Eckhart Tolle Dominates Best Sellers Lists

Eckhart Tolle Dominates Best Seller Lists: Beautiful Summer Morning Best Seller List

March 8th, 2008

Eckhart Tolle and his bestselling book seem to be everywhere these days.
On our own list here, both “A New Earth” and “The Power of Now” top the list.
Websites around the Tolle phenomenon are proliferating.
And then there is the “Oprah Factor” .

Since designating “A New Earth” as an Opral Book Club Selection, The US publisher Penguin Group, has printed 3.5 million copies in one month, a record for any one of their books. Previously the book racked up 500,000 in sales in three years.

Over 500,000 people attempted to log in to the first of ten joint webcasts featuring Oprah and Eckhar Tolle. You can view the webcast here: http://www2.oprah.com/index.jhtml

Here are the 5 Top Selling Inspirational Books for The Week Ending March 8th, as compiled by Beautiful Summer Morning from the Amazon.com 100 Best Sellers list.

1. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle TW # 1 LW 1 # of W 4

2. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhar Tolle TW # 2 LW # 3 # of W 2

3.Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert TW # 3 LW #4 # of W 13

4.Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin TW # 4 LW # 5 # of W 19

5.The Secret by Rhonda Byrne TW # 5 LW not ranked # of W 18

Here is a Youtube video of Eckhart Tolle talking about where the name for “A New Earth” came from.

Notes on Chapter One From “The New Earth”

I invite you to participate in this discussion. I am posting here my notes on Chapter one and the notes of Puja a fellow graduate of Tools to Life. You can use the comment section below to post your insights and ideas, questions. Each week I will post on a new Chapter from the The New Earth

Here Mr Tolle takes us back 114 million years to the first plant to bloom on this planet, and many millions of years later to the eventual explosion of flowering plants. He uses this as an analogy to the what her preceives as the possible flowering of Human Consciousness today. He relates how a flower could awaken humans through its beauty and the rise in joy and love they evoke. He suggest that flowers are like a bridge between the world of form and formless. He then asks the central question of the book which explains its purpose: “Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering…?”

Mr Tolle then talks about some of the things that are holding back this flowering and ends the chapter talking about a New Earth. He talks about a passage in the New Testament that speaks of ” A new heaven and a new earth” and relates that to the “emegence of a transformed state of human consciousneess, and “a new Earth” is its reflections in the physical realm.”

I find Mr Tolle’s premise quite exciting, following as it does on the overwhelming popularity of “The Secret” and all the media generated from its release you might agree that some spiritual change is taking place on the planet, even as the bombs continure to fly.

Notes From Puja

Chapter 1 A New earth Eckhart Tolle
The main purpose of this book is to bring about a shift in Consciousness, that is to say, to awaken (pages 6)

This book can only awaken those who are ready. With each person who awakens, the momentum in the collective consciousness grows, and it becomes easier for others. (Page 7) The first Chapter itself gave me goose pimples while I was reading it; things that stood out for me are the following:
a) You become good by finding the goodness that is already within you. (Page 13)

Now I know what it means when the bible saysâ€ The kingdom of God is within youâ€. If God is equal to Goodness then â€œThe kingdom of Goodness is within youâ€â€¦.the Goodness is within usâ€¦.we just have to look inside ourselves to find it.

b)* At the heart of this new consciousness lies the transcendence of thought, a new found ability of rising thought, of realizing a dimension within yourself that is infinitely more vast than thought.

You then no longer derive your identity, your sense of who you are, from the incessant stream of thinking that in the old consciousness you take to be your self. What a liberation to realize that the â€œvoice in my headâ€ is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that. The awareness that is prior to thought, the space in which the thought- or the emotion or sense perception-happens (pages 21 & 22)

* The above paragraph is what stands out for me the most. The awareness of the above paragraph is what this book is all about I think. I have only just read the first Chapter.

c) If the structures of the human mind remains unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, and the same dysfunction. (Page 22)

I agree totally on the above point 100%.

d) We need to understand heaven is not a location but it refers to the inner realm of consciousness â€œA new Heaven â€œis the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and â€œa New earthâ€ is its reflection in the physical realm (Page 23)

The above statement has really brought home to me the understanding of the prayer I daily say and didnâ€™t understand a single word of â€œ Our fatherâ€â€¦..â€ thy will be done on earth, as it is in heavenâ€. In order for something to happen on earthâ€¦..something has to happen in Heaven first. I have to plant the right seed in Heaven so that I can materialize what I planted, on earth.