Similar Truths from Different Eras

In keeping with this truth is truth is truth theme...

As I was headed out the door for the gym last weekend, I grabbed two articles..randomly..from a stack of articles I've printed at various times over the past year or so.

One contained a quote from The Philokalia, written by a fourth-century desert monk named St. John Cassian.

"[The ego] is difficult to fight against, because it has many forms and appears in all our activities . . . When it cannot seduce a man with extravagant clothes, it tries to tempt him by means of shabby ones. When it cannot flatter him with honor, it inflates him by causing him to endure what seems to be dishonor. When it cannot persuade him to feel proud of his display of eloquence, it entices him through silence into thinking he has achieved stillness. . . . In short, every task, every activity, gives this malicious demon a chance for battle."

        

And, the other article...quotes from Eckhart Tolle...who, many centuries later, continues with the same line of thought...

An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakended you, the ego, as it thinks speaks and acts. 

AND

unless you know the basic mechanics behind the working of the ego, you won't recognize it, and it will trick you into identifying with it again and again.