I've been aware of Tolle for a few years - but had never really had the time or motivation to read his somewhat hefty books on the 'Power of Now'.

This condensed edition is much more accessible. Important because I'd say that to get maximum benefit you really need to read its content many times - to internalise it and 'brainwash' yourself.

It's message is to me fascinating. It's general ideas resonate with Eastern philosophies (and actually the Mexican Yacqui shaman ideas) but it is not couched in mysterious or religious terms. It's much more straightforward.

My interpretation is that the book highlights a negative side effect of human brain evolution (or as Tolle puts it '3000 years of social conditioning').

Which is our assumption - perhaps addiction - that our identity, who we are, is that voice in our head. Our attention. Our Ego. And everything else is 'separate', even our own bodies.

While for most of us, most of the time this can be a source of familiarity, comfort and an ability to plan, learn, and 'succeed', it is also the SAME source of pain, anxiety, depression - The Human Condition - even suicide.

Tolle teaches that we CAN move out of this unconscious state of 'being our thoughts' and achieve a purer state of being TRULY alive and all that comes with it.

Unlike the Ego which lives exclusively in the past, future, or alternative realities (daydreaming) we should live purely in The Now.

Tolle suggests we achieve this by treating our Ego - our inner voice - as an Object like any other. It is not us. It's just an object with no meaning. In fact it's like a needy selfish child and we should acknowledge its presence but ignore it's wheedling and it's judgements.

Instead the real us - 'The Watcher' - should focus on observing and experiencing without judgement.

Watching and experiencing our bodies and their subtle physical sensations (emotions, and a low thrum of aliveness which most of us fail to even notice).

Watching and experiencing the world. Watching and experiencing our actions. Being conscious of such things but not 'thinking about' or judging them.

Tolle acknowledges that this is hard work - getting the best things in life usually are - because we live in our comfort zone fearing change. Even if that zone includes feelings of fear, anxiety and self - judgement.

The power of now is exactly what it sounds like.

Being in the present moment and not letting the past or future dictate your life.

Starting by separating your mind from an outside perspective (as you in the present) and finding peace in the moment.

I hope I can keep this mindset going after reading this and I think I’ll have to come back to this book and take notes in a journal to really solidify what I’ve learnt.

Woooooo The Power of Now.

5/5

من أجمل كتب التنمية الذاتية وأكثرها فعالية وقدرة على التغيير.. اقتباسات رائعة، كلمات تحفيزية، أفكار محددة، رائع الى أقصى حد.
إن طلب مني اختزاله في جملة واحدة فقط ستكون:
“العمل الذي لن تنجزه الآن سيكون عبئا عليك ومشوشاً لك يمنعك من القيام بغيره ومن ثم به، لذا لا تؤجل عمل اليوم الى الغد”

این کتاب در مسیر تا محل کار مطالعه گردید:))))))))
نتیجه گیری مثبتی که داشت باعث شد که من به سمت یک سری از کارهای مورد علاقم سوق پیدا کنم
و در نوع خودش بسیار عالی بود
جدای از اون مثل همیشه به این نتیجه رسیدم که هیچی مثل خوندم کتاب ذهن منو برای تصمیم گیری رها و آزاد نمیکنه

فكرة الكتاب بكل بساطةهي :
كيف تركز كل اهتمامك وتركيزك على الآن ،كيف تعيش اللحضة الآنية بكل تفاصيلها،كيف تقبل اللحضة بكليتها كما هي بحلوها ومرها... عيش اللحضة في سلام داخلي متناغم منسجم مع الذات والبيئة المحيطة ومع الاخرين
الكتاب جيد اجمل ما فيه الفصل الاخيرة عن كيفية تحويل المعاناه الى راحة بال

It's all in your head

وجدت محتوى الكتاب مطابقًا للفكرة العامة من الحديث المروي عن إبن عمر: إذَا أمْسَيْتَ فلا تَنْتَظِرِ الصَّبَاحَ، وإذَا أصْبَحْتَ فلا تَنْتَظِرِ المَسَاءَ، وخُذْ مِن صِحَّتِكَ لِمَرَضِكَ، ومِنْ حَيَاتِكَ لِمَوْتِكَ.

