O carte grea si profunda, pe care nu o poti citi si mai ales înțelege oricând si oricum. Cred ca trebuie recitită pe parcursul vietii de multe ori si, cumva, la un moment dat, sa isi găsească drumul spre tine...doar atunci cand vei fi pregătit pentru ea.

The best and worst parts of being a part of a book club is being introduced to works outside of your normal reading spectrum. Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now (along with Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper) made me quit my local book club. While this seems like an easy target to criticize, there was something I found very troubling about this book. It’s more than the fact that it’s poorly written, or filled with pseudo-spiritual nonsense.

I found the bio of the author, Eckhart Tolle, to be the most troubling about this book. It claims that he was depressed for much of his life and then underwent an ‘inner transformation,’ a two year period when he was a bum (but in a state of ‘deep bliss’), and then came out the other side a spiritual leader. It reminded me of this post, for some reason:

http://purplepersuasion.wordpress.com...

It seemed his cure for depression was to just snap out of it. (Or perhaps the cure for the depression is to write a best-seller and become a millionaire). I would implore everyone to go to the Amazon website, click on ‘Look Inside’ and read the introduction where one minute he hates the world and is contemplating suicide and the next everything is awesome because of his new life perspective. It is convoluted and ridiculous and a little unbelievable:

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide...

The spiritual advice is conveniently non-denominational (presumably to appeal to as many religions as possible). The gist is live for today (oh, and don't sweat the small stuff (and it's all small stuff)). The interesting part of this book is that while it tries to provide a path to spiritual enlightenment, there is no empirical way to test if someone is spiritually enlightened. You would have to take someone at their word that Tolle’s teachings have enlightened them or gave them peace or happiness in their life. And you could probably assume that such enlightened people would have no need for any other self-help book, ever, and certainly not another from Mr. Tolle. And then you could look at the sale numbers of Tolle’s follow-up book, A New Earth, and it’d be pretty easy to determine how many people he led to enlightenment…

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Such an amazing book!!!

The Power of Now really exists, no matter how much it always seems to elude us. But it hurts to find out how ephemeral it really is.

And the World of Grunge mocks us mercilessly for seeking it.

Mozart once magically turned a spirit named Papagena into a flesh-and-blood damsel, but only now and again - (gone again in a flash!) just as Eckhart Tolle’s fabulous vision soon eluded him….

Such are the rough breaks for Papagena and her would-be paramour Papageno, you see, in the opera The Magic Flute:

And Papagena will remain ever elusive, up until the time her mythical kingdom’s semi-divine Crown Prince Tamino takes his radiant bride-to-be Tamina straight through the healing purgatorial fire, and purges Sarastro’s magical realm of its latent Evil.

And its nefarious Queen of the Night.

Into such storybook terms classical Freemasonry would put this book - along with that soi-disant Mason Amadeus.

(All this happens, by the way, in a heavenly production - which is available anytime, anywhere, on YouTube. Check it out!):

https://youtu.be/juQL-0db_wc

But what IS that purgatorial fire to us, here in the Twenty-First Century?

That fire, which leads us within sight of a now-permanent Kingdom of Now, is the pain of Christian asceticism. Not at all common, of course, in our world - save for in a few ‘oddball’ hermits.

Oddball, because the Corporation Man has exiled them from our safe, middle class world.

But why not try seeing it all Slant, as Eugene Peterson does so well in The Message?

Slant is SEEING, as if for the first time, what our world is up to - quite clearly. It’s no accident that organized religion is called suspicious and dangerous by a homogenized world of conformity.

But, of course you may say that I’m ranting.

Yes? So, friends, having said all that, then, I shall take my leave from this paltry, seemingly passé review…

But grin slyly as you will, you won’t take away that Magic Flute -

From this faraway land in the Fullness of Time - and with it, its Enlightenment.

But, wait… will YOU be there too?

That’s entirely up to you, my friend…

But the only alternative will BURN you, so make your choice wisely!

Glimpsing the Power of Now up close is one thing.

But living it for the rest of your life requires your utmost focus and stamina:

And it's the Best Thing We can Do for Ourselves.

Awesome book! The author’s prose really focuses on objective truths— that I feel are incorrigible. So, a lot of his concepts, but not all of his concepts— would be futile to attempt to correct. Great stuff and a great book!

Having lived by the essence of Budhha for years as well as a devotee of East meets west thought, the insights are great reminders that Now is all there is. Tolle emphasizes that human suffering is connected with thought which is tied to time, whether the past or future. And there lies the bend! For me personally, much if not all was familiar. Books such as these really don't deserve ratings since they're deeply personal and based on spiritual elements that not all are drawn toward. Whatever the case, the practice of being present in every moment is the most important thing we can all do, since suffering, pain and fear are all tied to thoughts the mind creates. As one of the originators of East meets West stated ages ago, Be Here Now

If I could give this book less than one star, I would. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever disliked a book as much as I did this one. There were some good points made. They could have all been contained in about four paragraphs. As written, the book was repetitive, boring, and repeatedly insulting to the reader.

First of all, I'm wary of anyone who declares him or herself to be "enlightened". The author's early description of finding enlightenment sounds far more like mental illness. Second, he has created a theory with which no one can argue. If one argues with any of it from a point of logic, the author can just take the high-handed response of "yes, you feel that way because you're not enlightened as I am". Finally, I found the portion of the book about a woman's menstrual cycle to be ridiculous. It sounded as if it had been written by a 12 year old boy who had little understanding and was disgusted by the female body's natural process.

I will try to walk away with the few nuggets of wisdom that this book had to offer, but I don't think it was worth having to wade through several tons of...manure...to obtain them.

The first 100 pages are somewhat useful, though Tolle must have graduated from the Rand school of literature, he winds up repeating the same message every single page in the most condescending ways possible.

