A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

How am I suppose to review this book? Every intellectual, logical, thought that I put in to it runs contrary to the message, or 'pointer' that this book is about. What this book suggests is... difficult, painful, uncomfortable, unusual, weird, new, different, unknown. How can I detach myself from my intellect and my material world. Decade after decade, message after message, the measure of me is my accomplishments. It's my past, my possessions. My things. My dogs. My family. All parts and pieces that identify who I am. How can I detach myself from those things?

This book is challenging to say the least. If I wasn't ready for it, I'd dismiss it as just another book with spiritual fluffery. But, I'm still processing it. Still trying to value it. Trying to put it in context of my life today. Tolle says to respect the world of forms, but don't get attached to it. Would he be giving a different message if he were sleeping under a bridge, not knowing where his next meal would come from?

My biggest criticism is this. There is no practical explanation on how to practice his teachings. Jesus at least told parables and shared his experiences. He washed the feet of his disciples, cared for the diseased, accepted the outcasts, the sinners. He did not resist or protest against his accusers. He accepted his fate of crucifixion. Not sure what Tolle provides except concepts. Pointers as he would call them.

But is that enough? Here in lies the challenge. Is how to get from hear to there. That heaven, now, here on earth. Free from the suffering mind. Free from the attachments of materialism, consumerism, power, greed, want and the lack that it can never satiate. It is not just a matter of flipping a switch. The addict to food, cigarettes, or some other substance is just suppose remember to breath each time they have a desire for their obsession? Not realistic. If that was how easy it's suppose to be, then my Mom wouldn't have been smoking for the last 40 years.

There is a lot of information in this book. There is a lot of great pointers on where I'd like to be in my spirituality. But, like The Secret, lacks any real practical direction in how to start down that road of spiritual awakening. I liked the book. I'll read it a few more times just so that I can absorb everything that this book contains and then do myself to see the sign posts in my own life. But, had I not had other teachers, teachings, and experiences to get me going down a certain path, this book would be just another sign in a foreign language that I'd quickly forget.

A good read, but only if you're ready for it.