Eckhart Tolle published the Power of Now in 1997. Many inspired readers wrote him and requested a more practical version for daily study. In 2001, this small, but powerful version was released.

Having read most of his writings, I tend to go back to this one and A New Earth quite often.

Truly eye opening and life changing for me.

Very, very useful

Notes :
………….

“The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not the thinker.”

“You also realize that all the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”

“The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself, consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflicts within and without become the norm.”

“The greatest obstacle to experiencing the reality of your connectedness is identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive.”

“Its almost as if you were possessed without knowing it, and so you take the possessing entity to be yourself.”

“When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door.”

“So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in.”

“In tbis state of inner connectedness, you are much more alert, more awake than in the mind-identified state. You are fully present. It also raises the vibrational frequency of the energy field that gives life to the physical body.”

“As you go more deeply into this realm of no- mind, as it is sometimes called in the East, you realize
the state of pure consciousness. In that state, you feel your own presence with such intensity and such joy that all thinking, all emotions, your physical body, as well as the whole external world become relatively insignificant in comparison to it.”

“This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation .”

“Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger.”

“…you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously as your sense of self does not depend on it.”

“Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of conciousness quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive.”

“Emotion arises at the place where mind and body meet. It is the body’s reaction to your mind — or you might say a reflection of your mind in the body.: ‘Whats going on inside me at this moment?’ That question will point you in the right direction.”

“Step out of the time dimension as much as possible in everyday life.”

“Identification with the mind gives it more energy. Observation of the mind withdraws energy from it.”

“The energy that is withdrawn from the mind turns into presence. Once you can feel what it means to be present, it becomes much easier to simply choose to step out of the time dimension…”

“When you do use your mind, it will be sharper, more focused.”

“The enlightened person’s main focus of attention is always the Now…”

“… immediately return to present moment awareness when those practical matters have been dealt with.”

“If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future, which of course can only be experienced in the Now.”

“So the only place where true change can occur and the past dissolved is the Now.”

“You cannot be free in the future. Presence is the key to freedom, so you can only be free Now.”

“Narrow your life down to this moment…. When you are full of problems, there’s no room for anything new to enter, no room for solution. So whenever you can, make some room…”

“All problems are illusions of the mind.”

“Whatever happens, I will create no more pain for myself.”

“Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing?”

“When the compulsive striving away from the Now ceases, the joy of being flows into everything you do… You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment or satisfaction… You don’t look to it for salvation; therefore you are not attached to the results. Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of being.”

“… your sense of self is derived from your being, not from your personal past.”

“… you are complete and whole now.”

“Eventually presence becomes your predominant state… You grow in presence power. It generates an energy field in you and around you of a higher vibrational frequency. No unconsciousness, no negativity, no discord or violence can enter that field and survive, just as darkness cannot survive in the presence of light.”

“If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality’s within, secondary reality without.”

“Stress is caused by being here, but wanting to be there… You can stop this… life-corroding insanity simply by acknowledging the present moment.”

“All you ever have to deal with… is this moment.”

“Something could happen at any moment and if you’re not fully awake, absolutely still, you will miss it. In that state all your attention is in the Now. There’s none left for day-dreaming, thinking, remembering, anticipating. There’s no tension in it, no fear, just alert presence - present with your whole being, with every cell in your body… it is only now that you are truly your self.”

“Consequently, the Watcher - pure consciousness beyond form - becomes stronger, and the mental formations become weaker. When we talk about watching the mind, we are personalizing an event that is truly of cosmic significance.”

“ … inhabit your body fully. To always have some of your attention in the inner
energy field of your body. To feel the body from within, so to speak. Body awareness keeps you present. It anchors you in the Now… To inhabit the body is to feel the body from within, to feel the Life inside the body and thereby come to know you are beyond the outer form. You are cut off from Being as long as your mind takes up all your attention… You need to reclaim consciousness from the mind.”

“…Can you feel the subtle energy field that pervades the entire body and gives vibrant life to every organ and every cell? Can you feel it simultaneously in all parts of the body as a
single field of energy?”

