The Power of Now

It seems like I needed a little "woo-woo" this week. I've been particularly stressed out in the last year, and even though I'm feeling better now, I'm still pretty tired of feeling messed up. And The Power of Now is, I think, one of the books I've heard the most about in my life.

There is nothing more trite as a rule of life than "focus on the moment". You hear this one everywhere, and I think it's largely due to this book. That's why I wasn't expecting this kind of text.

Summary

Eckhart Tolle, like apparently many "spiritual guides", woke up one day after years of suffering to find that he was at peace. And better than at peace: he was in a state of continuous joy and wonder. It's been years, and he says he's still in that state.

He had no idea what had happened. The only thing he knew was that he felt good. It was when he went to visit a monk somewhere in Asia (I think) that the monk told him what had happened: he had stopped thinking. He wasn't really thinking anymore. He was just living every moment of his life to the fullest. And that's what made him so peaceful.

Eckhart Tolle became a spiritual guide. This book is intended to lead us to spiritual awakening, teaching us to live only in the present moment. Because after all, that's all there is.

Impressions

I am a reasonable person. Especially these days, when I spend my days reading scientific papers. I've often been told that I'm heard-headed. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in homeopathy or crystals, things like that. So when some guy says that he got free of all suffering one morning, just like that, I find it suspicious, and normally I don't go any further than that.

But there was something I liked about this book. Strangely enough, even though the author was saying a lot of esoteric things (for example, that if we focus enough on the present moment our body will age less quickly and that most diseases can be cured with a few minutes of meditation a day), I found it made sense.

Try something, just for fun. Close your eyes, and say to yourself, "I wonder what I'm going to think about now."

What happens? We think of nothing. We look for a thought, and nothing comes for a long time. And yet, we are extremely aware of what is happening around us. We hear everything, we feel our body, and it's a bit magical.

This is the state the author is talking about. Not some kind of happy trance, not an out-of-body experience, just a conscious state, without the exhausting babble of our brains. And I believe that by making the conscious effort to put ourselves in this state as often as possible, we realize that we need to think much less than we should. That in fact, our inner speech is useless, if not downright harmful. I feel like I finally understand what meditation is, and I don't even have to sit with my eyes closed for a set period of time. I can do it anytime. I can even do it now, while writing this review.

I know people who would be unable to read this book because they would be so busy rolling their eyes. But like I said, I'm not the most esoteric person either, and I learned a lot of interesting things from reading it. So I'll let you choose.