The Power of Now
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Reviews:Perhaps once in a decade, or even once
in a generation, a book like The Power of Now comes along.
It is one of those rare books that has the power to create an
experience in readers, one that can change their lives for the
better. The Power of Now is the work of a contemporary master,
one who is not aligned with any particular religion or doctrine
or guru, one who is able to do what all the great masters have
done: show us, in simple and clear language, that the way, the
truth, and the light is within us.
This classic guide to spiritual enlightenment from a man who is
emerging as one of our generation’s clearest, most inspiring
teachers has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide; it has
been translated into over 30 languages and has appeared on
dozens of national bestseller lists, including #1 on The New
York Times Bestseller List. Oprah Winfrey credits The Power of
Now with helping her to "get through September 11, 2001" and she
featured it on her December 2002 "Oprah’s Favorite Things" show.
The success of The Power of Now is nothing short of phenomenal.
This is even more astounding since Eckhart Tolle, by choice, is
generally not available to the press and electronic media.
As Tolle says in the book: “On the surface it seems that the
present moment is only one of many, many moments. Each day of
your life appears to consists of thousands of moments where
different things happen. Yet if you look more deeply, is there
not only one moment, ever? Is life ever not “this moment?”
The book is a potpourri, to be sure, but it is an authentic,
unsentimental, and wisdom-laden guide to a fuller emotional,
psychological, and more authentic life. The big task: to
practice daily what Tolle’s insights evoke. He makes this easy
for us in The Power of Now with his understandable, modern idiom
which speaks both to the longtime spiritual seeker as well as
the beginner.
“One of the best books to come along in years. Every sentence
rings with truth and power.”
—
Deepak Chopra, author of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
* * *
If I were allotted only one book, I would
choose Eckhart Tolle's THE POWER OF NOW: A Guide to Spiritual
Enlightenment. Because this book emanates a spirit of love, not
only through its words, but in the spaces between the words. No
book has touched me, nor embraced me as this one has. Perhaps it
was its rhythm - the moving back and forth from simple to
complex, from question to answer, from form to spirit, from
dysfunction to divinity - which I found so comforting. Perhaps
it was the author's authenticity as he spoke the unspeakable -
of homosexuality, menses, patriarchy, and rape - which opened my
consciousness.
This book is for all of us sleepwalking travelers in time -
philosophers or kings, young women or terminally ill, gays or
feminists, religiously inclined or scientifically motivated -
who are willing to take the pilgrimage to wakefulness, from
worry to peace, from unhappiness to joy. Tolle provokes us
through an uneasy questioning that rocks us back and forth,
between discomfort and solace, as he pokes at our handed-down
unexamined beliefs then soothes with an offering of truth.
Eckhart begins by introducing us to his story - a story of early
despair. For a moment, we are touched by compassion as we
release from our belief in separation and connect in our shared
mortality. In chapter one we learn of enlightenment and its
greatest obstacle - us. Next Tolle awakens us to our role as the
creator of our pain, of our attachment to pain, and our
identification with pain. In the third chapter we find we can
create a pain-free identity by living in the present. Tolle
flips us back and forth 'time and time again' between the past
and the future, between pain and pleasure, between unhappiness
and happiness. As we experience the futility of duality and the
emptiness of living in the past or future we access the fullness
of living in the Power of Now.
In chapter four we plummet from the fantasy of living
consciously in the Now to the reality of being lost in
unconscious living. Eckhart then raises us in the next chapter
to the glory of "waiting," to the sacredness of stillness, to
the purity of consciousness, and finally - to the reality of our
divinity.
In chapter six we shift from the mind to the inner body only to
discover that all feeling and emotion are produced from thought.
When we understand we are greater than thought, we are free - we
are free to access our self behind the thought. We are the
unmanifest and when we tap into our source we may consciously
create our own destiny.
Chapter seven provides portals to the unmanifest which lay in
space and silence, both within and without, in chi, and even in
conscious death.
A complex portal to consciousness is presented in chapter eight
- relationships. We are guided and supported in our passage from
unconscious romantic love to the wonder of a conscious love
where opposites do not reside. In chapter nine we learn to 'give
up' negativity, judgment, drama and our belief in impermanence.
As we learn to forgive the past, the present, and ourselves,
fear evaporates and a new reality crystallizes - a reality
founded on love.
Our compassion transforms. Our belief of a shared mortality
becomes a knowing of shared divinity. In the final chapter,
chapter ten, we finally 'let go' of our attachment to pain and
we surrender to what is - our pure radiance - as we 'take up'
the Power of Now. -- Patricia Gordon, M.A. Calgary, Alberta
* * *
...a reminder to be truly present in our own
lives and liberated from our past and future. It can transform
your thinking. The result? More joy, right now! -- The OPRAH
Magazine
* * *
Tolle has succeeded on two fronts:
synthesizing the teachings of masters such as Jesus and the
Buddha into an easily accessible guide to achieving spiritual
consciousness and making a strong case that the inability of
humans to free themselves from dominance by the mind and live in
the present is the root cause for both individual peace and the
health of the planet. -- ForeWord Magazine
