A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
by Eckhart Tolle

Book Review by Gwynne Mayer

This profound book is on Oprah's reading list and will definitely start impacting the thoughts of many who will be reading it, maybe even the masses, finally! Tolle addresses our current state of humanity and demands a change, mainly in the dissolution of our egos, our needs to label and makes sense of everything, categorizing and putting the thoughts in a box. This author is a quantum thinker as he is thinking out of the box and is challenging us to let go of what we 'believe to be true' and go into more depth of reflection in our own lives.

He warns: "A significant portion of the earth's population will soon recognize, if they haven't already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die. A still relatively small but rapidly growing percentage of humanity is already experiencing within themselves the breakup of the old egoic mind patterns and the emergence of a new dimension of consciousness."

We are all 'ONE' will take on new meaning if we can grasp that we are part of the oneness of humanity, and that those still caught up in rigid paradigms, labels, words, belief systems, are in fact part of us that still gravitates in that direction. So this book is a wake up call, specifically as to what will happen if we keep going in this direction. We are conditioned by our past with our 'egoic mind' and as long as we don't break through to a new order of consciousness, we will continue, according to Tolle, equate 'having with Being'. How do we let go of this attachment? We start listening to our physical organism, our instincts and in that listening, we become more aligned with what is happening 'NOW'.

One of the most interesting parts of the book is titled, How the Pain Body Feeds on Drama and a quote from this section might give you a better idea as to how our emotions feed our delusions: "If there are other people around, preferably your partner or a close family member, the pain-body will attempt to provoke them---push their buttons, as the expression goes -so it can feed on the ensuing drama. Pain-bodies love intimate relationships and families because that is where they get most of their food. It is hard to resist another person's pain body that is determined to draw you into a reaction. Instinctively it knows your weakest, most vulnerable points. If it doesn't succeed the first time, it will try again and again. It is raw emotion looking for more emotion. The other person's pain-body wants to awaken yours so that both pain-bodies can mutually energize each other." Tolle goes on to explain that we are no longer separate, but instead part of the oneness of humanity, even in our individual results. Tolle uses biblical and eastern philosophical references, to emphasize his points. We have to broaden our perspective to include the rest of our humanity and know we area all part of the One Body of this universe. Tolle is challenging every aspect of our current mind set and asks the reader the meet that challenge.