by Susan Brinkmann
Staff Writer

(Feb. 18, 2008) Only a month after launching a year-long teaching of the “New Age bible” known as A Course in Miracles, Oprah Winfrey is now promoting the teachings contained in the latest book by another New Age author, Eckart Tolle, with a 10 week on-line course beginning March 3.

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose is one of several books written by the 60 year old German born Tolle whose teachings are aimed at bringing about a “transformation of consciousness, a spiritual awakening” that he sees as “next step in human evolution.”

“At the core of the teachings lies the simple practice of living in the present moment,” Tolle explains on his website. By doing so, “a new state of consciousness” arises. Contrary to the Christian concept of living in the present moment which calls for a profound selfgiving to God in order to achieve an ever-deepening abandonment to His will, Tolle’s version is
all about self-discovery.

“This book is about you,” he writes in A New Earth. “It will change your state of consciousness or it will be meaningless. It can only awaken those who are ready. . . . An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unawakened you, the ego as it thinks, speaks, and acts, as well as the recognition of the collectively conditioned mental processes that perpetuate the unawakened state.”

Tolle claims that this call to transformation and awakening was the central message of Jesus, Buddha, and other “great wisdom” teachers of mankind Tolle, described as having a “magical, elfin quality about him,” claims that he achieved this
transformation at the age of 29 during a crisis wherein his personality was “erased.”

“I was unhappy, depressed, anxious,” he said in a 2003 interview with writer Josh Max at a New Age think-tank known as the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. Tolle claimed that he reached a point where he could no longer live with himself.

“Suddenly, I stepped back from myself, and it seemed to be two of me – the ‘I’ and this ‘self’ that I cannot live with,” he told Max. “Am I one or am I two? And that triggered me like a koan (Zen wisdom). It happened to me spontaneously. . . . Who am I? Who is this self that I cannot live with?”

He claims that the answer came on a deeper level where he realized the consciousness he had been identifying with was “a very heavy and emotional form consisting of thoughts and accompanied by an energy field. At that moment the identification with that mind structure was withdrawn. It collapsed, and what remained was a spacious, peaceful consciousness.”

He spent many years as a recluse learning how to just “be” and lost all interest in doing or interacting. He claims to have gotten so lost in “being” that he was only “doing” enough to keep himself alive.

“Many people thought that I had become unbalanced or had gone mad,” he admitted

During those years, he devoted himself to “understanding, integrating and deepening that transformation, which marked the beginning of an intense inward journey,” he says on his website.

Educated at the Universities of London and Cambridge, Tolle slowly emerged from his isolation and began to work in London with individuals and small groups as a counselor and spiritual teacher before moving to Vancouver, Canada in 1995.

Four years later, he published his first book, The Power of Now, which became a New York Times bestseller and launched him into instant fame.

“Become present,” he writes in The Power of Now. “Be there as the observer of the mind. Instead of quoting Buddha, be the Buddha, be ‘the awakened one,’ which is what the word buddha
means.”

Statements such as these are indicative of the Human Potential Movement, a New Age concept included in a long list of self-help and motivational training programs that promote a humancentered psychology based on the belief that a person is in complete control of their destiny.

“The Human Potential Movement is the clearest example of the conviction that humans are divine, or contain a divine spark within themselves,” explain the authors of the Pontifical
document, Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life.

Tolle’s ideas found many followers, particularly at Findhorn, the holistic farming community in Scotland and original New Age Mecca, where he has given retreats.

Oprah is not a recent convert to Tolle’s teachings. She claims that she keeps a copy of The Power of Now at her bedside and thinks “it’s essential spiritual teaching. It’s one of the most valuable books I’ve ever read.” Her endorsement of the book in 2001 had much to do with it’s success, which she is now lending to Tolle’s latest work, A New Earth.

“I knew I had to share this with the world,” Oprah said, and intends to do so beginning March 3 when Tolle will join her in teaching a 10 week on-line course. Oprah hopes her Web course with Eckhart will become “the world’s largest classroom,” she said.

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