Awaken Your Spirit

Margit is a lay minister from Texas who says she's changed the way she teaches after reading A New Earth. She says pages 70 and 71, where Eckhart writes about a Zen master watching an archery competition, provided her a deeper understanding of her faith. In the story, a man is struggling to win a competition, but the Zen master says it is the man's need to win that drains him of his power. During the discussion of Chapter 3, Eckhart explained, "So his attention is not totally in the now. Because to have mastery in any endeavor, whatever it is, you need to be total in what you do."

A New Earth has also shown Margit a different way of looking at Jesus Christ. "I've always tried to find a deeper inner connection with the purpose that Christ had here on earth," Margit says. "All my life, I thought it was just for him to die on the cross for my sins. But I now recognize that Jesus actually taught me Christ consciousness. To be fully human is to be Christ-like."