The Power of Now A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

by Tolle, Eckhart

• ISBN13: 9781577311522
• ISBN10: 1577311523
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-27
• Publisher: New World Library

Summary

Eckhart Tolle is emerging as one of today's most inspiring teachers. In The Power of Now, already a word-of-mouth bestseller in Canada, the author describes his transition from despair to self-realization soon after his 29th birthday. Tolle took another ten years to understand this transformation, during which time he evolved a philosophy that has parallels in Buddhism, relaxation techniques, and meditation theory but is also eminently practical. In The Power of Now he shows readers how to recognize themselves as the creators of their own pain, and how to have a pain-free existence by living fully in the present. Accessing the deepest self, the true self, can be learned, he says, by freeing ourselves from the conflicting, unreasonable demands of the mind and living present, fully, and intensely, in the Now.

Author Biography

Eckhart Tolle was born in Germany, where he spent the first thirteen years of his life. After graduating from the University of London, he was a research scholar and supervisor at Cambridge University. When he was twenty-nine, a profound spiritual transformation virtually dissolved his old identity and radically changed the course of his life. For the past ten years he has been a counselor and spiritual teacher, working with individuals and small groups in Europe and North America. He has lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, since 1996. Through this book, his teachings become available to a wider audience for the first time.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Foreword	xvii
Acknowledgments	xxiii
Introduction	1	(1)
The Origin of This Book	1	(2)
The Truth That Is Within You	3	(6)
You Are Not Your Mind	9	(18)
The Greatest Obstacle to Enlightenment	9	(5)
Freeing Yourself from Your Mind	14	(4)
Enlightenment: Rising above Throughout	18	(2)
Emotion: The Body's Reaction to Your Mind	20	(7)
Consciousness: The Way Out of Pain	27	(12)
Create No More Pain in the Present	27	(2)
Past Pain: Dissolving the Pain-Body	29	(5)
Ego Identification with the Pain-Body	34	(1)
The Origin of Fear	35	(2)
The Ego's Search for Wholeness	37	(2)
Moving Deeply into the Now	39	(20)
Don't Seek Your Self in the Mind	39	(1)
End the Delusion of Time	40	(1)
Nothing Exists Outside the Now	41	(1)
The Key to the Spiritual Dimension	42	(2)
Accessing the Power of the Now	44	(2)
Letting Go of Psychological Time	46	(2)
The Insanity of Psychological Time	48	(1)
Negativity and Suffering Have Their Roots in Time	49	(2)
Finding the Life Underneath Your Life Situation	51	(2)
All Problems Are Illusions of the Mind	53	(2)
A Quantum Leap in the Evolution of Consciousness	55	(1)
The Joy of Being	56	(3)
Mind Strategies for Avoiding the Now	59	(18)
Loss of Now: The Core Delusion	59	(1)
Ordinary Unconsciousness and Deep Unconsciousness	60	(2)
What Are They Seeking?	62	(1)
Dissolving Ordinary Unconsciousness	63	(1)
Freedom from Unhappiness	64	(4)
Wherever You Are, Be There Totally	68	(5)
The Inner Purpose of Your Life's Journey	73	(1)
The Past Cannot Survive in Your Presence	74	(3)
The State of Presence	77	(12)
It's Not What You Think It Is	77	(1)
The Esoteric Meaning of ``Waiting''	78	(1)
Beauty Arises in the Stillness of Your Presence	79	(2)
Realizing Pure Consciousness	81	(5)
Christ: The Reality of Your Divine Presence	86	(3)
The Inner Body	89	(18)
Being Is Your Deepest Self	89	(1)
Look beyond the Words	90	(1)
Finding Your Invisible and Indestructible Reality	91	(2)
Connecting with the Inner Body	93	(1)
Transformation through the Body	94	(2)
Sermon on the Body	96	(1)
Have Deep Roots Within	97	(2)
Before, You Enter the Body, Forgive	99	(1)
Your Link with the Unmanifested	100	(2)
Slowing Down the Aging Process	102	(1)
Strengthening the Immune System	102	(2)
Let the Breath Take You into the Body	104	(1)
Creative Use of Mind	105	(1)
The Art of Listening	105	(2)
Portals into the Unmanifested	107	(14)
Going Deeply into the Body	107	(1)
The Source of Chi	108	(2)
Dreamless Sleep	110	(1)
Other Portals	110	(2)
Silence	112	(1)
Space	113	(3)
The True Nature of Space and Time	116	(2)
Conscious Death	118	(3)
Enlightened Relationships	121	(26)
Enter the Now from Wherever You Are	121	(2)
Love/Hate Relationships	123	(2)
Addiction and the Search for Wholeness	125	(3)
From Addictive to Enlightened Relationships	128	(2)
Relationships as Spiritual Practice	130	(6)
Why Women Are Closer to Enlightenment	136	(2)
Dissolving the Collective Female Pain-Body	138	(5)
Give Up the Relationship with Yourself	143	(4)
Beyond Happiness and Unhappiness There Is Peace	147	(24)
The Higher Good beyond Good and Bad	147	(3)
The End of Your Life Drama	150	(1)
Impermanence and the Cycles of Life	151	(5)
Using and Relinquishing Negativity	156	(5)
The Nature of Compassion	161	(3)
Toward a Different Order of Reality	164	(7)
The Meaning of Surrender	171	(22)
Acceptance of the Now	171	(4)
From Mind Energy to Spiritual Energy	175	(2)
Surrender in Personal Relationships	177	(3)
Transforming Illness into Enlightenment	180	(2)
When Disaster Strikes	182	(1)
Transforming Suffering into Peace	183	(3)
The Way of the Cross	186	(2)
The Power to Choose	188	(5)
Notes	193