"The Power of Now"

The Book

The Power of Now – A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Eckhart Tolle

What It’s About

Now, the present, this moment, are all we have.  It is also all we need.  The past is useless because it cannot be changed.  The future is useless because it is imaginary.  Being stuck in the past leaves us filled with regret.  Being obsessed about the future fills us with fear.  It is only in the present that we can put the past and the future in proper perspective.  It is in the present, in the Now, where we can find God, and where we can find peace.

Tolle made this discovery for himself while undergoing an prolonged period of depression.  His emotional pain became so great that he cried out, “I cannot live with myself any longer.” 

This thought repeated itself until Tolle wondered if there were two of him – the “I” and the “self” he could not live with.  He then wondered if only one of these personas was real.  He then had an inexplicable spiritual experience that he doesn’t remember, but when he woke up, he felt an indescribable peace, which lasted for the next two years.  Even while enduring homelessness his peace never left him.  He read and studied under spiritual teachers until he became one himself, teaching others to have what he has, the power of Now.

The greatest enemy to this power is the Pain Body.  The Pain-Body, an almost parasitic entity, lives within each of us, constantly crying out for attention and control.  It feeds on unhappiness and it is always hungry.  To fight this enemy within, we must be conscious of our thoughts; we must “watch the thinker.”   It is our unconscious and egoistic thoughts that strengthen the pain-body.  Again, many of these thoughts center around the past or the future and put these both in a negative light.

Being in the Now, however, can alter not only our thinking, but our moods, our actions, and our relationships with others and with ourselves.  Being in the Now is the same as being with God (or being “one with Being, as Tolle calls it).   The Now is where God is, and it is where we should be.

Why I Picked This Book

Other than the Bible, I have not had a book cause me to have a spiritual experience.  But upon beginning this book, I felt an enormous undercurrent of joy that lasted for several days and could be felt by others around me.  I hesitate to share this because I can’t claim that everyone will have the same experience as me.  In addition, even Tolle himself says that no spiritual experience lasts forever.  Still, it was powerful and unexpected.

It is not an “experience” that we should look for, but rather transformation, inner transformation.   This book has helped me to do that.  I am not “enlightened” yet, but when I am in the Now, I am completely at peace and in those moments I am enlightened.  Enlightenment is also not the goal.  The goal is to be present in each and every moment.  Knowing that I am not present is a form of presence.  When I am fully present, I am at peace, and I can live and work in a state of peace, joy, and love.

I have read or listened to this book several times and it always gives me comfort. 

How This Can Help You

If you’re like me, or like most people, you might find your thoughts constantly in the past or future.  This book gives practical advice and exercises on how to get to the Now in relationships, and in life.  This book will teach you how to be more present, and thus less worried, less angry and more patient, peaceful, joyful, and loving.  Like The War of Art, it is one of my top ten books.

Quotes from the Book

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”

“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”

“If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.”

“Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry or hard-done by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon.

It is also insane.”