I felt I experienced a spiritual battle

[Diamond]

I was at one of my brother's house for our niece's graduation party. Another
sister-in-law and another 20 something niece brought up the book A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. When I humbly said I didn't believe in that, I found myself getting pounced on by both SIL and niece. The first thing out of SIL's
mouth was that this was not new age. They debated me to the point where my humbleness started getting upset....I brought to their attention that Tolle and Oprah say there is no such thing as sin and that there are many ways to God, etc. I could not persuade them. They denied this was a belief system...
I brought up the cross and the narrow way and my niece (I sensed) thought I was being closed minded because I said the disciples didn't need an extra book to bring them close to God...they only needed God's word. All we need is the cross and all I heard coming from their mouths was "ego" and God is a loving God...It does not surprize me that this SIL would be drawn into this--
but my niece was shaken by the fact that I refused to accept their ideas gleaned from this book. Her husband (my other brother) agreed with me when I said it was a philosophy...they refused to believe that too. Mymother
(sitting there quietly) did not say anything for a long time and then spoke up and said she agreed with me because God's word is all we need to help us in life. There were bad feelings that arose from this....those two seemed to take the focus off of Jesus and put their faith in people who seem to have allthe answers. I felt a line drawn yesterday in my family. I will pray for them but it seems like there was an underlining fanatisism there with defending this book, when it is not even scripture. It was brought up to me that Eckhart mentions Jesus in the book....but I said, what does that mean?
That it is a christian book? The deception floating around is very disturbing.

[Final Trumpet]

I am sorry to hear that Diamond. About all you can do is pray for them that they will wake up and not be pulled away from Christ. There is much deception going on these days. But the Lord told us that our enemies would be the ones in our own households.

[lyngraphics]

It it the hardest to stand up to family- it sounds like you did a good job and hopefully planted a seed in their heads... :praying for them.

[ZeldaCA]

Eckart Tolle's book is definitely not Christian. I think he mentions Jesus as being a sort of prophet, along with Mohammad, Buddah, etc.

This was where I stopped reading, so I can't really say what's in the rest of the book. At that point it pretty much became a mute point for me.

I'm sorry to hear your family has been drawn into this whole thing. Believing only in the "ultimate power of ourselves" is drawing many, many people into this feel-good kind of coma, which prevents them from seeing God. It's really, really, dangerous, and exactly the kind of thing predicted in the Bible regarding the Last Days.

I hope you have some luck with -- at least -- planting a seed of doubt in their minds about the ideas in this book!

[seekingtruth1]

Good for you! I said as much to my BS group when i heard they were going to study Tolle instead of restarting a BS together....they think Oprah is a Christain and Tolle's work is compatibale with Christainity.......

I have a feeling I am being ostarcized b/c I was vocal about it....and matter of fact.....o well......its hard....and it makes for a lonelier existence...thank GOD for the nternet and thsi site

[His Bride]

The world would rather listen to Oprah than to the God of the bible. There comes a point when you no longer cast your pearls before swine.

[Diamond]

Thank you for your understanding and kind words. My spirit is still grieving.
I wish you could have been there because I was and still am upset about
how this all came about and how I was made to feel like there was something wrong with me because I did not accept the book. I told them I saw Eckhart on an Oprah show talking to Eckhart and she asked him if he believed in the afterlife or life after death...he said he does not think about it....Oprah seemed surprized by this and he repeated that he does not think about it...all that matters is the now. I told them this is not normal for a christian to not think about eternity with Jesus or loved ones and that 99% of us have thought about it at one time or another. My sister in law said that was fine, but she said it very abruptly. They would not acknowledge things in the book that were wrong...when I said I wouldn't read the book, they kept hounding me with "But have you ever read it?!" And I told them I had read excerpts from it....but that wasn't good enough. I told them that Buddah did not die for my sins....I am a sinner that needs a savior to save me. There is only one way to heaven...and that is Jesus. I spent all morning printing out four articles written by people pointing out how this conflicts with scripture and mailed it to my Mom today so she could understand more about how wrong it is for a christian to read this book. I told them all I needed is Jesus....I honestly don't think I got through to them and I truly believe that
it could be true what Eckhart mentions in this book...that when a person reads this book, they will experience "the shift"....think about that for a moment...if you allow demonic doctrine to enter into your soul, your soul may be prevented spiritually from recognizing God's truth....Jesus' truth. Eckhart's
book says WE are the truth. But Jesus is the Truth. I'm hoping my Mom might pass the reading material onto them or my brother....I have another sister-in-law on the other side of the family who thinks Oprah is great because she has done so much good for others. I told my brother's daughter and wife that we can feed a million people and do all this good, but if it doesn't have Jesus as the foundation, it will literally mean nothing. Jesus will
say to you who rejected him as the only way will say, depart from me...I never knew you...if you say you didn't believe in him as God but look, you did all this good work. But I don't think that sunk in....maybe it did but I am not
confident. People are struggling in their lives and instead of looking simply to Jesus Christ, they are looking for new ideas and new ways to feel good about themselves and figure out their purpose....when we are taught as christians to lean on the Lord, work hard and trust only Him. People are taking away from Jesus' character/role as judge...they truly believe he would never judge...because, after all--he is a loving God. I couldn't help but feel that
my two family members do not know Him. And I felt accused by them that I would dismiss their precious book. They were both trying their hardest to enlighten me and they were getting upset with me when I wasn't becoming enlightened I guess. Looked for a sad or crying face and there was none.

