Oprah's Book Club Bestseller: A New Earth

Elbert Hubbard

As, if not more, interesting than reading the book itself is reading what others have written about it. You'd think Tolle had suggested he caught God working on Sunday by the shrieks of "BLASPHEMER!" from Christian reviewers and bloggers. What on earth (new or not) could have so offended them in this book?

There's nothing in it, I haven't heard a hundred times before. Don't get me wrong, I think the things Tolle says are worth repeating. Also, I'm delighted that so many people are embracing the ideas and practices that can lead to intentional and introspective living. But I'm also surprised that these ideas are "new" to so many.

In A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, author Eckhart Tolle advocates living in the "present moment". The book blends zen koans, psychology, and the wit and wisdom of a dozen religions. A New Earth gets its title from a Bible verse referring to the rising of "a new heaven and a new earth."

This book is to many what the movie "What the BLEEP do we know" was: a catalyst to a slew of "aha" moments. I have to admit that I saw that movie with one thought: who doesn't already know this? Live in the now. Breathe deeply. We are one.

Of course, Tolle challenges readers not just to accept it but to do something about it. Transform yourself and society around you. Awaken.

We must be the change we want to see in the world.

Gandhi

Paradoxically, "doing" is an ally of Tolle's nemesis, The Ego. We often do something to identify ourselves as someone who is (verb)ing. Reducing our self identity to past and future action. Further, we are always living in the next moment (the next appointment, the next deal, the next conflict) instead of now. Focus on the Now is to focus on Being rather than Doing.

In A New Earth, Tolle said "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 because 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."

The Ego. I capitalized it to give it a more menacing presence. Like a WWF wrestler. Big costumes and bravado. The Ego thrives on comparisons, defines itself through conflict, being right, and judging others. The Ego is always hard at work creating new stories, scripts, etc that cover the present moment with a sort of mental graffiti.

Tolle: "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 best way of assimilating the teachings of A New Earth is through reading and re-reading the book. As Eckhart says on page 6, "As you read, a shift takes place within you."

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Eckhart Tolle

Plume 08/06 Paperback $14.00

ISBN: 0452287588