REVIEW: A NEW EARTH AN OLD DECEPTION BY RICHARD ABANES
Richard Abanes, founder and director of the Religious Information Center of
Southern California, has had decades of experience in writing about and
investigating religious and social issues. Abanes likes to assess the
interaction between social matters and religion. The repeated abuse this man has
received in Amazon reviews of his book on Tolle, A New Earth, An Old Deception
from Tolle's fans is telling. You see accusations against him of being
judgemental from those who need a good look at themselves. The book is Bible
based but uses good sense as well to refute Tolle. The critics never try to deal
with how reason is on Abanes' side in some of the things he says.
He quotes Tolle:
Many 'religious' people - equate truth with thought, and as they are completely
identified with thought - claim to be in sole possession of the truth in an
unconscious attempt to protect their identity.
COMMENT: As Abanes says, this is an intolerant slap against religions that take
themselves seriously. Yet Tolle and the humanity group think they are in sole
possession of the truth that no religion is true! Tolle himself as the book says
claims to be about the one absolute truth. "There is only one absolute Truth."
Tolle is bigoted for if there is a true religion then statements like "If you
believe only your religion is the Truth, you are using it in the service of the
ego." So here religion is only good if it does not take itself seriously but
takes Tolle's brand of religion or pseudo-religion seriously! It thinks that
truth religions are dangerous. When was the last time a Christadelpian burned
down a church to persecute those who did not agree with him or her?
Tolle told Oprah that we are not spirit and that is an ego idea or selfish. We
are some kind of ineffable space in his view.
MY COMMENT: True but not for the reasons he says. He is assuming you have to
imagine you are an illusion as if thinking you are real automatically makes you
an egotist. That is very cynical.
If I believe I exist as a bodily being and that makes me egotistical imagine
what will happen if I add a new idea, that I am a distinct spiritual being as
well? Not only am I human but I am also a soul that can live apart from
the body.
Tolle distorts "Love your neighbour as yourself" to mean that you are your
neighbour thus in intending to love him you love yourself.
Abanes says it turns the other person into an illusion.
My comment is that your neighbour is not you so if you love him because you
think he is you then you are not loving him! If you cannot do any good for
another person unless you see them as another you then who is the egotist? I
would warn that it is possible to reject the idea of Ann and Mary and Pat all
being one person as silly and yet act as if you do believe it. That is why if
altruism is possible, it is impossible to know if anybody is altruist or if it
ever happens.
The book points out how Tolle redefines forgiveness. You see yourself as one
with the person who hurt you and that shows you you are not a victim who needs
to judge the person. Real forgiveness is the realising you have hurt yourself
for you are the enemy who hurt you. Abanes answers, "The problem lies within our
sin nature, which causes us to sin. And that in turn brings suffering on oneself
and others." The sin nature doctrine is taught by Christianity but the religion
insists it should not be seen as a purely religious statement for it says you
don't need the Bible or a religion to tell you that we sin because we are
sinners in the same way that a dog barks because it is a dog. If the teaching is
true, then Tolle is blinding people to their true nature and a problem that is
hidden, if you cannot see you have a bad nature, then it will only get worse.
The book shows how Tolle wants to be in the present for his past is full of pain
and he worries what the future might bring. This leads Tolle to advise not
thinking at all so that you can be in the present. He calls that presence.
That to me is blaming our nature as thinking beings for all the problems of
life. This is too negative. It is an attack on what we are as human beings. It's
a form of dehumanisation.
Tolle goes, "If evil has any reality - and it has a relative, not an absolute,
reality - this is also its definition".
This means that child killings such as the Moors Murders were not really evil
and the problem is us seeing them as evil. The perceptions of them as evil is
based on illusion and is the real evil. It accuses Islam and Christianity of
being inherently evil for they insist on these things being objectively evil and
good-free.
Tolle as Abanes says, does not shy away from saying that all the suffering and
terrorism in the world is a game. It is, "The game that they created for
themselves to play". He rightly describes this as cold-hearted New Age doctrine
which blames the victim.
This is the kind of stuff the critics of Abanes don't want to think about. Tolle
is borrowing from pagan religions like Hinduism and ignoring or not caring about
the damage those kinds of doctrines can do.
A lot of what Tolle is saying is really about what he calls the power of now. The horrid teachings are about driving us to this power and validating it. They are the framework. They are needed to make it look wise and smart because it is not. He wants you to cease attachments to the past and even to the future. But this is coming at a huge price. Are attachments really that bad? Also, by giving yourself an attachment to the present as if nothing else matters when it does is dangerous. Why is this attachment so special? Tolle is just playing with words.