作者：Eckhart Tolle
来源：微盘下载PDF版，Neptun推荐
刚开始拿到书的时候，很犹豫是否要阅读一本“畅销书”，《A New Earth》2000年的时候在北美的销售量是500万本，而畅销书往往为自身的易懂和阅读友好而添加了鸡汤和浮夸，不过鉴于推荐人 Neptun 的影响力，还是抱着很认真的态度开始阅读，书的内容反复围绕Ego、Awareness、Consciousness等几个概念展开，可能是以往接触少的缘故，有非常多的启发，书的逻辑和推演都不错，以至于我可以当做哲学书来读，收获不小，如果算上涟漪的话未来应该更大。
《A New Earth》属于灵修类的书籍（Don‘t panic!），作者 Eckhart Tolle 在1977年因抑郁自杀的经历而得到了“inner transformation”，而后经过20多年的灵修导师经历后，撰写了《The Power of Now》和《A New Earth》两部著作：
I couldn’t live with myself any longer. And in this a question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void! I didn’t know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or “beingness,” just observing and watching.
在阅读本书的时候，我正在学习 Mindfulness，阅读到一半的时候开始进行 Meditation，收尾的时候简单的了解了作者思考来源 Krishnamurti（克里希那穆提）的背景和思想，Krishnamurti 其超越宗教的灵性研究，确实对于我很有吸引力，以后可以延展开来深入学习。
本书涵盖的一些基本概念的解释：
old ego：a dysfunctional relationship with the present moment.
pain-body: the shadow aspect of our being, the emotional part of the old ego.
new ego: enjoy and accept thepresent moment.
awareness: the greatest agent for change.
new consciousness: based on the awareness that one life pervades all things tofeeling joy and love.
本书开篇最具有核心价值的内容是揭示了 old ego “总是需要更多”的本质，渴望出类拔萃、显的与众不同、享有掌控、渴望权力、受人关注、索求更多等等形成人类痛苦的根源，造成人际关系的冲突，也是人类面临的最大危机，因为实现 old ego 通过awareness 而转换为new ego，从而达到new consciousness 的状态，实现人与世界的和谐：The modalities of awakened doing are acceptance, enjoyment, andenthusiasm.
这里有一篇梳理的很清晰的书评（带图）：http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_9d51beed01011m4g.html
Oprah 为此书做过10集的作者访谈，加起来差不多有15个小时：http://www.oprah.com/app/a-new-earth.html
Youtube上面可以找到带中文字幕的版本：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz0e9LrOsyk
很多人在阅读本书的前后，自己的内心已经对现实社会的不兼容而心力交瘁，而对于我而言，最艰巨的挑战是认可作者理论的前提下，让自己调整后的状态能够帮助到斯程的发展，有朋友在读完书以后不再用微博，删除所有游戏APP，开始寻找平静的生活，追寻更多的阅读和修行，我也要渐渐调解好自己内心和商业世界的关系，这里一定要慎重慎重再慎重。
阅读《A New Earth》感觉像是进入了一个新的英语词汇体系，不认识的单词狂多，不能像阅读技术文档那样的顺畅和快速，也客观的反省自己的英语还需要精进，不能懈怠，接下来阅读的话，有原版的书就少看翻译版了。
人对于生命的思考，会在物质极其丰富或者匮乏的情况下发生，尤其在失去的时候会更有力的冲击到自己的 old ego，但是绝大部分人都不会有这样的机会，许多人即使阅读此书也不会有信仰上的冲击感，更不会当成信仰上的力量去支持自己的整个人生，因为需要好几个维度的交叉才能接近这个点：极好的高等教育、深度的迷失、对宗教的怀疑态度、自由主义价值观。
《A New Earth》所建立和阐述的理论，貌似还并不归属于任何现有的学术领域，但是由于其巨大的发行量，一定会渗透到很多的学术领域中（maybe心理学、宗教学、哲学、社会学、人类学），期待这朵花的绽放。
摘要：
Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an innerflowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering ofplants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection? Can human beingslose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become likecrystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light ofconsciousness? Can they defy the gravitational pull of materialism andmateriality and rise above identification with form that keeps the ego inplace and condemns them to imprisonment within their own personality?
The possibility of such a transformation has been the central messageof the great wisdom teachings of humankind. The messengers – Buddha,Jesus, and others, not all of them known – were humanity’s early flowers.They were precursors, rare and precious beings. A widespread flowering wasnot yet possible at that time, and their message became largelymisunderstood and often greatly distorted. It certainly did not transformhuman behavior, except in a small minority of people.
