Christianity and The Power of Now 4

Another entry by our guest blogger, Brad Harris.

The next Bible verse quoted by Eckhart Tolle in ‘A New Earth’ is from the gospel of Matthew. It records Jesus as saying:
‘ if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well’. Matthew 5:40

This seems a simple piece of advice but the implications of it are enormous. It goes far beyond not taking people to court to rectify disputes. My understanding of what Jesus was saying used to be that, in order to please God I needed to discipline myself to always put
others’ needs first. This in itself is surely not wrong. Who could question the need to be considerate of the needs of others in every thing we do. Our actions, if based only on selfishness and self-satisfaction are inevitably going to cause harm to others - either directly or indirectly.

In taking this view of Jesus’ teaching I came to think that I didn’t deserve success or wealth and that I shouldn’t even expect happiness. In fact my life always had to take second place to others. I felt that my life should be dedicated to constantly giving in to the will of others. I began to devalue my own life! And what’s more, other people began to take advantage of my ‘good nature’ and I became somewhat of a ‘door mat’.

In ‘A New Earth’ Eckhart Tolle records his conversation with a dying women. He tells her “Whatever the ego seeks and gets attached to are substitutes for the Being it can not feel. You can value and care for things, but whenever you get attached to them, you will know it’s the ego. And you are never really attached to a thing but to a thought that has ‘I’, ‘me’, or ‘mine’ in it. Whenever you completely accept a loss, you go beyond ego, and who you are, the I Am which is consciousness itself, emerges”.

The women replied, “Now I understand something Jesus said that never made much sense to me before: ‘If someone takes your shirt, let him have your coat as well.’”

Tolle replied “That’s right. It doesn’t mean that you should never lock your door. All it means is that sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on”. (p. 41)

When I can understand that ‘my’ coat (or anything else that I call mine) is not really mine in the first place, I can’t feel hard done by at having to give it to someone else. I go with the flow of life more easily by accepting what comes and accepting what passes. Every moment, no matter how it appears on the surface is a blessing from God and I rejoice in it. It’s not a matter of taking second place to everyone else. It is a sacred realization that everyone and everything has equal value in God’s eyes. We are all a part of His creation and in ‘letting go’ we get more than we could ever realize. Amazing!

Christianity and The Power of Now 3

Our guest blogger, Brad Harris, continues with his series, A New Way of Seeing God.
This time we take a look at the two verses in the Bible from which Eckhart Tolle takes the title of his book ‘A New Earth’. They are both prophecies relating to a transformation of the earth. One is from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah and one is from the New Testament book of Revelation.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” Revelation 21:1
“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” Isaiah 65:17

I used to understand these verses as a vision of the future ‘Kingdom of God’ which God promised to establish on the earth at the second coming of His Son. They spoke to me of God’s intention to totally overturn the world’s present systems of government and to create a ‘new world order’ under the kingship of Jesus. I believed that those people found to be faithful to God in this life would be granted eternal life in a perfected world when Jesus returns.
This belief made more sense to me than an afterlife in heaven, as it gave me hope that all my personal problems and all the problems facing the world (eg. poverty, starvation, global warming, global financial crisis) would ‘one day’ end. My thoughts and hopes were tied up in a future event. In a sense, my life was always ‘on hold’ as I waited for my life to be fulfilled by God’s promises. Although I was confident that these things would come to pass, my faith in future outcomes often paled into insignificance when things in the ‘here and now’ weren’t working out as I believed they should for a good Christian. There were so many questions I couldn’t truthfully answer. Why is there so much evil in the world? Why do ‘bad things happen to good people’? Why doesn’t God answer all my prayers?
Complicating these questions was the fact that many Christians didn’t agree with my particular interpretation of the Bible. Many, in fact most, Christians believe in heaven as the place where the afterlife takes place. How could so many people of the same religious tradition see things so differently? Wasn’t a correct belief necessary to obtain the promise of eternal life? What would happen to those who had wrong beliefs?
In ‘A New Earth’ Tolle says that the New Heaven is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, presence, and awareness, and life in a New Earth would be the physical reflection of that awakened consciousness. He states that looking to the future for salvation is one of the oldest dysfunctions of the mind – that is, looking toward a future time for happiness, rather than seeing it in the moments in which we live – in the present moment.
Tolle points to salvation in the inner realm of consciousness, and that nothing we can imagine in the future can free us. No future event is going to make us free. As Tolle puts it: “Nothing is going to make us free because only the present moment can make us free. The realization is the awakening.”
‘What did Jesus tell his disciples? “Heaven is right here in the midst of you”.’ (p. 308)
Having got the sense of what Tolle says I have come to realize that salvation is no longer a future event (either on earth or in heaven). It is here and now. It is freedom from ego, freedom from being dominated by my own thoughts.
This life, every day, every moment is “heaven on earth”. How could it get any better than this? My relationship with God is stronger and more real now and I have ceased to be anxious about the future because “future” no longer exists to me in the way it did before. The details of what will happen in the future (either on earth or in heaven) are of little interest to me now – and the best thing of all is that I no longer worry about being ‘good enough’ to be rewarded by God in a future kingdom for, as Jesus said “The Kingdom of God is within (me)” (Luke 17:21)

