I too went through a divorce back in the early 90's and experienced the same 'judgement', (now I know all I saw was my own judgement of myself!), but the whole experience catapulted me into searching - how wonderful, how amazing to end up here! I am so grateful for those moments in my life where it has been quite painful, the pain allowed me to change direction drastically and not even realize it at the time. We need ALL of us to live this world, we are so part of the whole! It is truely a divinely ordained plan to expand. If I did not bump into others that help me to change direction where would I be today!!!! I am grateful for others that challenge me to rethink my 'way' in life instead of plonking along unknowingly!

I tend to agree that your original post is judgemental.

I agree with you.....however, I love the psychology of living in the now. I believe all truth is God's truth and that as a Christian, I should take the truth of what is being said and leave the rest. I don't want to toss out the wisdom of what is being said because I don't agree with all of it. Is this dangerous??? What would Jesus say about my thinking I wonder.

I really appreciate you sharing your belief on Christianity and who you believe Jesus is. I've always struggled to understand who Jesus actually was. Was he the son of God or the son of man? Is he God and part of the holy trinity or just an enlightened and highly advanced energetic being? A person with a tremendous gift for speaking to the masses, to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to change water to wine, etc...

As I stated, I've always struggled in my own belief on who he was. I see many contradictions in the bible as well as huge gaps in the history of his life. What did he do from the time when he was a child to an adult beginning his ministry? The bible does not tell us. Some of the contradictions I struggle with are: if God said "You shall have no other god before me", then how can Jesus be God? When people asked Jesus how to pray he gave an example by saying "Our father, who art in heaven...", not "My father who art in heaven". If he was God, why didn't he just say pray to me and not the heavenly father? Being born from a virgin is a concept hard to accept. If the virgin birth was so important to explain who he was (God) then why wasn't it mentioned in the other two gospels? These are not criticisms, just observations and questions that I have.

There have been many translations of the bible and many interpretations of what each versus means. Because there are so many interpretation, people were divided and created many forms of Christianity. I do believe that man has bastardize the true teachings of Jesus. Turning true spirituality into an ego nurturing, political organization.

Jesus had a very simple message. That message was to love each other unconditionally and completely. Be kind and generous to all living things, especially your fellow man. Help each other to grow more spiritually and to get rid of the dark, selfish side of all of us. To attain the highest level of consciousness possible.

I believe that Eckhart Tolle hit the target dead center. By eliminating the EGO (acronym for Edging God Out) we can live a life that is Christ-like. Becoming true christians. A life filled with love and gratitude. If we could all reach this level of consciousness we could eliminate war, crime, and disease. We could ensure that the earth with all of its life forms will be here for centuries to come. Wouldn't the results be astounding?

The real question is "What would Jesus do?".

I have not read all the entries so it is likely that I will repeat what some others have said. The Bible is inspired writing, not infalable writing. If you closely study how it came to be in the form it is, you would understand that the hand of man (The Church) has added and removed many parts. Layer on top of that those in power over the centuries that twisted it to mean what suited them and you end up with a book like anyother, what you get out of it is what you put into it. If you have been conditioned from an early age that the Bible and Christ deserve equal reverance, you might have a difficult time accepting concepts that differ from those you grew up with. The long held belief by many in the Christian faith is that ours is the one and only truth and true way to God. For some it is like all the answers have already been found in our version of Chrisianity and there is no room for other sources or different answers. In my opinion, this puts God in a pretty small box. I think this narrow perspective originates from ego driven power figures throughout history from Popes and King on down to televangalist and politicians using religion to control the masses. I think it is all bigger than that. I've made a switch in the last two years away from a belief in a God that I am separated from to a belief that all things are not just created by God but are created from God. Everything is made out of God. We are all expressions of God. With that belief come the understanding that all roads must without fail lead to God. I'm paraphrasing from Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations w/God books when I say Ours is one way but not the only way.

I too am Christian; perhaps you taking the book too literally. The main objective of this book is to take a deep look inside ourselves to find out what "its all about" and to get away from the materialistic ego-driven human being that has contributed to the collapse of society. In fact, I believe that is what God wants us to strive for--to be Enlightened Human Beings who care others, see the bigger picture, strive to make our lives in line with the teachings of the Bible so that we may make our experience in this earthly world as full as possible and prepare us for the the Life After with our Father!! Just take in what the author is striving for us to learn about our Ego and letting go of it to be a better Being and let go of the literal names of things , etc. Ria

As an atheist, I was originally put off by all the godist vernacular Tolle uses to support his message. I then realized that his audience/readership would be primarily supernaturalists and, therefore, would need that kind of language in order to comprehend the lessons. I knew if Oprah was partnering on this project it would have a huge following and I worried the content would be so bastardized by religion, particularly christianity, that I would be too distracted and disgusted to find the truth in what Tolle offers. I was pleasantly surprised that this book brilliantly melds the philosophy of interconnectedness/oneness with the universe, the psychology of belief and thought-stopping, and the practicalism of self-exploration with the simplicity of just fully being in each moment. A brief overview of the discussions here have left me disappointed, however. Many of the christians are totally missing the point and are so defensive of their imaginary friends in the sky that they absolutely CANNOT put the techniques to use. They are too conditioned (nice word for brainwashed). Too bad for them and for the rest of us who long for a new earth full of enlightened beings. Perhaps Tolle's next book can address how the rest of us can take these teachings to a new level leaving the supernaturalists to their own silly devices.

Wow, so much has been said . . . I agree with a few people who have posted in this thread, and disagree with a handful of others. I'm finding it hard to reply to just one person. Therefore, I'm just going to take in everything I have read thus far and spill my thoughts onto this message board.

I am Christian, but many would say I am not. While I believe in Jesus' teaching and the power of Grace, I do not believe the Bible is flawless (I mean, it was written by human after all) and I do not believe other religions are wrong. I believe that we are all children of God, all connected, and that Jesus definitely functioned on the highest level of consciousness possible. I believed this before beginning to read “A New Earth”, though it serves as a good reinforcement of my beliefs. I do not believe that Jesus was the one and only “Son of God”, nor do I believe he came to this Earth through a virgin birth. I believe that Jesus’ teaching are the best way for me to live my life and be the human being I am meant to be. Grace is all about us being human and living our flawed human existence . . . we are going to mess up and there is nothing we can do to be perfect. We just need to accept God’s Grace. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not think any other religion has Grace as one of their principles, which is the main reason I choose Christianity as my philosophy for life.

For me, I think the following words from Tolle can be deeply connected with my view of Christianity: “. . . to sin means to miss the point of human existence” (p. 9), and “We need to understand here that heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness” (p. 23). I truly believe it is a sin when people live their lives in such a way that they are constantly working to “get to heaven” or live their life based on someone else's principles because they are told to do so to save their soul. I believe by doing this, one completely misses the point of Grace and human existence. In Luke 17:20-21, Jesus was quoted as saying, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” I do believe those were Jesus’ teachings about heaven, it is everywhere and within us. I believe he was trying to get people to see that they needed to look beyond their false sense of self and false sense of life and realize they are emersed heaven, which is the same philosophy I have observed from “A New Earth thus far.