room has lost its sense of self. It suffers as a result of losing its attachment to the bed - the temporal entity that made the room what it was.

According to Greek mythology, the hunter Narcissus rejected all romantic advances once he stumbled upon his own reflection in a pool of water. He could not believe how wonderfully handsome he was. In the end, Narcissus died because his only concern was his beauty, neglecting the need for food, water and sleep. As Tolle says, “The ego always needs some kind of antagonist because it defines itself by the other.” Narcissus’ clinging to his reflection was synonymous with the ego’s need to see itself in something else, something more.

You Don’t Have to be a Bedroom

Clients often begin therapy with a level of self-criticism, insecurity of a lack of self-worth. On any number of occasions, I might hear someone say, “I don’t like myself.” With little examination, one cannot help but notice a paradox. Within that sentence lie two representations of the self: The “I” and the “myself”. In other words, there is an “I” who, in this instance, no longer appreciates - nor can seemingly put up with any longer - the self that it is being forced to portray. That one’s identity is something both dynamic and illusory is a major checkpoint of the therapeutic process, one that I am often quick to celebrate with clients.

The ego is the identity we offer to the outside world. As most of us know, our identity shifts ever so slightly depending on who and what we are surrounded by. We are all social chameleons to a degree. The important point is that being rigidly attached to any one particular identity lends itself to suffering because who we are is broader than that.

A room is only a bedroom when there’s a bed in it. Space is only a room when four walls and a roof separate it from another area. Beyond form and thought, what are we? Perhaps everything and nothing, simultaneously? The definition of God seems appropriate: Omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. Something that is everywhere, all-powerful and all-knowing; the One. We are the One’s consistent elements - drops in a vast ocean, infinite facets of a spectacular diamond. As Ramana Maharshi, the Hindu sage said, “God, guru, and the Self are the same.” Tolle states:

“Suddenly you realise that there is a dimension of consciousness in you that’s not thinking, but just conscious. That’s you, that’s the awakening: when you realise that, underneath it all - all your sense perceptions, all your thoughts - underneath it all, there’s this vast realm of conscious presence there without which you wouldn’t be able to perceive anything or think anything.”

In order to lift the veil and become aware of egoic identification, we can start to focus on other contents in the room, metaphorically speaking - other aspects of ourselves seldom acknowledged. If we’re not merely the “bed” - akin to someone who must, at all costs, provide the world with a flawless, self-image - what else are we? The room might also contain a chair, a mantlepiece, a mirror, or better yet, dirty carpets, grimy skirting boards and dusty windows. When we begin to see that we don’t always have to be a certain someone - because we are many different selves resting upon an infinite spectrum from good to bad - we are liberated from the demands of the ego.

Then, finally, just like the room who cannot find contentment by identifying with any one object within it, we see that who we are isn’t what we own, who we know, nor is it how we act. All that stuff is only how other people see us. It isn’t how we have to be. We are the space within the room and without that pervades the contents and beyond. At this point of therapy, a more fulfilling questions naturally arises: Who de we want to be?

Choose Your Suffering

Considering that we do have to get by in this world, an identity will be necessary, unless, of course, monk-hood is for you! If it’s not, suffering is inevitable because to have an identity means to be attached in some way, shape or form, to people, places and things. This isn’t a bad thing. Suffering, when chosen, becomes meaningful - and I am paraphrasing the great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s words: “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

Our attachments aren’t only what we use to define ourselves, nor are they simply what we own. More importantly, they are the people, places and objects that, if removed, would create suffering. Although I own a pair of Uggs, I am sure that if one of my Beagles chewed them, I’d barely bat an eyelid. If something happened to one of my Beagles, on the other hand - or worse, my partner - I’d suffer tremendously. I wasn’t always a dog owner; I didn’t come out of my mother’s womb being a dog owner. Likewise, I haven’t been with my partner since being in utero. That said, my sense of self is, to a large extent, derived from my relationship. I’m really, really proud to be with her. And even though I know all things come to end, including the lives of those we love, I do my best to consciously remain attached to my Beagles and my partner, despite how vulnerable that makes me. I know I’d suffer unimaginably if anything happened to them. I know this because I’m still processing the death of our beloved dog Steve who passed away a year ago. Still, like I wrote in a previous blog dedicated to our late family member, “Grief is the price we pay for love.”

I am going to continue loving the people closest to me, consciously aware that I am defining myself by the external contents in my awareness, like the room did when it first laid eyes on the bed. I am beyond attached, but it is worth it; and I can bet that, if I were to outlive my partner (something I hope to God won’t happen), it would all have been worth it, despite the pain I’d feel.

What Happens When We Die?

If we can see ourselves as timeless, ever-present space, and not the contents in our field of awareness, we will recognise that only the ego dies. The ego cannot exist in a void. As the Greek philosopher Epicurus said, “If I am, then death is not. If Death is, then I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?” The ego is afraid of not being a someone, even though that’s where the ego is headed when the flesh that surrounds it cannot sustain itself any longer.

Not too long ago, I was looking up at the stars, as I do most nights, revering the infinitude of the Milky Way, before putting the dogs to bed. Very suddenly, my sense of self dissolved into what can only be described as blissful freedom. At that point I knew what the late spiritual teacher and end-of-life pioneer Ram Dass meant when he said that dying is like, “Taking off a tight shoe.” 

For a moment there, it felt so wonderful to just be free from all my attachments; free from anger and happiness; free from pain and pleasure; free from the never ending, spinning wheel. For a second there, I was free. Then, as I came back into form - as the boundaries once again arose and I found myself dancing between the polarity of self and other - what cluttered my mind only moments ago no longer seemed so important. In fact, it was all irrelevant. Awe of the sheer magnificence of being was enough to briefly snap me out of the rules and routines of daily life like a rubber band on soft skin. Having involuntarily stepped back from myself, catalysed by the brilliance and immensity of the universe, I could see the forest from the trees. It all mattered, and none of it mattered at the same time. The meaning of the cosmic joke dawned on me. I felt wonderful. It felt wonderful to be alive and to ride the inherent ups and downs that come with the miracle. I enjoyed the view from above, gazing down at the forest. Shortly after, I came back down to earth, eager to be amongst the trees once again. I went back inside and wrote down tomorrow’s to-do list.

During these moments of awe, we die into the experience - no longer a “you” but a “now” and a “wow!” We become verbs, not nouns; oceans, not waves. There is no fear anymore because fear only concerns itself with the future. Fear can’t live in the now, nor can memories that evoke emotions.

Life is a long fall back into eternity. Sailing down the river, we get caught up in different pains and pitfalls along the way. That’s all part of it. In fact, that’s part of the fun. All it takes is a deep breath and the debris breaks away as the stream finds its flow once again. There will always be suffering. The key is embracing, “the ten thousand horrible visions and the ten thousand beautiful visions”, as Ram Dass says.

A Life Lived Well

Queen Elizabeth passed away in 2022 and, for the most part, the world has moved on. Going by the fact that barely any one of us know the names of our great-grandparents, we can assume that the memories of our lives will be lost in just three generations. Although these truths might initially frighten us, contemplating them for long enough eventually leads to both acceptance of death and liberation from the opinions of others. I suppose that’s what this blog is all about: creating enough separation between who we think we need to be and who we are such that we can regain control, paradoxically, over how we want to live with the short time we have. As author and spiritual teacher David Deida says, “A life lived well embraces death by feeling open, from heart to all, in every moment.”

Be yourself. I’ll be myself. We don’t have long.