Thursday, March 27, 2008

A New Earth

Reading has always been my preferred mode of learning. And I read a lot. Recently that has changed.

I am desperately trying to learn new recipes for preparing raw meals. I've got about a half dozen cookbooks, but I was getting nowhere until I borrowed a DVD from my daughter Gina. The DVD was a demonstration about making raw food dishes by Alissa Cohen. Something happened to me watching the video. It wasn't just seeing it done, somewhere deeper than my intellect I knew that I could do this. And I did. I'm making raw food dishes all over the place now.

At about the same time this was happening I started watching the online classes that Ekhart Tolle and Oprah have been doing on Tolle's new book, A New Earth. Now, I've read his first book, The Power of Now, about six times, one page at a sitting, slowly, meditatively. It has been an important part of my personal developmental process.

Watching Ekhart and Oprah exchange ideas about the book is having an impact on me far greater than just reading. I'm not sure why. Maybe seeing, like watching the cooking DVD, is bringing the information to a deeper level. Maybe the seeing bypasses the mind and thinking process and gets us at our core selves. Whatever it is, Tolle's teachings are having a much more profound affect on me than his books. If this is the case universally, then the human race is in for an exciting ride in the near future because what Oprah is doing with this live web cast is only just the beginning. As it is, almost anything you want to see is now available on YouTube. And it is only going to get bigger and bigger. Yes, folks, there is a new earth coming.

It is probably no coincidence that I just bought my first webcam for my computer. Now I use Skype to call to my son in New York and Mike in Tortolla. Seeing them live on the screen is so much better than just hearing them. Now using a regular phone seems so...boring. Maybe it will be that way someday with learning. It will be common to involve all of our senses. I think we as a race are evolving past the mind stage, becoming more holistic and using our deeper selves to comprehend new worlds.

By the way, if you are not watching the classes that Oprah has put on line with Ekhart Tolle, you are missing something really important. Don't get left behind. Go to Oprah.com and download the classes there for free. You don't have to have read the book to get a lot out of it. For me, my life has already changed and I've only seen the first two and a half shows. I keep saying to myself, "oh, I get it now." The result is that I am definitely living my daily life now at a more conscious level. Something happens and I go right to being aware of what is happening instead of getting caught up in it. I love it! Makes life a lot more enjoyable.

1 comment:

Timothy H. Warneka said...

Frank:

Interesting blog ... I've come to a similar realization recently:

http://vistarefugee.blogspot.com/2008/03/digital-video-is-new-plastics.html

I used to HATE watching movies in high school and college and graduate school ... it usually felt like the instructor was stalling for time. So when video began to emerge on the Internet, I was definitely skeptical.

However, the more that I plunge into the world of cyber video, the more I become convinced that this is indeed, as you so wisely pointed out, a new, deeper way of teaching people and connecting with others.

Curious to see what the future holds.

Peace,

Tim