Christianity and The Power of Now 2

Brad Harris is our guest blogger continuing his theme - A New Way of Seeing God.

In my last blog, I said that ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle had totally changed my way of thinking about God, Jesus and the Bible. Whilst this may not be totally true (I have been reading lots of books in this area, and can’t always remember where ideas come from) Eckhart did ‘kick start’ a radical change in my thinking.

As you read my thoughts on each of the Bible verses quoted by Eckhart in ‘A New Earth’ you may only notice a subtle change in my thinking. But these changes resonate strongly with my new spiritual growth, and have helped me to integrate my Christian faith and spirituality. I hope sharing them will be of interest to you.

So here goes. The first verse is Matt 6:28-30. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?

My old thinking about this verse went something like this: Even flowers have enough ‘faith’ to trust God for their care and protection and to help them grow. Therefore I should be developing sufficient faith to trust that God will always care for me. If I am faithful enough, I will always ‘bloom’ despite the adverse circumstances that inevitably happen in my life. I will have everything I need. God will provide my food, clothes, house, car, and job - all the good things in life.

I could see God’s hand at work in His creation (who could deny the intricate beauty of the ‘lilies of the field’?), the trouble was I would often become despondent because I knew in my heart I was never good enough to please God.
It seemed to me that I could never have enough faith to deserve God’s protection and nurturing. Why was I so selfish and untrusting? I needed more faith, but it was always a constant struggle to develop and maintain faith during the trials and temptations that life brought me.

Instead of being encouraged by Jesus words I felt like I was being condemned.

In A New Earth Eckhart says, “Jesus tells us to contemplate the flowers and learn from them how to live. We could say that the totality – Life – wants the sapling to become a tree, but the sapling itself doesn’t see itself as separate from life and so wants nothing for itself. It is one with what life wants. That’s why it isn’t worried or stressed. And if it has to die prematurely it dies with ease. It is as surrendered in death as it is in life. It senses, no matter how obscurely, its rootedness in being, the formless and eternal one life.

… Jesus goes on to say that if God clothes simple flowers in such beauty, how much more will God clothe you. That is to say, that while nature is a beautiful expression of the evolutionary impulse of the universe, when humans become aligned with the intelligence that underlies it, they will express that same impulse on a higher, more wondrous level.” (P.268, 269)


In light of what Eckhart says I have chosen a new way of living. I have chosen to be at one with life. I’m not striving anymore for what I don’t have. I’m not wishing I were a ‘better’ person. I am just accepting what is. ‘What is’ must be God’s will otherwise it would not be. In this new way of being I am more peaceful and worry has largely become a thing of the past. Now I know that it is not so much a matter of a test of my faith in God but a realization, a knowing, that God is real. He is less ‘out there somewhere’ and more ‘inside’ me and surrounding me in every moment of my life.

How could I want anything more? Now I KNOW that “the LORD is my shepherd -and I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1).

