Tolle's The Power Of Now is an extreme eye opener for any who are going through hard times. Reading this book during a long and harsh journey of being unemployed, having no money, being belittled by most managers due to my resume and having minimal help from family as they two were busy with their life's work, Tolle's teaching showed me how to overcome the depressing reality of being unemployed. Although, the book is not fantastically written, its simplicity during complex explanation on meditation, understating the Ego, the mind, the past and the future is truely what makes this book special. It does get a little hard to first get your head around, however, the more you allow yourself to think about what Tolle has placed on the page, the more it shows you a peaceful enlightened way of life.

In truth I would not live exactly how Tolle has described. This is another amazing part of this novel. You can take which ever part you want and use it to your advantage; if you don't like something, don't do it! Tolle has also placed multiple opposing questions to his techniques and fully analysed the pros and cons, which is a nice change of pace for someone as curious as myself. Having this does lead to some repetition of similar teachings, especially when there is a focus on controlling the mind.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. It really makes you appreciate the idea of the Now and the practices that come with it. However, due to its repetition and complex nature, it can become hard to read at times.

I like what Tolle is saying, but how he says it bugs me--sort of New Agey acceptance and love and peace mumbo jumbo. It's on a recommended reading list for a Zen meditation class I'm taking. Tolle's A New Earth is also on the list. Maybe I'll like it better.

As for the message of The Power of Now, I think the following exchange in Mel Brooks' zen classic Spaceballs sums it up better than this book:

Colonel Sandurz: Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We're at now now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then.
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: I can't.
Dark Helmet: Why?
Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
Colonel Sandurz: Soon.
Dark Helmet: How soon?

Believe me, then will be now sooner than later if you watch Spaceballs instead of reading this book.

It's the way this book made me feel like I was in a University lecture

This book came highly recommended on a blog I read, and it was recommended alongside another book in the same vein that I read and loved - so I thought, "Why not?"

And here's why not:

Although the book has a handful of insights and important concepts overall (which you could probably pick up from ANY book about meditation - you know, things about going through life consciously rather than unconsciously, aware of emotions and separate from judgement, accepting of the present rather than dwelling in the past or future) this book is written in the most circuitous, repetitive and bland way possible, using made up buzz words that barely make sense ("pain body", "psychological time", "unmanifested") and the author frequently comes across as short-tempered, pompous and condescending, ie "I already told you that!"

As the book instructs you to make the use of time you spend waiting (in line, in traffic, etc) to become fully present and aware of yourself, your body and your surroundings as a type of mini-meditation, it also instructs you to be an annoying ass:

P.87: "Next time somebody says, 'Sorry to have kept you waiting,' you can reply, 'That's all right, I wasn't waiting. I was just standing here enjoying myself - in joy in myself."

This book is also peppered with Bible quotes throughout for some reason, and an extensive intro about how much Oprah loves this guy so you should, too.

I have a feeling one loves or hates this book --- I was on the hate side of the fence. I agree with other viewers who note that the author is condescending. I tried to read the book in earnest, as the author suggests in slow amounts. But really, it is just packaging religion in a more digestible format without actually putting forth its own set of tenants. If you have a basic understanding of religions of the world the book will probably be just annoying. If you are new anything spiritual maybe it is the introduction you need...

I think this book would be a good read if you are a bit less sarcastic than I am (maybe I would like it in about 20 years?)... it would probably also be a good read if you are constantly on the go and never sit down to look around... if you do sit down to look around the book is pretty much useless and comes off as new age drivel; if you do not stop to smell the roses maybe this book is exactly what you need to start enjoying life's ups and downs as they roll on in.

This was an irritating book to read. It contains a few small but important truths, but bundles them together with obfuscating language and ridiculous New Age metaphysics. Like many books in its category, it seems to dance back and forth between a trivial-but-true metaphorical reading of its ambiguous passages, and a meaningless but profound-if-it-were-true reading.

