Book Review - A New Earth

A New Earth by Echart Tolle

review by Robert Winston Cox

“Your first awakening, the first glimpse of consciousness without thought happens by grace, without any doing on your part. If you find this book incomprehensible or meaningless, it has not happened to you.”

Eckhart Tolle’s new book, A New Earth, has a simple message: your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that.

The opening sentence describes a sunrise 114 million years ago. The first flower ever to appear on the planet opens up to receive the rays of the sun. Tolle asked his readers, “Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection?”

Many of my Christian brothers and sisters have found Mr. Tolle’s book concerning, yet Jesus is quoted more often than any other source in the book. One of the many times Jesus is quoted is from John 14:6 in which Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” This verse provides an insight not just to Christians but to all human Beings.

If you are fascinated by 2012, you will be interested to know that “the most rigid structures, the most impervious to change, will collapse first.” An example: Soviet Communism. Is Mr. Tolle correct when he says, “Humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die.”

You will learn that an important step in your evolution is understanding your ego.

Are you able to recognize your ego? Here are some keys: “Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you. The absurd over-valuation of fame is just one of the many manifestations of egoic madness in our world.”

“Ego is no more than this: identification with form, which primarily means thought forms. This results in a total unawareness of my connectedness with the Source, God. This forgetfulness is original sin, suffering and delusion. If there is awareness in you, you no longer need to believe in every thought you think.”

Tolle provides a guide to observing and understanding how the ego works. Ask yourself: Have you observed normal people telling certain kinds of lies from time to time in order to appear more important, more special, and to enhance their image in the mind of others?

Taken to the extreme, the mental illness called paranoid schizophrenia is, in Tolle’s explanation, an exaggerated form of the ego. A fictitious story the mind has created to make sense of the underlying feeling of fear.

A paragraph in the book that will provide a perspective on some members of our current society:

“The more unconscious individuals, groups, or nations are, the more likely it is that egoic pathology will assume the form of physical violence. With very unconscious people, arguments can easily lead to physical violence. Will it come as a surprise to you that those people who work without ego are extraordinarily successful at what they do? Anybody who is one with what he or she does is building the new earth.”

Next, Tolle explains the pain-body. The definition of the pain-body:

“The pain-body is a semi-autonomous energy-form that lives within most human beings, an entity made up of emotion. It has its own primitive intelligence, not unlike a cunning animal, and its intelligence is directed primarily at survival. It needs energy to survive. It thrives on negative thinking as well as drama in relationships. The pain-body is an addiction to unhappiness.”

Here is something to think about the next time you consume alcohol. “Excessive consumption of alcohol will often activate the pain-body, particularly in men. When a person becomes drunk, he goes through a complete personality change as the pain-body takes him over.”

Should you decide to read ‘A New Earth’ you will also learn of television’s hidden agenda. “Television controls you by putting you to sleep, that is to say, making you unconscious.” You will learn to use your mute button during commercials and be certain you don’t go to sleep immediately after switching off the set or, even worse, fall asleep with the set still on.

‘A New Earth’ is a seminal book. Learning the modalities of awakening provides us all with a new way of looking at everything we do. Learning to perform all activities with acceptance, enjoyment or enthusiasm is liberating. It is about understanding the importance of being absolutely present in whatever you do.

Read ‘A New Earth’ and decide for yourself. A new species is arising on the planet. It is arising now, and you are it!