The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

I was feeling suicidal and had been for two years. I was completely done with life, with trying to heal my emotional traumas, limitations and with trying to be a full-functioning adult. I felt trapped inside an endless corridor of meaninglessness and pain.The Saturday morning when I was contemplating really ending it, I heard an inner voice say "one last book, read one last book and if you still want to kill yourself, go ahead." This was my "last book" I read it three months ago and haven't returned to that dark and hopeless place yet.It taught me how to disconnect from the insanity of the mind. I had spent my life reading thousands of books trying to "figure it out" to make my way to a place of happiness and functionality, what Tolle explains that trying to solve the problems of thought from the level of thought is an impossibility. When we let go of mind-consciousness we do not become a meditative vegetable, instead, we gain access to the consciousness of our whole body and a more advanced awareness. I know it sounds weird, but it works. When I can stay present everything I do becomes more effective, and my social skills are way better now then they have ever been.I don't mean to say that this is the be-all and end-all to human growth, but it has in fact saved my life, so I figured it at least deserved a good review. I am no longer helpless in the face of crushing memories and emotions. Thank you, Mr. Tolle.

I have over 25 years of experience as a clinical psychologist. This is hands down the best self-help book I have ever come across, and can not fathom why the very simple and straight-forward concepts Tolle presents were never once mentioned in my grad school training or any of the countless professional development workshops I have attended over the years. If you are dealing with depression and/or anxiety, this is the book to get. But you need to read it slowly, to take it in bit by bit, and actually pause to practice what he is explaining in each section to benefit from it. You can't just skim it and expect to understand it in a way that will open your life and help you experience the freedom and ease of this very moment. I keep it by my bed and re-read sections all the time. Thank you Eckhart!

I ordered this book because so many people said it was a must-read. No, it's not. It's a bunch of rambling. Tolle uses pages and pages of borderline coherent blathering to say what could be summed up in one paragraph.His writing style is unbearable. For example, "It is a misperception of your essential reality that is beyond birth and death, and is due to the limitations of your mind, which, having lost touch with Being creates the body as evidence of its illusory belief in separation and to justify its state of fear." JFC.I finally put this book away for good after reading half of it. I really don't understand the book's popularity. It's like everybody is nodding, smiling, and singing Tolle's praises, when the reality is that nobody gets it because there is nothing to "get." But nobody wants to say it.

In 1969 I read Be Here Now by Ram Dass........and so my spiritual journey began. I knew the answers to much of humanity's suffering was right in front of me. I was simply unable to translate it to my own life and make it work. Hundreds of books, millions of dollars, two divorces, several kinds of anti-depressants, and 45 years later I found Eckhart Tolle. The book itself is amazing and transformational. My life changing experience however did not come from insight gained in the text. The preface which gave a brief but clear account of Tolle's own transformation completely overwhelmed me. I was completely engulfed by my personal connection to the author's own pain and fear before his journey began. Reading it over and over and shedding many tears, I knew without any doubt that beginning that day I would start my own journey into the present. Make no mistake I was fearful. But who am I without thought, judgment, or control ? I would gladly trade my ego for peace. On 3-5-15 I began an absolute commitment to stay present and live in gratitude. I told myself I would give it 6 months and just watch the process unfold without judgement. Staying present over time changed the way I lived each moment. Insight and epiphanies came at me from everywhere and I was certain I was finally on my path. However, where the rubber meets the road for me was that small space before a thought that staying present gave me. That small space is everything. With it you can watch your thought instead of being your thought.....or perhaps not have that thought at all. Simply come present again and feel gratitude. Easier said than done perhaps, but we all have the power of now if we so choose it. Eckhert Tolle gave me the courage to choose it and live it.

UGH. I was so looking forward to reading this book. I really wanted to learn something from it. I was truly hoping Tolle would change my life. I heard his name a lot from various "enlightened" individuals and I remember an interview with him on the Oprah show. Well, I couldn't read past the first chapter. It didn't resonate with me. I like reading about practical practices on bettering oneself. This one was way too new age-y and the tone was condescending. There's a lot of corny passages and long paragraphs that don't make sense. It made me feel dumb. It's suppose to make me realize that I should start living in the "now". Well right now, I just want to return this book to Amazon and get another one.Side note: I tried to return it but Amazon is charging $5.99 to return it (shipping), the book costs $9.49. My refund total is about $3 and some change. Is it even worth the trouble of packing it up and going to the post office to drop it off?Hmmm...maybe I'll just leave it on my bookshelf. The cover color is nice. It matches my decor.

