My new year resolution was to read 12 books this year with a tagline of ‘A Book A Month.” I started with “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and now the recent “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. These are the lessons that I learnt from the book.
I would recommend people with over-reactive minds like mine to read this book. People who always get sensitive and crucial about the tiniest things. People who overthink, anxious and those that always see that their problems will end one day; that things will be better in the future or when they get that special someone etc.
Should you always delve in the past, this is the book for you. Are you short tempered, negative and bored by every little ill you see, Eckhart Tolle has got answers for you. Are you that unforgiving guy controlled by what someone did in their past, you always expect the future to bring you solutions and joy, you worry a lot and are full of complaints, you need to read this book.
There is nothing like time. Time is an illusion that man created himself. The only time we have is now. It is the only moment that we can live in reality. It is the only moment that we can fully relate to. It is the moment that we actualize our physical being and say that we are truly living.
Chapter 1: You Are Not Your Mind
The mind is a powerful tool yet it can be so destructive. Eckhart Tolle explains how the mind will go on creating thoughts; judging, worrying, regretting, living in guilt etc. He teaches that we should be watchers of our minds and that we should not participate in its thoughts.
‘You are pure consciousness. Consciousness is in the background upon which thoughts, emotions and reactions arise. Consciousness (awareness) is not thought. Close your eyes. Watch your thoughts. Do not judge or label the thoughts, do not resist them; watch them, allow them to be. By watching (being aware) of your thoughts, the watching consciousness comes to the fore, and the thoughts will subside into the background. There will be a break in the continuous stream of thinking. There is stillness, and it is only then that true peace can arise’
Tolle introduces a term ‘enlightment’ that he defines, rising above thought. He says that it is the state of being aware and not living into your thoughts.
‘It is not necessary, to think all the time. The mind (thought) is a tool. You use it when you need to for practical purposes, and stop using it when that purpose ends. For example, you need to think to do your job, but don’t need to think when you’re sitting quietly at home, or going for a walk. This does not mean that you are in a vegetative state, or become unconscious. You are highly alert, highly aware, but not thinking.’
Chapter 2: Consciousness: The Way Out of Pain
We create our own pain from the mind. I got that people in pain are unconscious. They allow themselves to be in pain, mostly dominated by their past and controlled the mind.
‘The pain-body is an accumulation of past emotional pain that resides within your mind and your body. Human beings carry around a heavy burden of residual pain from the past – this burden keeps getting heavier and heavier as each new emotional pain is added to it. Not being Present means not being able to let go of the Past, and the pains of the past (as pain-bodies) are still causing you to suffer Now.’
‘How to be Present and free yourself of the pain-body? Watch the emotions in your body. Feel them. Don’t label or judge what you feel. Allow the emotions to be there. By watching and feeling them without judgement, you are allowing them to be. And by allowing them to be, you accept that they are there, without any negativity. Miraculously, the emotions will dissolve, as if by magic, and all that is left is the consciousness (awareness) that was watching the emotions (and allowing them to be). This consciousness is the real YOU. There is stillness, and it is only then that true peace can arise.’
Chapter 3: Moving Deeply into the Now
Tolle teaches how to now snap out of your egoic mind and practice the power of living the moment where he teaches about getting out of psychological time.
‘There is chronological (clock) time, and psychological (mind time). Clock time is real, practical time, such as the time to start work. Psychological time is not real time, but exists only in the mind. You are living in psychological time when you relive past emotional pains, or worry about the future. Be present.’
He talks about forgetting the past and not being anxious of the future because they are NOT REAL. He says that we should only go into these illusions only when it is EXTREMELY necessary, when we need to refer something. He also says this for peole who are not living in the present
‘If you are living in psychological time (in your mind) you are not honouring the present. You are using the present moment (Now) as a means to get to the future. The present moment really doesn’t even exist for you. You are not enjoying the present moment, but only want to escape it to an imaginary point in the future, where you think things will be better for you.’
Simple: Do not reside in your mind. Do not live believing that things will be better tomorrow, that when you get that job you will be happy, that when you get divorced and remarry you will have a fantastic love life. Find the happiness today, NOW. It is in the inner man. If you are waiting for that wealth to make you happy, it will, but it will be short-lived. It will be a matter of time before you feel void again, with great emptiness that need to be filled again.
‘The mind continually lives in memory of the past, or anticipation of an imaginary future. Guilt, regret, bitterness and remorse is the result of too much past; stress, anxiety, and worry is the result of too much future.’
Are you that unforgiving self? Are you one in bitterness and remorse? Are you living in your past because someone did something to you and you let go? Do you pretend that you are okay being bitter and you are not? Did you know maybe the person you loathe so much is living in the NOW, free of bondage from their past while you are still clung to bitterness and pain? I have one statement for you, ‘Get a life!’ because you ain’t got one.
For how long will you carry the heavy burden of guilt and regret? For how long will you be burdened with what she said what he did, whom I will become in the future, what kind of a family I will have, what I will do to be great in the future, what my parents did in the past, what my family will think of me? For how long will you be in worry and fear? Snap out of that life. Free yourself off pain body. Live NOW. Eckhart Tolle explains that it is not bad to have goals and dreams but do not delve in them, the mind goes on to give illusions about them and there arises worry, fear and anxiety.
The Power of Now: A spiritual guide to enlightment by Eckhart Tolle is more than a book to read. Oprah says it helped her survive the September 21, 2001 and speaks highly of the book ever. Paris Hilton says that the book is her second Bible. I am not going to recommend you the book because some celebrities out there speak highly of it but am going to do so because it will CHANGE your thinking. It will have an impact in your mentality to the better and your anxiety and worries will ultimately supress. Grab a copy and read it with outmost concentration and watch yourself be a watcher of your mind.