The Power of Now - Book Summary & Review

The Power of Now

A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Eckhart Tolle

‘The Power of Now’ is a fascinating book with the power to radically change the lives of the readers for the better. To make the journey into the Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. Eckhart Tolle uses simple language and an easy question and answer format to guide us. 

By focusing only on the present – and ignoring the past or future – you can greatly improve your life.

Everyone wants to find inner peace and improve their lives. But we don’t know how. We tend to live either in the past or in the future, while neglecting the present.

Present is important because nothing ever happens in the past or future. Whatever we feel is experienced in the present, because our senses only give us information about a specific moment.

If we manage to live in the present, there will be no major problems, just small ones that can be easily dealt with.

A part of your needs pain to survive, and it creates most of the pain you experience.

Pain is a self-created inner resistance to externalities that we cannot change. We live in the present, but think a lot much about the past and the future. We have no means to change things we’re unhappy about; so, we develop a resistance against them– which we experience as pain.

Another aspect of self-created pain is the “pain-body,” a part of the self that needs pain to survive. Since the pain-body is composed of painful experiences, it grows and strengthens us whenever we feel pain. Thus, it tries to make us miserable and sad.

This cycle can continue till the pain finally becomes an essential part of us, and we’re afraid to let it go because doing so would put our identity at risk.

The “ego” is a part of your mind that stops you from being happy.

Nobody wants to be miserable, but why so many people are unhappy? The culprit is the ego – a part of our mind that controls our thoughts and behaviour without us noticing. Since it cannot be observed easily, most people don’t know the extent to which the ego controls their life.

Ego depends on our misery for its existence, so it tries to obstruct our happiness at every turn. The ego leads us into situations of conflict, and makes us unhappy with our current situation so that it can gain control over our behaviour.

If you want a richer and almost painless life, separate yourself from your mind and focus on your body.

Our ego is one of the many reasons why it’s important to separate ourselves from your mind and pay more attention to our body. The mind produces pain by continually bringing up memories of the past, or by planning for the future. In doing so, it prevents us from living in the present.

We need to find a way to reduce the mind’s power and some of its control on us. We can do it by shifting our focus from the mind to the body. Your body knows what’s best for you. Our body can give us a very clear sense of what is important in our life. Nobody has ever found enlightenment while concentrating only on the mind and ignoring the body.

Observing the mind without judgment is the best way to separate from it, and thus free yourself from pain.

To separate yourself from your mind, you must become fully conscious of the power it has over you, otherwise you’ll never understand the small and subtle ways it influences you.

Other method is to observe your mind without judging. Judging is itself an act of the mind, so if you judge something you are back to using your mind again. Don’t judge that voice in your head as good or bad, just smile at it, and accept that it exists.

Try to exist in a state of permanent alertness.

To separate ourselves from our mind, we can try another technique: active waiting. This is a special kind of waiting state, in which we’re aware that something important could happen at any moment. In such a state, all of our attention is focused on the now.

When we get into a state of active waiting, there’s no time for the daydreaming, planning or remembering that usually distracts us from the present. In this state, we only pay attention to our body because it has to stay ready for anything which may happen.  

Living in the present can be hard for your partner, but it can also improve your relationship.

It’s extremely difficult for a “normal” person to share their life with someone who lives fully in the present. A non-present person’s ego feeds on problems, while the present person is seen as a threat. It can cause many problems and disrupt peace.

But living in the present can also greatly improve relationships: you’ll be able to stop judging, criticizing or trying to change your partner, and instead see him or her as an independent person.

If you live in the present, then living with you can be very difficult for your partner. In the long run, however, it can offer a great opportunity for positive change.

Not all pain is avoidable: surrendering to the present does not mean ignoring sad or hurtful feelings.

Even if you live fully in the present, some feelings of sadness and pain are unavoidable. While it’s true that most pain is self-created, that doesn’t mean we create all of it. Some pains are clearly unavoidable, like the one caused by the death of a beloved.

When you experience something traumatic, which causes you real pain, just accept it for what it is. If you accept pain as something that simply is and cannot be changed, then you’ll avoid needless suffering.

Living in the present does not mean ignoring or suppressing pain. Instead, it provides you with the inner strength to accept painful facts of life.

Surrendering to the present does not mean living a passive life.

Living in the present is an inner process of feeling and insight, and doesn’t cause you to develop a passive external behaviour. Living in the present can provide us with new resources, and new ways to solve problems. It brings us new forms of strength and determination, because we don’t waste our inner resources creating problems. Instead, we’re able to see what’s actually wrong at any given moment, and can change those things for the better.

Ruchika Verma

You can purchase this engrossing book from Amazon