First, I have had what felt like a true fight between good and evil for my soul in recent years. I had wife who insisted on following the mormon religion, which divided my family for years. My child chose not to follow the mormon beliefs, but in the end the marriage ended. In the years following my divorce, I was tempted by not one but several women who were willing to give me anything to hang onto me. They would try to bring other women into our bed and they used sex to tempt and control me. Things got progressively worse as I would break things off with each woman, only to be tempted by another exactly like her. The new women would pretend to be Christians, good people, moral people, but in the end, they were just evil. The severity of each woman's revenge grew in intensity 10 times more than the one before for leaving them. Ultimately, I was left broken and beaten down. I have spent the last two years receiving medical treatment and trying to just get back on top of my life again. I looked to the Power of Now as a way to suppress the pain and move forward. It seemed to be helping and I found myself buying books for strangers, telling people about it at every turn, both online and in person.I have been told on multiple occasions that I must be a very important person to have survived the horrible things that were done to me in the fight for good and evil. I would take this as nearly insulting, because I was a broken man at the lowest point in my life. It seemed patronizing and made me feel as though I should be outraged that someone would even suggest that the indignities done to me were part of a plan for my life. Violence was forced upon me with last two women I dated as they tried to see that I paid for not wanting to be with them anymore. This violence resulted in chronic pain and multiple surgeries to repair the damage. Of course, these women enlisted the help of new men in their lives to teach me a lesson, because women control men in ways we may never even want to openly admit.In my attempts to erase the painful memories, I started reading the "Power of Now". One night I woke in pain while I was having a vivid dream about good and evil, where I was left with this shocking insight to the possible real motive behind the book. The author talks about the existence of another entity inside of us as though it is just a common thing. More than that, it says we should learn to NOT LISTEN TO OUR OWN THOUGHTS, saying that in time we might even eventually laugh at the voice inside our head instead of listening to it. I thought for a moment about an exorcism movie I had seen where the priests fought to reach the real person, who's body was taken over by a demon. This had special implications with me, because in the last few years I have had many lapses in time where I had gone to the store in the middle of the night or written emails, etc. that seemed to not even be coming from me. It was blamed on the head injury that I had received and at other times it was blamed on sleep medications like Ambien and Triazolam. They called it sleep walking, but the bottom line is that I felt violated every time I woke to a morning after being someone else for a night with no memories at all. You walk and talk to people as though you are in a zombie state. I went as far as to give Ambien to one of these women who had taken part in the destruction of my life one night. She was awake and looking into the camera with dead (possessed looking) eyes, as she proudly told me the real story about dozen of lies she had told me over the years. She had cheated on many occasions, while launching verbal attacks on me to divert the attention off her. On the Ambien, this girl told me the truth about everything with a smile on her face. With the pride of a demon, she would smile as she told me about how hot the other men's orgasms were. She used words that would be as painful as they could be as she mockingly told me all of these stories with very vivid details. This was not SLEEP WALKING. It was the act of a evil entity. It was like looking into the face of evil. I broke all ties with her and later she was launching another attack on me about how delusional I was to believe all of the things I did about her. I told her that I had a video of her confessing everything in great detail, to which she replied that I was a (cursing) liar and to (cursing) prove it. I sent her video and she was shocked. She reacted with such disbelief as she watched the video. It was her, telling me as harshly as she could ever evil thing she had ever done to me, that she always claimed were just me being delusional when I would question her about where she had been or what she had been doing. She could only tell me that she didn't know why she said those things, but that maybe she was just screwing with me or something. I have always believed that this girl had given in years ago to the forces of evil and she claims to be an atheist. If Ambien could make someone who lived a life full of secrets suddenly look into a camera and boldly tell 20 sex stories in great details that had happened and with no other goal but to see pain on my face as she told me while smiling, then what is the true purpose of meds like Ambien and Triazolam? Is it all just tools of evil to peck away our soul's ability to be in charge of our body?I am throwing allot at you at once, but keep reading.It is my belief that our souls are the entity that is primarily in control of our body, but that there are other entities constantly trying to take over, like in the possession stories. In the possession stories, some other entity takes over the body at their will, not your will. The demons kill and abuse others. When the person wakes later, they have no memory of anything happening. Anyone who ever took something Ambien and woke to weird things that had been done by them with zero memory or first hand accounts, will see this connection now and (like