[kalanaka]

Thank you for your understanding and kind words. My spirit is still grieving.
I wish you could have been there because I was and still am upset about
how this all came about and how I was made to feel like there was something wrong with me because I did not accept the book. I told them I saw Eckhart on an Oprah show talking to Eckhart and she asked him if he believed in the afterlife or life after death...he said he does not think about it....Oprah seemed surprized by this and he repeated that he does not think about it...all that matters is the now. I told them this is not normal for a christian to not think about eternity with Jesus or loved ones and that 99% of us have thought about it at one time or another. My sister in law said that was fine, but she said it very abruptly. They would not acknowledge things in the book that were wrong...when I said I wouldn't read the book, they kept hounding me with "But have you ever read it?!" And I told them I had read excerpts from it....but that wasn't good enough. I told them that Buddah did not die for my sins....I am a sinner that needs a savior to save me. There is only one way to heaven...and that is Jesus. I spent all morning printing out four articles written by people pointing out how this conflicts with scripture and mailed it to my Mom today so she could understand more about how wrong it is for a christian to read this book. I told them all I needed is Jesus....I honestly don't think I got through to them and I truly believe that
it could be true what Eckhart mentions in this book...that when a person reads this book, they will experience "the shift"....think about that for a moment...if you allow demonic doctrine to enter into your soul, your soul may be prevented spiritually from recognizing God's truth....Jesus' truth. Eckhart's
book says WE are the truth. But Jesus is the Truth. I'm hoping my Mom might pass the reading material onto them or my brother....I have another sister-in-law on the other side of the family who thinks Oprah is great because she has done so much good for others. I told my brother's daughter and wife that we can feed a million people and do all this good, but if it doesn't have Jesus as the foundation, it will literally mean nothing. Jesus will
say to you who rejected him as the only way will say, depart from me...I never knew you...if you say you didn't believe in him as God but look, you did all this good work. But I don't think that sunk in....maybe it did but I am not
confident. People are struggling in their lives and instead of looking simply to Jesus Christ, they are looking for new ideas and new ways to feel good about themselves and figure out their purpose....when we are taught as christians to lean on the Lord, work hard and trust only Him. People are taking away from Jesus' character/role as judge...they truly believe he would never judge...because, after all--he is a loving God. I couldn't help but feel that
my two family members do not know Him. And I felt accused by them that I would dismiss their precious book. They were both trying their hardest to enlighten me and they were getting upset with me when I wasn't becoming enlightened I guess. Looked for a sad or crying face and there was none.

You don't have to pony up to a crack pipe to know it's bad for you...

It sounds to me like you did a great job Diamond. This has rattled them to their core because no matter what they say, they have chosen to believe men over God. That is the heart of the matter.

Unfortunately this is just a new age wrapper on the same lie that deceives people time and time again. Rejection of Sola Scriptura leads to a very dark place because it makes man God.

I will :pray for your family

In Christ... :hat

[ZeldaCA]

Is it just me, or is this "experiencing the shift" thing kind of a scary concept? What, exactly is it that "shifts" inside you?

Oprah thinks this book may change the world. If so, I'm afraid it will not be for the better.

Diamond, Kalanaka's right. You don't have to try a crack pipe to know it's bad for you. I felt, deep down in my spirit, that this book was bad after I got through the first three pages. I couldn't get it out of my house fast enough! Your own intuitions about it are 100 percent correct.

Have you looked on the internet to see if there are any Christian resources regarding refuting what's in the book? Hopefully there are others out there who see it for what it is. That way you could provide your family with some expert commentary without having to read it yourself.

[Sing4Him]

Diamond.. you did great. I understand your grieving. The Holy Spirit within you bears more witness than you know!
Scripture is the sword of the spirit!

Here is more info.. "shift" etc..


The Great Heretical Idea: Oprah and Eckhart Do the New Age Shift

by Warren Smith

"Get ready to be awakened."[1] - Oprah

"The twenty-first century will be the time of awakening, of meeting The Creator Within. Many beings will experience Oneness with God and with all of life. This will be the beginning of the golden age of the New Human, of which it has been written; the time of the universal human, which has been eloquently described by those with deep insight among you.