“The more attention you give it, the clearer and stronger this feeling will become. It will feel as if every cell is becoming more alive, and if you have a strong visual sense, you may get an image of your body becoming luminous.”

“Then take your attention even more deeply into that feeling. Become one with it. Merge with the energy field, so that there is no longer a perceived duality of the observer and the observed, of you and your body. The distinction between inner and outer also dissolves now, so there is no inner body anymore. By going deeply into the body, you have transcended the body.”

“Having access to that formless realm is truly liberating. It frees you from bondage to form and identification with form. We may call it the Unmanifested, the invisible Source of all things, the Being within all beings. It is a realm of deep stillness and peace, but also
of joy and intense aliveness. Whenever you are present, you become 'transparent’ to some extent to the light, the pure consciousness that emanates from this Source. You also realize that the light is not separate from who you are but constitutes your very essence.”

“When your consciousness is directed outward, mind and world arise. When it is directed inward, it realizes its own Source and returns home into the Unmanifested.”

“… Don’t give 100 percent of your attention to the external world and to your mind. Keep some within.”

“Keep the portal open.”

“It is quite possible to be conscious of the Unmanifested throughout your life. You feel it
as a deep sense of peace somewhere in the background, a stillness that never leaves you,
no matter what happens out here. You become a bridge between the Unmanifested and the manifested, between God and the world. This is the state of connectedness with the
Source that we call enlightenment.”

“The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your inner body — to feel it at all times… The more consciousness you direct into the inner body, the higher its vibrational frequency becomes, much like a light that grows brighter as you turn up the dimmer switch and so increase the flow of electricity. At this higher energy level, negativity cannot affect you anymore, and you tend to attract new circumstances that reflect this higher frequency.”

“Whenever an answer, a solution or a creative idea is needed, stop thinking for a
moment hy focusing attention on your inner energy field. Become aware of the stillness.”

“In any thought activity, make it a habit to go back and forth every few minutes or so between thinking and an inner kind of listening, an inner stillness.”

“You are now in your body. You have accessed the power of Now.”

“The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is… On the level of thought, the resistance is some form
of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind.”

“In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer…. The more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering — and free of the egoic mind.”

“There are two levels to your pain: the pain that you create now, and the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body. As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you. It merges with the pain from the past, which was already there,
and becomes lodged in your mind and body. This, of course, includes the pain you suffered as a child, caused by the unconsciousness of the world into which you were born. This accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind.”

“You are now the witness or the watcher of the pain-body… it can no longer replenish itself through you. You have found your own innermost strength.”

“Watch out for any sign of unhappiness In yourself in whatever form.”

“If you were truly conscious of it, the pattern would dissolve, for to want more pain is insanity, and nobody is consciously insane.”

“Stay present, stay conscious. Be the ever- alert guardian of your inner space.”

" ‘Unconscious,’ the way that I use the word here, means to be idenrified with some mental or emotional pattern. It implies a complete absence of the watcher.”

“It is as if the pain becomes fuel for the flame of your consciousness, which then burns more brightly as a result.”

“ Your responsibility then is not to create further pain.”

“Observe the peculiar pleasure you derive from being unhappy. Observe the compulsion
to talk or think about it.”

“The pain-body is an energy field, almost like an entity that has become temporarily lodged in your inner space. It is life energy that has become trapped, energy that is no longer flowing.”

“A victim identity is the belief that the past is more powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth.”

“… realize that you are responsible for your inner space now — nobody else is — and that the past cannot prevail against the power of the Now.”

“… after the initial euphoria has passed, there is so much unhappincss, so much pain in intimate relationships. They do not cause pain and unhappincss. They bring out the pain and unhappiness that is already in you.”

“For love to flourish, the light of your presence needs to be strong enough so that you no
longer get taken over by the thinker or the pain-body and mistake them for who you are.”

“… the moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what is, you are free of the
mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.”

“In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love.”

“When you know you are not at peace, your knowing creates a still space that surrounds
your nonpeace in a loving and tender embrace and then transmutes your nonpeace into
peace. “

“If you observe unconscious behavior in your partner, hold it in the loving embrace of your knowing so that you wont react.”