me) are feeling a chill run up their spines.The forces of evil are about deception. They are about manipulation. What does any of this have to do with the Power of Now book? We are knowing taking medications that may in fact be allowing these other entities to take over our bodies. Then I read this book, which is supposed to be about ending suffering. It says that we must be open it. It says we should lay down our will and not believe that we are the ones who are supposed to be controlling our bodies. The book encourages us to "stop thinking". It tells us to empty our mind and ignore the voices in our head that are questioning love and life. It uses words like enlightenment and oneness to shame us or peer pressure us into falling into submission. The fact that the author openly talks about other entities inside of us is powerful. It says the only difference between us and a crazy person talking to themselves as they walk down the streets (which we have all seen), is that we have these conversations inside of our head everyday. They don't keep it inside their heads, but aside from that, we are the same. He says over and over that they voices are real. He tells us to ignore the voice that we "think is in charge" and learn to numb your mind to the point of letting our "true identity" take over. Does anyone else see a problem with any of this?I do not have a great education. I am communicating this as clearly as I can. I think I am supposed to tell you all to look at this from from this point of view. Are we becoming enlightened? Or are we following instructions to lay down our will and let another entity take over our bodies? Why don't we remember the things we say or do while on Ambien or other similar medications? Do they artificially have the same results? Do they force our true identity to lay down control to another entity? People have been charged with crimes committed while on these medications. What would a demon do if they could joy ride with your body for a night? When I first read the book "The Power of Now", I felt a wisdom that did not seem possible to come from a single man. When I heard the audio recordings of Eckhart Tolle reciting his book, they sounded like the words of God. His voice is hypnotizing and anyone who has heard it, will have to admit that. The immensity of his pure and simple logic was frightening to me on some level, but I read on. Now, I fear that they are all tools of the forces of evil, trying to get us to lay down our free will. God gave us free will and I have heard that evil cannot exist anywhere that it was not first invited. I don't even like to watch Hollywood movies about evil, because that is a form of us inviting evil into our lives.I don't honestly know my role yet in this fight between good and evil. I honestly don't even know if I am the good guy or the bad guy yet. I am just reporting my insights as clearly as I can for you to consider, because I have been moved to do so. I am honestly fearful that by me going public with this that I will be inviting evil into my life. I have no intentions except to tell what I have witnessed and the enlightenment that I recently experienced about it all leads me to suspect deception. Someone told me awhile ago to question books like "The Power of Now", because even though they talk about the empowering us with true enlightenment, they may ultimately be leading us down a road of deception. These people told me to only trust the Bible and my first reaction was that they were being purist and that anything that leads us to internal peace can only be a good thing. Now, I fear they may have been right.There is no doubt we are living in the final days. 200,000 people died in the earthquake of Haiti, thousands more in the tsunami in 2004 that shook the world, the tsunami that claimed the nation of Japan, and so on. Japan now has a person committing suicide every 15 minutes nationally after the tsunami. Its their number one cause of death nationally since the tsunami hit. Japan continues to be rocked by earthquakes every week, so does the Philippines, New Zealand, The United States, and Europe. Look up how many volcanoes have erupted world wide in the last year alone.Look up Supernova info regarding the Red giant star Betelgeuse. Look up the Great Rift. Its a black hole in our solar system. Why do I mention both of these? Because the Betelgeuse (ancient name for Satan too) supernova is predicted to happen as early as next year and the earth is also supposed to travel dangerously close to the great rift next year. Next year happens to be 2012, aka end of Mayan calender, etc. Its really all just too much to be ignored any longer isn't it? Personally, I think its all happening right under our feet. If a day to God like a thousand years to us, then today may be the day of reckoning. In fact, all of these terrible disasters have all happened in just a few years of each other.Revelation 1:12 talks about opening the sixth seal. When the "SIXTH SEAL" was broken John tells us that there was a "GREAT EARTHQUAKE," and the "SUN BECAME BLACK AS SACKCLOTH OF HAIR," and the "MOON BECAME AS BLOOD," and the "STARS OF HEAVEN FELL TO THE EARTH," and the "HEAVEN DEPARTED AS A SCROLL," and "EVERY MOUNTAIN AND ISLAND WERE MOVED OUT OF THEIR PLACE." The great earthquake is basically happening now. If you don't believe it, look at the US Geological Service's website [...] and you will see a 7 day window to world quakes. If you look at a larger window for several years, its frightening how much is happening right under our feet. It says the moon will become as blood, which has happened many times in history from earthquake gases and volcanic ash released into the atmosphere. Here is just one example [...]