Customer Reviews

The Power Of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

5 star:		(358)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

I say "excellent book to get what you want" because this book explains why we do not get what we want. It explains very clearly why we attract all kinds of negative stuff and how to change that. Finally a book with answers.

If you want to get your life back together, I strongly suggest you read this book and I promise your life will never be the same.

My intuition and gut feeling has increased tremendously and immediately without consciously doing anything.

Try it, your love it!!!!

Tolle's book is an important one... a much needed reminder that is too easy to forget. All too often people can pass entire lifetimes 'missing the moment.' One can, like the worst type of junkie, become so comfortable with-and so used to-anxiety, worry, and procrastination that to simply experience tranquility in the present becomes an impossibility. For such people, the simple and inspirational teachings that The Power of Now details can incite a revolution in one's experience of being alive. That being said, though, this book possesses flaws and confusions that must be sifted through using a keen sense of criticism (yes, this too, is an important faculty of the healthy human being).

First of all, becoming present is a practice-not a realization. I'm not sure Tolle makes this clear. Like any 'new thing' the appreciation of the present moment can seem novel and exciting but if one doesn't make it a practice and use discipline to habitualize the practice, then one will have merely another gimmick, a spiritual toy to play with for a while and then put aside. The reason why all the schools of enlightenment require masters and students and instills its practitioners with discipline and a set of methods is because nothing in life comes all at once but must be cultivated with care over a period of time. Because of this truth, I genuinely doubt Tolle's claim that after his midnight awakening he was-all-at-once-transformed, never to require further training or practice. The experience he describes at the beginning of the book might just as well be labeled a psychotic break as a religious experience. Either way, the genuine appreciation of the moment can neither be totally 'on' nor totally 'off.' It is a variable experience that can be developed but will always remain part of the organic experience of being alive. Be wary of those who seem to show no anger, no sadness, no flaw... such people are usually very good actors and nothing more. Spend time with such people, in different types of contexts, to reveal the true human being. No unidimensional personality can exist in reality. We are always part of our context and environment and no matter our training or character can be expected to occasionally fall short of others' expectations.

A guide to enlightenment, then, should teach us that enlightenment is neither a great distance away nor too near. It is thoughtful experience revealed through action and word. I have seen car mechanics who are enlightened beings when they work on cars but atrocious when with their families. I have met novelists who convey all the wisdom in the world through a pen but seem haughty and fractured in normal human conversation. And I have met spiritual 'masters' who secretly creep away to have sex for the sixth time in a day or to check their stocks on the internet. Enlightenment is a myth, and some people treat it like a commodity to purchase or sell. To live well requires the experience of the present-often-but not all the time and in all situations.

Joseph Campbell once expressed the opinion that the type of enlightenment we have become familiar with is unique to a conception of self that was once fairly common in Asia. The type of self most moderns live by, especially we very 'special' Westerners with our love for 'Individuality' and 'Self-Expression,' excludes the possibility of such an experience. Perhaps it is time, then, we drop this idea and redefine what enlightenment should mean now-and to people like us.

Use this book as a pointer and compass, not as a map. The Buddha said it best, Be Lamps Unto Yourselves. I would add-and don't hide from the dark when it comes.

The review titled "Be wary of the Master..." reveals more about its writer than about Tolle. It is ultimately unimportant to me what kind of person Eckhart Tolle is. His work speaks for itself.
"The Power of Now" is the most brilliant explanation of consciousness and existence I have read to date. It is stated so simply and eloquently, and effectively, that, if you settle down in a quiet space before you open the book, resist the temptation to use your intellect (to rationalize, compare and contrast), and just take in what is underlying his words, you may partake of the richest experience and deepest insightful 'aha's' you've ever gotten from a piece of writing.
And do get the book: put off getting the CD or tape until you've experienced the entire book in a quiet space. You shouldn't be multi-tasking when you read or hear his words, otherwise you will shortchange your experience. Lastly, do observe his pauses. They're placed where they are for good reason. This is the moment where you let the sense of what you've read sink in more deeply.
Then you may finally 'get' how to be present, to experience the vast and powerful "being" that underlies all our busy thoughts, awaiting our conscious awareness. And then, just maybe, we can heal this world.

I started reading some of the reviews of this book, both negative and positive and got worn out. We can go on and on putting forth our opinions about the writer,the way it was written, it is too simplistic etc. etc. What I know is this. The proof of its power is in its ability to create positive change in the life of the reader. For me it was a difficult book to read and understand. I've read it many times in the last year and I still find new things to think about in it. This is a book whose ideas are meant to be lived and I've dedicated myself to trying to live it. Because of it my mental life has turned around. If it can do this for me and for some of the people that read it, then it has accomplished it's purpose. Those people who are looking for more will continue looking. I don't agree with each and every word of this book. Nevertheless, I think it is a good introduction to understanding the concept of mental stillness which was a concept completely new to me when I first picked it up. I've since read other books in this vein but continue to come back to it. For those who haven't read it, you have nothing but a little time and money to lose.