Those familiar with the various forms of mindfulness meditation won’t find much to disagree with until about Chapter 2 or 3 with the introduction of the concept of a ‘pain body’. Near as I can tell, this is either meant to be a metaphorical bundle of negative emotions (such as grudges, repressed anxiety, or anger) or it’s meant to be some kind of mind-virus entity in its own right, a psychic creature that inhabits you and grows more powerful as it feeds on your negative experiences and emotions. Sound ridiculous? That’s because it is. In the interest of fairness, I’ll call it a rhetorical device and move on.

The audiobook features chimes that sound throughout the reading. This is a technique that will be familiar to anyone that’s listened to Alan Watts. The sounding of a chime or gong is meant to draw your attention to the character of your experience when you hear the sound. In the first moment you hear the chime, you have no judgement of it, no reaction towards it, you don’t analyse or name it. The chime simply ‘is’. This state of non-judgmental experience of the world is a tiny glimpse of what a sustained state of mindfulness feels like; passive non-judgemental, non-analytical awareness.

There are parallels to the Western philosophy of Stoicism here, in passive acceptance of the world as it is. There are the events in your life, and then there is your psychological reaction to them.

What Tolle refers to as ‘Being’ is also called ‘non-dualistic awareness’, the state of being present in your experience without naming, labelling, or thinking about it. This is a difficult experience to attain, as any meditator will tell you. Your mind is a ceaseless pattern recognition engine that’s babbling a stream of thoughts to you every waking moment. People who have had this experience of dissolving the subject-object distinction report feeling ‘one with everything’ or glimpsing the mind of God. To put this in a different lexicon, it’s the act of taking your perception assumptions offline. Every experience you’ve ever had is mediated by the assumption that there is a difference between ‘here’ and ‘there’, or ‘now’ and ‘later’ and ‘before’. We interpret our experience of the world through the most basic concepts of time and space. Non-dualistic awareness is achieved by momentarily taking these concepts out of your perceptual filter so you no longer feel distinct from the scene you observe.

That’s where the good ends and the bad truly begins. Tolle is another in a long line of credulous fools who make unfounded inferences of metaphysics from their personal experience. In this case, the claim is that consciousness is not only a fundamental component of reality (a claim that isn’t prime facie ridiculous; see panpsychism and property dualism) but that it is THE fundamental component of reality, and all else is illusion. You’re then treated to a rapid fire barrage of bullshit from the ‘Law of Resonance’ (like begets like), to talk of ‘negative energy fields’ that have ‘vibrational frequencies’, and Qi being derived from the source of all consciousness, the ‘Unmanifested’.

Tolle attempts to gain some credibility among his religious readers by frequently trading on the words of Jesus, or the Buddha. Biblical parables are spun as if the morals are really truths about the conscious mind that have been misunderstood for the last two thousand years. One that stands out is his claim that God saying ‘I am’ is really a statement about all people containing their own essence of godliness (connection to ‘the Unmanifested’) when they obtain ‘Presence’ (mindfulness) and eschew thinking in terms of past and future. This interpretation has no foundation in biblical scholarship, anywhere. Similarly, the interpretation of Buddhist or Hindu writings as pre-empting the findings of modern particle physics by several thousands of years is sheer apophenia.

This was the end of Chapter 7, and the end of my patience. Life is too short to read terrible books.

