The Power of Now
by Eckhart Tolle

  • Spirituality
  • Ashto = 6/10
  • Jonesy = 7/10
The Power of Now

The Power of Now – by Eckhart Tolle

We’ve tackled another spiritual book. It’s all about the present moment. We are too often caught reliving the past or obsessing over the future that we neglect the Now. There are a lot of lessons to take from The Power of Now!

‘A guide to spiritual enlightenment’

 

The Power of Now Summary

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

The greatest obstacle to experiencing reality if the identification of the mind. It creates concepts, labels, images, words, judgements and definitions which block your relationship with the now. The mind is a superb instrument if used correctly. If used wrongly – you don’t use it at all, it uses you. This is the disease that you believe you are your mind and the instrument has taken over. If is using you and you don’t even know you are it’s slave. 

 The moment you start watching the thinker a higher level consciousness becomes activated. The good news is, you can free yourself from your mind right now. Start listening to the voice inside your head as often as you can. Pay attention to the repetitive thought patters and old broken records. You should listen impartially and don’t judge – the thought then loses its power. One day you will catch yourself smiling to your voice inside your head like it’s a little child. 

The term ‘ego’ means different things to different people, but when used in the book it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind. When consciousness shines on the ego, it will become defensive. Everything it is defending is an illusory identify, an image in your mind, a fictitious identity. If you observe your mind impartially it will all dissolve and be the end of the power games that are so corrosive.   

To the ego, there is only the past and the future and the present moment hardly exists. It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure the continual survival and seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It says ‘one day when this or that happens I will be happy’. Have you ever experienced, done, thought or felt anything outside the now? Do you think you ever will? Is it possible for anything to happen or be outside the now? Nothing has ever happened in the past, or the future. It has happened now!   

 The greatest pains in our life are truly unnecessary,  they are created by the unobserved mind that can ruin your life. All pain you experience is from non-acceptance, a rejection of what is. The more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is? Say YES to life and what is, and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.  

To access the power of now, make it your job to withdraw from the past or future whenever you can. If an imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation, if its worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory. The moment you realize you are not present, you are present.  

There is a  place for mind and mind knowledge, for example: you can make an appointment, plan for a trip and learn from past mistakes. But when your present moment becomes a stepping stone, your life is no longer an adventure, just an obsessive need to arrive somewhere, to attain or to make it. You no longer smell the flowers by the wayside or aware of the beauty around you. The present moment is all that you will ever have. 

There once was a beggar who sat on a box by the side of the road for many, many years.

Day in and day out, swarms of strangers would pass him on their way and the beggar did what all beggars do:  ask for money.

One day a traveler was passing through town and the beggar shouted “Please give me some money!”

The traveler said “Sorry, I don’t have any money to spare, but I am curious about your box.”

“What about my box?” the beggar replied.

“Well, what’s in it?”

The beggar responded, “I don’t know, it’s just an old box I found here that I’ve been sitting on for years.”

Persistent in his inquiry, the traveler once again asked what was in the box. The beggar replied, “I’ve never looked.”  The traveler said “Why not?”

“Because there is nothing there!” the beggar howled back.  The traveler said “Well let’s take a look, shall we?”

Finally, to appease the traveler’s insistence, the beggar split the box open and amazingly, a treasure of gold burst onto the ground.  He’d be sitting on it for years and never even knew it.

And off the traveler went.

What treasure are you sitting on?

And what’s it going to take to open it?

I invite you to look inside.

 

 

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