The Power of Now by Eckhardt Tolle

Take a deep breath and look around you at this moment, suspend yourself in it now, block out both the past and the future and take stock with all your senses of this present moment. My moment is pure bliss, my neck is encased in a soft Indian cotton scarf which is holding and radiating the warmth of my neck. I am snuggled into my favourite red chair in my lounge room, listening to the whir of cars as they rush by, and the lulling sound of someone practising their violin next door. I can smell the red onion I had for lunch and feel it's burn on the back of my throat. Although a knot of tension hangs in my stomach, I give it no words, I instead feel its pulsing and acknowledge it's presence. Right now, I have nothing to regret and nothing to fear.

If I were to leave this moment however for the usual destinations I choose to be in, that knot in my stomach would start filling with words. Expressing doubts and fears, about my future, what I was going to do and what it was going to bring. My throat would be scraping with the memories of the past, times that I regretted, people who hurt me ranging from longing to anger. The whir of the cars and the sweetness of the violin would be replaced with the conversations I have had or will have, reeling through my mind like a movie. Then I remember movies aren't real.

This is basically what The Power of Now is all about, realising that the past and the future are creations of the mind no more important than daydreams or fantasising. They are creations that have very little true meaning in our lives, but carry a large impact. Never before had I realised how much of life I was missing to be in these phantom places. Time rehashing a past I can not alter and time spent waiting, for a better job, to lose some weight, until I had money, to move, to have a baby. To think of the frustration of waiting for a bus that is a few minutes late in comparison to the years I have spent waiting for the future to appear without realising that it was here now.

On this Friday afternoon, not even the most elaborate of plans or details I had imagined in the past could have brought me here to this moment, the future happens with or without thinking, worrying and trying to control it. When I picked up this book I thought that using the word 'power' was a marketing term used to give dimension to a fairly simple concept. However at the end of this book, I can see that there is unimaginable power in the now.

In fact all other times leave us powerless, the past is gone and there is nothing we can do, say or think that can possibly change it, and the future is unknown, we can only fill it with expectations and fears. The now however, should we give attention to it, is the only time we can embody and embrace, a time that our senses can engage in. Somehow fully engaging in this moment, means the future is taken care of.

The basics of the book are, follow your breath it is always in a state of now, give absolute focus to what you are doing now and let all the other noise fall away. Track your body, feel the energy currents, sensations and pains within in, the body is always present. Most importantly however is to surrender, to let go of all resistance, wanting, craving and wishing that your life situation was different to what it is. Where you are is exactly where you are meant to be.

This is a life changing book, and should its practise be adopted on a global scale it could be a world changing book. It is not easy to read, but it is worth it, so persist. I highlighted so much of this book, only a few lines remain white, below are just a few key quotes;

"Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life."

"If it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? Your degree of presence"

"So whenever you can, make some room, create some space, so that you find the life underneath your life situation"

"A great deal of what people say, think, or do is actually motivated by fear, which of course is always linked with having your focus on the future and being out touch with the Now."

"See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it"

"Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret to life is to "die before you die" and find that there is no death."

"True change happens within, not without"

"The mind, conditioned as it is by the past, always seeks to re-create what is knows and is familiar with. Even it is painful, at least it is familiar. The mind always adheres to the known. The unknown is dangerous because it has no control over it. That's why the mind dislikes and ignores the present moment. Present-moment awareness creates a gap not only in the stream of mind but also in the past-future continuum."