Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

Eckhart Tolle: Jealousy Is Not About Them

8 Aug 2026 · 1 min

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1:15

In this brief talk, Eckhart Tolle explains that jealousy is fundamentally an ego‑generated feeling rooted in distrust of another person. The ego assumes betrayal, projects suspicious thoughts onto the other, and then experiences an emotion that feels as if the imagined betrayal has already occurred. This blend of thought and pre‑experienced emotion creates the destructive power of jealousy in relationships. Tolle emphasizes that the key to neutralizing jealousy is present‑moment self‑awareness: observing the arising thought‑emotion combination without identification, which allows the feeling to dissolve before it fuels further distrust or conflict.

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Jealousy, it can be very destructive, as you probably know, can be very destructive of relationships. It's a dis— what is it? Obviously it's ego-created, and it is a distrust of the other. The ego feels the other is betraying me, or it may be betraying me, and then it projects those thoughts onto the other. Even if it's not the case. It may not be the case, and you almost create it by continuously focusing on that. So the key is self-awareness in the present moment so that when this feeling arises, which is a combination of emotion and thought coming together, and the thought, this suspicious thought, And an emotion, the emotion is as if the thing that you think had already happened. So when you're jealous, the emotion you feel is as if this person had already done the deed that you think might be the case.