The Power of Now
New World Library printing of the book
|
|
| Author | Eckhart Tolle |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Spirituality, Psychology |
| Published |
|
| Media type | |
| Pages | 236 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 42061039 |
| 291.4/4 21 | |
| LC Class | BL624 .T64 1999 |
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment is a book by Eckhart Tolle. The book is intended to be a guide for day-to-day living and stresses the importance of living in the present moment and avoiding thoughts of the past or future.
Published in the late 1990s, the book was recommended by Oprah Winfrey and has been translated into 33 languages. As of 2009, it was estimated that three million copies had been sold in North America.
The book draws from a variety of "spiritual traditions", and has been described by one reviewer as "Buddhism mixed with mysticism and a few references to Jesus Christ, a sort of New Age re-working of Zen." It uses these traditions to describe a "belief system based on living in the present moment". Its core message is that people's emotional problems are rooted in their identification with their minds. The author writes that an individual should be aware of their "present moment" instead of losing themselves in worry and anxiety about the past or future.
According to the book, only the present moment is important, and both an individual's past and future is created by their thoughts. The author maintains that people's insistence that they have control of their life is an illusion "that only brings pain". The book also describes methods of relaxation and meditation to aid readers in anchoring themselves in the present. These suggestions include slowing down life by avoiding multi-tasking, spending time in nature, and letting go of worries about the future. Some of the concepts contained in The Power of Now, such as the human ego and its negative effects on happiness, are further elaborated in the author's later books, in particular A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (2005).
The chapters of the book are: "Introduction", "You Are Not Your Mind", "Consciousness: The Way Out of Pain", "Moving Deeply into the Now", "Mind Strategies for Avoiding the Now", "The State of Presence", "The Inner Body", "Portals into the Unmanifested", "Enlightened Relationships", "Beyond Happiness and Unhappiness There Is Peace" and "The Meaning of Surrender". Various chapters emphasize a "philosophy" of destroying the "destructive dominance of the mind and ego" in an effort to overcome "the pain body". According to the author, his philosophy is directed towards people and their search for personal happiness and also has the potential to give insight into "historical disasters" like the justification of an "evil" political system such as Communism.
...
Wikipedia