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 | A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61)
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 2008-08-19 - Ancient Wisdom
I loved this book am re-reading it, and have bought and recommended it to others. I find the ancient spiritual philosophy to be a refreshing change from the 'noise' from modern religions. This book and philosophy are profound and simple; zen for the common man.
2008-08-18 - A life-changing book, even for the impossible me.
I had just found out that my ex-boyfriend's father, a man who I loved and admired deeply, had passed away. Then, about an hour later, I came across this book. After reading the back through my tears, I decided that I might be able to use a little spirituality right then to help me deal with my grief, so I bought it. As I mourned, I read. I read, and I mourned. I'm not a religious person at all (quite the opposite, actually), but I do consider myself spiritual.
There was something about this book that really changed the way I see myself and life in general. I started to see personality flaws that I hadn't been able to recognize before, things that were making not only me, but those around me, miserable. Little by little as I worked myself through the pages, I was coming to some sort of self-realization (or the start of "awakening" as Eckhart Tolle puts it), as well as aiding myself in the mourning process.
I finished the book three weeks ago, and the last three weeks have been the best weeks I've literally had in years. Though I still don't consider myself "religious," and likely never will, I definitely feel that my relationship with God has gotten much more intense and powerful. I look at life as more of a gift than a painful burden. I look at those around me with stronger feelings of love and endearment. I have a positive outlook now, instead of letting negative notions of the ego destroy me and hurt those around me. I'm less angry, I'm much less depressed, and well, as a matter of fact - I'm quite happy - something I haven't been able to say in probably 8 or 9 years.
If you're miserable, depressed, and bitter all the time, think about picking up this book. It's not a problem-solver in itself, but it certainly makes you more aware of who you are and the things you do. Oh, and by the way...I'm not much of a reader. I'm a college student and I try to avoid reading unless it's for class, but I couldn't seem to put this book down. So, the fact that it was so captivating to ME really means something! :)
 2008-08-18 - An interesting read into transcending ego and achieving peace in your life.
When I first purchased A New Earth, it was via a friends recommendation and I'll admit I had a gift card purchase to Barnes & Noble to blow. I didn't quite know what to expect, especially with this being a fairly wide departure from the science fiction, self-help, and fiction books I tend to read. In a way, A New Earth is self-help too, but a little more watered down than a lot of self-help books I've read.
With that being said, I did find Tolle's A New Earth to be a helpful book. The main focus of the book is to get the reader to consciously be aware of their thoughts and that their thoughts DO NOT control their emotions but rather their emotions are a direct response to their thoughts. In addition, Tolle tells the reader to try his/her best to always live in the present moment. There is nothing you can do about the past and there is nothing you can do about the future except to live each present moment one at a time. That is to not say you can't learn from past mistakes and that you can't make future plans, just don't get so caught up in what you did in the past or so strung-out over that college degree or work project due in 4 weeks.
I'll admit, this was a tough read at times due to my negative mindset. I tend to be a fairly negative person and at times (I am improving though), the negativity creeped in in the form of "What in the hell is he talking about? This will never work". In those times, I'd put the book down and really try and pay attention to what Tolle said instead of making judgments about the book based on my negative moods until I realized that this wasn't the way I needed to be reading the book. By the end of the Book, a great deal of what Tolle has said about one's thoughts, emotions, feelings, staying grounded in the present, being non-reactive in situations before replying had sunk in and many a passage was highlighted.
Aside from it being different than what I usually read, I couldn't give it 4 or 5 stars just because of the fact that it's so wordy at times. Tolle could say what he's trying to say in a few paragraphs instead of stretching it to 5 or 6 pages. The only other minor quirk I have with this book is not enough concrete examples. Now I realize some of these spiritual/inspirational books can't be concrete for the whole book because that defeats the nature of them. However, there were times were Tolle would make a great point and then I'd be left hanging waiting for an example that never came.
Overall, I'd give this book a 3.5 out of 5 though because I did learn from this book, it just could have been condensed more. For $7.70 brand new, I'd definitely recommend getting this for the price. If not, pick up a used copy and see how you like it!
-Travis
 2008-08-18 - Awful
The author offers a few good points, but between those points are pages and pages of useless rambling. I could not make it through the whole book.
2008-08-18 - An Important Book
The title of this book is a little misleading. It's not really about a "new earth" or "life's purpose" but about something more important, namely the nature of consciousness, the nature of our own minds, the way we identify with our ego mind to our detriment,how we don't really know who we are until we tune in to what Huxley called "Mind-at-large," how that is available to us through what he calls "the discovery of inner space,""the nameless," " the eternal." We get in touch with this level of true being through awareness of the breath, the space between thoughts, inner body awareness.
People who practice meditations will recognize that none of this is really new. In fact Hinduism and Buddhism, as he acknowledges, described these very concepts and practices long ago. But it's nonetheless refreshing to have this secular, modern reminder spelled out in a very compelling way.
I'm not sure I can be as optimistic as he is that this new dimension of consciousness will be taking over and transforming our world ('the new earth"), but I can hope he's right! I think it's a very important book and I'm glad Oprah recommended it to people.
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