A book review by Kumudu Amarasingham

I turn and flip the pages of A New Earth in order to organize this review if you will in my mind, but I cannot seem to fix on a scheme.

Usually books have good points and bad ones, stunning paragraphs artfully crafted, and mediocre ones. If I reviewed this particular book for it’s literary value or craftsmanship, there wouldn’t be much to say. It is not fiction, and it is beyond facts. Not that it isn’t factual, it goes beyond the facts to point to lasting truths that, unfortunately, even the most learned men and women, most often, don’t know today. This is a book of facts about another dimension: beyond time and space as we know them. This is about you: the real you.

Its author is Eckhart Tolle, who also wrote the No.1 New York Times bestseller, The Power of Now.

It has attracted much attention and controversy since its publication and particularly since being featured in Oprah’s (Winfrey) book club selection. Oprah did the first ever live web-cast with Tolle on A New Earth, which had millions from around the world, including from Asia, Europe, Africa, North and South America and even the Middle East tuning in. This book cuts across boundaries of any and every sort.

Of course, the controversy was due to it’s not going down well with certain fundamentalist religious groups who saw it as a threat to their orthodox view points. I will not comment further on that – the readers can decide for themselves.

For all you spiritual buffs out there, don’t expect anything ‘new’ from this work. The message is as old as time itself and many teachers down the ages have conveyed it. However, their message, as we all know, has been muddied and distorted almost beyond recognition. What you can expect from this book is the truth: in a simple, concise, easy and brutally honest manner, suited for contemporary life. What you can also expect is a change of heart and mind, a change of life and living: a new earth.

This book can and will, if you read it with an open, sincere and pure heart, rock your world! That is, if you are ready for the Truth. If not, it will be meaningless. Tolle says in the book that you will, as you read, either feel the shift or understand almost nothing.

To criticize, even mildly, a work such as this is dangerous because anything we know before getting rid of all ego and desire is ignorance (no matter how profound it may seem). This is true even in the unlikely event that we may have attained certain stages of sainthood. This is because as long as mind and desire exists, even to the slightest degree, we will not see the whole, though we might glimpse parts. That is why, though well meant, commentaries on God or Truth from those who are yet on the path, often cause more chaos than harmony.

The truth thus projected can only be partial – unless the commenter has got rid of every last shred of desire, wanting, craving, suffering: basically got rid of ego (any sense of “I”) or ‘sin’ (as it is known in some traditions).

However, though acknowledging that I am yet on the path myself and not completely free of desires, I will state what I think could be a crucial error, while leaving it to the readers to decide whether I may be right or not.

If my insight gained so far is correct, A New Earth is not without at least one inaccuracy. This lies in Tolle’s assumption that it is consciousness itself that moves away from the body during death, as opposed to the mind-intellect with its latent unfulfilled desires. If consciousness is infinite, as the book asserts, how can it move: where would it move to if it were already everywhere?

To my understanding, it is not consciousness but the mind-intellect with its latent desires that goes from one body to another. Even that is stretching it, for it is more likely to be a subtle energy form of the mind that transfers and becomes a new being or goes to heaven or hell or whatever. All this occurs in the medium of all pervading consciousness.

In spite of that error, Tolle’s analysis of what constitutes the ego: how the ego operates, and most of all the modus operandi for freeing yourself from your own self-created illusion, thus freeing yourself from suffering, is spot on. It doesn’t require you to change anything about your life or go into a jungle. All it requires is a shift in perception. You can stay exactly where you are and live a much more beautiful, joyful and meaningful life thereafter.

The entire title of the book reads A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. If you have been wondering what your purpose is here beyond the obvious, or looking for deeper meaning in your life, then this one’s for you.

About the Reviewer

Kumudu Amarasingham joined The Sunday Leader, one of Sri Lanka’s leading national English newspapers, as a cub reporter in 2000. In 2001 she joined Young Asia Television, then an affiliate of World Vision, as a Scriptwriter and Production Assistant. In 2003 she was appointed Arts Editor of The Sunday Leader. Later she was also appointed Acting Features Editor of The Morning Leader, a sister paper of The Sunday Leader. She served as Journalist and Arts Editor till 2007, when she left Sri Lanka for Singapore. Kumudu has an advanced Diploma in Journalism from the Sri Lanka Press Institute in Collaboration with Fojo of Sweden.