A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

The Flowering of Human Consciousness\ Evocation\ Earth, 114 million years ago, one morning just after sunrise: The first flower ever to appear on the planet opens up to receive the rays of the sun. Prior to this momentous event that heralds an evolutionary transformation in the life of plants, the planet had already been covered in vegetation for millions of years. The first flower probably did not survive for long, and flowers must have remained rare and isolated phenomena, since conditions were most likely not yet favorable for a widespread flowering to occur. One day, however, a critical threshold was reached, and suddenly there would have been an explosion of color and scent all over the planet—if a perceiving consciousness had been there to witness it.\ Much later those delicate and fragrant beings we call flowers would come to play an essential part in the evolution of consciousness of another species. Humans would increasingly be drawn to and fascinated by them. As the consciousness of human beings developed, flowers were most likely the first thing they came to value that had no utilitarian purpose for them, that is to say, was not linked in some way to survival. They provided inspiration to countless artists, poets, and mystics. Jesus tells us to contemplate the flowers and learn from them how to live. The Buddha is said to have given a "silent sermon" once during which he held up a flower and gazed at it. After a while, one of those present, a monk called Mahakasyapa, began to smile. He is said to have been the only one who had understood the sermon. According to legend, that smile (that is to say, realization) was handed down by twenty-eight successive masters and much later became the origin of Zen.\ Seeing beauty in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature. The first recognition of beauty was one of the most significant events in the evolution of human consciousness. The feelings of joy and love are intrinsically connected to that recognition. Without our fully realizing it, flowers would become for us an expression in form of that which is most high, most sacred, and ultimately formless within ourselves. Flowers, more fleeting, more ethereal, and more delicate than the plants out of which they emerged, would become like messengers from another realm, like a bridge between the world of physical forms and the formless. They not only had a scent that was delicate and pleasing to humans, but also brought a fragrance from the realm of spirit. Using the word "enlightenment" in a wider sense than the conventionally accepted one, we could look upon flowers as the enlightenment of plants.\ Any life-form in any realm—mineral, vegetable, animal, or human—can be said to undergo "enlightenment." It is, however, an extremely rare occurrence since it is more than an evolutionary progression: It also implies a discontinuity in its development, a leap to an entirely different level of Being and, most importantly, a lessening of materiality.\ What could be heavier and more impenetrable than a rock, the densest of all forms? And yet some rocks undergo a change in their molecular structure, turn into crystals, and so become transparent to the light. Some carbons, under inconceivable heat and pressure, turn into diamonds, and some heavy minerals into other precious stones.\ Most crawling reptilians, the most earthbound of all creatures, have remained unchanged for millions of years. Some, however, grew feathers and wings and turned into birds, thus defying the force of gravity that had held them for so long. They didn't become better at crawling or walking, but transcended crawling and walking entirely.\ Since time immemorial, flowers, crystals, precious stones, and birds have held special significance for the human spirit. Like all life-forms, they are, of course, temporary manifestations of the underlying one Life, one Consciousness. Their special significance and the reason why humans feel such fascination for and affinity with them can be attributed to their ethereal quality.\ Once there is a certain degree of Presence, of still and alert attention in human beings' perceptions, they can sense that there is more there than the mere physical existence of that form, without knowing that this is the reason why he or she is drawn toward it, feels an affinity with it. Because of its ethereal nature, its form obscures the indwelling spirit to a lesser degree than is the case with other life-forms. The exception to this are all newborn life-forms—babies, puppies, kittens, lambs, and so on. They are fragile, delicate, not yet firmly established in materiality. An innocence, sweetness and beauty that are not of this world still shine through them. They delight even relatively insensitive humans.