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| A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61) | 
 enlarge | Author: Eckhart Tolle
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $4.44
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New (155) Used (225) Collectible (9) from $2.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  1328 reviews
Sales Rank: 80
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0452289963
Dewey Decimal Number: 204.4
EAN: 9780452289963
ASIN: 0452289963
Publication Date: January 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! NEW Book! May have remainder mark. Most orders ship within 1 BUSINESS DAY with ORDER CONFIRMATION.
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| Customer Reviews:
 falls short July 21, 2006
56 out of 90 found this review helpful
I am surprised to see so many positive reviews of Tolles latest book considering the criticism in recent studies. Paula Marvellys new bestseller Teachers of one, for example showed the inadeqacy of Tolles doctrine based on non duality and this a a very indepth study. Recent customer reviews of his old book Power of Now also expose the problems with Tolles work. AS a self help book then certainly it may be helpful for a short time but for those interested in going deeper and getting satisfying answers Tolles work falls very far short.
 Tolle eludicates Buddhism October 3, 2006
52 out of 71 found this review helpful
I've read most of the reviews and all of the negative ones. I've also left comments to them if any reader is interested. Quite frankly, all of the negative reviews are from people who don't understand the main premise of this book. Some interestingly enough were from Buddhists, who seemed uncharacteristically and extraordinarily negative. Buddhism of course is where the concept of Spiritual materialism, using one's religious identity to further support and prop up the ego, first was formalized. To this day that concept has not found much traction in Christianity where Spiritual Materialism is taken as par for the course, but I am digressing.
This book is about the forces that are present in aiding us, and how we, individually can transcend mythology and ideology. Something that either will happen for us as a species or will become extinct in the very near-- in geological time-- future. And until it happens things will only get worse. For example right now China is building up its military to invade Taiwan. An event that quite possibly and most probably will lead to a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and China. China has already publicly stated that this will be the result of the U.S. coming to Taiwan's defense. And consequently China is developing missile technology to defeat the U.S's missile defense system. This could happen in as little as a couple of years from this review date. This is only to demonstrate one way things may continue to get worse until a different sort of consciousness emerges on this planet. There is no middle ground or "political" solution, our old ways of thinking will lead to our own destruction.
Some reviewers have stated that this book has nothing to do with awakening to your life's purpose, but I disagree. What is your life's purpose other then to evolve, which means, of course, also surviving. Your purpose is to become fully conscious. We are the part of the universe evolving into full consciousness of itself. One stage on that journey was emergence of the human mind. But this mind has grown into a monstrous reality, as the twentieth century so eloquently testifies. The mind has highjacked us and we live in the world where our own inventions can and may destroy us. Part of why this is so is that the mind itself is an unconscious tool. Tolle's opinion, is that the purpose of life is to become fully conscious, to become more than the limits of your own mind. That, first this is possible, and then how one achieves it is the point of this book.
Tolle, who is a gifted communicator, articulates this message in refreshingly modern terms. It is the same message of the historical Buddha, and arguably of an historical Jesus. How you awaken to your life's purpose is simply by clearly seeing the nature of your own mind.
Lama Yeshe in his book, Make your Mind and Ocean, says as much:
Lord Buddha says that all you have to know is what your are, how you exist. You don't have to believe in anything. Just understand how your mind works, how attachment and desire arise, how ignorance arises, and where emotions come from. It is sufficient to know the nature of all that; that alone can bring you happiness and peace.
What Eckhart does in A New Earth is articulate this same old spiritual message, that few seem to truly have realized, in a way exceeding accessible for our times.
Not sure what the hype is about. March 27, 2008
52 out of 58 found this review helpful
We read this for our book club, and were very disappointed in it. We were really looking forward to it, but it doesn't seem to "awaken" anything. We followed what Mr. Tolle is saying, but the repetitive nature of his writing made it difficult to get excited about surging forward. Most of us wouldn't have read it in its entirety if it wasn't for the book club. During the discussion, we all agreed that we shouldn't shoot the messenger when the message is a good one. However, it was unanimous that his writing style was pompous and difficult to engage with. He turned a lot of us off when he said that if you didn't get it, you weren't ready for it, i.e. smart enough or enlightened enough. Given the level of education and professional achievement in our book club (engineers, lawyers, doctors, published author, business owners and professors), we didn't think that his book was "above" our ability. It was just poorly written.
It Really Is Up To Us December 13, 2005
49 out of 62 found this review helpful
As former Editor of Science of Mind magazine, I've read so many books about personal evolution and most of them sound like a broken record with the same tired phrases. Eckhart Tolle's books always explore new spiritual terrain. Just as The Power of Now tempts you back into practicing the power of the moment, this new book impresses you with the urgency of personal commitment for global change. Eckhart Tolle keeps me on my spiritual path and lights a new pathway with each new book. Thank goodness for his light.
Elaine Maginn Sonne, PhD, Author of Stellar Secrets
 Mixed Review October 20, 2005
48 out of 91 found this review helpful
I've read all of Tolle's books, and I've always had a mixed response to him.
I appreciate what he says about living in the now. He presents this idea clearly and forcefully.
But I find his concept of the "pain body" to be reductionist and over-simplified. The "pain body" is not so easy to deal with as Tolle would have us believe. "Just be present," is an all but useless prescription for someone truly in the grip of their "pain body".
I'm not sure what I feel about the more Buddhist concepts of "non-attachment" and being "ego-less". Tolle often quotes Jesus in his works. Was Jesus non-attached to life? One could make a compelling argument that He was supremely attached to life.
As for the ego--things get a bit fuzzy. Are we to have an ego, or are we to dissolve the ego and become ego-free? And what does all that mean, anyway? It seems to me that one of the great tricks of the ego is to convince us that we can be ego-free.
There is always a certain coldness about Tolle's writing. This may be intentional, but it doesn't make the state of being in the now seem very appealing. I've found that so many of the people attracted to Buddhist or Buddhist-like practices are intellectuals. They are attracted by the concepts of Buddhism. They are attracted by the concept of seeing themselves existing in the now. When they practice, are they trying to be in the moment, or are they trying to be their concepts?
Tolle's writing is highly conceptual. Some of it borders on gobbledy-gook, unfortunately. He claims to be using language to point beyond language, but does he have to use such abstract language: form, being, etc...?
This book is essentially an expanded--and, unfortunately, padded--version of "The Power of Now". That book is still the standard. Perhaps Tolle really has nothing more to say. The key now is to really practice.
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