What A New Earth Book by Eckhart Tolle Means to Me - Essay Example

? A New Earth The human life, I believe, keeps continuously changing. Different incidents occurring in an individual’s life keep transforming him. After reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle I realized that this process of human transformation through the stages is natural. It is painful depending upon situation to situation, but it should be accepted as one’s fate. One needs to awaken to the real meaning or purpose of one’s life and introspect to shape it. This book has thus taught me how to channelize and mould my cognitions and actions. It is true that one never realizes the importance of a person in his/her life unless that person is detached from him/her. Just like I realized the importance of my best friend in my life when he passed away in an air crash. I had never come across such a situation before. My entire existence clung like a thread on his presence in my life and I was nothing without him. His departure from this world brought me so close to reality, it taught me the biggest lesson of my life. The way others react to such a situation is both helpful and displeasing for you. Helpful in a way, that you can vent out your feelings. You can shout, cry and yell out at them. And displeasing in the sense that everyone directs his/her sympathies towards you. It makes you a victim of self pity and denial. It hurts your ego and your conscience. The worst part of it is that you cannot share the feeling of agony and excruciating pain with anyone else. My best friend’s death left an irreparable scar on my soul. It made me feel isolated and helpless. I thought I was the only one to be a victim of this folly while everyone else lived their lives normally. I thought some calamity had struck me and it is unnatural. However after reading A New Earth, I realized that this was not anything unnatural and a lot of people in this world have been through the pain of losing their loved ones. This book gave me a part of the peace that I was long looking for. In chapters two, three and four, Tolle talks about human ego. It explains how this sense of “us” against “them” leads to lethal rivalries. He talks about how others make us a victim of inferiority complexes. This was so true in my case. Whenever I’d see a pair of best friends together in my school, I’d plunge down into an inferiority complex. Why is my best friend separated from me? I thought. I asked myself some unanswerable questions and went down the memory lane of all the good times I had spent with my best friend. The laughter, the smiles and those moments of rejoice had all become memories. It was just so hard to believe in that. This book gave me a chance to understand that the accident that occurred, occurred by the will of God and hence I shouldn’t be the one blaming myself or feeling inferior. I felt that the grief had settled within and there was no way I could be happy or jolly again. I could never be the same hyper and fun-filled person again. There are different ways in which others react to accidents or losses of this magnitude. Either they become introverts and start suppressing their feelings or they find other ways of venting out their frustrations. Some become angry, some bitter. Some try to become self-destructive in trying to cope up with the pain better, while others become jealous of people around them. It’s the feeling of loss and deprivation that inflicts more pain on you. The most appropriate lines that I found in the reading are: “Apart from the obvious ones such as anger, hatred and so on, there are other more subtle forms of negativity such as impatience, irritation, being fed up and nervousness” (Tolle 148) If you just feel that your loved one is just around you, he can feel you, he is watching you, guiding you in every step of your life. The thought that my best friend is close to me even after his departure has made me feel better and has given me strength. So it’s a trick to not think about the loss deeply when you are in such situations. This part of a prose by Rumi touched my heart deeply when I read it “Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.” (Rumi) It highlights that sorrows shall be treated with optimism no matter how intense they are. A man is a social animal. Hence, it is quite shallow to state that men can live independently of each other. However the book, A New Earth describes how a human being should live independently. Parents raise their children and spend so much time and effort on them so that they grow up to be strong and wise creatures. One should not become entirely dependent on the other person’s physical existence in this world. I learnt this lesson after the death of my best friend. Only because he is not physically present in my life does not mean that I’ve lost him. I have his memories which are now a treasure for me. He is an inspiration for me and his example provides guidance and direction in my life. Whenever I feel really down and lonely, I think about all the times we spent together and smile at them. I somewhat get strength from them. This book actually taught me how to derive strength from those memories. Also, I learnt from this book that I shouldn’t get too pessimistic about whatever happened with me. Whatever happened, happened by an unfortunate stroke of luck and I had no say in it. I really couldn’t do anything about it. Plus, this loss made me value all the other relationships that I had around me. I started loving my friends more, my family more, because I truly understood the important role they played in my life. Generally in such situations, people feel that their egos are hurt, but I tried to gain strength and extract optimism from this incident rather than proceeding towards a self-destructive stage. This book has given me peace that I was long looking for. It’s a very meaningful book to read. It relaxes your mind and your soul, it touches your heart. Works Cited Rumi. "The Guest House." Harper San Francisco, 2004. Tolle, Eckhart. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. GALE/Cengage Learning, 2008. Read More