\ So when you are alert and contemplate a flower, crystal, or bird without naming it mentally, it becomes a window for you into the formless. There is an inner opening, however slight, into the realm of spirit. This is why these three "en-lightened" life-forms have played such an important part in the evolution of human consciousness since ancient times; why, for example, the jewel in the lotus flower is a central symbol of Buddhism and a white bird, the dove, signifies the Holy Spirit in Christianity. They have been preparing the ground for a more profound shift in planetary consciousness that is destined to take place in the human species. This is the spiritual awakening that we are beginning to witness now.\ The Purpose of This Book\ 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? Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness? Can they defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above identification with form that keeps the ego in place and condemns them to imprisonment within their own personality?\ The possibility of such a transformation has been the central message of the great wisdom teachings of humankind. The messengers—Buddha, jesus, and others, not all of them known—were humanity's early flowers. They were precursors, rare and precious beings. A widespread flowering was not yet possible at that time, and their message became largely misunderstood and often greatly distorted. It certainly did not transform human behavior, except in a small minority of people.\ Is humanity more ready now than at the time of those early teachers? Why should this be so? What can you do, if anything, to bring about or accelerate this inner shift? What is it that characterizes the old egoic state of consciousness recognized? These and other essential questions will be addressed in this book. More important, this book itself is a transformational device that has come out of the arising new consciousness. The ideas and concepts presented here may be important, but they are secondary. They are no more than signposts pointing toward awakening. As you read, a shift takes place within you.\ This book's main purpose is not to add new information or beliefs to your mind or to try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in consciousness, that is to say, to awaken. In that sense, this book is not "interesting." Interesting means you can keep your distance, play around with ideas and concepts in your mind, agree or disagree. This book is about you. It will change your state of consciousness or it will be meaningless. It can only awaken those who are ready. Not everyone is ready yet, but many are, and with each person who awakens, the momentum in the collective consciousness grows, and it becomes easier for others. If you don't know what awakening means, read on. Only by awakening can you know the true meaning of that word. A glimpse is enough to initiate the awakening process, which is irreversible. For some, that glimpse will come while reading this book. For many others who may not even have realized it, the process has already begun. This book will help them recognize it. For some, it may have begun through loss or suffering; for others, through coming into contact with a spiritual teacher or teaching, through reading The Power of Now or some other spiritually alive and therefore transformational book—or any combination of the above. If the awakening process has begun in you, the reading of this book will accelerate and intensify it.\ An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks, and acts, as well as the recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate the unawakened state. That is why this book shows the main aspects of the ego and how they operate in the individual as well as in the collective. This is important for two related reasons: The first is that unless you know the basic mechanics behind the workings of the ego, you won't recognize it, and it will trick you into identifying with it again and again. This means it takes you over, an imposter pretending to be you. The second reason is that the act of recognition itself is one of the ways in which awakening happens. When you recognize the unconsciousness in you, that which makes the recognition possible is the arising consciousness, is awakening. You cannot fight against darkness. The light of consciousness is all that is necessary. You are that light.

The Flowering of Human Consciousness     1Evocation     1The Purpose of This Book     5Our Inherited Dysfunction     8The Arising New Consciousness     13Spirituality and Religion     17The Urgency of Transformation     20A New Heaven and a New Earth     23Ego: The Current State of Humanity     25The Illusory Self     27The Voice in the Head     30Content and Structure of the Ego     34Identification with Things     35The Lost Ring     38The Illusion of Ownership     42Wanting: The Need for More     46Identification with the Body     49Feeling the Inner Body     52Forgetfulness of Being     53From Descartes's Error to Sartre's Insight     54The Peace That Passes All Understanding     56The Core of Ego     59Complaining and Resentment     61Reactivity and Grievances     64Being Right, Making Wrong     66In Defense of an Illusion     67Truth: Relative or Absolute?     