Oprah's Book Club has catapulted A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle into the one of the top slots of  Best Sellers at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the USA Today Best Seller List. Advocating her audience read the new non-fiction book, Oprah and the author will together teach an online class about how to awaken yourself.  You won't be setting the alarm clock a little earlier, but will need to be available on Monday evenings for the event.

Eckhart Tolle writes that the purpose of A New Earth is to "bring about a shift of consciousness."  It is a book "about you."  He believes that the history of humanity is a history of madness, ie. wars, slavery, conquest, destruction of the natural world, etc..  He has a point here.  We must, he says "evolve or die."  In doing so, we will take on a new religion, spirituality, ideology, mythology, or belief system.  If the human mind remains structured as it is, unchanged, we will persist in reinventing the wheel, or repeating our human history, depleting ourselves one generation at a time.

A New Earth asks the reader to transform himself by becoming aware.  Eckhart Tolle writes, "Thinking without awareness is the main dilemma of human existence."  Not long ago, I was speaking with a good friend about conscious choices we make as individuals, set apart from our families or origins.  If we choose to deliberately alter our lives and therefore our thoughts, we become something different.  We actually choose who we want to be.  Think of Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle: A Memoir, who decided not to be the free soul her mother had been.

Our minds are conditioned by our pasts--our environment, our upbringing, and our surrounding culture.  Tolle's correct on this point too.  He also believes that we identify ourselves with our stuff.  Do you own a Rolex?  Would you feel better if you did?  Will you never feel good about yourself because you don't own one? 

"The people in the advertising industry know very well that in order to sell things that people don't really need, they must convince them that those things will add something to how they see themselves or are seen by others; in other words, add something to their sense of self.....You are not buying a product but an identity enhancer."   Your ego says, "Hey, you need this to feel better."  Honor your things, Tolle writes, but don't use them for self-enhancement.

Identification with things begins an attachment to stuff, which creates an obsession for stuff. Think about Peter Walsh's mantra, "It's All Too Much."  Society has become consumed with consumerism or growth.  It is the hallmark of progress, and if left unchecked, Tolle says, is "a dysfunction and a disease."

How do others see you?  Do you feel that you need to live up to their expectations of what they expect?  Is this who you are? You are who you believe yourself to be.  Be aware of your attachment to things.  Be aware of your background, what you say, and what you think.

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