When I first picked up The Power of Now, last Easter, I thought it was impenetrable New Age gibberish. I couldn’t understand how it had become a number one best-seller, loved by everyone from Oprah (of course) to Meg Ryan, Annie Lennox to, er, Paris Hilton (who took it to jail with her, along with the Bible). In fact, I couldn’t understand it, full stop.
Despite being determined to prove that I have a greater – or at least an equal – reading ability to Miss Hilton, I gave up at around page twenty.
Sentences such as ‘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’ were too much for me.
Then there was talk of things called ‘Pain bodies’. I mean, come on, ‘Pain bodies’- what does that even mean?
Anyway, fast forward nine months and how things change. I’m now inclined to agree with Oprah when she says that Eckhart Tolle is a prophet for our times and every weirdly worded sentence reads like the truth. Actually, I might capitalise that, just for effect: ‘The Truth.’ Oh, yes.
This either means that I am now profoundly deep and ready to see the light, or I have totally and utterly fallen down the self-help/spiritual rabbit hole and will soon be chanting and clutching crystals. Maybe a bit of both.
The Power Of Now in a nutshell
Some of you might know the story already but German-born author Eckhart
On the night it happened, he was planning to kill himself. As he puts it: ‘I couldn’t live with myself any longer.’ But it was in that moment that Tolle had an epiphany: ‘If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with. Maybe, I thought, only one of them is real. I was so stunned by this realisation that my mind stopped. I was conscious, but there were no more thoughts.’
The next day he woke up and everything was different – he was in a state of ‘uninterrupted deep peace and bliss’. That morning, he writes, ‘I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born.’
For the next two years that state of bliss remained – he gave up his studies and slept on park benches – and when his thoughts did return, they never bothered him again; he was able to step back for them, and realise that he was the ‘consciousness’ that was watching his thoughts.
He wrote the The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment many years later, in 1999, and it went on to sell tens of millions of copies and be translated into thirty-odd languages. He travels the world giving lectures and eleven million people signed up to watch his online seminar series with Oprah.
His book doesn’t promise the same kind of dramatic transformation that he experienced – although it might make you want to sit on a park bench for a while – but offers us a way to step back from our thoughts, which are the cause of all our unhappiness, according to Tolle.
Why our thoughts make us unhappy
Tolle argues that most of spend most of our lives with a constant ‘voice in our heads’, that judges and interprets reality, and determines our mood. That voice in our head is often living in the past (raking over past resentments, regrets, family stories etc) or concerned about the future (we are either dreading it or looking forward to it – hoping that we’ll be happy when it’s the weekend/when we get the new job/when we find love). This voice is like a gramophone record, playing the same old songs, over and over again.
As a result, we never live in the NOW.
But Tolle argues that now, this present moment, whatever you’re doing, is the only thing that exists and that the only way to find peace and joy. These ideas will be familiar to a lot of you – it’s the essence of Zen and buddhism and a lot of other approaches, including Mindfulness.
He say that unhappiness comes from not accepting the present moment, thinking that it’s not good enough, skipping through it to get to the next thing. Or ruining it by worrying about the next thing.
But Tolle says that if you ask yourself ‘Do I have a problem right now, this minute?’, nine times out of ten the answer will be no. You might be worried about bills, about your job, about finding love but RIGHT NOW you are having a cup of tea and the house is warm and there is no problem.
He says that we might think we’re too busy to ‘focus on the moment’ but actually, it’s by slowing down, that we tap into our deeper selves and have our best ideas and make our best connections with people.
3 WAYS TO BE IN THE NOW
So how to be in the NOW? The first step is to really focus on whatever you’re doing, feel your body and breathe. Tolle suggests a few simple exercises to try today:
- Every time you walk up and down the stairs in your house or place of work, pay close attention to every step, every movement…even your breathing. Be totally present.
- When you wash your hands, pay attention to all the sensory perceptions associated with the activity: the sound and feel of the water, the movement of your hands, the scent of the soap and so on.
