“A powerful spiritual practice is consciously to allow the diminishment of ego when it happens without attempting to restore it. I recommend that you experiment with this from time to time. For example, when someone criticizes you, blames you, or calls you names, instead of immediately retaliating or defending yourself — do nothing.
Allow the self-image to remain diminished and become alert to what that feels like deep inside you. For a few seconds, it may feel uncomfortable, as if you had shrunk in size. Then you nay sense an inner spaciousness that feels intensely alive. You haven’t been diminished at all. In fact, you have expanded.
You may then come to an amazing realization: When you are seemingly diminished in some way and remain in absolute non-reaction, not just externally but also internally, you realize that nothing real has been diminished, that through becoming ‘less,’ you become more. When you no longer defend or attempt to strengthen the form of yourself, you step out of identification with form, with mental self-image.
Through becoming less (in the ego’s perception), you in fact undergo an expansion and make room for Being to come forward. True power, who you are beyond form, can then shine through the apparently weakened form. This is what Jesus means when he says, ‘Deny yourself’ or ‘Turn the other cheek.’ “
A New Earth – Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose, Eckhart Tolle, p. 215
