A New Earth

Comments on Eckhart Tolle's: A New Earth, awakening to your life's purpose

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We consider Eckhart Tolle's book "A New Earth, awakening to your life's purpose" as a valuable new contribution to our understanding of the human condition and a worthy sequel to his first book, "The Power of Now". In our view it is one of the contemporary books that no doubt help to prepare the way to the Point Omega transition. That is why we also discuss it here.

Tolle argues that most of us are caught in sub-optimal neurotic states all the time. These abominable states pass however for "normal" and he explains in great detail the alternatives that are possible and available to us instead of those perpetual neuroses. He also presents a number of practical methods to enhance the development in oneself of those more agreeable alternative states of being. As such, it is another guide to enlightenment, and a rather effective guide at that.

In order to further increase the effectiveness of Eckhart Tolle's book, we will give below a number of additional facts and notions that can make the story of "A New Earth" more complete, easier to fully understand and thus more effective.

We will point out here a couple of blank spots of missing information in his book, which we then will fill out and we will also discuss some issues that we do interpret in a somewhat different way, in order to make the total picture still more comprehensive and easier to understand from an evolutionary point of view.

Neurotic Normalcy and Reversal Theory

Tolle stresses that it is of the utmost importance that people (re)gain the capacity to be in the "here and now" more often and that being more often in the "now" also brings about better feelings and better development and growth. He says that being in the "now" produces more awareness and a better understanding of oneself and of one's situation. Being in the "now" stills the ever blabbering radio in one's head and reduces the needs of the ego.

In terms of "Reversal Theory" and of our CEL model (Cognition Energy Learning model) what Tolle describes with "being in the now" is basically the Paratelic State, one of the always alternating antagonist emotional - motivational states. The "Telic" and the "Paratelic" state continuously reverse into one another, but in most people the Telic state (goal directed and re-active) is the most dominant of these two emotional - motivational state.

Tolle advertizes a shift from living in egoïc states in which the brain is continuously pre-occupied with thoughts about the past or about the future, to living in the "here and now" in which awareness grows and feelings can expand to eventually merge with the whole. From Reversal Theory we can however derive that being in the "here and now" is just one of the two basic meta-motivational states and that both of these two states, the "Telic" state and the "Paratelic" state do need to alternate in order to function properly and to develop properly. One cannot be continuously in just one of these two meta-motivational states and keep growing and developing properly. That just doesn't work. Dynamic alternations between these states are totally indispensable for a healthy development. Tolle's description of the usual, ordinary state of human beings (neurotic, egoïc, full of fears) basically is a description of the usual, ordinary human state of mind, in which the "Telic" state is highly dominant over the "Paratelic" state and in fact to such an extent, that most people have hardly any awareness at all about the characteristics of the paratelic state. Taking into account the dynamics and the mechanisms of the meta-motivational reversal system in human beings and in fact in any animal with a distinct learning capacity, Tolle's message becomes easier to grasp and in particular it becomes clear how it exactly operates and why his observations and predictions are correct indeed.

Asking the right questions

Having arrived at the point of understanding Tolle's message better with help of Reversal Theory, we still should answer the question of why on earth we humans usually find ourselves in a condition in which the paratelic meta-motivational state seems to be relatively suppressed and malfunctioning (being very little in the here and now and if so, not being aware of it). According to Reversal Theory and to the CEL, continuously alternating between the paratelic state (the here and now) and the telic state (goal directed and re-active) is needed for a proper development which is in fact our birthright. According to our basic design, we humans should be in the here and now quite regularly and in fact during an important part of the time. How can it be that a whole species functions sub-optimally? Not just a few failures and defective specimens but virtually the whole human race. This assertion sounds outragious and highly improbable at the very least. How can it be evolutionarily stable to function far below one's innate capacities? Translated in terms of Tolle's message: why is it that human beings mostly have lost their capacity to be in the "now" regularly and to enjoy broad and sharp awareness of everything ? If Tolle is right, then it is very strange that such an attractive and in many many respects superior state of mind has not always been the standard rather than the exception.

Self-blindness, the price we paid for higher intelligence

The why of this unpleasant state of the human species is explained in Point Omega. Since the emergence of a superior level of intelligence in early hominids, an awareness block regarding our own behaviour was built into our (hardware)system making it utterly difficult to apply our newly gained intelligence to steer and modify our own (social) behaviour. Without such an intelligence block against the application of intelligence on the own behaviour, intelligence could never have evolved to the present level in humans. Apart from and on top of that, the agricultural revolution released the development of ever stronger power structures, which are basically information (software) packages, competing evolutionarily with one another. Therefore, since some 10.000 years, humans have been subjected to a very strong selection pressure to be able to function as agents of such impersonal power structures, rather than as individuals in their own right (in the classical evolutionary sense, as is the case in any other species). We are selected as Meme-carriers, rather than as members of a species in its own right, as was still the case with our hominid ancestors. It can be shown that the neurotic, egoïc, unaware state of mind, battered continuously by an incessant flow of compulsive thought processes, is an unavoidable result of the selective pressure on human beings during the last 10.000 years, which selection to a high degree makes use of the typically human propensity for blindness regarding its own behaviour (see Point Omega and The significance of the Point Omega transition).

