“A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life's Purpose"

A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life's Purpose -  A book Summary

Most people have a misconception about spirituality. Generally, people are trying to understand the spirituality within the restricted boundaries of religion. In reality, spirituality has nothing to do with your belief system, religion, sect or ideologies you belong to. “A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life's Purpose" by Eckhart Tolle has thrown a light on important aspects of spirituality. Reading this book is really an eye-opener. It unveils certain misconceptions due to which people stay away from spirituality and put in the deep valley of unhappiness.

The author has written this book beautifully and he put his view in a way that any average reader can understand. The book focuses on the consciousness of humankind, how ego and pain body ruin the life of humankind and the original teaching of the Buddha, Jesus, Zen masters, and Hinduism gave a solution. This book does not claim that it's an encyclopaedia of spirituality. It just elaborates the conscious mind in a spiritual sense. In the first chapter, the author has clarified the purpose. He mentioned the purpose of the book is to bring about a shift in consciousness i.e. to say to awake.

 

TEACHING OF THE RELIGION

 

The beauty of this book is that it did not reject the teaching of any religion as well as any ideologies. Book has lots of examples from different holy books like Bible, Upanishad, Geeta, teachings of Buddha, stories of Zen Masters and many more. That is why this book attracts folks of every ideology. But at the same time, this book has criticized a man for adding fabricated and manipulated teaching to the original spiritual teaching. It has nothing to do with original teaching, but it is the reflection of a fundamental misunderstanding.  The author clearly stated that Churches, sects, cults or religious movements are collective egoic entities, as rigidly identified with their mental position as followers of any political ideology.  Over the centuries the original teaching was distorted. The word GOD itself is being misused by humankind.

Certain teaching in Hinduism is reflecting on the Maya which means collective dysfunction or madness causes suffering. The same teaching was found in Buddhism which presents this differently. According to Buddha, a normal state of mind generates Dukha, which can be translated as suffering, or pain.  According to Christianity normal collective state of the human mind is one of the original pain. Even Communism was based on suffering imposed by collective exploitation.  The modern human is well developed and had achieved heights in all fields. Science and Technology in the last 200 years have been developed drastically. The human mind is highly intelligent but tainted with madness. By using Science and Technology, the human mind is destroying this beautiful planet. In name of religion, the human mind is justifying the killings of humans. In World War II, genocide and holocaust by Nazi Germany and Murder of 20 million in the Soviet Union led by Stalin in the 20th century was the worst period of the human being. This caused by the collective madness, madness of power, madness imperialism, madness by the falsified ideas of religion and so on. The worst thing is that this madness is collective and universal but people are finding the solution in particular religion and ideologies.

Every problem takes birth in mind, small fights at the fish market to war between two nations. Fights, War….are mindset. It's ego.

 

WHAT IS EGO?

Book has three chapters on Ego. Ego is the main cause of suffering. But it should not be understood in a general sense. The ego has a deep meaning. That need to understand. Generally, ego has a different meaning popular in commons. People with a self-centric attitude, that attitude is generally referred to as Ego. But the author has given a different and suitable definition of Ego. The ego is the illusionary self. The term ego means different things to different people, but when he uses it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind.

The word "I" embodies the greatest error and the deepest truth. When a child plays with a toy and the toy is broken. The child will be crying not because of that toy but because of "my toy".  This toy becomes a part of the child's developing sense of I. 'I" embodies the primordial error, a misrepresentation of who you are, an illusory sense of self. This is the ego. This I produce suffering which Buddha oft-quoted the truth of life is suffering.

This ego is also identified with the mind. Once a person is identified with the mind he cannot recognize a true self. If you observe mind you will understand there would be several thoughts that you wouldn't aware of. Thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence.

 

ORIGIN OF EGO

The egoic mind is completely conditioning by the past with two-folds. Content and Structure. In the case of a child who cries in deep suffering because his toy has been taken away the toy represents contents. This content is conditioned by the environment, upbringing, and surrounding culture. The reason for such acute suffering caused by loss of toy is concealed in the word "my" and it is structural. 

