Eckhart Tolle

The author shares the secret of his own self-realization and the philosophy for living in the present he has developed.

A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

The Power of Now

fran ♡

The secret of life is to "die before you die" — and find out that there is no death. 

The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any con- Crete and true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia, and so on. This kind of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now. You are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap. And if you are identified with your mind and have lost touch with the power and simplicity of the Now, that anxiety gap will be your constant companion. You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection you cannot cope with the future.

The reason why you don't put your hand in the fire is not because of fear, it's because you know that youll get burned.

Only you can do this. Nobody can do it for you. But if you are fortunate enough to find someone who is intensely con- scious, if you can be with them and join them in the state of presence, that can be helpful and will accelerate things. In this way, your own light will quickly grow stronger. When a log that has only just started to burn is placed next to one that is burning fiercely, and after a while they are separated again, the first log will be burning with much greater inten- sity. After all, it is the same fire. To be such a fire is one of the functions of a spiritual teacher. Some therapists may also be able to fulfill that function, provided that they have gone beyond the level of mind and can create and sustain a state of intense conscious presence while they are working L with you. 

If this applies to you, observe the resistance within yourself. Observe the attachment to your pain. Be very alert, Observe the peculiar pleasure you derive from being unhappy. Ob- serve the compulsion to talk or think about it. The resistance will cease if you make it conscious. 

You have made an unhappy self out of your pain-body and believe that this mind-made fiction is who you are. 

You may encounter intense inner resistance to disidentifying from your pain.

Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don’t think about it — don't let the feeling turn into thinking. Dor't judge or analyze. Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of "the one who observes”.

Sustained conscious attention severs the link between the pain-body and your thought processes.

desu Es are Sll Ie-ener When you start to disidentify and become the watcher, the pain-body will continue to operate for a while and will try t trick you into identifying with it again. 

Just as you cannot fight the darkness, you cannot fight the pain-body. Trying to do so would create inner conflict and thus further pain. Watching it is enough. Watching it implies accepting it as part of what is at that moment.

All pain is ultimately an illusion, and this is true. The question is: Is it true for you? 

Its (the pain body’s) survival depends on your unconscious identification with it, as well as on your unconscious fear of facing the pain that lives in you. But if you don't face it, if you don't bring the light of your consciousness into the pain you will be forced to relive it again and again. 

Look closely and you will find that your thinking and behavior are designed to keep the pain going, for yourself and others. 

The pain-body wants to survive, and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it. It can then rise up, take you over, "become you," and live through you. It needs to get its "food" through you. It will feed on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain in whatever form: anger, destructiveness, hatred, grief, emotional drama, violence, and even illness. So the pain-body, when it has taken you over, will create a situation in your life that reflects back its own energy frequency for it to feed on. Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible.

When you thought you knew a person and then you are suddenly confronted with this alien, nasty creature (their pain body) for the first time, you are in for quite a shock. However, it's more important to observe it in yourself than in someone else. Watch out for any sign of unhappiness in yourself, in whatever form it may be the awakening pain-body. This can take the form of irritation, impatience, a somber mood, a desire to hurt anger, rage, depression, a need to have some drama in your relationship, and so on. Catch it the moment it awakens from its dormant state.

This accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind. If you look on it as an invisible entity in its own right, you are getting quite close to the truth. It's the emotional pain-body. It has two modes of being: dormant and active. A pain-body may be dormant 90 percent of the time; in a deeply unhappy person, though, it may be active up to 100 percent of the time. Some people live almost entirely through their pain-body, while others may experi ence it only in certain situations, such as intimate relationships, or situations linked with past loss or abandonment, physical or emotional hurt, and so on. Anything can trigger it, particularly if it resonates with a pain pattern from your past. When it is ready to awaken from its dormant stage, even a thought or an innocent remark made by someone close to you can activate it.

Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.

Surrender to what is. Say "yes" to life—and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

What could be could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? 

The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future.

Yes, we need the mind as well as time to function in this world, but there comes a point where they take over our lives.

The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.

What is sometimes wrongly called joy is the usually short-lived pleasure side of the continuously alternating pain/pleasure cycle. Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.