Ένα υπέροχο βιβλίο έφτασε στο αναγνωστικό αλλά όχι στο συλλογιστικό πέρας του. Το μέτριο αισθητικά εξώφυλλό του, αλλά και ο τίτλος του παραπέμπουν σε φτηνό -νοηματικά- βιβλίο αυτοεξέλιξης, πράγμα που δεν ισχύει καθόλου. Στο συγκεκριμένο επιτυγχάνεται ένας συγκερασμός γνώσεων υπαρξιακής φύσεως που έχουν ως βάση τους διάφορες σχολές εσωτερισμού. Το καταπληκτικό είναι ότι όχι μόνο δεν αναιρούνται τέτοιου είδους συγγράματα μέσα από τις διαπιστώσεις της σύχρονης επιστήμης, αλλά επιβεβαιώνονται ως θεματοφύλακας παρελθούσας γνώσης που στο παρόν πλέον επαληθεύει την αξία της και πειραματικά (βλ. κβαντομηχανική). Από τα ελάχιστα βιβλία που η ανάγνωση δεν απευθύνεται στο νου αλλά καταφέρνει να διεισδύει στα ενδότερα της ανθρώπινης υπόστασης και να την συντονίσει με το ευρύτερο υπαρξιακό της πλαίσιο. Κεντρική ιδέα στο βιβλίο είναι η δύναμη του Τώρα ως μοναδική πύλη προς «Είναι, όν». Η ιδιότητα του παρατηρητή στο τώρα είναι αυτή που απαγκιστρώνει τον κίβδηλο εαυτό από το παρελθόν και το μέλλον. Το πρίν και το μετά είναι που δίνει υπόσταση στη ληθαργική ξεχωριστότητά του εαυτού, κάνοντάς τον να νομίζει πως αντλεί την αξία του από αυτή τη σχέση (παρελθόν, μέλλον). Ο συγγραφέας προσεγγίζει το θεμα ακραιφνώς, με προσήνεια απέναντι στον αναγνώστη, απαλλαγμένος από ιδεοληπτικούς ψυχαναγκασμούς.

Algumas valiosas dicas que subtraem alguma complexidade à difícil Arte de Viver!

What a piece of shit. While I'm sure some people can find something about it to enjoy and enrich their lives, I kept thinking what a charlatan this man must be.

First, the book is about 170 pages too long. This thing could have been condensed into about 20 pages and nothing substantial would have been lost. Actually, even more egregious, he did not walk the walk. Tolle's so called "enlightenment" came from a nervous breakdown, not from following the ideas in his book. Not that he could since his lecture is so vague in its methodology.

Another issue is that he changes the definitions of words to fit what he needs them to mean, which is especially annoying since he sometimes uses the proper word he should use in a sentence on whatever topic he's rambling on.

Reading this made me think Tolle spent a day in a few science, philosophy, and psychology classes and missed the actual details of those that make his book utter crap. I've brought some quotes which show his lack of understanding of the world.

"Many times of illnesses are caused by the ego's continuous resistance, which creates restrictions and blockages in the flow of energy through the body." I'd like to test and see how ill he can get when properly exposed to bacteria/viruses.

Since he uses a question and answer format and paraphrases the questions, I thought this stood out. "Would a man still feel drawn to a woman? Would a woman still feel incomplete without a man?" Nice sexism. Men are drawn to women but women feel incomplete without a man. In fact, all of his writings on love and relationships read like a man who has never been on a date or never got over a bad breakup.

In one of the questions posed to him he answers "You cannot ask such a question." That's reassuring.

My favorite. "Is there any scientific evidence for this? Try it out and you will be the evidence." Which is to say no. It's something he made up and it can't really be replicated.

"Even a stone has rudimentary consciousness; otherwise, it would not be, and its atoms and molecules would disperse." Just shitting all over science here.

There is some decent stuff here, like don't dwell on the past, but it is bogged down by garbage and his need to hear his own voice. That he has so many fans surprises me.

I was pleasantly surprised at the tremendous influence of Eastern philosophy in here, but I'm way too secular for this mumbo jumbo. My office book club picked this - I would never have read it otherwise.

This book is both incredible and inedible.

I am a quick and experienced reader but this book almost set a new record for me. Perhaps it lost the speed record due to the hour long sleep I took when meditating.

In all seriousness, I wanted to like this book. It was lovingly given to me by a close friend and I wanted to understand the concepts in the deepest possible way. That is why it got an extra star. 20 pages in I grabbed a pen and started again; linking definitions and concepts to decipher Tolle. I didn't stop writing the whole book.

What I found blew my mind. This is a pamphlet bloated into a book by a man who writes like an arts student; not a Cambridge graduate (I am sure he is not! Has anyone gone 'Jeffrey Archer' on this bloke?). What Tolle is essentially (and only) saying is the age-old philosophy that as humans we are 'form' borrowed from 'being'. He references Jesus and Buddha (almost always together and never with actual referencing) and a little snippet of Sufism to try and give his waffle credibility but he (perhaps unwittingly) always misquotes. I am surprised he doesn't throw in Abe Lincoln and Muhammad Ali. It is an incredible feat to make it to the last Q&A: "How will I know when I have surrendered? When you no longer need to ask the question."

