Thoughts On "A New Earth" (Part 1.5)

Promises, Promises. I’m full of them, aren’t I?

Last week I promised you my personal “awakening” story, as part of exploring the Oprah/Eckhart Tolle presentation of “A New Earth”.

But as I wrote, I realized I couldn’t reduce it to a simple one post undertaking. It’s a sub-series in it’s own right, and the first part is nearly ready to be posted.

Before I get to that, I did finish reading “A New Earth” and, surprisingly, I surprisingly have very few issues with it, in and of itself.

Here’s an edited version of what I said on the Oprah site:

• Tolle got the bit about the Holy Inquisition demonizing millions of women wrong. I’m not sure how much I can blame him for this, though - it’s still commonly cited as fact in so many places.
• I cringed when he wrote about the possibility of a lawyer defending someone by saying “…he did not do it. His pain-body did.”Even if you approach the “pain-body” (as Eckhart seems too) as a possessing influence, you are still responsible for controlling that aspect of your ego. The only exception would be if the person would be considered insane, anyway.
• I’m uncomfortable with the certainty he seems to have about knowing the “true meanings” behind various spiritual figures of the past. It seems a bit at odds with his otherwise humble mannerisms.
• I read his sometimes flowery language as describing mostly concrete concepts from fairly traditional Eastern teachings, but there’s room for interpretation. New Age Fluff Bunnies will just as easily see confirmation of every inter-dimensional crystal-resonating alien-abduction story they’ve ever read.

Not much in the way of serious problems is it? Nothing like The Secret’s claims of magnetic brainwaves and universal shopping carts.

But all is not lost! There’s whole bunch of webcasts to go, and there’s always the chance that Eckhart will start channeling Elvis and Oprah will introduce her spirit Guide, the giant praying mantis from Arcturus.

On the other hand, the message boards are a predictable mess.

Oprah’s dedicated followers are struggling to reconcile Tolle’s message of releasing the ego, with The Secret’s message about magically indulging the ego’s whims.

The followers of another New Age guru are convinced Tolle is a fraud who plagiarized their teachers, but left out the “good parts”.

Fundamentalist Christians are condemning everyone to Hell, and demanding an apology from Oprah for promoting the book.

Still, there are a surprising number of contributors who are familiar and even adept with the heavily Buddhist themes in the book, and there are even more who seem to be genuinely applying the ideas, and beginning to grasp what the Buddha called the nature of suffering. I’m actually getting a better handle on it, too.

Overall? Even considering its faults, this project seems the best attempt so far to mass-market what must always be an intensely personal experience.

But I reserve the right to be wrong.

____________________________________

MindTweak: “Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.” -Thomas Sydenham

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.” — Karl Marx

____________________________________