When: Thursday 11 March 2010 at 1900 Ends: Thursday 11 March 2010 at 2100
Location: Kathryn Schaffer's in Logan Square
Northside Friends are reading Eckhart Tolle's: A New Creation. We are starting with the first three chapters for this evening. All are welcome for discussion.
The first two chapters will be the focus of discussion. Here are the queries (shout out to Eva for her invaluable help with this!):
1. Eckhart Tolle defines ego as the identification with form, primarily thought forms. How do the testimonies of Quakerism (Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality) relate to your own ego? To the ego of Northside Meeting and/or the Quaker community as a whole?
2. In describing his experiences in “Quaker Meeting for Worship” Douglas Steere says: “When I have finished these inward prayers, I quietly resign myself to complete listening: letting go in the intimacy of this friendly company and in the intimacy of the Great Friend who is always near.” Tolle’s understanding of the development of spiritual awakening stems from dis-identification with ego.
How do Steere and Tolle’s ideas relate to your own experience in Quaker Meeting for Worship? How do you experience your own ego during Meeting for Worship?
3. Tolle suggests “that you investigate your relationship with the world of things through self-observation, and in particular, things that are designated with the word ‘my’…Do certain things induce a subtle feeling of importance or superiority? Does the lack of them make you feel inferior to others who have more than you? Do you casually mention things you own or show them off to increase your sense of worth in someone else’s eyes and through them in your own? Do you feel resentful or angry or somehow diminished in your sense of self when someone else has more than you? Or when you lose a prized possession?”
Thursday 11 March 2010 at 1900 - Book Group: A New Creation