Are you often stuck dwelling on the past? Are you sometimes stressed about the future? Are you unsatisfied with your current life condition? If the answers are “Yes” and you are willing to understand yourself better, I have a book about mindfulness and inner peace to recommend! It’s called “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”.
The book’s success
If you still doubt my recommendation or think that the book doesn’t sound appealing, let me tell you its success. The book was sold more than three million copies in North America alone and has been translated into 33 languages (Note that the data was latest updated in 2009; therefore, I assume the number is much higher now.) Among the readers are Oprah Winfrey and Katy Perry. The first listed the book as recommended reading, while the latter, inspired by the book, wrote the song “This moment”. Widely acclaimed in the public, the author was called “the most popular spiritual author in the United States”.
The author’s life journey
After I finished the book, I am quite sure that the author must have gone through some difficulties in life. This is because he seems to profoundly understand people with messy mind. I, then, searched his biography and found it quite interesting to share with my beloved readers.
The author of “The Power of Now” is Eckhart Tolle, a German-born who now lives in Canada. Early in life, Tolle had suffered from long periods of suicidal depression. He had not been happy with his life! Not being conscious that he kept being unsatisfied with his past and fearful about his future; he busted out to himself “I couldn’t live with myself any longer”. Then, he started wondering “who is the ‘I’ that cannot live with the self? What is the self?” This question led him to an inner transformation. This is how he was spiritually enlightened and came to share it in the book.
Why don’t we live in the NOW?
Isn’t it true that we have spent too much times obsessing with the past and the future? Does it make us happier? If the answer is no, then why we still keep doing it? The author points out that the root causes of this obsession are the self-made mind. And he introduces us a "philosophy" of destroying the "destructive dominance of the mind and ego".
This philosophy encourages us to give full attention to life’s most precious thing: the present moment or the NOW as the author calls. One of the quotes I really like in the book about focusing on the present is “You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be." The book also describes methods of relaxation and meditation to help readers center their consciousness in the present. These suggestions include slowing down life by avoiding multi-tasking, spending time in nature, and letting of your worries of what not yet to come.
A highly recommended book!
All in all, “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment” is a self-help guide for living in the present moment and avoiding thoughts of the past or future. If you are worried that the book will be hard to understand, I guess the author is aware of that. That’s why the book is structured in a question & answer with the author answers questions from a proxy reader. Some questions are what you're already thinking while you read, and others are something you wouldn’t think of asking at all. With this structure, I find it easier to read. And if I am able to read it, you will be!