Explaining the "how" and "why" of Point Omega

The combined contributions on the Point Omega Research Wiki render an integrated picture that explains the how and the why of the present human condition of truncated behaviour patterns, mass neuroticism and concomitant misery. Also, after explaining the precise workings of the mechanisms involved, it also allows us to predict that by now humanity is in a position to escape from the clusters of the meme-power-structures that rule our existence since thousands of years. The reason why these novel possibilities are just now emerging, is also explained in detail on this Wiki (see Main Page). This Wiki is therefore in strong support of Tolle's ideas that mankind is capable by now to launch itself out of misery and into a new world of unprecedented possibilities. What it adds is a more detailed and thorough understanding of the how and why of this novel and promising situation in human evolution. It also explains why this new possibility never was available before and on the other hand also why it unavoidably had to come some time in the future, which moment in time is most likely "now", the days we are living in.

5)"Trying" to be in the Here and Now, a paradox

One of Tolle's central tenets is that the best approach to improving one's situation and ridding oneself of the delusions of the common neuroticizing structures, the unceasing avalanche of thoughts and the perpetual stress and unhappiness involved, is to focus more on the here and now. The idea is to gradually get the hang of stimulating the moments of mental stillness and peace by focussing more on the here and now. He also gives arguments to not give the ever flowing stream of thoughts and ideas too much credit because much of it is based on or creating illusions and delusions for the sake of maintaining the ego structures and other fears that rule our lives.

Whereas it seems quite usefull or at least harmless to spend more time in the here and now than is customary in our culture, Reversal Theory and the CEL (Cognition Energy Learning model) predict that it is almost impossible to follow that advice of Tolle directly and consciously.

According to the Reversal Theory, Tolle's advice boils down to "trying to be and stay in the Paratelic State". That however, cannot be done on purpose, because reversing into and out of the Telic and Paratelic metamotivational states is to a high degree involuntary and automatic. If one wishes to spend more time in the Paratelic State one therefore needs to approach the issue in a more indirect and "sneaky" way. The only chance one has to gain results in that direction is to manipulate the emotional and motivational circumstances in such a way that the reversal system of emotions and motivations by itself reverses more often into the paratelic state and if so, more lastingly than is customary. However, that cannot be achieved by any form of "trying" directly, because that in itself will only boost the Telic state with the opposite effect of what one tries to achieve. This is like the commonly known wisdom that the more one tries to be happy, the more certain one can be not to succeed. It is sort of paradox.

6) More effective recipe to increase the time spent in the here and Now

According to the CEL the underlying cause of being too much of the time in the Telic State, which implies not being able to enjoy being in the here and now often enough, is lack of skills. Lack of skills causes too many and too strong fears to rule the emotional and motivational states. So, "not dwelling in the here and now" is not itself the source of the problems, but it is just a symptom of another, underlying, cause, which is too many and too strong fears, triggered and kept alive by lack of skills. The CEL says that one only can escape from these undesirable states of neuroses and from the "thinking disease" if one manages to let the process of gaining ánd digesting useful experiences work properly enough to produce more and better integrated skills that are relevant for the living circumstances in question. Therefore it is not necessary that one dwells just in the Paratelic State, as Tolle argues, but rather that the Telic and the Paratelic state alternate in an optimal rhythm. In most of us, the Telic State is over-dominant, causing the process of development to run into the direction of an ever further cumulation of avoidance and fear reflexes, without a proper digestion and integration of the experiences gathered. This produces, according to the CEL, what Tolle calls neuroses and fear-bodies and what the CEL labels as Negative COEX systems, following the terminology of Stanislav Grof. A proper alternation of Telic and Paratelic states, with sufficient breaks and pauses in the stress producing situations, would, on the contrary, produce well digested experiences, resulting in a high over-all level of integrated skills. Whereas one cannot wilfully change into the Paratelic State, one can increase the likelihood that reversals into the Paratelic States occur more often. That is by applying more breaks and pauses and to re-arrange the circumstances in such a way that less stress is likely to be experienced and less often. This means that Tolle's recipe does not work very well for most people in most circumstances. Rather, understanding how thes mechanisms work, one should manipulate one's meta-motivational states in a more clever way in order to maximize the occurrences of the Paratelic State. ................................

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