Eckhart Tolle's "The New World"

"Most people are so completely identified with the voice in the head - the incessant stream of involuntary and compulsive thinking and the emotions that accompany it - that we may describe them as being possessed by their mind. As long as you are completely unaware of this, you take the thinker to be who you are.”

Eckhart Tolle

Our thoughts control what happens to us. Where have you heard that before? From the oft-maligned The Secret to the resurgence of cognitive behavioural therapy, to Martha Beck’s North Star Coaching, to the work of Byron Katie and now to Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, we are being deluged by this message.

Oprah and Tolle will be teaching a 10-week web-cast course based on A New Earth this spring. Oprah says she has realized that this course is part of her life’s work. Very strong words.

Tolle’s first book, The Power of Now, spoke about our minds and our ego. He told us that we are not our mind, that surrendering to the present creates authentic power. Tolle also taught that the body is an entry point into inner peace, as is the silence and space around us.

To me and to many others Tolle is a genius. He has the ability to capture the essence of what we need to be truly empowered and to live a spiritual life. As a former body worker and from my personal experience I can attest that the body never lies. It carries every stressful experience, every past story in it. In my North Star Coaching, the body is one of our main points of entry into our work. The mind is the other. We help people identify the stressful thoughts and beliefs that are holding them back in life and making them unhappy.

And the silences and the spaces…yes…that is where spirit lies. The spaces give us time to pause, to slow down, to rejuvenate. In my dance-exercise class my teacher, Zeta, encourages us to be aware of the spaces between the notes and beats of the music. Carrying this idea over into my daily activities helped me be aware of and savour moments of pleasure in my day such as a beautiful flower in the garden, some amazing Chinese music on CBC radio for the Chinese New Year, or simply filling my lungs deeply and fully, then pushing the breath out.

Eckhart Tolle believes that human beings are ready for “a transformation of consciousness so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection”. And for me it’s hard to imagine anything more amazing, more beautiful than the miracle of plants.

Tolle says that the new way will be a move away from ego-based living into a truer path where we can feel the “light of consciousness”. When we embrace this new consciousness, we will be more aware of what we can do to help the world, and to make it a place of peace and fellowship.

Many, many people are speaking and acting in ways that make a difference now. This energy is building and is beginning to change our world. Let’s keep on asking what we can do to help…in our own backyard or abroad.nfrom Ellen Besso