Eckhart Tolle shared a memorable personal story with me. 

In the mid-1990s, Eckhart was visiting San Francisco for the first time and booked into a small, comfortable hotel in the downtown area. Wishing to explore the city, he approached the concierge with several questions.

When the concierge handed Eckhart a map of the downtown area for reference, he made a point of circling a particular area Eckhart would be wise to avoid. “You will want to make sure you don’t stumble into this area,” he cautioned. The area he was referring to is known to the locals and many visitors to San Francisco as The Tenderloin. 

Wearing his walking shoes and armed with the map, Eckhart set out to explore much of the area surrounding his hotel. The next day, he headed out to do the same, but this time forgot to heed the warning given him by the concierge the previous day.

As Eckhart was walking, he suddenly felt the energy field around him alter. When he glanced around, he found himself surrounded by unhappy-looking people. Most appeared poor. Some were homeless, some in drug-induced states, others making whatever living they could off the streets. Their body language, gait, and eyes spoke of weariness, boredom, resignation, anger. Although there were many in the streets, there was a distinct sense of aimlessness and lethargy. People seemed lost in a world of hopelessness. 

Eckhart felt an instinctive and palpable fear set in. He was an “outsider.” Checking his map, he confirmed that he had mistakenly wandered into the area he had been advised to avoid. There was no quick way out, only a way through.

Eckhart walked with calm determination and inner presence, keeping up a steady pace, until he found himself in what seemed like another world, just several blocks away.  

Since it was lunchtime and Eckhart was hungry, he entered a restaurant. Here he found the downtown beautiful people, the impeccably and fashionably dressed business and socialite crowd. It was extremely noisy, with people engaged in vociferous chatter that overlaid the loud background music.

In contrast to the people of The Tenderloin, this crowd seemed extremely animated – almost frenetically so. They exuded an air of confidence, appearing to know what they wanted out of life and just how to get it. Yet Eckhart felt that they, too, were lost – lost in mind-chatter, egoic self-images, and a never-ending whirlwind of compulsive activity.

“Two different worlds, two different realities,” Eckhart mused. Yet they existed side by side. Were they in some way dependent on each other? Did one polarity need the other for its validation? 

Eckhart’s description of his adventure set me to wondering about polarities. We view life in terms of good or bad, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, sin or righteousness, left wing or right wing, and so on. Why are these polarities so inextricably woven into our human experience?

When we categorize the world in this polarized way, as if these were people’s real states, we make an egoic judgment that has the effect of separating ourselves from one another. Also, seeing life in such a polarized manner generates tension, which gives us a false sense that we are either moving forward or backward, going in the right direction or the wrong direction.

I am saying that the idea of moving forward or backward, going the right way or the wrong way, is all part of an illusion. It gives us a false sense of what life is all about.

We know the ego separates, whereas spirit joins. When we look at the world, and our own lives, not through the polarized ego but with the consciousness of spirit, we realize that all of these surface ways in which we categorize people have nothing to do with reality.

While we may prefer good over bad, there really is no ultimate good or bad, but only what is. In reality, there are no rich or poor, just individuals of equal inestimable worth. Beautiful and ugly aren’t enduring states, merely temporary expressions of one underlying reality of which we are all manifestations.

Love, truth, peace, life, presence, stillness, joy—these are the true qualities of Being, and they cannot be portioned out, with some receiving a large share and others a meager share. Neither can they be claimed by privileged individuals as their right, while being denied to others. 

The things that really matter are part of a single reality in which we all participate: our One True Self. This Presence of which we are all a manifestation isn’t something we can polarize. For instance, we cannot say, “This is my Presence” or, “This is your Presence.”  Presence is just Presence, of which we all partake. So it is with all of the qualities of our One True Self.

The havoc and pain that thinking in polarities has brought and continues to bring humanity is becoming more and more evident to all of us as our world shrinks in the hands of global communication. Can we now move beyond these polarities and experience the reality of our One True Self? Surely this leap to a higher level of consciousness based on our oneness is a leap we must soon take, at last allowing us to create a new earth.