A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle Summary & Lessons
The book provides an overview of the problems facing the modern world but then offers opportunities for hope. We can be the ones who solve these problems. A New Earth offers where we should start and how we should continue solving these problems. This journey starts with our problems with our ego, consciousness, and spirituality.
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle Summary & Lessons
The disease of compulsive thinking
“Most people are still completely identified with the incessant stream of mind, of compulsive thinking, most of it repetitive and pointless.”
Most of us are completely identified with our mind – our thoughts, sensations, and emotions. We constantly revisit unproductive thought loops and live in our heads. We rarely enter the present moment and experience the abundant life that’s right in front of us.
The Ego State
“The ego identifies with having, but its satisfaction in having is a relatively shallow and short-lived one. Concealed within it remains a deep-seated sense of discontent, of incompleteness, of ‘not enough.’ ‘I don’t have enough yet,’ by which the ego means, ‘I am not enough yet.”
The ego is never satisfied. It will continue to reset the bar, constantly needing more. Any satisfaction will be short-lived and quickly be accompanied by a feeling of inadequacy that will plague even the most successful of people.
“No content will satisfy you, as long as the egoic structure remains in place. No matter what you have or get, you won’t be happy.”
When you are absorbed by the ego, you will constantly seek more things on your path to fulfillment. You will falsely believe that what you strive for will fulfill the lack you feel within, but in reality, you will just continue to feel hollow.
Dangers of beauty
“If you don’t equate the body with who you are, when beauty fades, vigor diminishes, or the body becomes incapacitated, this will not affect your sense of worth or identity in any way.”
If you build any part of your self-worth on how your body looks, you are setting yourself up for a miserable future. Beauty inevitably fades, and when it does, the bedrock of your identity will also fade if it’s tied to your beauty.
Download Audio Books It’s better to align yourself with values that can exist throughout life, such as compassion, growth, and kindness.
Complaining and the ego
“When you complain, by implication you are right and the person or situation you complain about or react against is wrong.
“There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position – a perspective, an opinion, a judgment, a story.
6 Books Recommended By BTS’ Suga Read & That You Should ReadFor you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, and so the ego loves to make wrong to be right. In other words: You need to make others wrong to get a stronger sense of who you are.”
When you complain, you’re implying that your perspective about how the situation should be is right. And for that to be true, someone else, or nature itself, has to be wrong. So your ego loves to make others or a situation “wrong.”
How to combat the ego
“All that is required to become free of the ego is to be aware of it since awareness and ego are incompatible. Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. The ultimate purpose of human existence…is to bring that power into this world.”
Living in the present moment is the cure for being consumed by the ego. The ego exists in time, in the past, and in the future.
Because the ego is tied to thoughts, stories, and events that exist in time. So cultivating your awareness, your present, is how you combat the ego.
Do you feel superior or inferior?
“Whenever you feel superior or inferior to anyone, that’s the ego in you.” Observe those times when you feel better or worse than someone. When you get lost in the world of comparison, that’s your ego speaking.
Everything Is Fucked by Mark Manson: Why You Should Read ItYou’re losing yourself to some story about how you or others should or should not be. It’s a relative comparison that’s bound to end up in suffering and disappointment.
Being a victim
Seeing oneself as a victim is an element in many egoic patterns, such as complaining, being offended, outraged, and so on.”
The ego plays many roles, and one of the most common roles is that of the victim. Being a victim in the egoic sense means that you want others to be interested in you and your problems. It can take many forms, including complaining or being outraged.
Do small things both you?
“What matters to you is not necessarily what you say or believe, but what your actions and reactions reveal as important and serious to you. If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small. That will be your unconscious belief.”
Lesson Learnt The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-sabotage Into Self-masteryIf you say or believe that you can weather big storms, take a candid look at your actions and responses to different situations. Have you let a small event bother you? Have you gotten unreasonably frustrated or upset by something that you wouldn’t expect to phase you? If so, it doesn’t matter that you think you’re indestructible.
