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“A New Earth; Awakening to Your Life's Purpose” is known as one of the best spiritual books of our time and was on Oprah Winfrey’s book club list. Later, I discovered online classes on Oprah’s website discussing about the book by its author, Ekhart Tolle. You can watch or listen to the videos or mp3s here if interested, http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/A-New-Earth-Syllabus. The book and the videos both are summarized as follows, hoping that you like it.

The book of “A New Earth; Awakening to Your Life's Purpose” consists of ten chapters. In first chapter, Ekhart Tolle talks about the purpose of the book stating that it can be totally useful or meaningless for whom to read it. It will be useful if at the end, you are peaceful. He mentions," The ideas and concepts presented here [in the book] 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. The book’s main purpose is not to add new information or beliefs in your mind or try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in your consciousness.” However, the book can be meaningless if one is not ready spiritually.

In chapter two, he describes current state of humanity, that is, Ego. Ego has various names such as “self”, “Voice in the head”, “Little me” and thoughts. Ego takes control of the mind whenever it complains, compares, grieves, refuses to accept reality, intents to be right and to make others wrong, takes everything personally and feels superior or inferior. In the video interviews, Mr.Tolle emphasizes that when “The voice in the head” complains; it is not our true self which complains. In fact, we are consciousness behind the voice. So, there are “I” and “self”.

He then refers to his own life story when he recognized this separation between “I” and “self”. He was about to commit a suicide that he whispered to himself,” I am tired of myself.” Who is “self” that he is tired of? Is he two persons in one body? Who is that person? Then, the separation between “I” and “Self” occurs and “Consciousness” comes afterwards and brings extraordinary amount of peace. The day after that awakening is a new day and a new beginning. He enjoys a songful bird in a tree in front of his home that he had never realized its presence before. He was so drowned in his own thoughts that he could never realize the beauty of the sound.

In the Oprah’s interview, Mr.Tolle shows a way to manage the voice in the head stating that whenever it comes, do not pay attention to it. “If you resist ego, it will persist”, he emphasizes. Just let it be there as it is. This way, you are the awareness behind it and as awareness comes in, unawareness goes away.

In chapter three and four, he describes more about ego and gives more examples of its various faces. In chapter five, emotional side of ego is described. Ego has another dimension which is emotion or “Pain body.” Fear, anger, anxiety, jealousy, envy, etc, are different faces of the pain body.

Because the body is intelligent, it reacts to the thoughts and therefore, emotion is a response to the mind. In fact, ego plays a game with us. It starts telling a story which body believes in. Then, body reacts to it. The reaction feeds energy back to the thought making more emotional thinking and emotional story-making. Ego also feeds on the past and future for its existence. To clarify, Ekhart Tolle uses an example of two ducks that fights with each other in a pond of a park where he went to take a rest. After fighting, the two ducks just flapped their wings in order to let the negative energy go. Then, they floated off in the opposite direction and forgot completely about what had happened in the past. What it would be if they had a human mind? “I won’t believe what he just did. He thinks he owns this pond. He has no consideration for my private space. I’ll never trust him again. Next time, he’ll try something else just to annoy me. I’ll teach him a lesson he won’t forget.” (Page 87)

The answer to how we can control the pain body is hidden in chapter sex. The most significant thing to do in order to reduce pain body impact on the mind is to realize first we have a pain body, and then, to be present enough to recognize it. By only being present, we can identify pain body. This identification results in separating our true self from pain body and as soon as this separation occurs, pain body is unable to overcome.

But, the most important question is that how we can be present. In the video, Ekhart Tolle describes three ways to live at the present moment. First, just look around without judging. He emphasizes that it is better to look at the nature rather than a manmade object because the manmade object brings more thoughts to the mind. For example, just look at a tree without judging so that you can feel its presence. Look at its leaves, the color of the leaves, how it bends over when the wind blows and so on. Second, in daily activities, focus on what you are doing. If you wash your hands, try to feel the warmth of the water, the sound of the water, how water flows into your hands, how you feel when the warm water touches your skin and so on. Third, concentrate on your breath. Breathe deeply, release it slowly and watch it when you inhale and exhale. These methods help us to divert our thoughts from the mind and to live at the present moment.

In chapter seven, the author brings attention to one of the most important questions of our life; who are you really? Are you your name, your occupation, your personal history, your shape of your body and whatever is identified with ego? Knowing oneself is not concerned with ideas and thoughts in the mind. Instead, it is in “Being.” We are human being rather than human doing. And, only by Being, we can find consciousness which lies within.

Inner space is discussed in chapter eight indicating that this physical body is just an illusion. With the help of science, we are now able to see inside a cell which is made of atoms. And, deep beneath each atom, there is a space. In other words, our body consists of the space beneath the atoms. Thus, we are that space, and because the space cannot be manifested and tangible without the body, we have a body. Therefore, the universe expresses itself through us in order to be manifested, the author states in the video interview with Oprah. Moreover, by isolating the ego and knowing that we are not the ego, we create a space between ego and consciousness. And, this gap creates awakening.

Chapter nine and ten discuss about inner and outer purpose of life emphasizing that inner purpose is primary and outer purpose is secondary. The inner purpose of life is to be awakened which we all share on the planet because it is the purpose of humankind. However, the outer purpose is changeable over time.

Moreover, to be fulfilled, it is necessary to be in alignment with the inner purpose. If not, we will cause suffering for ourselves and others. So, awakening is when outer and inner purpose is aligned with each other, which is possible by “awakening doing.” Awakening doing has three modalities including acceptance, enjoyment and enthusiasm. When these three modalities are not present in what we are doing, we suffer. For example, imagine a bank clerk whose job does not satisfy him. It means that he does not accept his job situation. Therefore, he does not work compassionately; he complains all the time and creates an unpleasant environment for himself, colleagues, clients and his family.

In the end, the book has promising news. By being awakened, we build a new earth. The new earth is not a utopia. The new earth comes when external world is in accordance with the internal world and when we are egoless, in the surrendered state, in oneness with ourselves, others, the whole universe and God. So, this awakened individual can change everything on the earth because outer life is not inseparable of the consciousness within. And, it mentions it is already happening, “A new species is arising on the planet, it is arising now and you are it.” (Page 187)