It's definitely less powerful. It doesn't so much "die" or disappear at any point in time, but with the rise in consciousness it can no longer remain on its own. If the ego is the character, then the character comes to the realization that it is the actor and thus removes the limitation of the character life. That movie The Truman Show does really well at giving a visual aesthetic to the metaphor.

Tolle is essentially pulling from the Sant Mat tradition.

Knowing the cause of creation will always be an unknown until you are once again one with the whole. It's like trying to do calculus in 2nd grade sort of. The mechanics of how the math works are just such foreign ideas at the time. Here we are a subset with a a much larger superset that makes it impossible to know ourselves fully beyond what we perceive from the physical. We just have to keep plugging along ...or not. Our free will is where our choice lies right now and not in greater knowledge when we are not experiencing a non physical reality per se.

Quote:


Starcraft -
  Just a couple main points here to respond to your post.  First, as for your statement that
Quote:

Actually that's not what I'm saying; I'm being more precise than that.  I'm arguing that everything that comes into existence has a cause.  This is called the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and is supported by the experience of all of humanity.  So again, the universe came into existence, and so it had a cause.  God did not come into existence, and so your following question
Quote:
misunderstands the finer point that I am making.  God is the ultimate uncaused agent you could say.  There is a first cause, something that prevents us from arguing back to infinity from now.  By the way, this is Kalaam's Cosmological Argument as recently championed by William Lane Craig.
  An additional point to get at what you might be implying (that we can have an infinite amount of causes), let me explain why an infinity of causes has been shown to be a false idea.  First of all, there is not an infinite number of physical things in the universe.  The thing I would guess we have the most of in the universe might be say an electron, or a proton, or maybe some quark.  But there is a finite number of even those.  There is no physical thing that we have an infinite amount of in the universe.  In terms of events (= time) being the infinite number of things that we are talking about, that is false as shown by something called Hilbert's Hotel (you can look this up for more examples of what I'm about to talk about if you like).
  Imagine for a moment that there is a hotel with an infinite amount of rooms, with an infinite amount of occupants in those rooms.  Suppose someone walks up to the manager, and asks if he could have a room.  Certainly the manager replies, I have an infinite amount of rooms.  Everyone shuffles from one room to the next: room 1 goes to 2, 2 to 3, and so on, and since there is an infinite number of rooms then it simply won't matter; we won't be limited.  So the new guest can take the first room.  However, isn't there a contradiction?  Aren't there more people in the hotel after the new guest added?  But in another sense there are still the same amount of people; there are still an infinite amount of hotel guests.  The solution to the contradiction is that at least one of the premises are false.  Our premise here is that you can have an infinite amount of hotel rooms, and hotel guests.  Clearly then we would say the premise is false.
  Or a more extreme example; say with the same hotel you wanted to make room, and got rid of all of the odd number room guests.  You would still have the same number of guests, an infinite amount!  But how can this be?  We just got rid of a multitude, an infinity of guests.... it leads to a contradiction, meaning in philosophical terms that our premise must be false.  In other words, there can not be an infinite number of things in the universe because it leads to contradictions, including things such as events.  I would say on top of this, we know scientifically that the universe had a beginning.
  So the question Quote:
is simply incorrect, because you cannot have an infinite regression of things, and because my argument for the existence of God does not rest on an infinite regression as you seem to be suggesting.  God is what you get when you stop the regression; the initial first cause of everything, or as has been said before, the ground of all existence.

Quote:
That is true in a sense; this is the only universe we know of and only one we will ever have the possibility of knowing anything about, and so its fair to say that we should confine our knowledge of the situation at hand and the chain of causality that extends out of this physical universe.  Who knows, maybe there is another universe made up of purple dinosaurs that love children.  We have no way of knowing, and so to make that comment simply is distracting, because if there are other universes they will never have any bearing on this discussion besides speculation.  To say 'this theory suits if this is the only universe' should be something like 'this theory suits', although I hesitate to put words in your mouth.  I'm just saying alternate universes are worse than useless; they are a distraction from searching for truth in a given situation that we are in.
Quote:

This falls under the fallacy of infinite regression.  If you want to delay an ultimate godhead, I suppose that is doable for a while, but eventually there must be one first cause if we are to avoid the fallacies I have pointed out.
  What is answerable though about our universe is that a chain of causation exists that leads out of it.
  Quote:

I think the analogy is appropriate; God is above us even more than we are above our intestines, however the relatively infinite comment is again speculation and delaying the inevitable God that must exist as a first cause.

Beau -
  I disagree.  It is speculation to suggest there are alternative universes that operate with different rules, or that what we call God is simply a sub God with a greater God in a parent universe, etc.  However it is not speculation to suggest there is a God because of the evidence of the universe that we are in points to one.
  As for my evidence-based (non-speculating) reasons for why I believe there is a God, as a recap: 1/ the chain of causation that extends outside of the universe being discussed here 2/ the anthropic principle; how the universe has been fine tuned for life 3/ the existence of morality as understood by experience suggesting there is an absolute good and evil 4/ near death experiences 5/ the historical evidence of the life of Jesus Christ and incredible historical impact he had including the message he taught.  Note nothing of what I've argued here is based on speculation.  On the other hand, I don't see any reasons for pretty much anything mentioned here except reasons beginning with things like "I think that...".  It seems this site encourages speculation, encourages simply people just making up whatever they believe to be true because it seems nice to them, rather than discovering truth even if it is unpalatable or not what they imagine or want things to be like.  I guess my question is, is the afterlife/God there to be discovered, or is the afterlife/God simply our creation?  I say discovered, based on evidence, but I think a lot of people here act as if it is to be created, to suit their tastes.
  By the way, your statement that
Quote:
ignores the current discussion of the universe being caused by something outside of space and time, and being incredibly powerful, intelligent, law giving, and desirous of life.  Something that is not us, that is not in the physical universe.

The word "God" should also be understood for the individual. I use that term simply because it the most universally understood term, though as I have argued the nature of God is left only to imagination. You could say "the Supreme", "the Universe", "The creator," "The designer." However you really want to interpret it. I never associate my understanding of the term "God" with any religious characters. It is simply the supremacy of my spirituality. I don't know the nature, but I am certain of its existence.

I believe Jesus is separate from this supremacy in nature at least. I'm not going to say Jesus was not or is not the human manifestation, because I could not say that with knowledge. I can however, offer my opinion and understand Jesus to be very important to this world and the next in some way, shape, or form but not acknowledge him as the original source. I don't make that from any desire but from logic conducted through education and reasoning. He just doesn't fit the God bill for me. If I'm wrong, then I'll give him a hug and apologize. No big deal.

There's a bit of speculation I have discovered that the "Afterlife" is actually what Earth will one day become. Souls are welcome to stay in it, but encouraged to return to the physical world to play a part in furthering the development of the world, other souls, and themselves. I couldn't prove this beyond it being a belief, but it makes sense to me.

Beau -
  I've been too busy to respond but will soon.  I don't think we agree on the meaning of evidence.  Also in terms of skepticism, I'm not arguing against skepticism.