Unity Bookstore Book Review
A New Earth-Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
By Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart Tolle is a spiritual teacher and author who experienced an inner transformation as a young man, which freed him from the bouts of depression that he frequently suffered.
In most people, the normal state of mind is dysfunctional because our egos are in charge and our behaviors are actually unconscious. Tolle’s purpose in writing this book is to bring about a shift to consciousness. Continuing to live as we do in our ego-state results in misery, self-destruction, and eventually destruction of the earth itself. Throughout the ages, there have been those who became enlightened, but their teachings were usually either misunderstood or distorted.
In order to live in love, joy and peace we need to recognize that our true being is not our ego. Any lasting sense of love, joy and peace is not possible with ego because it is linked with outside circumstances, which are always changing. Ego shuts us off from our consciousness. However, if we become aware that we are
Being, and not ego, we are taking the first step in becoming conscious. Time is an illusion—we live only in the present moment. The past and future are thoughts. We reach our conscious state only in the present moment.
When we are functioning in our egos, we identify with our thoughts, which are
never-ceasing. We become invested in defending our thoughts as being right at all costs because we think our very identities depend on them. Our emotions during this time are tied up with ego, which only recognizes outside circumstances. Any happiness we feel is fleeting. Our emotions when we are conscious emanate from our Being. We feel love, joy and peace no matter what is going on in the outside world.
Fully awakening to our conscious state cannot be forced by anything we do.
However, we can lay the groundwork for this awakening by creating space within. Tolle recommends setting aside time to be aware of our breathing. As we observe inhaling and exhaling, our incessant thoughts cease, for a while. Although this may not seem like much of an accomplishment, it does create a gap where we are Being. Your outer purpose in life becomes aligned with your inner purpose, which is Being. With practice, these gaps become longer, creating more inner space where we awaken to our conscious state.
This book has much more information in it, and I recommend that you take
your time reading it in order to absorb it all. You can find it in our own Unity
Bookstore.
Namaste,
Lisa Madewell
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