The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

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Eckhart Tolle is one of the greatest spiritual minds of our time. He is known for his methodical, deliberate, and simple message. For most authors, this message would be pluralized into steps or principles of life to follow. Tolle has but one: to be present for the NOW. This entire book could be reduced down to that single word or in essence, The Only Single Moment of our life.  

I could write pages and pages of review of how much this book simplifies the teachings of Buddhism, Christianity, and Love, but they would all be pointing back towards the simple truth of NOW. One single word. 

I love the backstory about this book however, which is often not addressed within reviews. Tolle suffered from a deep depression throughout most of his early life and was at the point of contemplating suicide. After years of struggle internally, he one day just finally Let Go. He couldn’t live with life anymore. I know that many of us readers have also had similar occurrences within our own personal journeys. Some of us are ashamed to admit that to end it all would be preferable to one more moment within our minds and emotions. Our society ostracizes those who “give up”, and it is not culturally acceptable to declare publicly that I would rather die than feel one more painful event. 

“I couldn't live with myself any longer. And in this a question arose without an answer: who is the ‘I' that cannot live with the self? What is the self? I felt drawn into a void! I didn't know at the time that what really happened was the mind-made self, with its heaviness, its problems, that lives between the unsatisfying past and the fearful future, collapsed. It dissolved. The next morning I woke up and everything was so peaceful. The peace was there because there was no self. Just a sense of presence or "beingness," just observing and watching.”

There is a part of us that needs to die in order to wake up. But it’s not the physical that perishes but rather our illusion of Self. To step out into the void and let ever since of yourself go completely takes courage, but oftentimes it also takes suffering. 

This book is not written in a traditional narrative fashion. Eckhart Tolle put this together within an answer and response format. These are questions that you yourself might have about existence as they were originated from the questions others posed to him. Oftentimes we are afraid to ask these questions yet they continue plague us. If you want your questions answered, this is the book to purchase.  

Eckhart Tolle’s other book, “A New Earth” maybe more popular in numbers, but this book is the place to begin and the place you will return. 

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”

“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”

“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”

“...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.”

“What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.”

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