- When you get into your car, after you close the door, pause for a few seconds and observe the flow of your breath. Become aware of a silent but powerful sense of presence.
He says that every time we really focus on our body and what we’re doing, we are breaking those endless thought loops, and that the more often we break them, the more easily we can disassociate from our thoughts and the less power they have over us. This is a practice that we can work on for the rest of our lives. Every time we feel ourselves getting lost in our thoughts, take a deep breath, feel your body and focus on what you’re doing. It brings you back.
There’s a LOT more in the book – stuff about ego, stuff about why we hold on to negative feelings. There’s also the bigger spiritual picture about how we are all connected, all part of the same consciousness – ideas that my head struggles with at the best of times, let alone when delivered in Tolle speak, and yet it feels so comforting and true, I keep re-reading and underlining new passages.
They say that the right book finds you at the right time – and this time is definitely the right time for me. I hope you feel the same way.
Love to you all. Happy hand-washing/step-walking… Happy Now. I’m on a train to Yorkshire to write a story for Metro newspaper. We’re going through field that are dusted with snow and the sky is the clearest blue. The trees are naked and brown and beautiful. All is well. In the now.
An essay by Eckhart Tolle, author
of The Power of Now
In the Gospel story of Mary and Martha, Jesus says to Martha, “You are anxious and
troubled about many things, but only one thing is needful.” (Luke 10:41)
As I was writing A New Earth, people would sometimes ask me, “What is the new book
about?” And invariably, my answer would be, “I only ever write or speak about one
thing.”
What is that one thing?
Spiritual awakening.
Can a person be awakened spiritually by a book?
Yes, if three conditions are met:
Firstly, there must be a readiness on the part of the reader, an openness, a receptivity to
spiritual truth, which is to say, a readiness to awaken. For the first time in the history of
humanity, large numbers of people have reached that point of readiness, which explains
why millions have responded so deeply to The Power of Now.
Secondly, the text must have transformative power. This means the words must have
come out of the awakened consciousness rather than the accumulated knowledge of a
person’s mind. Only then will a text be charged with that power, a power that goes far
beyond the informational value of the words. That is why such a book can be read again
and again and lose none of its aliveness.
Thirdly, the terminology used needs to be as neutral as possible so that it transcends the
confines of any one culture, religion, or spiritual tradition. Only then will it be accessible
to a broad range of readers world-wide, regardless of cultural background.
The One Thing
An essay by Eckhart Tolle, author
of The Power of Now
2
All these conditions were met in The Power of Now, which is why the book has had such
an impact on the collective consciousness.
Why write another book?
Since the publication of The Power of Now, I have given hundreds of talks and teaching
sessions all over the world, and in the course of those seven years, the teaching evolved.
While the essence remained the same (The Truth is timeless.), new perspectives arose,
new signposts, alternative approaches to the Truth, as well as an added sense of urgency.
A New Earth reflects this evolution and this urgency.
If The Power of Now worked for you and changed your life – as it did for countless
people all over the world – there is no need for you to read A New Earth (although you
may enjoy reading it and may find some of it helpful in recognizing the ego and thus
sustaining the state of Presence).
My feeling is that A New Earth will make the teaching (the one thing) accessible to an
even wider audience, including people who perhaps would not have dreamt of reading a
“spiritual” book but have within them a hitherto unrecognized longing for spiritual
awakening.
A New Earth will also be extremely helpful for those who read The Power of Now,
found it interesting, but somehow missed the essence of it. It presents them with new
perspectives on the same truth, new signposts, pointers towards Presence. Different
pointers work for different people.
Millions are now ready to awaken because spiritual awakening is not an option anymore,
but a necessity if humanity and the planet are to survive. Everything is speeding up – the
madness, the collective egoic dysfunction, as well as the arising of the new
consciousness, the awakening.
We are running out of time. From the perspective of the ego, that’s bad news and will
give rise to fear. From a higher perspective, the running out of time is exactly what is
needed for the new consciousness to come into this world.
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