The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

by Eckhart Tolle

Thinking has become a disease. Disease happens when things get out of balance. For example, there is nothing wrong with cells dividing and multiplying in the body, but when this process continues in disregard of the total organism, cells proliferate and we have disease.

It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.

So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it.

This is the end of all arguments and power games, which are so corrosive to relationships. Power over others is weakness disguised as strength. True power is within, and it is available to you now.

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.

The secret of life is to “die before you die” — and find that there is no death.

If you create no more pain for yourself, then you create no more pain for others. You also no longer contaminate the beautiful Earth, your inner space, and the collective human psyche with the negativity of problem-making.

And free from sin, which is the suffering you unconsciously inflict on yourself and others as long as this illusory sense of self governs what you think, say, and do.

“Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?”