Discussion: A New Earth

**RevKathyV** · #1 (**permalink**) 10th March 2008, 02:58 PM

Hello Everyone,

LK has asked me to lead the discussion on the book, The New Earth. Before we get started I would like to suggest everyone enter this discussion with an open mind. That does not mean you have to accept everything the book says, just read it with an investigative attitude. Please do not join in with the purpose of tearing the book apart. Participate with the attitude of trying to understand what it is saying while leaving yourself open to disagree or agree. If at any point someone gets off subject I will try to lovingly redirect them . In a field of wild flowers you will see many varieties of flowers but each new individual flower adds to the beauty of the field. In the same way, a sharing of different views on this book can lead to something beautiful. Let's begin our journey!!

I want to start off concentrating on the first two paragraphs of the first chapter, The Flowering of Human Consciousness. I would love to hear everyones interpretation of what it means to them. I will also submit my interpretation later today. Please stick to the first two paragraphs.

**RevKathyV** · #2 (**permalink**) 10th March 2008, 03:02 PM

Oh yeah, let's have fun doing this!!!

Lightkeeper · #3 (**permalink**) 10th March 2008, 05:46 PM

In Chapter 1, paragraph 1, Tolle talks about the first flower appearing 114 million years ago. He said that it probably didn't survive long "since conditions were most likely not yet favorable for a widespread flowering to occur." "One day, however a critical threshold was reached, and suddenly thre would have been an explosion of color and scent all the planet--if a perceiving consciousness had been there to witness it."

I think this is a metaphor for the consciousness threshold we are now experiencing. The conditions have to be right in order to perceive our true selves.

The gist of the second paragraph is contemplating the flower and learning from it how to live. Zen orginated from the "silent sermon" of Buddha as he held up a single flower.

So what does the flower teach us?

**RevKathyV** · #4 (**permalink**) 10th March 2008, 06:49 PM

Thats along the line of what I think. I'll go into my feelings more later.

**RevKathyV** · #5 (**permalink**) 11th March 2008, 02:32 AM

To me the flowers are a metaphor for people of a higher consciousness. The example of the few flowers popping up because conditions weren't right for many flowers to thrive is like the higher consciousness of Jesus, Buddha and many more. Now that we are at a point where we have reached a threshold more people are reaching that level of consciousness and it is spreading like a wild fire and will thrive. I also think in the second paragraph it is literally talking about the beauty of the first flowers actually being a tool that first started humans used towards reaching that threshold. Also we see if we look at the flower our potential of blossoming to beauty we possess in side us ie: blooming to our full potential. We can learn from the flowers that through growth and stability (in all aspects) we are beautiful in and of our self (our true self).

**angeleyes** · #6 (**permalink**) 11th March 2008, 02:52 AM

Y'all are the women of wisdom!!!!

I agree that he's talking about the new consciousness and the way it started with a single example here and there, and is now beginning to take hold in humanity.

Lightkeeper · #7 (**permalink**) 11th March 2008, 03:07 AM

I think what we learn from the flower is to live in the now. The flower has no sense of past and future. It just is, no worries. It is a symbol for beauty and is fragile and fleeting. Only by living in the now can we experience that beauty.

I agree that the first paragraph is about higher consciousness and can symbolize the few that have grown into the many. However, I have a tendency to work with the individual. In our own growth we experience glimpses of the higher consciousness and grow into longer periods of being in higher consciousness.

maggie · #8 (**permalink**) 11th March 2008, 06:45 PM

I couldn't have said it any better than Rev. Kathy did, so I won't try. I think she summed it up rather well.

Maggie

vivamis123 · #9 (**permalink**) 11th March 2008, 06:59 PM

O.K. I have been thinking and thinking and would say that the flowering consciousness is the realization that Humans do not have to do anything in order to be.

Jesus said: Take no thought for your life, your body, for what you will wear or for tomorrow. Those things will be taken care for.

As the lilies in the field do not have to do anything in order to recieve, humanity is coming to understand that we are...already. In this understanding we will blossom : )

Lightkeeper · #10 (**permalink**) 11th March 2008, 10:37 PM

I think we do have to do something. We can choose to live in the now. If the now requires action we take it.

On another note, I think it's important to take the metaphors inwardly rather than seeing them that is happening outside of ourselves or to someone else.