One of the basic mind structure through which ego comes into existence is identification. The word identification is derived from the Latin word idem meaning "same" and face re which means "to make". So when I identify with something, I "make it the same." The same as I. 'I' endow it with a sense of self, and so it becomes part of my "identity."  My toy later becomes my car,   my house,   my clothes, and so on.

Book has a meaningful story of an old aged lady who was bed-ridden and she would die soon. At this stage, she was upset not because of her physical conditions but because she lost her RING. She was accusing her maid for stolen of RING. This ring is nothing but thought which she is identifying herself and its loss made her unhappy.

CORE OF EGO

The core of the ego is the thought process and repetitive pattern of thoughts. Humankind is not having control over thoughts rather thoughts are controlling mind and body. These thoughts are involuntary. The mind has different strategies to make an identification that is the origin of the Ego. It includes Complaints, Resentments, Grievances, and so on. This will make the body to believe in it. The body will react accordingly. The reaction of the body is nothing but emotions. These emotions will feed energy into thoughts. The person again identified with thoughts. This is the vicious circle of emotions and thoughts. The author called such body as Pain-Body.

 

CAUSES OF EGO DRIVEN MIND AND SOLUTION

The author did not give mere causes and plain solution. He gave many examples from his own experience as well as from teaching of great scholars.

 

Carrying the past

The human mind is always entangled in the past and future.  If you observe your thought process you will find that thoughts are the outcome of past conditioning and its reflection in the future. Authors oft-quoted that "Time is an illusion". Time does not exist. He referred the time in two away. Clock time which can include our office times, appointment dates, birthdays, etc. This time has existence. Humanity is trapped in psychological times. That means, every person is trapped in bad experiences of the past and care for the future.

The author has beautifully presented a story of "carrying the past". It was a story of two Zen monks. They were walking on the muddy road. The senior monk saw a beautiful girl struggling to cross the muddy road. Senior monk went towards her, holds her hand and helps her to cross that road. After 5-6 hours two monks reached to DHARMSHALA for rest. Junior monk showed his resentment towards the senior monk and ask him questions. "Why did you hold the hand of girl?"….The senior monk told "I left her hours ago, you still carrying her"

The moral of the story is that humans should be in presence, carry past is giving birth to the ego, a false self.

This too will pass

A reality of Law of Impermanence: A rich king of the rich state was always upset. He did have golds, diamonds, servants and so on. But he was confused about his mindset. He wanted to be happy but he was not. He asked many people, scholars but he did not get happiness. Finally, he called a wise man from his state whose face was always satisfactory. King asks that wise man " how do you satisfy always? I want to so. Tell me your secret" Wise man smiled and gave a gold ring on. Few letters were inscribed on it.  King read that letters … they were "this too will pass" the wise man told the king that whatever happened with you, before judging it good or bad, please read it "this too will pass". Nothing is constant in this world. Neither happiness or sadness. The Law of impermanence is the truth of this world.

Two Ducks and the human mind – the importance of forgiveness

The power of now has given a suitable example of ducks. Two ducks were fighting each other and suddenly they are separated from each other and float off in the opposite direction. Both of the ducks kept quiet and float peacefully. But if it was a human mind, it would keep the fight alive by thinking, by victimizing oneself, and by making stories.  What does this story mean… A flap of the ego, alive thoughts and stories. Return to the place of power i.e. present by forgiving.

 

Acceptance

Acceptance is a powerful tool for overcoming ego and leave a peaceful life. One man accepts himself with whatever he has it is the first step of overcoming pain-body. Goynkaguruji in his discourse always oft-quoted that acceptance with equanimity will be heading towards enlightenment. Acceptance means: For now, this is what the situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do willingly. Performing an action in the state of acceptance means you are doing in peace.

LEARNING

1. Non-resistance, non-judgment, and non-attachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living

2. The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thought about it.

3. The ego of human-mind causes destruction in the world. Living in the present with acceptance and equanimity will reject the identification which overcomes the ego.

4. Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.

5. Law of impermanence - nothing is constant in this world.

6. Life is the dancer and you are the dance

 

Summarized by

Pravin Anjali