Eckhart Tolle - Practicing the Power of Now

In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle shared the enlightenment he experienced after a startling personal transformation. This companion book extracts the essence of his teachings about how to free oneself from enslavement of the mind. His views go beyond any particular religion, doctrine, or guru. The goal is to be able to enter into and sustain an enlightened state of consciousness throughout everyday life.

Through meditations and simple techniques, Eckhart shows readers how to quiet their thoughts, see the world in the present moment, and find the truest path to happiness.

ESSENTIAL TEACHINGS, MEDITATIONS, AND EXERCISES FROM THE POWER OF NOW

HODDER

Published in Australia and New Zealand in 2001 by Hodder Headline Australia Pty Limited (A member of the Hodder Headline Group)

Level 22, 201 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000 www.hha.com.au

Published by arrangement with New World Library, USA

Copyright 2001 Eckhart Tolle

Most of the material in this book is excerpted from The Power of Now 1997 Eckhart Tolle

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be stored or reproduced by any process without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

National Australia Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tolle, Eckhart.

Practicing the power of now : essential teachings, meditations, and exercises from The power of now.

Bibliography.

ISBN 0 7336 1434 X.

1. Spiritual life. I. Title.

291.44

Cover design by Mary Ann Casler with Jacqueline Verkley Text design by Mary Ann Casler Printed in Australia by Griffin Press

INTRODUCTION by Eckhart Tolle

PART ONE -- ACCESSING THE POWER OF NOW

1 Being and Enlightenment

2 The Origin of Fear

3 Entering the Now

4 Dissolving Unconsciousness

5 Beauty Arises in the Stillness of Your Presence

PART TWO -- RELATIONSHIP AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

6 Dissolving the Pain-Body

7 From Addictive to Enlightened Relationships

PART THREE -- ACCEPTANCE AND SURRENDER

8 Acceptance of the Now

9 Transforming Illness and Suffering

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Since it was first published in 1997, The Power of Now has already had an impact on the collective consciousness of the planet far beyond anything I could have imagined. It has been translated into fifteen languages, and I receive mail from around the globe every day from readers who tell me that their lives have been changed through coming into contact with the teaching embodied in the book.

Although the effects of the insanity of the egoic mind are still visible everywhere, something new is emerging. Never before have so many people been ready to break out of collective mind-patterns that have kept humanity in bondage to suffering since time immemorial. A new state of consciousness is emerging. We have suffered enough! Even at this moment it is emerging from within you, as you hold this book in your hands and read these lines that speak of the possibility of living the liberated life, in which you no longer inflict suffering on yourself or others.

Many of the readers who wrote to me expressed a wish to have the practical aspects of the teachings contained in The Power of Now presented in a more readily accessible format, to be used in their daily practice. That request became the impetus for this book.

In addition to the exercises and practices, however, this book also contains some shorter passages from the original work that can serve as a reminder of some of the ideas and concepts and can become a primer for incorporating those concepts daily.

Many of those passages are particularly suitable for meditative reading. When you practice meditative reading, you do not read primarily to gather new information, but to enter a different state of consciousness as you read. This is why you can re-read the same passage many times, and every time it feels fresh and new. Only words that were written or spoken in a state of presence have this transformative power, which is the power to awaken presence in the reader.

These passages are best read slowly. Many times you may want to pause and allow for a moment of quiet reflection, or stillness. At other times, you may just open the book at random and read a few lines.

For those readers who felt daunted or overwhelmed by The Power of Now, this book can also serve as an introduction.

Eckhart Tolle July 9, 2001

When your consciousness is directed outward, mind and world arise.

When it is directed inward it realizes its own Source and returns home into the Unmanifested.

There is an eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death. Many people use the word God to describe it; I often call it Being. The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God. Being, however, has the advantage that it is an open concept. It does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity. It is impossible to form a mental image of it. Nobody can claim exclusive possession of Being. It is your very presence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence. So it is only a small step from the word Being to the experience of Being.

BEING IS NOT ONLY BEYOND BUT ALSO DEEP WITHIN every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But dont seek to grasp it with your mind. Dont try to understand it.

You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally.

To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of feeling-realization is enlightenment.

The word enlightenment conjures up the idea of some superhuman accomplishment, and the ego likes to keep it that way, but it is simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being. It is a state of connectedness with something immeasurable and indestructible, something that, almost paradoxically, is essentially you and yet is much greater than you. It is finding your true nature beyond name and form.

The inability to feel this connectedness gives rise to the illusion of separation, from yourself and from the world around you. You then perceive yourself, consciously or unconsciously, as an isolated fragment. Fear arises, and conflicts within and without become the norm.

The greatest obstacle to experiencing the reality of your connectedness is identification with your mind, which causes thought to become compulsive. Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we dont realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being. It also creates a false mind-made self that casts a shadow of fear and suffering.

Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts, labels, images, words, judgments, and definitions that blocks all true relationship. It comes between you and yourself, between you and your fellow man and woman, between you and nature, between you and God. It is this screen of thought that creates the illusion of separateness, the illusion that there is you and a totally separate other. You then forget the essential fact that, underneath the level of physical appearances and separate forms, you are one with all that is.