Eckhart Tolle’s second book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, is a very accessible and encouraging read. Maybe you’ve heard Oprah mention him. There is a lot of wisdom in the book that can help with explaining and overcoming all sorts of pain and unhappiness, with a nice vision for the way the world can be.
Lessons for Yogis:
1.) We humans become identified with the voice in our head, with a sense of individual self, with Ego, naturally. Yoga can help release thoughts through awareness and presence.
2.) In this book, the “old but still very-much-alive emotion” that lives in each of us is called the pain-body. Yoga can be a powerful tool to increase mindfulness, and with mindfulness we may see what triggers our pain-body. Then we can choose to respond differently instead of reacting out of its instincts for stirring up trouble.
3.) Yoga is one of the practices Tolle encourages among spiritual practices that involve the physical body, practices that “do not create a separation between body and spirit and are helpful in weakening the pain-body.” Reducing thinking and generating Presence can help the collective energy field.
One of my best friends, Joanna originally lent me a copy of this at a good time for me. I picked up my own at Nice Price in Durham a few years later, and if you’re in one of my yoga classes I’d be happy to lend it to you. I think I also have the CD’s from getting the audiobook
GROUNDING YOGA 