First published: February 5, 2023 @ 6:00 pm
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Do you want to be more mindful, grounded and at deep peace with your life? Do you want to become more in touch with your inner guidance and wisdom? Or, get rid of negative feelings? Eckhart Tolle has written one of the most enlightening books of our time – a book that will change the way you see yourself, and the world around you.
Nowadays, people are on the move. Their lives are very busy and they don’t have time to reflect. They are so preoccupied with their busy lives that they lose touch with their inner sense of peace, love and fulfillment.
In The Power of Now, Tolle reveals how you can use the power of now to overcome your problems and become happier, healthier and more fulfilled. The book is about being in the current moment to experience less suffering and greater inner peace.
It’s all about reconnecting with your physical senses instead of becoming buried in your thoughts. According to Eckhart Tolle, past and future are simply mental simulations since your existence constantly occurs Now.
Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now was released in 1997, and it became a New York Times bestseller in 2000 when Oprah Winfrey was impressed with it and recommended the book.
Now, here are three main points we can gain by reading this book:
1. Life is simply a succession of present-moment experiences.
2. All anguish comes from resistance to situations you can’t alter.
3. By continually watching your thoughts and not criticizing your ideas, you may release yourself from pain.
Let’s explore these three key ideas!
Photo by Knuth Waltenberg on Unsplash
Everything in Life is a Sequence of Current Moments
The way our thoughts function is the explanation we regret and worry over so many things. The steady stream of awareness and ideas in our minds, which plays 24 hours a day, is primarily concerned with two thoughts: the past and the future.
According to Tolle, the most important moment is the one we focus about the slightest, which is the present. Because everything happens now, only the now matters.
If you reflect about this, the past is nothing less than all of the present moments that have passed, and the future consists of only a bunch of present moments that are yet to arrive. It could be a secret of life that you haven’t discovered yet.
As a result, existing in any other time than the current moment is pointless. It’s all downhill after that if you simply start fixing the first minor problem and sketching down an outline now.
Any Anguish You Have is the Result of Opposing Something You Can’t Alter
Tolle would undoubtedly think that part of the stoic philosophy involves the concept that the only suffering you truly experience is the one you make for yourself. He claims that suffering is simply the product of your resistance to all of the situations you cannot alter.
We are frequently concerned about the future and the past, but since we can only live in the moment, we can’t alter many aspects from the other two periods that we’re unhappy about.
Then we bridge the gap by establishing resistance to these things, which we perceive as anguish, whether psychological or bodily.
When you’re furious, you normally behave and think less rationally, which usually ends in a worse scenario and therefore greater emotional pain. But it’s all within your brain.
Examine Your Mind Continually and Don’t Pass Judgment on Your Ideas
After you learned about the anguish that arises from resisting what you can’t change, the next step is to fix it. But you might still have no idea how. To help you understand the solution, Tolle gives you two simple rules for your unobserved mind:
- Always ask yourself about what your next thought would be.
- Stop criticizing your feelings and desires.
Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash
The first technique is based on a physics phenomena known as ‘the quantum zeno effect’. It claims that by continually studying any system, you may freeze it in its current condition.
Asking oneself this question repeatedly frequently causes your next thought to be delayed, allowing you ample opportunity to discover how much time you truly use in autopilot mode. You may begin breaking your mind and thereby separate from it in this manner.
The second way is intended to help you learn to pay attention to your body and accept the persistent, demanding thoughts in your brain about what you should or shouldn’t be doing. Notice the thought, acknowledge its intense presence, but don’t follow its advise.
These two mind strategies will help you disconnect your physique from your incessant thinking and everlasting mind activity, resulting in less intense suffering as you oppose the things you can’t control less.
Final Review
People tend to be in a state of constant worry and uncertainty. It makes them feel powerless, disconnected from themselves, or even suffer from a suicidal depression.
The Power of Now teaches you that every moment you spend thinking about the future or starting to regret the past is a time lost. The only place you can simply live is in the present, the now.
That is why the book provides actionable strategies for starting to live every moment as it happens and becoming 100% exist in and for your everyday life.
This book is recommended for those who want to make their life better, but are not sure how. As you will learn, living a life without regret or loss of control is possible and even enjoyable.
“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”
– Eckhart Tolle
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