To make the journey into the Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. From the very first page of Eckhart Tolle's extraordinary book, we move rapidly into a significantly higher altitude where we breathe a lighter air. We become connected to the indestructible essence of our Being, “The eternal, ever present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.” Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart Tolle uses simple language and an easy question and answer format to guide us. A word of mouth phenomenon since its first publication, The Power of Now is one of those rare books with the power to create an experience in readers, one that can radically change their lives for the better.

Scott Wilson

Very deep, very moving account of how one man has come to embrace the present moment. This book is a definite required reread in order to obtain the maximum learning from it's pages... this is one of those books that has the potential to change how you are living your life. Read it now!

matej yangwao

Every “past” was once a present moment.
Phenomenal achievements come from being present.
>learn to separate yourself from your mind.
Question your next thoughts.
Set yourself in active waiting to raise alertness of the present.

A good read for resetting your consciousness. A bit long and slow for the simple message it was trying to convey. 

Brandon Eckroth

Sarah Schumacher

I have no idea why I've seen this book on so many recommended lists. He gets a star for a few good nuggets on basic mindfulness, but otherwise comes off sounding like a self-appointed prophet of esoteric nonsense. There is no science, there are no citations and he freely twists quotes from (insert religious figure here) while talking down to the reader, as if spending a year sleeping on park benches has granted him valid credentials.

I practice meditation daily and read a lot in the personal growth/mindfulness categories, so it's not like I had it out for this book. The few good lines were in the first half, after which I started speed-reading as it went steadily downhill. Upon seeing that the last half inch of pages does not consist of citations, like most other books I read, I'm moving this puzzler to unfinished and moving on with my life.

If you're interested in mindfulness and learning to be more present in your life, read something by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Or better yet, get yourself a subscription to Headspace and start practicing it.

It was good and I was excited to read but I was getting bored towards the end and just wanted to finish the book. 

Haley Kirinsky 

Julia

Some parts of this book I felt deeply connected with and highlighted. Other parts made me want to throw it across the room. Good messages in there, but nothing you can’t find in any other self help book, written in a better way. Would recommend some of the lessons and concepts, but would not recommend this book.

Nikola

Anthony

I really enjoyed reading this book by Eckhart Tolle. There were plenty of great ideas which I will constantly use for the rest of my adventures of life. It feels good to stay in the Now.

Eckhart Tolle is emerging as one of today's most inspiring teachers. In The Power of Now, already a word-of-mouth bestseller in Canada, the author describes his transition from despair to self-realization soon after his 29th birthday. Tolle took another ten years to understand this transformation, during which time he evolved a philosophy that has parallels in Buddhism, relaxation techniques, and meditation theory but is also eminently practical. In The Power of Now he shows readers how to recognize themselves as the creators of their own pain, and how to have a pain-free existence by living fully in the present. Accessing the deepest self, the true self, can be learned, he says, by freeing ourselves from the conflicting, unreasonable demands of the mind and living present, fully, and intensely, in the Now.

Lynn

The lessons in this book are good. I think he tells a truth a lot of people need to hear. I like the Q&A format, but I think this book is needlessly repetitive and I think the writer limits himself by attaching many ideas to religion/God specifically. This clearly shows it’s catered to a specific audience. Overall a good book, but not my taste.

Meghan Navoy

Landon Alder

While the concept of being “present” is great and I believe has the power to change people’s lives for the better, this book could have been condensed to 25 pages and been just as effective. The first few chapters contain the main idea, and the remaining 175 pages only serve to reiterate the same exact idea over and over again. He really started to lose me in the second half of the book when he starts talking about energy fields and twisting the words of Jesus to try and fit his narrative.

Vanessa Arenas

Dweedle 

A new age take on zen. There is a lot of good stuff in here. There is also some ridiculous stuff in here.

alali moe

I discovered this book in the strangest of ways and had it for 2 years before I actually started reading it (I was 20 years old back then), its as if it was waiting for me to read it. I started reading it in some of the darkest days I lived, and once I started understanding the book on a deeper level, my life fully changed. It's a wonderful book for those who want to learn more about Enlightenment. Hard to read for the average person, but extremely rewarding and worth the effort. It's been a little over two years since I finished it and I still go back to it at least once every two months. Mr. Tolle is a great teacher.

