Book Review. "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle

I read this book twice in Ukraine in Ukrainian and now here in Germany in English. This is not a book for becoming more smart or educated. This book does not provide a technique or methodology for how to become more enlightened. This book is for those who are ready to see the truth, to listen, to change himself/herself, and as a result to awaken.

"A New Earth" helped me to understand what ego means and how it uses us and me in particular in service to it, how it guides us/me through all our/my life living in a completely automatic mode, being fully unconscious and believing that we/I are/am conscious, believing that we/I live our/my lives, and achieve our/my goals. "A New Earth" revealed for me the phenomenon of a pain body and thus why we humans and again, in particular, me are/am so much bound to sufferings in all manifestations.

This book helped me to identify my ego and to reduce it but in some cases even eliminate it; to understand better the egoic mind and sense of identification and what is more important to see all this in myself, my life, my perceptions, and reactions and learning to change it. Moreover "A New Earth" helped me to become more conscious, not being or not all the time being identified with thoughts, being trapped in compulsive thinking.

EGO

Thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence. We think and even more, we are sure that people talking aloud to themselves when there is nobody else with them or even being outside but still talking to themselves aloud are completely mad/insane. Unfortunately, we as human beings have numerous self-talks in our heads/minds with different repetitive thoughts. The difference between the first group and the second group is only that the first one is doing it aloud, others in their heads are being tortured and raped by thoughts. These repetitive thoughts and compulsive thinking are one of our ego facets.

The other one is that ego wants more and unfortunately the only measure of nowadays progress is always more. That's good that a person can afford more comfort and better living, higher quality, and more expensive products, but the awful thing is that he/she becomes a slave of these products/things. It means that he/she is so attached to them that he/she completely identifies himself/herself with them and without them he/she is nobody. Thus you can possess things but you should not be attached to them and can easily let them go, but if you can't let them go that is your ego. "If someone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well" (Mathew 5:40). The art of letting things go is the greater act of power because it destroys our ego and shows the new path, giving new possibilities. But in case we don't want to let go, life will give us whatever experience that is good for the evolution of our consciousness.

The ego lives with identifications, it dies without them, That is why if you are brave enough to see yourself and to find a way to take out one identification, the ego will quickly find another identification. In its perception the more it has the more you are as a person, that's why it feels pathological neediness for more wanting, there will not be a time for ego when it is enough for it. When you are buying something being guided by your ego and not being aware of it, you are not buying a product, but an identity enhancer, to feel yourself MORE and even MORE than MORE. That is why it is so important to go through numerous losses in your life, that does not kill your ego, but at least it creates a window/door to liberate yourself from ego and that is your choice to see it or not.

Other important examples of ego:

• The ego lives through comparison.

• The ego thinks that non-reaction is our weakness but in reality that is our strength. Reactivity is a fuel for ego.

• The ego complains and condemns all the time.

• The ego is in a permanent state of against other people, situations, government, rules, etc.

• The ego likes to be right, so it needs to make others wrong and it searches for evidences and facts that others are wrong.

• The ego takes everything personally.

• The ego hates the truth, it likes to live in a delusion.

• The ego likes to live in complete satisfaction, in a comfort zone.

• The ego burns out a considerable part of energy.

• The ego will do the same when it condemns others.

• The ego either wants something or is in a state of indifference to other people, situations, or external circumstances. If it does not want to have something from a particular person it will be indifferent.

• The greatest fear of the ego is to lose its identifications and to become a nobody.

• The ego does not want to end its problems because it is part of its identity.

Only presence can remove you from the ego, and presence can be only now, not yesterday or tomorrow.

All sufferings that you have are in your life for the evolution of your consciousness and burn out of the ego.

PAIN BODY

Every single person has a pain body, only the enlightened ones don't.

The pain body has an addiction to unhappiness and is fed by negative thoughts and negative emotions. For the pain body itself, the pain is a pleasure, this is an unconscious act, but the pain body struggles for pain and tries to find it everywhere. If a person does not have enough drama in relations with wife/husband, children, relatives, friends, colleagues, bosses/partners, it creates drama in its mind with compulsive negative thinking and building performances even so-called thrillers with only one purpose to feel this pain and to feed pain body. The positive side is that at a certain point, your pain body becomes your awakener. That very moment when you realize that you are addicted to suffering and even imagining them in your head becomes the opportunity to go out of this trap.

ABUNDANCE

Acknowledging everything good that is already in your life is the foundation for abundance. Acknowledging only lack, you will multiply only lack and it becomes bigger.

If you do not have abundance in your life in some or all of its manifestations, act as if you have it, and it will come. Give people what you want to receive from others and it will come. Soon after you start giving you will start receiving. You can't receive what you don't give. As Jesus said, "Give and it will be given to you."

Abundance is not outside you, it is a part of who you are. And you need to realize you are and are not. You need to first become less to become more. As Jesus said, "You need to lose yourself to find yourself".

Presence is a consciousness without a thought. The brain does not create consciousness, but consciousness creates the brain.

Stillness is God's language everything else is a bad translation. Frequency holders bring spacious stillness in everything they do to raise human consciousness.

If uncertainty is unacceptable for you it turns to fear, if it's acceptable it turns to aliveness and creativity.

February 2, 2024.