. As for the heavens departing like a scroll and the sun becoming black as a sackcloth, what do you think would happen if we went into a black hole in the universe? The stars would fall from heaven? The black hole would make everything fall from heaven, but the star suspiciously named Betelgeuse imploding, becoming a second sun in our own sky for a week or so before dimming to just a glowing cloud of smoke in the night sky would also sufficiently be described in this way. Certainly, every mountain and island would be moved of their place, but again this has already happened in our poles being shifted by earthquakes of recent years. The entire nation of Japan was shifted 3 feet and the poles moved again.I am not an overly religious person really. I do not preach or even talk opening about this stuff often, but for some reason I am being compelled to share my insights. I have many questions about all of it and that is all I am saying to you. Question Everything. "The Power of Now" may just be another cleverly disguised tool of evil and I only want you to consider that as you read or listen to it. Are you being given instructions to lay down your free will and let another entity take over your body? Lookup "Is Ambien creating a nation of zombies?" on Youtube. It talks about people "sleep driving" and "Sleep walking". It talks about crimes being committed and people even walking off buildings. What would a demon do if they had control of your body. God gave us free will and Eve chose to be disobedient to God. He gave them one rule and she broke it. In keeping with the nature of women in general, they want to be heard by their man. They want to bring knowledge into the relationship and to be valued for that. I think that Eve truly thought she was just enlightening Adam, who she loved. I do not believe she intentionally misled Adam. In her mind, she had figured out that the fruit was good and she wanted Adam to see it too. This simply analogy can be applied to life in marriages around the world and the situations they find themselves in daily. Deception comes in many forms.My mother always told me, "God will never give you more than you can handle".Paul tells us: "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with your testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it" (1 Corinthians 10:13). Over time that promise has become abbreviated to "God will never give you more than you can handle."Maybe its my job to remind you of this and to draw attention to the devil's tools of manipulation. Maybe I am being chosen to provide you the way out by sharing this. Women are Biblically one of those tools as well. It started in the Garden of Eden. I am only saying that men are supposed to be the spiritual leaders of the family and that if a woman is leading you down a different path, that you should recognize that for what it is. Its deception and manipulation. A woman scorned is not something we should make jokes about. It is truly an example of the wrath of evil and its real. There are good moral woman out there, but more alarmingly there are women out there who feel they are good and moral as they lead you down a path of destruction.I don't know all of the answers. I am certainly no scholar. I am saying to you to be strong.Do not lay down your will to an unknown entity, a medication, or a deceptive woman.I know there are truths that have been shown to me and for some reason it is my responsibility to tell you.I have done that.May God protect my soul.

This book, and its author, Eckhart Tolle, have changed my life for the better! (It's going to be hard to keep this review short.)I started reading this book after I went through a very tough time in my life. In late 2018, I was introduced to a kind of yoga practice. The first step in the practice is to finish an online course and practice a few stretching exercises, basic breathing exercises and chanting. It probably works fine for most people, but in my case, it messed me up big time! I started having trouble controlling my energies, lost sleep (just sleeping 2 or 3 hours a night) and was working like crazy at job... Then I went manic. Though I wanted to stop the yoga practice, I couldn't. It was like a drug at that time! I started talking too much at home and work. People started getting scared of me, since I was pointing out things from their lives that they were themselves only peripherally aware of. I eventually lost my job and almost lost my family too! It took me a few months to realize what had just happened. After that manic phase, I went into severe depression. I had no job, a very strained relationship with my wife, and was blaming myself incessantly. I also stopped the yoga practice around this time. A few months later, when I realized I couldn't handle it myself, with the help and support of my wife, I went to a psychiatrist... and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder... (I now know through this book that all illnesses are just temporary situations to deal with. I have no identity with the situation. The reason I am mentioning the label here is to help others who might have gotten this label, or other such labels. Right now I am on medication (200 mg daily of a mood stabilizer, called lamotrigine). I see that it helps me, for now. But I don't buy my psychiatrist's argument that I have to carry that label for the rest of my life. I was doing just fine for 40 years before the yoga practice... and the situation might change in the future. For now, I am going along with the recommended plan since it is working well and I accept it totally.)The only things that pulled me out of that deep pit was total faith in a Guru (who is not living in His body anymore) and probably, the medicine too. At that time, I had to totally lean on faith, since I had no strength myself. The ego had gotten such a heavy beating that it became extremely scared and depressed. Every moment was torturous and I could do nothing about it. I wanted to commit suicide, but having been raised with strong Hindu spiritual teachings, I knew that suicide would only temporarily postpone the inevitable, and that I would take another life