Tolle relies heavily on 'religious speak' with words like grace, salvation, second coming and his take on Chi. However, his use of these words relies on a middle-class middle-age Sunday-school yoga-retreat understanding of terms that fits perfectly to his Oprah audience. Yet he twists the words to the point of HIS utter confusion. He DOES have moments of clarity, particularly in the second part of the book where he seems to have a 'second awakening of reasoning'. However, he has set such a ridiculous precedent that he seems unable to step out of his own dark shadow (borrowing his example). Comparing page 175 with page 5 will start to give you an understanding of the sad insanity of this now very rich man.

I would recommend this book to everyone except the mentally unstable. It will give you a good grasp on Western society's hunger for spiritual fast food. However, it must be read critically. That is a common sense this book lacks. It is a one-day read that will give you little food for thought and lots of food for discussion.

I spent the last five plus hours researching, reading this stupid Eckhart Tolle book. Pardon me. Wasted. Wasted the last five hours. What do I think?

This is essentially the same book as The Power Of Now! The only valid point Tolle has is this: it is mentally unhealthy to obsess endlessly over things that we didn't cause in the past, and over things we can't control in the present, and over things that have no likelihood in the future.

He doesn't need 220 pages to make that point. He doesn't need a book. He doesn't even need a whole page within a book.

In fact his teachings can be very detrimental, since it is urging us to reduce the amount of time we spend planning for the future. Remember you are on this planet for a while, and most worthwhile things are created over a long period of time, and usually involves some aspect of long range planning and long term envisioning.Oh, right... none of that matters: either good luck falls from the sky and/or we can be murderers that are also drug addicts that are homeless and are being abused on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times, because the only thing that matters is that we are in an individual state of "Being"... Remember, gullible audience, The Power Of Now!

He also advocates dropping the past immediately, which avoids putting sufficient time and attention into first acknowledging and accepting the past - and thereby learning from it before we discard it.

Basically, he wants people to stop thinking so much. With my most insincere apologies, I like to think. Yes. Imagine that.

Obviously, I agree with the idea that we should minimize the amount of time spent lamenting about the past overdoing it with worrying about the future. But he takes it to a illogical, stupid, and, frankly, offensive level...

What he is saying is that "We are nothing" It does not matter. We should do nothing, anything, be nothing, anything, it is all the same... because nothing really matters except this "state of being"... Fine, do not care about anything, be completely apathetic, detached and/or unfeeling- you know, we basically do not even know who we are. We could be anything.

Other things the ego will identify with in order to feel good include our work, social status, knowledge and education, physical appearance, belief systems, and also political, racial, nationalistic, religious or other collective identities. "None of these is you," Tolle states. Oh I see. Obviously some of these I agree with to a certain extent, i.e., your work is not you, your race/looks/status mean much less than a lot of people often make it out to be... But belief systems? Values? Knowledge? Political beliefs? Are you fucking crazy, Tolle?????.... None of that matters? Oh, now I get it. Nothing matters. Then why don't you die right now? "Being" when you are in some fantasy bliss world when nothing besides your state is important would be great if it was actually possible ("Ignorance Is Bliss")... But the only way this is humanly possible is to be subjected to solitary confinement from the moment of birth. Sorry Eckhart, but not all of us can wander around for years at a time, sleeping on park benches in a state of euphoria.

Plus... the cherry on top is The Oprah not only fully endorsing Tolls, but naming him the sole person to ever engage in a business partnership with the multi-million dollar The Great The One The Only The All Knowing Oprah Winfrey. With few exceptions, the stronger Oprah's support, the stupider it is.

Yes, I do realize that I may have been slightly overly harsh with Tolle. Like I explained earlier, I do believe and/or agree with most of the basic teachings... but there is no way that stands in this extreme end of the spectrum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=...