“If you react at all to your partners unconsciousness, you become unconscious yourself. But if you then remember to know your reaction, nothing is lost.”

“ It is not easy to live with an enlightened person, or rather it is so easy that the ego finds itextremely threatening. Remember that the ego needs problems, conflict, and ‘enemies’ to strengthen the sense of separateness on which its identity depends. The unenlightened partners mind wiJ] be deeply frustrated…”

“Enlightened or not, you are either a man or a woman, so on the level of your form identity you are not complete. You are one-half of the whole. So it is perfecdy possible for an enlightened person, if the need for the male or female polarity is not met, to feel a sense of lack or incompleteness on the outer level of his or her being, yet at the same time be totally complete, fulfilled, and at peace within.”

“Coming from Being, you are able to focus beyond the veil of form. In Being, male and female are one. Your form may continue to have certain needs, but Being has none. It is already complete and whole. If those needs are met, that is beautiful, but whether or not they are met makes no difference to your deep inner state.”

“In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself — ‘you’ and 'yourself’ merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do nor feel sorry for yourself, you are nor proud of yourself, you do not loye yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The split caused by self- reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no ‘self’ thar you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore. When you are en lightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the relationship with yourself. Once you have given that up, all your other relationships will be love relationships.”

“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad.”

“Even if everything were to collapse and crumble all around you, you would still feel a deep inner core of peace. You may not be happy, but you will be at peace.”

“The fact is, of course, that negativity does not work. Instead of attracting a desirable condition, it stops it from arising. Instead of dissolving an undesirable one, it keeps it in
place. Its only 'useful" function is that it strengthens the ego, and that is why the ego loves it.”

“But as long as negativity is there, use it. Use it as a kind of signal that reminds you to be more present… look on it as a voice saying, ‘Attention. Here and Now. Wake up. Get
out of your mind. Be present.’ "

“Even the slightest irritation is significant and needs to be acknowledged and looked at, otherwise, there will be a cumulative buildup of unobserved reactions.”

رائع ودسم محتاج لاعادة قراءة

Everyone should read this book. Best to read it slowly and take time to process and truly understand it.

یکی دانستن خویش با ذهن به مفهوم اسیر زمان شدن، یعنی اجبار به زندگی کردن، تقریبا به طور کامل از طریق خاطرات و انتظار است. این توهم موجب مشغله ذهنی بی پایان در رابطه با گذشته و آینده و عدم تمایل به محترم شمردن و پذیرش لحظه حال میشود و سبب میگردد به آنچه که هست، اجازه بودن ندهیم. چنین اجباری به این دلیل است که گذشته به شما هویت می بخشد و آینده وعده رستگاری و خوشنودی می دهد. در هر صورت، هر دوی اینها اوهامی بیش نیستند...!

... خویش را با ذهن یکی دانستن موجب فکر کردن غیر ارادی می شود. ناتوانی در متوقف کردن افکار بیماری وحشتناکی است که از آن آگاه نیستیم و چون تقریبا همه از آن رنج می برند، روندی طبیعی تلقی می شود. این سر و صدای بی وقفه، مانع دستیابی به سکون درون که از "بودن" جدانشدنی است، می شود. به همین ترتیب این سرو صدا، آن خود کاذبی را می آفریند که ساخته ذهن است و سایه ای از ترس و رنج به همراه دارد.

یکی دانستن خویش با ذهن، حجاب کدری است از مفاهیم، برچسبها، تصاویر، کلمات، داوری ها و تعابیری که همه روابط صادقانه را مسدود می کند.

این حجابی میان تو و خودت، تو و انسانهای دیگر -خواه زن یا مرد- تو و طبیعت و تو و پروردگار است. این حجاب افکار، توهم جدایی را ایجاد می کند. توهم اینکه "تو" و یک "دیگری" کاملا جدا از هم وجود دارد. آنگاه این واقعیت اصلی را که تو در زیر لایه ظواهر مادی و صورتهای جدا، با تمامی آنچه هست یکی هستی، از یاد می بری...!