The Book, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle--In My Opinion a Must Read

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For anyone who is "searching" for themselves, wants to better themselves and have new meaning and a transformation in their lives, I highly recommend the book "A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose" by Eckhart Tolle. This is the very same book that, that wonderful woman who I "met" on the Oprah.com message boards who without asking anything in return sent me a copy free (You can see this amazing act of generosity in my discussion about "It Sometimes Really Amazes Me: The Kindness of People") Well I got the book just yesterday and started reading it and I can see what all the hubbub is all about. I've only read the first Chapter...now I understand where the author is "at" and what he is saying, it is a rather "deep" book and many just might not "get" it. I'm used to reading "heavy" stuff so I'm not having any problem with it...LOL Now admittedly this book won't be everyone's cup of tea...I also belong to the Oprah messages boards and of course there are discussions there about the book, and my oh my, the majority of people are in an uproar and bashing it to pieces, particularly those of many of the Christian faith...especially those who take the Bible as absolute truth...the ones who don't believe in reincarnation, or don't believe that animals have souls and of course those who believe that only those who follow "their" beliefs will go to heaven. Basically what Tolle says in his first chapter are things that I've come to the conclusion to many, many years ago...that because the Bible has been translated so many times in so many different languages that the original meanings have been lost, and also as I had pointed out in one of my other discussions in questioning the literal truths of the Bible, that much of what was originally written in the Bible was deleted by the Church. He points out how the original teachings of not only Christ, but ANY spiritual avatar, even Buddha have been twisted and misinterpreted. For instance, he goes into the concept of the REAL meaning of original sin...it's NOT the way the Christian church teaches it...that "sin" in the original Greek, means to miss the mark.."So to sin means to miss the point of human existence" (page 9-ANE) this is a far cry what Christianity teaches as original sin. I think one of the key messages I got from the first chapter is in essence the whole idea that if we don't learn from the past, we are condemned to repeat it...isn't this true? We know history, we know of the genocide the human species has done in the past...yet have we learned from the past? Aren't we STILL doing that? And not only to the people of the earth, but the earth itself and of all the living creatures on it. Here's an excerpt that stood out like wildfire to me:"We only need to watch the daily news on television to realize that the madness has not abated, that it is continuing into the twenty-first century. Another aspect of the collective dysfunction of the human mid is the unprecedented violence that humans are inflicting on other life-forms and the planet itself--the destruction of oxygen-producing forests...ill-treatment of animals in factory farms...Driven by greed, ignorant of their connectedness to the whole, humans persist in behavior that,if continued ...can only result in their own destruction..." (page 11-ANE, Tolle) No this book won't be everyone's cup of tea...not everyone will "get" it, or understand it and it does shatter perhaps many people's religious beliefs particularly those raised a certain way and aren't opened minded enough to accept other "truths" or philosophies that are different from their own. I do, however, highly recommend it to anyone who is still in an ongoing search for understanding who we are...to maybe gain some insight to that perpetual question, "Why am I here?"Like I said I only read the first chapter and love this book already!