and face the exact same situation. (I don't know if that is true or not; it at least prevented me from committing suicide.)This book was referred to me in December of 2018 (when I was in full blown mania) by someone whom I met at a bookstore. I knew about the book, but had never read it. The next day, I found a used copy of "The New Earth" by Eckhart for $3 in a used book store. I bought it, but couldn't read it since I didn't have any concentration. The moment I read one sentence, my mind took off and I could see where Eckhart was going... (At that time, my mind was telling me there was nothing I didn't know.)Only in November of 2019, after I went through a full cycle of mania and depression, and was slowly recovering, I borrowed a copy of "The Power of Now" from the local library and started reading it.The very first practice of "watching the thinker" was a revelation... Especially the statement Eckhart made about not judging the thoughts and just watching the mind... I was mostly aware of what was going on in my mind, but I was criticizing the mind the moment it produced what I judged as a "wrong" thought. This created a lot of suffering. It was a huge relief to me that all I need is to just watch it and be the witnessing Presence.Later, Eckhart talked about "watching the inner body" to take attention away from the mind when it's not needed. This helped me during my job interviews. I had always felt anxious about job interviews... This practice really helped me through that challenge. (I did fine in the interviews and usually got good offers, but the anxiety was so much that my palms and feet would always sweat.)The book doesn't get into the practical aspects until much later, but its message is very clear here. Separate out life situations from life itself, and deal with situations in a practical manner, doing what you can, one step at a time. And if there are things that you want to change, there are only 3 sane options: 1. walk out if you can, 2. take steps to change it, focusing on what you can do now, or 3. if neither of the above two are possible, accept the situation totally, even if only temporarily. Acceptance itself is a doorway to peace... These teachings are helping me every single time my mind starts to complain or blame.The biggest lesson I learned is to use the mind only when it is necessary, and not follow every single thought that occurs in my mind. The exercise of awareness is the toughest one I have ever done in my life!I still experience mood swings. Unfulfilled desires from the past with respect to my profession keep springing up. (The mind's imagination here is very strong.) But I know, right now, I have to just live a regular life, as a householder, be with my family and continue my current job. My mind isn't stable enough for other pursuits now, since it's constantly changing, going in circles - one day it wants to go back to graduate school, get a PhD and become a professor, next day it wants to go to a tropical island and work as a waiter (getting away from all work that requires my brain), another day it says life is wonderful as it is and how much money I would lose if I went elsewhere... With Eckhart's help, I now know that all these are just narratives of the mind. I know what's practical for my life now and what I need to be doing every hour. Just focusing on that is enough. (Let the morrow take care of itself.)Like Eckhart recommends, I am using my situation as a strong motivation to practice Presence. In my case, the situation is not external; it is extremely close to me, since it is my own mind! The suffering I experience when the mind takes me away from the Now is too much to bear. I have no choice now but to practice Presence.My current practice is to just keep my attention on what I should be doing this moment, and keep checking where my attention is. If my attention has gone astray, I don't condemn myself; I just bring it back to the Now. I find that my job keeps me sufficiently present, but at other times, when mind is not needed, I need to practice this consciously. Due to the force of habit, I frequently fall trap to following useless thoughts, but I am slowly breaking out of that bad habit. I am becoming more aware of my internal state. I also engage myself in helping my son with school work, reading, doing stock investing, writing, spending some time on Facebook, and watching TV shows and movies occasionally. Whatever keeps my mind engaged, or keeps my attention in the present, are all working just fine.Along with this book, Eckhart's videos on YouTube have also brought my attention back to the teaching. The message is the same, but every time I hear it, it's fresh!I conclude with the Zen statement from the book: "What, at this moment, is lacking?"

When I was a young child I frequently dreamed that I was floating. I could go anywhere without restrictions, no emotions, just a feeling of utter Bliss. As I Grew older, the dreams became less and less, until there were no more dreams. Through the course of reading this book, I once again dreamed of me floating. But this time, I didn't just float, I could fly. I could now control how fast and how high I could fly. As I was flying higher and higher, I began to feel this Unlimited Bliss followed by a vision of a gleaming multicolored blue Crystal like orb surrounding a black silhouette of a human body. The edges of the crystal orb continously changing in form ever so slightly. For a lack of better words it was beautiful. But it's visual beauty was nothing compared to the extreme sense, most compelling feeling of Peace that I felt from within, radiating outward. I began to feel myself waking up from this dream. The vision faded when I opened my eyes. but the feeling was stronge. This Unlimited Bliss stayed with me even though I was physically awake Icontinued to feel what I believe to be my inner being radiating, fully conscious, in the present moment, of the power of Now.