Ugis

Deeply philosophical and great book. Made me go deep into the idea of presence, being here and now and how our mind interferes with all of this. Recommended. [reading time: 7h56m]

Chris Raastad

This is a must-read for human beings. It was recommended to me by some nomads while I was going through some self-induced stress over what to do next in life. I ran away to Greece for 6 weeks and picked up this book halfway through my journey. It took me a while to finish it after I got back into the swing of things. Overall, it had a positive influence on my life situation. It's very much recommended for anyone stressed out about things and looking for solace, or just needing a kick to shed off worries and enjoy the moment.

The message is clear from the title: "The Power of Now". The most important moment in your entire life is now, you should optimize for that. The book reads like a Q&A session between a teacher and a disciple. The all-knowing Echkart Tolle responds to questions from a doubtful student that convinces us the Now philosophy is the road to happiness. I overall agree with his message. The book is almost biblical in voice and diction. He references Jesus, Budah, Eastern religions, and boils them down to Now philosophies. 

What I like most about The Now? It all comes from within. Yoga, Meditation, walking alone in the forest, going for a run, extreme sports: all of these are a channel to bring you closer to the now. You must listen to yourself, go inside your body. Happiness does not come from anything external, it's entirely from within. No gods, deigties, preachers, all-knowing leaders, it's just inside you.

Practical application of The Power of Now: you get what you put into it. 4/5 stars because it reads like a sermon, maybe there is a more dramatic or exciting way to get the message across. The book is quite good at explaining how to deal with past, present, and future pain, how to approach relationships, and giving in to Surrender. I'll probably pick up this book once every couple of years to see how things have changed.

Skye Sherman

A book I think I’ll need to keep reading again and again. Grateful I finally read this and found it very freeing.

Daniel Cleveland

I'm powering through this one but after 50 pages, I haven't been impressed. The idea of now is solid but Tolle's use of question and answer format and broad statements leaves much to be desired.

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A week later and I've decided that 125 pages is as far as I'm getting. It's not even worth powering through to 190. 

I can see how this would be a good access point for someone who has little to no knowledge of this theme. Tolle references several Buddhist and Christian texts and describes time, body and meditation in a way that could lead to further questions and searching. For someone who already has some knowledge of these concepts though, this book lacks depth. Tolle continues to harp on the same concepts by providing answers to what I assume are supposed to be common questions. The idea is interesting and does lead to easy accessibility but Tolle's answers are lacking.

Suzy Dean

A practical and digestible guide not only to spiritual enlightenment but also to lessening the pain of anxiety, loss, or trial. I will certainly be reading this book a few more times.

Worth reading! 

I am so glad I added this to my tbr list for 2021. 
This book can be a little harder to get through as it has SO much in it! I loved the stories and research breaking down how to help our mind and body be more present. Even just going into detail into what “being present means”. 

It’s a rather profound book, one you very much have to have energy and brain power to be able to really let the words sink in when reading.

Omar Fernandez

The bestselling self-help book of its generation - which has now sold over a million copies in the UK alone. Eckhart Tolle demonstrates how to live a healthier and happier life by living in the present moment. To make the journey into The Power of Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart Tolle offers simple language and a question and answer format to show us how to silence our thoughts and create a liberated life. Surrender to the present moment, where problems do not exist. It is here we find our joy, are able to embrace our true selves and discover that we are already complete and perfect. If we are able to be fully present and take each step in the Now we will be opening ourselves to the transforming experience of The Power of Now. It is in your hands. Discover The Power of Now.

Laura Leila Marta

Lisa Trebilcock

“Why are you always anxious? Jesus asked his disciples. “Can anxious thought add a single day to your life?” And the Buddha taught that the root of suffering is to be found in our constant wanting and craving”.

A must read for anyone who suffers from depression or anxiety. Whenever I read this book, I felt a strong sense of peace and happiness - there was no need to worry about the past or the future, just being in the now was enough. 

It took me a long time to read this book - at first, i started reading chapter by chapter. I realised slowly, I was focusing on the present, and just being. This is the whole purpose of the book - the author is trying to teach us to just be

The spiritual and religious elements in the book are not what I usually read, or know much about to be honest. However, I loved how the author incorporated various viewpoints and beliefs - I found it really interesting. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you have an open mind, it can be enlightening. 

I have highlighted and bookmarked various passages/ chapters of this book, and when I am feeling particularly stressed or overwhelmed will go back and re-read. In fact, I will read the book throughout various stages of my life. Thank you for introducing me to the power of Now.

The Power of Now A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

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