On a subconscious level, you will feel that you are on par with the “small” nature of being bothered by minor events.
Lack and abundance
“If the thought of lack – whether it be money, praise, or love – has become part of who you think you are, you will always experience lack. Rather than acknowledge the good that is already in your life, all you see is lack.
Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” Do you have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset? The difference is critical. If you think of the “lack” in your life across any domain, you’re laying the foundation for a scarcity mindset.
When you think in terms of abundance, you see the good in your life. You feel gratitude for both what you do have and what you don’t have. Abundance is empowering; scarcity is disempowering.
The collective disease of unhappiness
“Unhappiness or negativity is a disease on our planet. What pollution is on the outer level negativity on the inner? It is everywhere, not just in places where people don’t have enough, but even more so where they have more than enough. Is that surprising? No. The rich world is even more deeply identified with form, more lost in content, more trapped in ego.”
Negativity is pollution for the soul. Yet, millions of people live in affluence and still spread their unhappiness and negativity far and wide. They’re completely trapped with the unfulfilling, egoic identification with form and fail to realize how toxic their attitude is.
Nothing real has been diminished
“When you are seemingly diminished in some way and remain in absolute no reaction, not just externally but also internally, you realize that nothing real has been diminished, that through becoming ‘less,’ you become more.”
Did the words of a friend hurt? Did the actions of a partner sting? When you learn to not take things so personally and remain in no reaction to what happens, you begin to realize that you don’t need to sit in a hole of negativity for weeks. By simply changing your attitude, you can find peace and diminish the pain in your life.
When you become aware of the transience of all forms, your attachment to them lessons, and you disidentify from them to some extent.”
When you realize that all emotions, achievements, and thoughts will pass, you become less attached to everything in your life. From the awareness that everything in life is quick, you begin to lighten your step. You suffer less. You appreciate it more.
Inner vs. outer purpose
“Your inner purpose is to awaken.” “I am not saying here that helping others, caring for your children, or striving for excellence in whatever field are not worthwhile things to do. but outer purpose alone is always relative, unstable, and impermanent.”
“Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.”
Your inner purpose is to become more conscious. It’s to live in the present moment. Your outer purpose is that which you strive for. It could be helping others, caring for your kids, or being the CEO of a billion-dollar company.
Your inner purpose is primary; your outer purpose is secondary. When you focus on your outer purpose – no matter how noble it may be – you won’t find enduring peace and fulfillment since all forms of outer purpose are unstable, relative, and impermanent.
But when you approach your outer purpose with full awareness, you will not only feel more joy in the journey, but you will accelerate your path to what you hope to achieve.
Getting comfortable with uncertainty
“When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change.”
Does the fear of uncertainty drive your decisions? Are you uncomfortable with ambiguity? If so, your life may be driven by fear. You may not be able to take actions that will initiate the change that you need in your life.
Don’t wait for old age or tragedy to begin your path
Time and time again, I’ve observed that the people who are most “awake” are those who have experienced tragedy, loss, or a personal health crisis. The immediacy and tangible nature of our ephemerality seem to awaken the spirit to the precarious nature of our existence.
But you don’t have to wait for this moment to happen. You can begin down the path at any time that you wish. It’s a decision you need to make.
You can only lose something you have
Whether it’s the stuff that fills your apartment, a relationship, or something else, don’t hold too close to what you have. Any day, these things can be taken away from you, and if you’re holding on too tight you might be devastated.
Instead, orient yourself to working on what you are. For example, live compassionately and honestly. Your compassion and kindness cannot be taken away from you. They are a part of what you are.
Stress is toxic
“Stress always diminishes both the quality and effectiveness of what you do under its influence. There is also a strong link between stress and negative emotions, such as anxiety and anger. It is toxic to the body and is now becoming recognized as one of the main causes of so-called degenerative diseases such as cancer and heart disease.”
Are you stressed out? Do you feel consistent anxiety and anger? If so, the quality of your work, no matter how much you care about it, will suffer. Quality is produced when acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm are brought to your work. Stress erodes quality, both what you do and your body.
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