A good triathlete friend of mine, Daniel, a long time ago, when I first moved to South Korea, recommended I read a book with a mysterious title: The Power of Now. It is one of those rare books which do change your life - it has and still changes my life and I still refer to it often (except right now, once again someone else has my copy) - which you end up giving away and buying again and again.
Eckhart Tolle has written a new book; I'm reading it now. It's called The New Earth. I highly recommend both, starting with The Power of Now.
You can order the Power of Now here (Amazon also rates it very highly).
A New Earth is interesting. Listening to Tolle speak (he enunciates calmly and meticulously, speaks slowly and carefully and thoughtfully, in a German-American-British accent), it was strange for me to observe him observing the same thing I had observed in the bible. That Adam and Eve's discovery of 'good and evil' was really a mythological story about human beings becoming self-aware, developing discernment (being conscious even of the fact that they were naked, and of some other presence in the garden).
Consciousness begets consciousness, though if we try very hard, and are distracted enough, well, it begets fixation, obsession, indulgence, vanity and all the stuff the ego wants to bother with. Because we were all children once, we have the ability to remember both the mythic journey of man, and also our own spiritual journey in this lifetime. All there is, is this Isness. All we have is the Now. That makes all we say, and do, and think, and determine - precious, and vital, fragile and intransigent. It makes who we are and who we choose to be as important and meaningful as it is.
Itis all quite beautiful, quite magnificent, and quite terrible - this continuum that we are a part of (unless we imagine we are apart from it, as we may be apart from ourselves, or unless we cannot imagine ourselves to be a part - connected to- anything).
I also highly recommend A New Earth. You can order A New Earth here. If enough people read it, perhaps it will be, and perhaps sooner than some of our best hopes.
Listen to Oprah speak to Eckhart Tolle here.
4 comments:
Have heard that books are lost/stolen? in transit when ordered from amazon - bit wary to go that route or do u think its ok?
I haven't had any problems. Try Amazon Uk for quicker turnaround, there's also WILEY who are quicker than Amazon.http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-WILEYEUROPE2_SEARCH_RESULT.html?query=the%20power%20of%20now
Problem is they don't have the range of books Amazon have. Just checked and they don't have Tolle's books. It's mostly dvd's and music that gets stolen. Although these theives need help, their unlikeley to steal self help ;-)
Tolle touches my heart, always. He seems to truly embody his teachings. I ignored his books for years as just more New Age rehash. I started reading them recently...and re-reading them...and see my life slowly transforming.
His is a life affirming and elegant - albeit, not necessarily radically new - teaching.
Thanks for posting the video to lighten up my day.
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Life affirming and elegant. I like that. it's true. I think what makes Tolle particularly powerful is his combination of simple truth and profound truth. I had a major paradigm shift just yesterday, remebering him talking about "not being able to live with myself" and then him realising that how can I be 2? That's the source of our problems.
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