This book is helping me to develop my own mindfulness practice. I took the miniature meditation version on our recent holiday and had the most marvelous experiences of enjoying the moment. Ii am discovering slowly the divine being inside me. A lovely guidebook.

Simply a masterpiece. If you are lucky enough to be fully opened while reading these words, glimpses of the truth the words carry are often experienced. Basically tells you the importance of living in the present moment, and why it is so hard to be present in every moment. A true gift.

This is a fantastic book that helps you live in the now, forget your worries for a moment and just be happy. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for spiritual enlightenment and in search of internal peace.

I read this book a few years ago and it helped me discover joy in even the smallest nuances of life. In simple enough language, Tolle takes the reader on a journey of introspection and forces the reader to become aware of the reader's own displeasure and distaste with whatever ails them. This self-awareness is the first step of self-improvement and sets the stage for real improvement by changing our core thinking about the relatively negative situations and emotions in our lives. Tolle talks about realizing the duality of good and bad before talking about the need to move away from thinking of things under that duality umbrella in order to accept things as they are - a powerful technique for dealing with unfamiliar or unpleasant circumstances.

I actually purchased two copies of this book after
hearing Oprah Winfrey rave about it on one of her
recent shows... ("If you only read one book this
year, make sure it's this one!")

Sadly, I have to agree with the other reviewers
who were disappointed with it...

Eckhart Tolle does make one good point -- that it
can be truly refreshing to "step away from" yourself
mentally, and spend some time "observing" yourself
and your life circumstances objectively...

But then he spends roughly another 200 pages
restating the same point over and over...

A much better book on this very topic is titled
"Shadow Syndromes," by John J. Ratey, MD, a
researcher and psychiatrist...

His book goes into goes into the actual mechanics
of the mind, and does a much better job explaining
the technique of mentally "observing yourself"
when you want to break the grip of an unhealthy
mind-set...

I would read that book, before I'd read
this one...

Before you see my rating of two stars and vote that my review was unhelpful; let me explain. I enjoy spiritual teachings; I really do. I feel that it allows me to enrich my life and see things in a different light. Naturally, then, learning to enjoy the present moment would be something that I really have a desire to do. The implications of being able to put all your worries and fears away (or, should I say, bring them to the surface and then deal with them) would be tremendous. I guess I should also say that I am someone who has trouble accepting the present moment for what it is; I tend to worry too much about what the future is going to hold. That said, I honestly hoped that this book would provide me with a way of achieving that.

I realize that in any spiritual teaching, certain concepts are going to be repeated. This is necessary, especially since the concepts presented are probably going to seem new to most readers. However, I felt that the whole book was nothing but a repetition of this general idea: the mind is the root of all problems, because it has taken us over (meaning that we can't control it, but rather, it controls us). However, we can free ourselves from this by becoming totally present.

The author then elaborates on this statement using many different phrases, such as, "Feel the power of this moment and the fullness of Being. Feel your presence" (pg. 70). He also uses the typically vague promises that tend to accompany books like this, such as, "...You can be at peace. There may be sadness and tears, but provided you have relinquished resistance, underneath the sadness you will feel a deep serenity, a stillness, a sacred presence" (pg. 148). To me, it seemed as if the author was simply repeating the same basic idea over and over again; which, again, is not necessarily a bad thing. However, it begins to become annoying when the book has as many pages as this does; and after reading all of them you feel as though you could have just read the title and received all the information from that.

As I said previously, the idea of this book was very promising. Even the techniques contained within the book, though inspiring, were never very well explained. After reading this book a couple times, I still don't really know how to get to that spot of inner peace. I don't know, either, how to feel the "...still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher" (pg. 46). I don't even think there was a technique telling you how to achieve that, actually. Sure, the author has included some meditations, but they're nothing new. The same old "Direct your attention into the body. Feel it from within" (pg. 93) type meditations, which can be found almost anywhere else, even on web pages (for free, no less) are included in this book.

Overall, this book did not live up to it's hype. I found it to be long and rambling; the author took the title of the book and expanded it into 191 pages full of the same idea phrased with different words. He attempts to tackle some other subjects too, of course, such as relationships. However, he basically uses the same "power of NOW" approach to these as well; meaning that he suggested a relationship would evolve into true love when both partners had eliminated their respective egos and become completely immersed in the now. That's the solution for EVERY problem, it seems. So he's just using the same message for different problems, which seems to be more of a "pie in the sky" promise to me.