69The Ego Is Not Personal     72War Is a Mind-set     74Do You Want Peace or Drama?     77Beyond Ego: Your True Identity     77All Structures Are Unstable     79The Ego's Need to Feel Superior     81Ego and Fame     82Role-playing: The Many Faces of the Ego     85Villain, Victim, Lover     87Letting Go of Self-Definitions     89Pre-established Roles     90Temporary Roles     93The Monk with Sweaty Palms     94Happiness as a Role Vs. True Happiness     95Parenthood: Role or Function?     97Conscious Suffering     101Conscious Parenting     103Recognizing Your Child     104Giving Up Role-playing     106The Pathological Ego     109The Background Unhappiness     112The Secret of Happiness     114Pathological Forms of Ego     118Work-With and Without Ego     121The Ego in Illness     124The Collective Ego     125Incontrovertible Proof of Immortality     127The Pain-Body     129The Birth of Emotion     131Emotions and the Ego      134The Duck with a Human Mind     137Carrying the Past     139Individual and Collective     141How the Pain-Body Renews Itself     144How the Pain-Body Feeds on Your Thoughts     145How the Pain-Body Feeds on Drama     148Dense Pain-Bodies     151Entertainment, the Media, and the Pain-Body     152The Collective Female Pain-Body     154National and Racial Pain-Bodies     157Breaking Free     161Presence     164The Return of the Pain-Body     167The Pain-Body in Children     169Unhappiness     172Breaking Identification with the Pain-Body     174"Triggers"     177The Pain-Body as an Awakener     180Breaking Free of the Pain-Body     183Finding Who You Truly Are     185Who You Think You Are     186Abundance     190Knowing Yourself and Knowing About Yourself     192Chaos and Higher Order     194Good and Bad     195Not Minding What Happens     198Is That So?     199The Ego and the Present Moment      200The Paradox of Time     204Eliminating Time     206The Dreamer and the Dream     208Going Beyond Limitation     210The Joy of Being     213Allowing the Diminishment of the Ego     214As Without, So Within     217The Discovery of Inner Space     223Object Consciousness and Space Consciousness     227Falling Below and Rising Above Thought     229Television     230Recognizing Inner Space     233Can You Hear the Mountain Stream?     236Right Action     238Perceiving Without Naming     239Who Is the Experiencer?     241The Breath     243Addictions     246Inner Body Awareness     248Inner and Outer Space     250Noticing the Gaps     253Lose Yourself to Find Yourself     254Stillness     255Your Inner Purpose     257Awakening     259A Dialogue on Inner Purpose     262A New Earth     279A Brief History of Your Life     282Awakening and the Return Movement      284Awakening and the Outgoing Movement     288Consciousness     291Awakened Doing     293The Three Modalities of Awakened Doing     295Acceptance     296Enjoyment     297Enthusiasm     301The Frequency-holders     306The New Earth Is No Utopia     307Notes     311About the Author     315

\ From Barnes & NobleSpiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle's first full-length book in eight years addresses the collective dysfunction that characterizes the present state of humanity. According to the author of The Power of Now, our identification with the "egoic mind" imperils the future of life on our planet. But there is, Tolle insists, an alternative to this dire outcome. In A New Earth, he describes a shift that allows an intelligence far greater than the ego's to operate.\ \ \ \ \ Publishers WeeklyAccording to Tolle, who assumes the role of narrator as well, humans are on the verge of creating a new world by a personal transformation that shifts our attention away from our ever-expanding egos. This idea is well realized through Tolle's remarkably well-paced narration. Naturally, the author understands his material so thoroughly that he is able to convey it in an enjoyable manner, but Tolle's gentle tone and dialect begs his audience's attention simply through its straightforward approach. Something about this reading just seems profoundly important, whether one agrees with the material or not, and listeners' attention is sure to be captured within seconds of listening to Tolle's take on the universe in which we live. Originally released in 2005, both book and audiobook were reissued when Oprah Winfrey chose the title for her book club this year. A Penguin paperback. (Feb.)\ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.\ \ \ Library JournalTolle follows up his successful The Power of Now-it's sold two million copies worldwide since 1997-with a plea to reject egotistic ways for a new form of consciousness. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalTolle, author of The Power of Now, shows here in this book, touted by Oprah Winfrey, how transcending the needs of the self might help not only us but our world.\ \