So, recently I’ve started reading Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now Collection 3 Books Set, (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Practising the Power of Now and Stillness Speaks: Whispers of Now)
The Power of Now is a self-professed “guide” book that helps you understand how enlightenment “works” and how to achieve it (although Tolle expressly states you can’t achieve it, you simply become present). Before reading this book, I thought my meditation practices were helping me to become more and more present, but this new perspective of being present has completely changed the way I think about life.
The History of Tolle
The book starts by briefly introducing Tolle’s life up until the point where he wrote the book. There’s not too much to say since Tolle is living in the present moment, meaning there’s very little use for talking about the past. However, he does give us some insight into where he is today.
In short, Tolle went through many years of severe depression. He had no-one in his life, no friends, no immediate family, no job and regularly found himself sleeping on park benches in the cold. However, one night he remembers that he lay thinking to himself (that incessant voice that we all have nagging away in our heads) that he simply couldn’t go on and this truly as rock bottom for him.
He remembers hearing a train thundering along the tracks not far from where he was.
However, in the morning, he awoke to an indescribable feeling. Everything around him felt new and revitalised. Everything had a new life to it. Even the light felt warm and refreshing on his skin, and he describes the overwhelming sense of peace that had flooded every single aspect of his Being. He had reached enlightenment and was now in the present moment.
Tolle then wrote The Power of Now, now regarded as one of the best-selling self-help books ever to have been written. It has sold millions of copies worldwide, and Tolle is now respected as one of the most prestigious spiritual teachers in the world.
The Feeling of Being Present
I, and many other people who are reading this, probably already have a sense of what living in the present moment is. It’s a place where your thoughts are clear and focused, not thinking about the past or the future.
However, it wasn’t until I read The Power of Now that I gained a new perspective on this insight that I would to share with you. A mind is a tool. It’s a problem-solving tool that we’ve used for thousands of years to invent the wheel and roads and to crack open nuts with stones and dig holes with tools. It’s been there to help us solve problems.
But, fast forwarding to the present day, we now have very little need for this tool. In the past, our minds were made to think of past experiences, helping us to decide whether to flight or fight, ultimately causing stress that made our bodies react in a certain way.
However, these days, we don’t have to be aware of big animals trying to eat us or trying to protect our lives from the elements. Instead, our minds are consumed by the ever-nagging voices in our head asking us to answer our phones, our social media feeds and our endless email conversations.
As we all already know, this means our stress levels are through the roof all the time, and this causes obvious problems to our health. We are constantly focused on the future and the past, not the present.
Focusing on the Present
Through meditation and other spiritual practices, such as yoga, we can learn to treat our mind like another tool we use to survive. For example, we don’t constantly focus on our hands and what they are doing, so why should we our minds?
By witnessing the thoughts of the mind from a higher perspective, we can learn to use it as a tool when we need it, rather than trying to listen to it all of the time. This can lead to an overwhelming sense of peace in our everyday lives, helping us to be happier and healthier.
Summary
All in all, if you haven’t yet read The Power of Now, it’s a book that I highly recommend, and it will change your life. Read it through once, act on what you’ve read and then read it through again. The concepts described are incredible on a second read-through!