"There are many such people in the world now - teachers and messengers, Masters and visionaries -who are placing this vision before humankind and offering tools with which to create it. These messengers and visionaries are the heralds of a New Age."[2] - "God" Neale Donald Walsch, Friendship With God

"...[T]his book itself is a transformational device that has come out of the arising new consciousness. The ideas and concepts presented here may be important, but they are secondary. They are no more than signposts pointing toward awakening. As you read, a shift takes place within you."

"This book's main purpose is not to add new information or beliefs to your mind or to try to convince you of anything, but to bring about a shift in consciousness, that is to say, to awaken.... It will change your state of consciousness or it will be meaningless. It can only awaken those who are ready. Not everyone is ready yet, but many are, and with each person who awakens, the momentum in the collective consciousness grows, and it becomes easier for others."[3] - Eckhart Tolle, The New Earth

"Don't get attached to any one word. You can substitute 'Christ' for presence, if that is more meaningful to you. Christ is your God-essence or the Self, as it is sometimes called in the East. The only difference between Christ and presence is that Christ refers to your indwelling divinity regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not, whereas presence means your awakened divinity or God-essence."[4] - Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

I stared at the huge stack of books in the Barnes & Noble bookstore. The title of the book was A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life Purpose. The title sounded like a new book by Purpose-Driven pastor Rick Warren, but it was actually the latest selection in Oprah's Book Club. A colorful orange and blue paper band around the book invited the reader to "Join Oprah and Eckhart for a worldwide web event... Every Monday night beginning March 3, 2008 for 10 weeks... Register at Oprah.com/anewearth." A personal message from Oprah stated: "Get ready to be awakened."

It was clear to me that Oprah was no longer content to just popularize New Age beliefs, she would now teach them. This was a bold move by a woman who was obviously willing to do everything in her power - which is considerable - to convert the world to her New Age worldview.

The Shift

With friend and New Age author Marianne Williamson simultaneously teaching A Course in Miracles daily on Oprah & Friends XM Satellite Radio, Oprah now offers two very public New Age classes. These classes are teaching millions of people that the way to save themselves and the planet is not by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but rather by accepting "the Christ within." For someone who probably has an aversion to traditional proselytizing, Oprah is giving new meaning to the word "proselytize" as she continues to push her New Age beliefs upon the world. But, in defense of her role as a New Age proselytizer, Oprah would probably be the first to tell you - it's all for the good of the world. She would also probably argue that what she is teaching is not New Age, but a "New Spirituality." Curiously, that just happens to be the same term that some emerging church leaders like Brian McLaren are using as they introduce New Age ideas and language into the church.[5]

Oprah can call her New Age teachings whatever she wants, but she and her ever-growing band of New Age colleagues are still teaching that "we are all one" because we are all "God" and "Christ." As Marianne Williamson writes, "We are all one, we are love itself. 'Accepting the Christ' is merely a shift in self-perception."[6]

The "shift" Williamson, Oprah and Tolle describe is "awakening" to the "Christ within" and the "God within." "Shift" is the key word. It means to move from one position to another - as in shifting one's awareness away from the mind and"ego" to the collective "Christ consciousness" or "Christ within." And, as in shifting your belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior to a New Age belief in the "Christ within." With her New Age classrooms on satellite radio, and now on the Internet, Oprah apparently feels an urgency to teach everyone how to "awaken" and make this "shift" to the "Christ" within. With her Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) kicking in next year we can expect to see her New Age views showcased on an even grander scale.

In her first class with Eckhart Tolle, Oprah asked if people had experienced the "shift" while reading Tolle's book, A New Earth. The question reminded me of Werner Erhard's New Age EST program in the 1970s that taught this same idea of shifting one's perception, and then similarly asking - "Did you get IT?" Obviously, there is pressure to "get IT" - to feel the shift: Oprah felt the shift - did you? Are you understanding this new [age] way of looking at yourself and the world? Or, are you being blocked by your mind and your ego from seeing this New Spirituality that can save our planet? Keep logging onto our classes. Keep reading Tolle's book -you'll 'get it.'