Homeopathy andChinese medicineare two examples of possible alternative approaches to disease that do nottreat the illness as an enemy and therefore do not create new diseases.
Complaining is one of the ego's favorite strategies for strengthening itself.Resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mentallabeling of people and adds even more energy to the ego.
the threepredominant states of egoic relationship are: wanting, thwarted wanting(anger, resentment, blaming, complaining), and indifference.
Sometimes organizations or entire nations have paranoid belief systemsat their very basis.
An infant with only a light pain bodyis not necessarily going to be aspiritually “more advanced” man or woman than somebody with a denseone. In fact, the opposite is often the case. People with heavy pain bodiesusually have a better chance to awaken spiritually than those with a relativelylight one. Whereas some of them do remain trapped in their heavy pain bodies,many others reach a point where they cannot live with theirunhappiness any longer, and so their motivation to awaken becomes strong.
It would be hard to find a partner whodoesn't carry a pain body;but it would perhaps be wise to choose someonewhose pain bodyis not excessively dense.
If you were not familiar with our contemporary civilization, if you hadcome here from another age or another planet, one of the things that wouldamaze you is that millions of people love and pay money to watch humanskill and inflict pain on each other and call it “entertainment.”
The popular tabloid press does not primarily sell news but negativeemotion – food for the pain body.“Outrage” screams the threeinchheadline, or “Bastards.” The British tabloid press excels at this. They knowthat negative emotion sells far more papers than news does.
Certain countries in which many acts of collective violence weresuffered or perpetrated have a heavier collective pain bodythan others. Thisis why older nations tend to have stronger pain bodies.It is also why youngercountries, such as Canada or Australia, and those that have remained moresheltered from the surrounding madness, such as Switzerland, tend to havelighter collective painbodies.
China's heavy pain bodyis to some extent mitigated bythe widespread practice of t'ai chi, which amazingly was not declared illegalby the Communist government that otherwise feels threatened by anything itcannot control. Every day in the streets and city parks, millions practice thismovement meditation that stills the mind. This makes a considerabledifference to the collective energy field and goes some way towarddiminishing the pain bodyby reducing thinking and generating Presence.
The thinking mind cannot understand Presence and so will oftenmisinterpret it. It will say that you are uncaring, distant, have no compassion,are not relating. The truth is, you are relating but at a level deeper thanthought and emotion. In fact, at that level there is a true coming together, atrue joining that goes far beyond relating. In the stillness of Presence, youcan sense the formless essence in yourself and in the other as one. Knowingthe oneness of yourself and the other is true love, true care, true compassion.
The next step in human evolution is not inevitable, but for the firsttime in the history of our planet, it can be a conscious choice. Who ismaking that choice? You are. And who are you? Consciousness that hasbecome conscious of itself.
Who they think they are is this: “I am a needy 'little me' whose needsare not being met.” This basic misperception of who they are createsdysfunction in all their relationships. They believe they have nothing to giveand that the world or other people are withholding from them what theyneed. Their entire reality is based on an illusory sense of who they are. Itsabotages situations, mar all relationships. If the thought of lack – whether itbe money, recognition, or love – has become part of who you think you are,you will always experience lack. Rather than acknowledge the good that isalready in your life, all you see is lack. Acknowledging the good that isalready in your life is the foundation for all abundance. The fact is: Whateveryou think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from theworld. You are withholding it because deep down you think you are smalland that you have nothing to give.
J. Krishnamurti, the great Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher,spoke and traveled almost continuously all over the world for more than fifty
years attempting to convey through words whichare content – that which isbeyond words, beyond content. At one of his talks in the later part of his life,he surprised his audience by asking, “Do you want to know my secret?”Everyone became very alert. Many people in the audience had been comingto listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still failed to grasp the essenceof his teaching. Finally, after all these years, the master would give them thekey to understanding. “This is my secret,” he said. “I don't mind whathappens.”
If you look within rather than only without, however, you discover thatyou have an inner and an outer purpose, and since you are a microcosmicreflection of the macrocosm, it follows that the universe too has an inner andouter purpose inseparable from yours. The outer purpose of the universe is tocreate form and experience the interaction of forms – the play, the dream, thedrama, or whatever you choose to call it. Its inner purpose is to awaken to itsformless essence. Then comes the reconciliation of outer and inner purpose:to bring that essence – consciousness – into the world of form and therebytransform the world.
The modalities of awakened doing are acceptance, enjoyment, andenthusiasm.
网友评论