Why are we constantly unhappy? Why our daily life is so full of regret and anxiety? What is making true relationships so hard to keep? Tolle gives answers to these questions in his book ‘The Power of Now’. By his sayings, the most important thing that matters and the one we think about least is the present. All life is a series of present moments. This book explains how living in the present moment, meditation, freeing from one’s mind and other essential teachings will lead to existential peace and enlightenment. This book came into my life after a series of events which produced unbalance in my emotional and mental life. What ‘The Power of Now’ promises was the best for me, reaching peace in my life and the ‘live in the present moment’ mindset it advocates for. So, in this essay, I want to share my main learnings from each chapter of this resourceful book.
You Are Not Your Mind
Strange as it may sound, the greatest obstacle to enlightenment is your mind. Believing that you are the same with your mind, your beliefs, and therefore your actions, is the biggest blockage to reaching peace. It is our own mind which creates problems with continuous thoughts about the past and worries about the future, not other persons, the environment or the outside world. Actually, problems do not exist, we create them. The strongest blockage made by our mind is when we see the past as making us who we are and the future as a hope of fulfilment, forgetting to live the only moment which matters: the present. The mind should simply be used at solving daily task, not controlling our whole being.
“Enlightenment: rising above thought. Freeing yourself from your own mind: listen to the voice in your head more often, to the repetitive thoughts and patterns of thinking. Be an impartial witness of that little voice which doesn’t stop, don’t judge or condemn it”. Here I started practicing some exercises which free myself from my mind. Whenever I can, I try to be aware of the present moment, this is the way of stopping the flow of thoughts. Short moments of total presence: breathing, when I get in the car; feeling the texture of water, when I’m taking a shower; the feeling of looking into my boyfriend’s eyes, of hugging my mom; waking up and simply being aware of the feeling of being alive. 90% of our thoughts are a waste of energy or are even harming us, our spirit. The way to enlightenment is to be aware of them, and stop them with little moments of presence.
“Emotion: the body's reaction to your mind. Emotions are the intersection between body and mind. The thought is the lie; the emotion is the truth. You know those moments when you keep repeating yourself a truth you want to believe in? Watch your body’s reactions. The thoughts and the emotions form a vicious circle: the pattern of thinking creates overthinking, which creates negative emotions, which lead into a low energy frequency which rise thoughts again”. Since I found this out, I never stop myself at the thought or the situations which created the negative feeling. For example, if someone hurts me, I don’t overthink the situation, their reason, or how it happened. The interior peace appears when the mind shouts.
Consciousness: The Way Out of Pain
The pain is always, just always made by the un-acceptance to the existence, either of the mind: judgement, or of the emotion: negativity. People suffer because they neglect this precious present moment each time, they use it as a way of reaching a future objective. The present moment is all you will ever have, as life is made of continuous present moments. It can be ‘terrible, horrible’, listen to how the mind labels it and stop the resistance, accept it as it truly is and give it way to exist. The pain body is a place which all the painful memories, conscious or unconscious are stored. In order to make it stop you have to look for every little sign of unhappiness like: jealousy, desire to provoke pain, bad disposition and so on. The moment it takes over, it is activated, looking to feed itself, so it will put you in life situations which will reflect its existence.
The strongest emotion of humanity is fear. It is an un-useful emotion. Why? Because any living creature of this earth with a minimum of intelligence will just avoid the danger as an action of thinking when it’s needed. Why fearing something from the future? You can’t fight with the future, it is intangible, it’s not here, it’s a lost battle. You can fight anytime a present moment, but not the future, as it is only a reflection of mind. Every fear come from the fear of death, even the fear of not being right. If you understand that you are not your mind, you can't accept making mistakes or not being right. Since I’ve read this, I am just living in the moment, if anything bad occurs I am just solving it, but never fearing hypothetical situations which are intangible.
Moving Deeply into the Now
The main obstacles which appear when living in the psychological time targets two main situations in human’s life: the mistakes of the past and the problems or goals of the future. Actually, problems do not exist, they are life situations which can be solved or accepted. The fact with the exterior objectives is that the work put towards them should have a jovial energy, filled with the joy of being, not one of sacrifice in hope of reaching fulfillment. Many people are having a miserable life, waiting that something in the future will change. ‘When I will go on vacation everything will be fine’, ‘When the summer holiday comes, I will be happy’, ‘When I will have a boyfriend it will be fine’ were some thoughts I had into my mind before learning to live in the present.
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Mind Strategies for Avoiding the Now
Watch you mental-emotional state through self-consciousness. ‘Am I relaxed in this moment? Do I feel at peace?’, ‘What’s going on inside myself? What king of thoughts is my mind producing?’, ‘What do I feel now? Is there any tension/ discomfort?’, ‘What do I feel? What thoughts come into my mind? Do I choose to feel this way?’ are kind of question I started to put to myself as often as possible. For example, some of my problems are laziness, stress, living in the past or reaching my goals. Regarding laziness, I learn that I should either get up and start doing, or enjoy that moment of laziness. When I feel stressed, I stop and smile at the attack of my mind, I start working and use that energy for the job I have to get done. I let the past to die every moment which passes. And regarding my end goals, for sure I have them in my mind, I set them, but the steps I take are the most important, I have to enjoy them more than the destination.
The State of Presence
There are two main exercises to empower the state of presence. The first is to stop, shout your mind. What will be my next thought, then wait for it as a cat waiting for the mouse to get out. Well? That thought is either your worry, your regret, or your problem to solve, there is no need for high consciousness in order to remain with a clear, thoughtless mind, to remain in the present. The second exercise is nature contemplation. There were moments in my life when I reached enlightenment with this exercise without even knowing it. Watching a beautiful view, looking at the sky or the forest, is giving me a level of peace that I cannot describe. Now I know that was living in the present, being happy to just exist. No words, no thoughts, just being, it’s divine.
The Inner Body
As opposite as it may seem, the gate to essence, to the common energy of this universe, to God, is your inner body. Beyond flesh and bones there’s the inner, spiritual body which is in connection to everything that exists. By neglecting the body, you can never reach spiritual enlightenment. Nourishing your inner body with energy, living inside of it, listening to it is the way to the Source. Then more conscious you are of the inner body, the higher its energy and vibration. Whenever an impediment appears in one’s life, that one should get inside the inner body, feel the emotion, feel its energy. Flood your body with consciousness. Here are some practical exercises through meditation and listening which I started practicing:
- Body meditation. Close your eyes, stay laying on your back, choose some parts of the body, feel the energy of life flowing through them, as a wave, then through the whole body. Each and every cell. Visualize them, connect with your body.
- Breathing meditation (conscious breathing re-establishes the contact with the body). Follow your breathing with attention, how air goes in and out. Feel how the abdomen contracts and relaxes. Imagine yourself bathing into powerful, beautiful light. Inhale it into the body. Make him luminous too.
- Intuition. This was always a topic of interest for me, as I always heard of intuition, of listening to it and I never managed to give meaning to these words until now. The author says that whenever we feel in difficulty, we should take a break from thinking, and to be aware of our body reactions. The answer should simply follow.
Enlightened Relationships
The real salvation is fulfillment, peace, life its own, it is being yourself, feeling that state of peace from within, state which has no opposite. The joy of life comes from nothing else than your own self. No external factor can help you reach that continuous freedom and happiness, which is not a passing experience. Someone else, a friend or a lover, an external factor will never make you reach this source of happiness. The only illusion which can be created is the pleasure-pain (love-hate) relationship. When the other person becomes the source of your pleasure, the moment it stops, pain occurs. This is an addictive relationship, where nothing healthy can flourish.
Relationships can become a daily spiritual practice. Each time a lighted conversation occurs, or even a fight, step out of your shoes. Observe how defensive you become when your position is attacked, and feel the force of aggression when you fight back. Observe the attachment to your opinions as being part of you, and the mental-emotional energy to prove yourself. Those come from the ego identification.
Beyond Happiness and Unhappiness There Is Peace
This chapter is teaching the reader a powerful lesson of life. Even the negative events, which our mind perceive as negative, horrible obstacles, can become the greatest teachers. In my case, this year I faced a medical problem that the doctors thought is severe. I’ve been through hell for 6 months, emotionally and mentally. After this period ended, I can say that I reached a state of personal development as never before. I build healthy habits and I had months, days and nights of reconsidering my life and my purpose. I learn to accept or to change, actions which built my interior peace. I’ve found a support in spirituality and in my family. I learnt who my true friends are and I can say that I growth as never before. I worked with myself and I am more balanced and self-conscious than ever before. It was hard and I had periods when I wanted to give up everything, but what matters is where this obstacle lead: to a new me, stronger than ever. Now I feel that I can manage everything, no matter what will happen in this life, there is a way. The biggest mistake someone can do in these situations is identifying with the life situations one is put in. The way to finish the negativity is either accepting it, living with it; living in the present and becoming transparent, so that it passes through you, not stopping as in a barrier.
The Meaning of Surrender. Acceptance of the Now
Surrendering means acceptance. Any life situation can be taken as it is, if there is nothing to do to change it. The other solution is to simply take action. But you have to take care and be patient. Any action taken might not have immediate benefits. Until it has, don’t fight the existing situation. If it can’t be changed, use it as a way of exercising the acceptance of now. When you enter this timeless dimension of present, changes are taking place, without doing a big thing, life becomes cooperative. Start with realizing when the resistance starts, be conscious of it and become transparent, as I said. This is the advice I would give to my past self, 1 year ago. Disease was a big spiritual step for me, and it can be for everyone after reading this book.
Conclusion
To conclude, I can say that Eckhart Tolle's book ‘The Power of Now’ was a meaningful support for my enlightenment, for reaching the interior peace and for learning to live in the present. “When you think about it, the past is nothing more than all present moments that have gone by, and the future is just the collection of present moments waiting to arrive”. Each and every day I keep reminding myself, when my mind starts wondering in the psychological time. Caution! Live in the present, it is the only time you have! Present, present, NOW! You are here, not back then, and the future can wait until it becomes present. Furthermore, I am not my mind, my beliefs nor my mistakes. These are just actions I’ve chosen to take, and they were the best I could do in that present moment. Besides, fear does not exist, I can’t fight with something which is not here yet. These rules empowered me and my true self.
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