The Power of Now is a book about living in the present moment. After all, according to the author Eckhart Tolle, the present (the now) is all there really is, for the past and future are only in your mind.
Throughout this book Tolle delivers quotes and stories about how to live in the now. The book was transformative in my life, and I’m so excited to share a summary and some takeaways with you in this episode of On Books.
The Power of Now Summary and Quotes
Can you give it to me, or show me how to get it? And I would say: “You have it already. You just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.” [6]
Break out of the inherited collective mind-patterns [6]
As you being reading the book, the meaning of certain words, such as “Being” or “presence,” may not be entirely clear to you at first. Just read on. [7]
The essence [in the teaching of Buddha and Jesus] is and has been only one spiritual teaching, although it comes in many forms. [9]
Eckhardt Tolle attempts to use a terminology that is as neutral as possible in order to reach a wide range of people. [10]
Enlightenment – The End of Suffering [12]
The word God has become empty of meaning through thousands of years of misuse. I use it sometimes, but I do so sparingly. [13]
Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don’t realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. [14]
Thinking has become a disease. [16]
Watching the thinker: take any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention so that it becomes an end in itself. [20]
It’s all about getting rid of the inner voice in your head. Smiling at it, as you would the antics of a child. [21]
Observe your mind and you will find that it causes a serious leakage of vital energy. [22]
What characterizes an addition? Quite simply this: you no longer feel that you have the choice to stop. [22]
Ego – The False Self, created by unconscious identification with the mind [22]
To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. past and future are considered important. [22]
Enlightenment means rising above thought [23]
All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness .[24]
If you’re “not creative” then it’s not because you don’t know how to think, but because you don’t know how to stop thinking [24]
Mind includes emotions Emotion arises at the place where mind and body meet. It is a reflection of your mind in the body.
You can then allow the emotion to be there without being controlled by it. You no longer are the emotion; you are the watcher, the observing presence. [27]
All emotions are modifications of one primordial undifferentiated emotion that has its origin in the loss of awareness of who you are beyond name and form… Fear comes close, but apart from a continuous sense of threat, it also includes a deep sense of abandonment and incompleteness. It may be best to use a term that is as undifferentiated as that basic emotion and simply call it “pain”. One of the main tasks of the mind is to fight r remove that emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up temporarily. [28]
Love, joy and peace are deep states of Being, or rather three aspects of the state of inner connectedness with Being. As such, they have no opposite,. This is because they arise from beyond the mind. Emotions, on the other hand, being part of the dualistic mind, are subject to the law of opposites. [29]
Bibliography:
Title: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Author: Eckhart Tolle
Hardcover: 236 pages
Publisher: Namaste Publishing (August 19, 2004)
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