A New Earth-Book

In A New Earth, spiritual teacher and author Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) advocates present moment awareness and the dismantling of the ego as the path towards awakened living. A New Earth gets its title from a Bible verse referring to the rising of "a new heaven and a new earth." According to Tolle, "heaven" is the awakened state that will bring about "a new earth" in the outer world, the world of form.

Tolle begins with an extensive description of our principal barrier to the awakened state: ego. He indicts the word "I" as being a terrible feat of reductionism, as it infinitely minimizes who we truly are by allowing us to identify ourselves with our mind, our gender, our accumulated possessions, our social roles, and so on. He then informs us that the only way to diminish ego is by seeking the fullness of life in the present moment, that by making friends with the Now, we can destroy our time-bound state of consciousness and therefore destroy ego. Focus on the Now is focus on Being q rather than Doing, on presence rather than form:

"People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness, that is to say, dependent on form. They don't realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe. It changes constantly. They look upon the present moment as either marred by something that has happened and shouldn't have or as deficient becuse of something that has not happened but should have. And so they miss the deeper perfection that is inherent in life itself, a perfection that is always already here, that lies beyond what is happening or not happening, beyond form."

Tolle goes on to assert that awakening to the abundance that is already in one's life is the foundation for all abundance available, that abundance and scarcity are actually inner states. He cites examples from varying traditions - Christian, Zen, and Hindu - to assert the perfection of the Now, a concept that is as thematically central to this book as it was in The Power of Now.

Tolle presents A New Earth as a vehicle to bring about a shift in consciousness, though he repeatedly admits that he can only awaken those who are ready for such a transformation. He tells his readers that if they indeed find something within his book that resonates with them, then the shift has already begun, and they are on the path. With millions of Oprah's Book Club members picking up copies of A New Earth, that path will doubtlessly become a road most traveled.

In his first book in eight years, Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) challenges us to dare to live in the present moment and thereby to transform our consciousness and live in the "joy of Being." Tolle reminds us that there are many obstacles to awakening to our life's purpose. When Jesus said "blessed are the poor in spirit," he was referring to those who travel light: without inner baggage and identification with things, mental concepts, or addictions. But the ego is hard at work in our mind creating new stories and resisting what comes to us in the present moment:

"Most people are so completely identified with the voice in the head — the incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the emotions that accompany it — that we may describe them as being possessed by their mind. As long as you are completely unaware of this, you take the thinker to be who you are."

The ego thrives on comparisons, combat, being right, and judging others. There is another path, as this story reveals.

"Kasan, a Zen teacher and monk, was to officiate at a funeral of a famous nobleman. As he stood there waiting for the governor of the province and other lords and ladies to arrive, he noticed that the palms of his hands were sweaty.

"The next day he called his disciples together and confessed he was not yet ready to be a true teacher. He explained to them that he still lacked the sameness of bearing before all human beings, whether beggar or king. He was still unable to look through social roles and conceptual identities and see the sameness of being in every human. He then left and became the pupil of another master. He returned to his former disciples eight years later, enlightened."

Equanimity is a spiritual practice that enables us to see all experiences as the same experience. We get into trouble when we make comparisons and distinctions. In Zen they say, "Don't seek the truth. Just cease to cherish opinions." Tolle ends with an inspiring salute to the spiritual practice of enthusiasm, which is not dependent on winning or losing, confrontation or taking something or someone. Instead of relying on ego, enthusiasm rides the wave of the present moment and "gives out its own abundance."

The book talks of pain bodies, in essence our memories of things gone bad and the ego's struggle to remember, dwell on them, make them right. In the end, spiritual awakening is the goal, taking steps to eliminate stress and gain enthusiasm

The greatest impediment to the discovery of inner space, the greatest impediment to finding the experiencer, is to become so enthralled by the experience that you lose yourself in it. It means consciousness is lost in it's own dream. You get taken in by every thought, every emotion, and every experience to such a degree that you are in fact in a dreamlike state. This has been the normal state of humanity for thousands of years.

By. Hridaynag Kooretti

LE-3

60307