Years earlier, when launching the New Age movement publicly with her book The Aquarian Conspiracy, Marilyn Ferguson introduced this concept of the "shift," connecting it to the mystical ideas of Teilhard de Chardin - the father of the New Age movement - "whose new perspective would trigger a critical contagion of change" which would result in the "rapid transformation of the human species, beginning with a vanguard" of emerging leaders. She explained how scientist-philosopher Thomas Kuhn coined the term "paradigm shift" to describe "a distinctly new way of thinking" which entailed accepting new truths. When"the new paradigm gains ascendance" and "a critical number of thinkers has accepted the new idea, a collective paradigm shift has occurred." Ferguson said the "shift" would result in a "new knowing" of the occult world called an"awakening" of "deep inner shifts."[7]

Evolve or Die

Tolle's book A New Earth - like A Course in Miracles and other New Age teachings - exploits the idea that the world is at a crisis point and insists that we must "spiritually evolve" as a species to avoid personal and planetary disaster. According to New Age leaders like Tolle, spiritually evolving means "shifting" or converting to the heretical belief that we are all "God" and that we are all "Christ."

In both his book and his class with Oprah, Tolle reiterated the words that New Age leader Barbara Marx Hubbard was given by her New Age "Christ" - "evolve or die."[8] In other words, don't feel any pressure, but if you don't "shift" your point of view, and "get it" that "we are all one" and that "we are all God," our planet will probably be destroyed and our human species will become extinct.

Tolle and Oprah stayed away from the harsher aspects of this "evolve or die" dictate in that first Internet class. Hubbard, however, has made it clear that in the future, those who refuse to make the "shift" by seeing themselves as "God" will be eliminated by something called "the selection process."[9] Hubbard, who is highly respected by her New Age colleagues, claims that her "Christ" has laid out an Armageddon alternative peace plan to save the planet. This peace plan is predicated on accepting the "shift" in consciousness that Oprah and Tolle (and other New Age leaders) are teaching - the "shift" to the Christ within.

Hubbard's New Age view of the future inspired her to be one of the co-founders of the World Future Society and she is currently listed as a member of its Global Advisory Council.[10] Emergent leader at the "vanguard" of church "transformation," Brian McLaren, has also written about an Armageddon alternative [11] and just happens to be one of the featured speakers at the upcoming World Future Society's annual gathering.

Surprised by the Truth

In describing their New Age/New Spirituality "shift" and the necessity for everyone to spiritually evolve, Eckhart Tolle erroneously states that once you "awaken" to your Christ-consciousness and your own godhood, the shift is "irreversible."[12] What he neglects to take into account is that there are large numbers of us who formerly made the "shift" to these New Age beliefs only to discover - by the grace of God - that we had been greatly deceived by these New Age teachings. The Bible proved itself to be true as it exposed the New Age/New Spirituality for what it was - a lie. It was very humbling for us to realize that the Bible was true after all, and our New Age beliefs were wrong. God was God and we were not. Jesus was the one and only Christ. There was no universal "Christ-consciousness" or "Christ within." We were amazed to discover that there really was a deceptive spirit world and an actual devil; that we really were sinners that needed to be saved by Jesus Christ. What we came to understand was that the whole New Age plan to save the world was part of the very deception that Jesus warned would come at the time of the end (Matthew 24). We were stunned by the truth of the Bible and shocked at our own gullibility to have believed that we were "God" and "Christ." We had been very sincere about our New Age beliefs, but we were sincerely wrong - as are Oprah and Tolle.

The New Age paradigm "shift" is a deceptive device that is being cleverly used by a very real spiritual Adversary who is out to deceive the world. One of the definitions of "shift" in Webster's Dictionary is "a deceitful scheme or method; a trick."[13] The New Age/New Spirituality "shift" advocated by Oprah and Tolle is such a "shift." It is, in every sense of the word, diabolically "shifty."

(See Part II, Part III, Part IV.)

Endnotes:
1. Eckhart Tolle, The New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (New York: Plume, 2005), paper band encircling book.
2. Neale Donald Walsch, Friendship with God: an uncommon dialogue (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1999), p. 295-6.
3. Tolle, The New Earth, p. 6-7.
4. Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (Novato, CA: Namaste, 1999), p. 104.
5. Brian McLaren, quote cited in Faith Undone by Roger Oakland (Silverton, OR: Lighthouse Trails, 2007), p. 11.
6. Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles (New York: Harper Perennial, 1996), p. 32.
7. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s (Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1980), pp. 25-32.
8. Tolle, A New Earth, p. 21. Barbara Marx Hubbard lecture at Texas A & M University, September 11, 2002, information taken from The Aggie Daily, September 12, 2002. Warren Smith, Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel (Ravenna, OH: Conscience Press, 2002), pp. 16, 19.
9. Smith, Ibid.
10."WorldFuture 2008: Seeing the Future Through New Eyes," World Future Society conference brochure, http://www.wfs.org/March
April08/WF2008_preliminary.pdf
11. Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2006), p. 175.
12. Tolle, The New Earth, p. 7.
13. Websters New World Dictionary (New York: Websters New World Dictionaries, 1988).

Warren Smith is the author of Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church, The Light that was Dark: From the New Age to Amazing Grace and Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel

See Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.

http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletter040708.htm#LETTER.BLOCK22