The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
Table of Content
Author's Preface
Introduction
1. The Origin of This Book
2. The Truth That is Within You
Chapter One: You Are Not Your Mind
1.1. The Greatest Obstacle to Enlightenment
1.2. Freeing Yourself from Your Mind
1.3. Enlightenment: Rising above Thought
1.4. Emotion: The Body's Reaction to Your Mind
Chapter Two: Consciousness: The Way Out of a Pain
2.1. Create No More Pain in the Present
2.2. Past Pain: Dissolving the Pain-Body
2.3. Ego Identification with the Pain-Body
2.4. The Origin of Fear
2.5. The Ego's Search for Wholeness
Chapter Three: Moving Deeply into the Now
3.1. Don't Seek Your Self in the Mind
3.2. End the Delusion of Time
3.3. Nothing Exists Outside the Now
3.4. The Key to the Spiritual Dimension
3.5. Accessing the Power of the Now
3.6. Letting Go of Psychological Time
3.7. The Insanity of Psychological Time
3.8. Negativity and Suffering Have Their Roots in Time
3.9. Finding the Life Underneath Your Life Situation
3.10. All Problems Are Illusions of the Mind
3.11. A Quantum Leap in the Evolution of Consciousness
3.12. The Joy of Being
Chapter Four: Mind Strategies for Avoiding the Now
4.1. Loss of Now: The Core Delusion
4.2. Ordinary Unconsciousness and Deep Unconsciousness
4.3. What Are They Seeking?
4.4. Dissolving Ordinary Unconsciousness
4.5. Freedom from Unhappiness
4.6. Wherever You Are, Be There Totally
4.7. The Inner Purpose of Your Life's Journey
4.8. The Pas Cannot Survive in Your Presence
Chapter Five: The State of Presence
5.1. It's Not What You Think It is
5.2. The Esoteric Meaning of "Waiting"
5.3. Beauty Arises in the Stillness of Your Presence
5.4. Realizing Pure Consciousness
5.5. Christ: The Reality of Your Divine Presence
Chapter Six: The Inner Body
6.1. Being Is Your Deepest Self
6.2. Look beyond the Words
6.3. Finding Your Invisible and Indestructible Reality
6.4. Connecting with the Inner Body
6.5. Transformation through the Body
6.6. Sermon on the Body
6.7. Have Deep Roots Within
6.8. Before You Enter the Body, Forgive
6.9. Your Link with the Unmanifested
6.10. Slowing Down the Aging Process
6.11. Strengthening the Immune System
6.12. Let the Breath Take You into the Body
6.13. Creative Use of Mind
6.14. The Art of Listening
Chapter Seven: Portals into the Unmanifested
7.1. Going Deeply into the Body
7.2. The Source of Chi
7.3. Dreamless Sleep
7.4. Other Portals
7.5. Silence
7.6. Space
7.7. The True Nature of Space and Time
7.8. Conscious Death
Chapter Eight: Enlightened Relationships
8.1. Enter the Now from Wherever You Are
8.2. Love/Hate Relationships
8.3. Addiction and the Search for Wholeness
8.4. From Addictive to Enlightened Relationships
8.5. Relationships as Spiritual Practice
8.6. Why Women Are Closer to Enlightenment
8.7. Dissolving the Collective Female Pain-Body
8.8. Give Up the Relationship with Yourself
Chapter Nine: Beyond Happiness and Unhappiness There Is Peace
9.1. The Higher Good beyond Good and Bad
9.2. The End of Your Life Drama
9.3. Impermanence and the Cycles of Life
9.4. Using and Relinquishing Negativity
9.5. The Nature of Compassion
9.6. Toward a Different Order of Reality
Chapter Ten: The Meaning of Surrender
10.1. Acceptance of the Now
10.2. From Mind Energy to Spiritual Energy
10.3. Surrender in Personal Relationships
10.4. Transforming Illness into Enlightenment
10.5. When Disaster Strikes
10.6. Transforming Suffering into Peace
10.7. The Way of the Cross
10.8. The Power to Choose
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
10.8. The Power to Choose
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Synopsis
A spiritual teaching of rare power and clarity, presented in the form of dialogue between teacher and seeker. Profound insights are gained --we are not our mind; we can find our way out of psychological pain; authentic power is found in surrendering to the now. More than a book --a precious gift, a loving companion, a guide to enlightened living.
New Age Books
Now and then, time cultivates these perfect jewels. You find one and think nothing better is possible. Such is The Power of Now. A regular customer at our store, and student of Chi Gong said, "It not only synthesizes everything i've delved into, but it does it so clearly and simply." Many customers report back literally "thrilled" to have come across the book.
From Wikipedia:-
Tolle's purpose and hope for The Power of Now was that it would "play its part in … the transformation of human consciousness," by acting as a catalyst to those who are ready for a radical inner transformation or, as he sometimes calls it, for enlightenment.
This purpose has affected the format of the book. Tolle has tried to write it in such a way as to "draw you into this new consciousness as you read … to give you a taste of enlightenment."
As a result, the book avoids intellectual discussion and argument. He tries not merely to present the reader's mind with information, which the mind might find interesting, or might not, which it might agree with, or disagree with. From Tolle's judgment, none of that would change readers, who would still be using their minds to judge these new ideas and to respond to them. Rather Tolle uses a variety of devices to try to engage with the reader at a deeper level than that of the mind.
The book is cast in a question and answer format, and originated in Tolle's work with individuals and small groups over a ten-year period. Most of the questions arose while he was teaching and counseling. This format allows Tolle to engage with how his readers are likely to be thinking or responding to his teaching, and allows him to move the focus of attention away from a merely intellectual response to the readers' own consciousness.
The book does not follow a strictly linear sequence of thought. The question and answer format allows for digressions and repetitions. An earlier point can be made again in a new way, or brief summaries of earlier material may help to clarify misunderstandings the questioners still have. The terminology is also varied: Being and Unmanifested, presence and consciousness, acceptance and surrender, enlightenment and transformation. The words are used as signposts, pointing beyond themselves.
Other Reviews
Much more than simple principles and platitudes, The Power of Now takes readers on an inspiring spiritual journey to find their true and deepest self and reach the ultimate in personal growth and spirituality: the discovery of truth and light.
It's no wonder that The Power of Now has sold over 2 million copies worldwide and has been translated into over 30 foreign languages. Much more than simple principles and platitudes, the book takes readers on an inspiring spiritual journey to find their true and deepest self and reach the ultimate in personal growth and spirituality: the discovery of truth and light. In the first chapter, Tolle introduces readers to enlightenment and its natural enemy, the mind. He awakens readers to their role as a creator of pain and shows them how to have a pain-free identity by living fully in the present.
The journey is thrilling, and along the way, the author shows how to connect to the indestructible essence of our Being, the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. Featuring a new preface by the author, this paperback shows that only after regaining awareness of Being, liberated from Mind and intensely in the Now, is there Enlightenment.
About the Author
Tolle's first book, The Power of Now, was first published in 1997 by Namaste Publishing. Only 3000 copies were published of the first edition, and Tolle has said "I would personally deliver a few copies every week to some small books stores in Vancouver ... Friends helped by placing copies of the book in spiritual bookstores farther afield". The book was first published under copyright by the New World Library in 1999, and in August 2000, it reached the New York Times Best Seller list for "Hardcover Advice". After two more years, it was number one on the list. In May 2010, The Power of Now appeared on the "Paperback Advice" for the 92nd time, at number 8. By 2008 the book had been translated into 33 languages, and has since also been translated into Arabic. Tolle published his second book, Stillness Speaks, in 2003. In 2005, Tolle published his third book, A New Earth .