God is for Everyone

'Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God". As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life.' P267. A New Earth - Awakening to Your Life Purpose, by Eckhaart Tolle
Could this be why I haven't been able to find a church to suit my children and I? Is it possible that Christian churches in general, are simply engaging in the idea of God, the mental concept of God, but somehow not LIVING it, not experiencing God as a constant presense?
Surely a church that breathed God, felt that One presense, would not be exclusive, would not look for the Devil undercover, would recognise that oneness in others, would not care which path you take to access the oneness, as long as you get there.
A church that LIVES God would surely be an inclusive community.

Christianity and The Power of Now

A guest post by Brad Harris

Although I can’t quite remember exactly when I first read The Power of Now, I do remember the circumstances in which I became aware of the book and how it just ‘jumped into my lap’ in my favourite bookstore in Bowral. Having just been told about Eckhart Tolle and the concept of ‘living in the Now’ by a counsellor, I went looking for the book soon after when my wife and I were day tripping in one of our favourite destinations, the Southern Highlands of NSW. Not even sure if I would find the book, and before I had even made my way to the rear of the store where the ‘spiritual/self help’ books were located, I looked down to see a whole row of hard cover special editions of The Power of Now (it was an anniversary edition I think). Anyway, the book seemed to be yelling at me “but me, buy me!”

I bought it, read it and my life has not been the same since.

The last book that had anywhere near the life-changing effect on me was ‘The Road Less Travelled’ by M. Scott Peck. That book started me on a journey of seeking God in a spiritual sense beyond that which I knew of Him in a religious sense. Having grown up it a Bible-based fundamentalist church and having attended Sunday School, Bible Study Classes and Gospel talks all my life, I felt I had a good understanding of who God was, who Jesus was and what life was meant to be all about. I even thought I knew the future of the world (a big claim when I think of it now!) For me the Christian life was all about living according to a set of rules now in order to experience ultimate happiness in the future – an eternal future. It was the only way of doing Christianity that I knew.

Again I am not sure what came first, my awakening or my reading of the Power of Now. The book either contributed to my new way of being or explained the strange but amazing transformation that was happening to me.

I had discovered that I was not the ‘I’ of my thinking. I had become aware that there was a part of me that was continually thinking (usually a lot of meaningless rubbish and untruths about myself, my circumstances and other people) and that part of me was not the real me but my ego. This new awareness has helped me know myself more fully, relate better to other people and most of all opened my eyes to a new way of seeing and experiencing God.

This new relationship with God had serious consequences for my world view and my long held beliefs about Jesus. What for me was once a nice neat package of beliefs that formed a picture of the world that made sense to me, was sent into a mad spin by my newly emerging outlook on life. It was though my religious beliefs were a completed jigsaw puzzle that had been thrown in the air and I was now sitting on the floor picking up the pieces and trying to put them all together again. But first I had to work out what the picture should look like. A friend said she liked that description of what happened. She asked “I wonder where Jesus fell?” That question has been plaguing me ever since and my search for the real Jesus is has become my highest priority.

My re-imaging of God and Jesus, while helped by Eckhart Tolle’s insights has been an ongoing journey, with lots of doubts, lots of further reading and lots of new discoveries. I look forward to sharing some of this journey with you in future blogs where I will take each of the Bible verses quoted by Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth (the follow up to The Power of Now) and give you some insights into how Eckhart’s way of interpreting these has changed my thinking and my life.

Introducing Rob Bell

I think in many ways christian beliefs and Eckhart Tolle's teaching are compatible. However, I have struggled to find a church that I am able to sit comfortably in with my Tolle ideas in my head. So, it seems, in theory I could be both a christian and spiritualist, but in reality I feel I need to choose. That was until I was introduced to Rob bell. It is my good fortune to have met a man struggling with his faith after reading Eckhart Tolle. He discovered the American pastor Rob Bell and shared him with me. Rob Bell is a young, energetic, passionate christian. He seems to believe in the adaptability of the bible and faith. Rob Bell encourages his church goers to express their doubts, believing that it is not possible to never have some. Bell looks at changes in the bible, and varying interpretations of it to support the idea of versatility of the bible. And frequently Bell will encourage us to be present in the moment we are living. All this either allows a place for the spiritualist in christianity, or positively encourages it. Rob Bell helps me have faith that Christianity and spirituality can be interconnected. In fact, he makes the claim that Everything is Spiritual.
Check this snippet out: