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IMAGINE TOLLE'S NEW EARTH
PART 2 of 2
By Debra Rae
July 11, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
If the XM Satellite Radio message of mega-power couple Eckhart Tolle and Oprah Winfrey were set to music, I can only imagine that Beatles’ lyrics would fit the bill quite handily. The Fab Four would have us to “imagine no countries,” adding “It isn't hard to do.” Tolle does just that in Oprah’s Book Club pick A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. New Age evangelist Eckhart Tolle broadcasts news of an imminent planetary shift, the earthly expression for which transcends the presumed-to-be outdated notion of nationhood.
Imagine Global Governance
To be sure, 21st century globalism implements a worldwide design (known as “harmonization”) that undermines sovereignty of nation-states. Today’s borderless, bio-regionally defined pan-nationalism operates under the United Nations’ guiding principle of sustainable development all the while it propels the misleading ideal of “global democracy.”
Not to be confused with God-given freedom to self-govern, democratic trans-nationalization is a buzz word for the New World Order in a New Age of spiritual enlightenment. By deifying the cosmos and releasing collective psychic energy, would-be global citizens hope to create balanced communities that boast group fusion and alignment and thereby ensure world peace.
Some seek self-liberation by means of mind-altering drugs; others, through religious ritual or relaxation biofeedback tactics, known as “the yoga of the West.” For many, a new election cycle refreshes hope for desired change in pursuit of a better world. While none of these cut the mustard, the promise of utopianism never ceases to entice the longing human heart.
Regretfully, “A New Earth” à la Tolle counterfeits the “real deal”—that being, the impending Millennial Rule of Christ on earth. In effect, Tolle’s “New Earth” exchanges the closest thing to utopia since the Garden of Eden for what the apostle Paul has aptly labeled an outright lie.
Imagine No More Wars
Favoring world dominion under a ruling elite, South African Cecil Rhodes fabricated the plan of founding “so great a power as to hereafter render wars impossible.” In the wake of war in Viet Nam, the Beatles likewise imagined “nothing to kill or die for.”
In similarly troubled times, talk-show hostess Oprah Winfrey recognizes need for peace prompted by “a civil rights movement for the soul.” Toward this end, Oprah and Friends will have completed all of the lessons laid out in the Course in Miracles workbook—this, by the end of the year.
Channeled in 1965 through Oprah’s longtime friend and special XM Satellite Radio reporter Marianne Williamson, this so-called “new revelation from Jesus” presumes to guide humanity through such a time as this. The Course advances Tolle’s wholly redefined spiritual mindset. Given that sin, evil and the devil are illusory, there remains nothing to kill or die for.
Oprah’s misplaced faith in A New Earth and The Course are sure signs of the times. An even surer sign is that most Christians are not contending for the faith as the Bible admonishes them to do. In 1773, Benjamin Franklin mused, “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” I disagree. Christians are called to “fight the good fight of faith.”
In 1997, Williamson co-founded what today is known as the Peace Alliance. Nevertheless, empty cries for peace minus the Prince of Peace threaten “sudden destruction” in lieu of any imagined utopia. Contrary to Franklin’s rumination, pseudo-peace is “bad peace.”
Imagine the Demise of Religion
A contemporary singing artist proclaims “I’m not crazy; I’m just a little unwell.” This tongue-in-cheek pronouncement most likely strikes a cord for us all. Who among us isn’t grappling with issues of heart, spirit and mind? There really are no easy answers—except, that is, in Tolle’s world. To him, wellness is defined in terms of one’s willingness to shift consciousness from “me-and-my-story” (that is, the “little me”) to grandiose interdependence and interconnectedness with all living things (Self-deification).
Hundreds of years before Christ, King Nebuchadnezzar entertained comparable delusions of grandeur upon contemplating “the might of his power” and “the honor of his majesty.” Subsequently, when driven from his kingdom to “eat grass as oxen,” the king learned a hard lesson that pride predictably precedes the proverbial fall. That “his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers” and his nails like “birds’ claws” testify to Nebuchadnezzar’s conceit-triggered insanity.
