Hell is Other People

Eckhart Tolle is one of many gifted Spiritual Teachers who enjoy (and yes, I think it is enjoyable to them) quoting Jean-Paul Sartre's observation that "hell is other people." But what makes this quoting by Tolle and others so insightful, is that while they agree with Sartre's point, the utterly disagree with Sartre's level of understanding.

For Tolle and others, the idea that "hell is other people" is not about other people. It's about ego. And when we use ego here, we aren't referring to "egotism" or "excessive pride" or any of the other wildly inaccurate uses of the word "ego." In the clearest sense, ego is simply -- and specifically -- a state of duality or of separateness. Ego is what makes people think that they are separate from existence itself (and hence, the things in existence, such as -- but not limited to -- other people).

Confused? Let's slow down a little -- or rather, let's back up a bit.

We commonly think of "ego" as something that someone has "too much of" and is therefore being egotistical. So when you run into that (sigh) relative who won't stop talking about his great job or his whatever, it's common to wait until he's gone and say aloud: WOW, what a giant ego that guy has!

But this application of ego is incorrect; because ego is by no means limited to "bragging" or "boasting" or "pride." Ego means identification with form. And by extension, identification with form means -- because it has to mean -- that things are separate. In other words, one cannot identify with form without, in the same process, separating existence into (arbitrary) categories.

Hence, even "nice people" -- really humble ones -- indeed, have an ego as long as they identify with their humility or nice-ness (and if you want to find out just how big their ego is, go ahead and tell them that they have one in the first place and then watch them freak out! :)

So to start making sense of what Tolle and others are saying about Sartre's "hell is other people," observation, we first have to understand what Tolle and others define as the ego: it is a fictitious, arbitrary, and 100% mind-constructed "thing" that separates reality into smaller pieces: good, bad, nice, nasty, helpful, harmful, and so on. And because we live in an utterly mind-dominated society, we can also say that we live in an utterly ego-dominated society.

So, yes, when we meet other people -- and we see them as 'others' because we are seeing them through our fictitious ego -- naturally, without question, it's going to be hell. Oh, it may seem like heaven for a while...but invariably, every relationship turns into hell. This is not pessimism -- it's hard core reality. People who "manage" to survive together almost never do so because they want to; rather, the costs of the alternative (measured not necessarily in financial terms, but social and other ways) is just too high. But if they could have a wish granted...you know what that wish would be!

Why is this happening? And why are people running around from partner to partner, trying to avoid the hell that is intrinsic in every mind/ego-run relationship? Because, sadly, people are not identifying the root cause of the problem. The problem is NOT with other people. The problem is not with you, either. The problem is with the ego and its need to view things as separate.

That's why people who live "in nature" and away from people can seem quite peaceful -- because there are no OTHERS to reveal hell -- but that peace is quite artificial -- just drop them in a big city or in a big group, and watch the peace vaporize. Real peace doesn't turn into violence merely by changing the scenery. Real peace is not circumstantial; it is permanent. It doesn't change with context.

Meditation is simply -- and quite ordinary, really -- an effortless effort to take you to a state of conscious egoless-ness. You go into this state during deep sleep, but because you aren't conscious, you aren't aware.

Any meditation that takes you into thought is not a meditation. It's just exercise, and probably, harmful.