A New Earth: Create a Better Life 
Customer Ratings: - The dawning of the Age of Mindfulness. Eckhart writes in a very down to earth way that has a sound philosophical base. He is presenting the essential Buddhist concepts of sunnata (space consciousness) and mindfulness (sati) as the present-centered awareness that allows us to transcend object-consciousness and become the living reality of Buddha mind (bodhicitta). But the way he presents these often dry concepts is so engaging!
To read more about mindfulness and mindfulness meditation, I suggest you read:
The Path of Mindfulness Meditation: Finding Balance in the Midst of Chaos: The Application of Mindfulness and Vipassana Meditation for Personal Transf - Either Mysticism Or Just A Con-Trick. I am mindful of the numerous praising reviews but I would not recommend this book. The author s first work, The Power Of Now was a flawed one, but it did at least convey the important message that virtually everyone is full of too much recall, too much speculation and not enough presence. If read carefully by someone with insight and understanding - and a sharp pencil for much editing - this is well worth a first, second and even third reading. How sad that it should be followed by this very disappointing offering, A New Earth.
If you do buy the book then you may as well skip the first 200 pages, they comprise a plodding, repetitious summary of the various forms and antics of the ego. The only significant thing that emerges is the author s rather peculiar portrayal of the ego as a kind of malign inner presence with an intelligence of its own. It is, of course, a cluster of memories and habitual thought patterns, so let s not get spooky about it, and let s not take 200 pages over it!
After about page 200, the author turns to other important matters and, indeed, he does offer some insights, but then he loses the plot by continually indulging in what I can only describe as mysticism. The author repeatedly alludes to a universal Intelligence and consciousness and a sort of emerging global brotherhood that is forming a new consciousness in communion with it. I find it quite irritating that he takes the reader to a position and then with a metaphorical nudge and a wink leaves him or her to contemplate some undefined dimension. This dimension is a concept that the author has very hazily constructed, it is not borne out by any evidence whatsoever. I would say to the reader (and indeed the author!) by what means can you give this supposed universal intelligence your attention? Can you see it? Hear it? Touch it? Taste it? Smell it? No! The only way that you can attend to this phenomenon is within the content of your thinking. The brain can think about anything it likes, as long as it has the words and other symbols from which to construct it. Unless it thinks about a real and factual object or action it is merely caught in illusion. The author is, in A New Earth, trying to convince his readers of his own illusion (assuming he actually believes in what he has written).
Other irritating aspects of this book are the author s rather shallow inclusions of tried and tested Zen and Taoist stories. He s just lifted these out of some generic books on the subjects. He even has the audacity to use the old Taoist parable of the unlucky/lucky farmer, but just changes the details by inserting a modern equivalent about some guy who wins a lottery and has a car accident and is visited by his friends and neighbours, and then blah, blah this good thing happens, and then this bad thing happens....maybe, maybe etc. What a phoney the author is!
Having read writers and thinkers of much greater clarity and stature (e.g. Steve Hagen or Alan Watts) the only value I can see in this book is that it is a good piece on which to test the clarity and objectivity of your own consciousness. This book belongs on the heaving shelves of the smarmy self-help and spiritualist category of the bookshop. Avoid it!
- Eckhart Tolle is for the emotionally insecure. Anyone who writes things like You are here to enable the divine purpose the universe to unfold, that is how important you are! cannot be taken seriously. Who says the universe has a divine purpose? That is purely an opinion and yet there is a vast audience of desperately insecure people who are looking for some sort of magic and mystery in their lives who will respond to Tolle s type of message. I read The Power of Now in the mistaken belief that he was promoting a kind of cognitive therapy but was alarmed at the new age gobbledygook that underlay the book. This one is no different. Have we come this far, out of the religious fallacies that ruled humanity for so long to fall prey to a new kind of falsehood (one which makes some people very rich). At the basis of Tolle s writing lies the belief that we are entering a new stage of raised human consciousness. Anyone who observes what is happening on earth can see that actually humanity probably has relatively little time left before life is extinguished. You could theorise that Tolle and his ilk are hastening the end of life because they are persuading people that some type of divine consciousness will save humanity. I think the evidence is against that and I think that books like this are quite damaging in a subtle way.
- Read it NOW!.
It is as simple as this - just read this book. I am not a great reader but have just re-read. At the least it will point you in the direction of peace in this life, but it is all within you. - Realistic. this book has shown me how to live in the present by concentrating on ones breathing.Breathing is a present divine breath that is in the now.Good book for curing ones hangups from past and anxiety of the future.
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A New Earth: Create a Better Life (ID: 0141039418)
