Testing The Pain Body

After reading years of reading books on spirituality and self development I often find myself being tested on what I have learned.  Eckhart Tolle has become one of my favorite authors.

In his books, he describes negative energy as the pain body.  Tolle explains that we often find ourselves clinging to an identity and that identity can come in many forms, such as a  role  or an  idea.    For example, if you identify your self as being a devout member of a religious institution you may feel pain when that institution is questioned or criticized.  Tolle’s ideas or observations have really resonated with me and obviously millions of others with his special on Oprah.  

I hope that Tolle’s other readers have had more success then I have with controlling the pain body. 

A couple of weeks ago I found myself cruising through news websites in search for something to make me upset (feed the pain body) and was not disappointed.  I came across an article on one of the major news network sites that had a picture of Oprah on it it with the question “Is Oprah starting her own cult”.  I like Oprah, and by the title alone this looked like an article that would make me angry so I read on.  I will not go into too much detail but the jist of it was that Oprah was making so much money already and now she has teamed up with this guru to make more money selling this “new age”  non sense. 

In addition to inferring Oprah has some sinister money making plan the author went after Tolle.  The author pointed out that Tolle’s education credentials can not be easily verified.  Everyone knows that someone who give spiritual guidance or promotes ideas about inner peace should have the right college credits.  Anyways it was an article that had an obvious negative tone to it.

I found myself getting very upset with what this person was saying in the article.  In my mind I was outlining a multiple bullet point response to this injustice.  I found myself being offended and angry at the end of the article.  I took down the authors name so I can look up more articles that he wrote and see if there are additional opinions out there that I find upsetting.  Then I can write up a blog or perhaps a web page just to counter his and other like minded peoples attacks.  I was looking for a comments section of the article so I could pile on with all of the other Tolle/Oprah defenders.

Then I saw what I was doing and found the irony in my reaction. 

In the end I am grateful not only for this article but other mediums of negative energy that helped me find great books by Tolle, Dyer, and others. Because without all this extreme negative energy I would not have gotten the momentum to seek out the positive alternatives out there.   

One year ago I got so addicted to watching 24 hour cable news that the only solution that worked for me is to to disconnect the cable, which in my neighborhood means no tv channels at all.  The negativity that compounded brought me to a breaking point where I had to do something drastic, (drastic for me anyways) and it has given me part of my life back.  The author of the anti Oprah/Tolle article and other pain bodies like him have done a great service in pushing people to seek positive change.

Brian Blades

Be Sociable, Share!

•