The 100 page mark is where things really start to go off the rails. Suddenly Tolle turns into a doomsday prophet on a street corner shouting about how we need to be more Christ-like.

No, Really.

Little-to-no "Jesus talk" prior, and then post page 100 it's all about becoming Christ-like and "what is a sin", and so on.

He goes as far to say that modern society is crumbling and that modern art is garbage. So much for "being present, being content" and "not being negative."

The concept of "living in the now" is a great one, but this man is a psychopath and this book is terrible. Tolle would probably call me out for being negative, because he comes across as a sociopath with a messiah complex.

THIS IS IT.

guys. if you have been following my journey through these mental self-help books, im here to let you know i have found the holy grail. i did not expect this after reading When You're Ready, This Is How You Heal (review coming on that one, long story short it's AMAZING) but this one really clicked my worldview finally into focus. there are so many things covered here, every kind of possible life event or obstacles that can really affect us, and how the main message always remains the same: live in the NOW, even if it is painful, do not try to daydream yourself into a better situation or be jealous of what other people have, accept the moment and only that will give you power to move forward and change the situation. i KNOW that sounds cliche (how many times have we not heard that) but this just put it into such a way that really cleared my mind and confirmed that a lot of the things that ive been doing in terms of self care recently in regards to the things have been dealing with have been the right choice. i just really loved this book and i am soooo grateful it came into my life at the time that it did.

NOW, i will say, the author does emphasize a divide in human beings' psyche by their sex/gender and sexuality and how that might make them more or less near enlightenment (it isnt bad, i promise), but i do feel the need to mention it because it could be offputting in this day and age, and i feel like that might cloud the otherwise lovely message of this book. it is clear the author comes from a certain time and belief system, since he does also often bring up Christianity and God (again, also not bad at all).

anyway, super happy i got to this, and def gonna reread it in the future.

Amazing book!

I had reiki. Yes unusual for those who know me! But she was very good. She recommended this book, and sent me home with it. I said I'd return it if I found it on audio, which I did. Narrated by the author, it was smooth to listen to, but the quality was such that I found that the bass to be out of whack, I'd never had to adjust this on my stereo for prior audio books and did not know how to do this. This didn't matter all that much.

It was a deep book. My first thought was to ask a colleague who's partner is a psychologist to recommend something less full on.

As I tend to find it hard to concentrate, I find that this is more 'okay' with fiction, but this heaviness meant I shouldn't have missed anything, but inevitably did.

Stay in the present, mind consciousness, the enemy of your finding peace is the hectic nature of the mind. So.. I should have slowed the tempo of this book and focused! But no! I was thinking all over the place and letting my mind wander. So ultimately I did fail, but probably would benefit by referring to the physical copy, which I still have.

Questions were posed, and the answers often made me smile. I liked a lot of his sayings. The way he usage of 'isms'.

These are just some of his ideas, there are so many. This is why the hard copy may have been more successful.

Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.
Realize deeply that the present moment is all you will ever have.
As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.

This book would not be for everyone, and lots will be skeptical. But he is at peace and loves what he believes in, this much is obvious.

The Power of Now is an appealingly written mix of powerful spiritual truths, meaningless babble, and falsehoods. Tolle has taken some good wisdom from the world's religions, dressed it in New Age language, personalized it with his own less impressive wisdom, and then used a powerful personal story* to sell the book.

I gave it the second star because it really does emphasize some good aspects of spirituality (especially the freedom of living in the moment). If you already have a good grounding in spritual wisdom, you can probably pick out the good stuff from the nonsense. But if you already know the good stuff, why waste your time on this? And I can see how some uninformed people could be misled. So I really can't recommend the book to anyone. But there are some good things. Here are some examples:


The Good:

Direct all thoughts towards the present moment. Don't dwell on mistakes of the past or anxiety about the future.

Meditation is good.

Tap your subconscious for creativity.

Self-awareness (being able to observe and reflect on your thinking and emotions as they occur) can be a powerful tool.

Our ego gets in our way a lot.



The Bad:

All spiritual truth can be found inside yourself (he writes quite a long book and does a lot of lectures and workshops for him to really believe that)

A number of misleading scientific "examples", especially concerning animals and spacetime (pages 24, 34, 99, 137-140)

False interpretation of religious texts, especially the gospels (such as pages 95, 101, 105)

Promotes belief in reincarnation



The Ugly:

"The pain-body consists of trapped life-energy that has split off from your total energy field and has temporarily become autonomous through the unnatural process of mind identification."

"You haven't yet grasped the essence of what I am saying because you are trying to understand it mentally. The mind cannot understand this. Only you can. Please just listen."

"In this way, you grow in presence power. It generates an energy field in you and around you of a high vibrational frequency. No unconsciousness, no negativity, no discord or violence can enter the field and survive,"

"Even a stone has rudimentary consciousness; otherwise, it would not be, and its atoms and molecules would disperse. Everything is alive."

"Consciousness is evolving throughout the universe in billions of forms. So even if we didn't make it, this wouldn't matter on a cosmic scale. No gain in consciousness is ever lost, so it would simply express itself through some other form. But the very fact that I am speaking here and you are listening or reading this is a clear sign that the new consciousness is gaining a foothold on the planet."



* Something I don't understand. In his story, he was utterly despondent and suicidal, then was fixed by a brilliant moment of enlightenment, and woke up in the morning happy and joyful. What does this book have to do with his own spiritual awakening? He seems to say that some people were "lucky" and fixed in a moment like him, while others have to work for it. But what makes him the authority on working towards enlightenment, when he's one of the people who didn't have to do it?

Also, he is quite egotistical for a spiritual authority. He has a very outsized view of how "enlightened" he is compared to everyone else and how greatly the world will benefit from his personal work.