Then again, Tolle has his own take on sanity and wellness: To resist evolutionary emerging consciousness is plain-and-simple insanity, and to embrace traditional belief systems is to be unwell. Proclaiming “My God” or “our God” is what he demeans as “a mental idol,” thus making oneself “right” and others “wrong.”
In fact, Tolle predicts that rigid belief structures like biblical Christianity are destined to collapse. This forecast is reminiscent of a disturbing indictment made by Beatle John Lennon, as reported by Maureen Cleave in the London Evening Standard on 4 March 1966: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity… ."
In the words of President John Adams, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” In spite of this, along with the Beatles, Tolle imagines a world with no nationhood, no more wars and “no religion, too.”
Imagine Common-ism
Beatles’ lyrics imagine “the world as one.” This “brotherhood of man” adopted by “dreamers,” supposedly does away with possessions, greed and hunger. Looking forward, author Philip C. Born relegates communism and capitalism to the past. The –ism of tomorrow, Born contends, is common-ism. Four commissions laid its groundwork, and international socialist David Multrany pioneered its path.
Common-ism’s utopian ideology mirrors that of Tolle in featuring the global commons and village, egalitarianism and interdependence, democracy and ecology, interconnectedness and global spirituality, disarmament and world peace. For “the common heritage of mankind,” common-ism transforms private intellectual assets and nationally controlled natural resources into common property while national identities and individual religions “morph into nondescript and indistinguishable arrangements to some unidentified whole” (Tom DeWeese of the American Policy Center).
In Tolle’s world, global unity is perceived as imperative to proper flow of the god-force. Once humanity takes a “quantum leap” to its higher destiny, mystical powers and psychic ability will flourish; however, the reluctant may need to be removed to a nonphysical dimension, where their karma can catch up before they are allowed back to the physical plane!
Despite claim to the contrary, “separation” and “sense of superiority” are at the very heart of the highly anticipated New-Earth planetary shift. Although a significant segment of humanity will take the leap, thereby creating a new species, homonoeticus, a great number will not be ready.
The “we-they” construct—i.e., saved, unsaved; believer, nonbeliever; Jew, Gentile—nurtures what Tolle dubs the “I’m right—you’re wrong” fallacy. For this reason, Tolle characterizes Christianity as divisive and prohibitive. This, he claims, creates “an illusory sense of superiority” not to be found in New-Earth consciousness, but then Tolle clearly distinguishes between the “conscious” and the “unconscious,” “the perfect” and the “not-so-perfect.”
In fact, Aquarius is “the sign of the perfected man.” Furthermore, the emerging age of group consciousness (“the perfect”) is destined to supplant the old, not-so-perfect age ostensibly distinguished by antiquated Judeo-Christian religion.
Conclusion
Most accept that world order free of war, man-centric religion, possessions, greed and hunger is a good thing. Surprising to some, this pretty much encapsulates the biblical description of Christ’s forthcoming Millennial reign on earth—a long-awaited albeit unfairly maligned theosophy.
Even New Age mystics revere Jesus and acknowledge His good fruit; however, when examined in the light of world history and contemporary geo-politics, fruit produced from roots of ancient wisdom, as expounded by the Beatles and Tolle, has a proven track record of failure. Visit India or Tibet to see for yourself.
Think about it. Covetousness is to blame for human want, greed and hostilities. Not money or possessions—not even corporations, party politics, lawyers, wayward clergy or “unconscious collective human ego.”
Believe it, the God who “owns the cattle on a thousand hills” will not see His spiritual offspring “begging bread,” but in fact will “supply every need according to His riches in glory.” He alone is Source for abundant living and “peace that passes human understanding.” The Bible tells us so.
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Bottom line: There’s no need for pie-in-the-sky imaginings when biblical Christianity outright delivers in the here-and-now and also throughout eternity. The redeemed in Christ can bank on it, and “whosoever will” are invited (even compelled) to appropriate by faith God’s fail-safe promises.
