Eckhart TolleNYT Bestselling author of the Power of Now

How the Ego Turns the Present Moment Into the Enemy | Eckhart Tolle

14 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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In this brief teaching, Eckhart Tolle explains that the ego constantly opposes the present moment by turning it into an enemy. He describes the ego's internal argument with "what is," noting that the ego cannot acknowledge or feel at one with the present, instead desiring to be elsewhere. This habitual resistance prevents a state of oneness with the now, as the ego transforms the present into something to be fought against rather than accepted.

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Whenever you are opposing internally the present moment, you have an argument. You are arguing with what is. That's the ego. In other words, it's transforming, basically, and ultimately it's transforming the present moment into an enemy. And so, if you got down to the basics, the ego habitually transforms the present moment into an enemy. I don't want to be here, I want to be there. So it cannot acknowledge the present moment, it cannot feel at one with what is, it's against it.