Eckhart Tolle's New Earth

After several emails, forwards and conversations, and a fair amount of time thinking about it, I think I might be ready to make a comment or two on the global craze that is Eckhart Tolle and his latest book, A New Earth.

In case you haven't heard of him, Eckhart Tolle is a spiritual teacher who has been made wildly famous by Oprah's unprecedented support of his latest book, A New Earth. She's initiating book club discussion groups on the work all around the world.

Full disclosure: despite some insistence that I try it out, I've not read the book, but merely scanned it while standing in the aisles at Barnes & Noble. I think, though, that I've got a working familiarity with the concepts.

Tolle is claiming that humanity has arrived at a moment of great and terrible crisis, one that is so pervasive that it threatens the whole planet. The situation is so severe that we're in need of "a new earth." We, all people, or at least a significant portion of the human population, must rally together and be changed, so that we can save our species and our home.

As a follower of Jesus and as one dedicated to leading a community of Jesus followers, I agree. Our world is in a state of crisis, and a severe one at that. And I think Jesus would agree; Jesus spoke and lived as if a crisis were at hand. In fact, Tolle evokes Jesus and biblical imagery at many points. He specifically mentions Jesus in at least one place that I read, as a great spiritual teacher who would support his understanding. As I've thought about it, I think that Tolle is probably right - I think it likely that Jesus would agree that we're in a great crisis and in need of "a new earth." In fact, that phrase, "A New Earth," is actually biblical language. The biblical vision for creation is that of "a new heavens and a new earth." So Tolle is casting a vision for hope rooted in the biblical language, and (rightly, I'm thinking) calling on Jesus as a supporter in his cause.

But that's about the limit to the extent in which Tolle's book could be considered biblical or in line with the biblical narrative. In terms of method - how do we actually achieve this vision for "a new earth" - Tolle's line of thinking is rooted deeply in Buddhist philosophy and practice, with some pop-psychology and evolutionary science mixed in. Let me make two cases in point, then sum up.

Tolle sees the coming into being of this "new earth" as the next (critically important) step in humanity's evolutionary progression. Without this step, he says (or at least implies), our species suffers extinction, and with us the whole planet. Now what I'm not wanting to do is critique the whole idea of evolution, but rather the idea that our hope for the future is part of an evolutionary progression. To say this locates our hope in the past, or, maybe, in the present; Tolle's story says our hope lies in our being able to use the past to arise out of the present. But the biblical narrative locates our hope for the future in the future. According to the biblical story, our future hope rushes to meet us. We don't rise up (by our own bootstraps) to meet God in the future, rather God comes down to us and invades our world and transforms it. The Incarnation of Jesus, of course, is a clear expression of this, but we see it other places, too - the way Jesus describes to Nicodemus (John 3) that we are "born from above;" the way the resurrected Jesus is described (in 1 Corinthians 15) as the firstfruits of the general resurrection of the dead that is yet to come; the way Jesus is described as descending to the earth (in Ephesians 4); and the poetic language of Revelation 21, which pictures our ultimate end (the new heavens and the new earth) as heaven coming down to earth (and not vice versa). Making our hope out to be about our rising up through evolutionary effort, as Tolle has it, is, of course, a fairly classic Buddhist way of thinking about the spiritual life. Jesus understood the world to have been created by a living and powerful God who loved that world and all its people so much that he would stop at nothing to see that world and his relationship with those people redeemed, restored and renewed. But Buddhism has no god. Instead, the Buddha taught that hrough the ages-long process of karma, we better ourselves and (hopefully) the world. There are some surface points of similarity between the teachings of Jesus and the Buddha, but it is important to see that they are radically different below the surface.

One of those points of surface similarity is another important part of the "argument" Tolle is advancing. If I understand him correctly, a necessary feature of making this evolutionary progression is by "embracing the Now." This is where this book, A New Earth, builds on his previous best-seller, The Power of Now. If my understanding is correct, and I'd welcome feedback if I'm wrong, this concept of "embracing the now" is a mixture of psychological advice about not fixating on what you can't control, Buddhist philosophy about detachment, and a dressed-up gnosticism that seeks to make the inner world of the spirit as more important than the physical world of our everday. (I think) it is designed to help us not dwell on the past nor to be anxious about the future. Let me say that I think there can be a lot of wisdom in these ideas. Too often we (especially in the American West) are burdened with obsessions about the past and anxieties for the future. In fact, Tolle's teachings bear a surface similarity to Jesus' teachings in Matthew 6, especially verses 25 and 34. They are both saying similar things - don't be anxious, etc. - but they are getting at this through two very different means. Best I can tell, Tolle is advocating that we arrive at this place of peace through a detached focus on the self (cf. the summary of The Power of Now at the link above). Jesus, however, is saying that we arrive at this anxiety-free living by focusing on God - trusting in provision and pursuing his purposes. Jesus says that it is only as we stop focusing on ourselves and instead trust God to provide for our needs as we pursue his purposes, that we'll know real and lasting peace and freedom from anxiety. Which is right? Try it and find out.

Jesus practiced what he preached. He trusted in God's provision, he pursued God's purposes first - and as a result he enjoyed a life of intimate connection with God, deep connection and compassion for others, and he knew abiding joy and peace in his personal life. He was given to neither fear nor anxiety. Jesus has spelled this out; he's shown us the way. And yet we've taken his stated goal and filled it with a different method and agenda. Why? The power of Jesus' life is such that, even today, after 2000 years, people like Eckhart Tolle are trying to leverage on his teachings. So why don't we just follow Jesus?

Here's what I think. I think that if Jesus and Eckhart Tolle were to meet, Jesus would say, "Eckhart, follow me." Jesus would continue, "You're right, Eckhart, there is a crisis and our hope, our need, is for a new earth. So follow me. Live out what I lived and taught. Know that your Father in the heavens knows that you need all these things. And join me in seeking first God's kingdom, and those things which make for his goodness and justice, and be assured that all these things will be added to you."

That's some, at least, of what I think about Eckhart Tolle's new book, A New Earth.