The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

by Eckhart Tolle

thinking. As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego.

To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it — who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It says: “One day, when this, that, or the other happens, I am going to be okay, happy, at peace.” Even when the ego seems to be concerned with the present, it is not the present that it sees: It misperceives it completely because it looks at it through the eyes of the past.

The present moment holds the key to liberation. But you cannot find the present moment as long as you are your mind.

Thinking and consciousness are not synonymous. Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought.

Enlightenment means rising above thought, not falling back to a level below thought, the level of an animal or a plant.

No-mind is consciousness without thought. Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power.

Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the much vaster realm of consciousness, quickly becomes barren, insane, destructive.

All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness. The mind then gives form to the creative impulse or insight. Even the great scientists have reported that their creative breakthroughs came at a time of mental quietude.

America’s most eminent mathematicians, including Einstein, to find out their working methods, was that thinking “plays only a subordinate part in the brief, decisive phase of the creative act itself.”1

So I would say that the simple reason why the majority of scientists are not creative is not because they don’t know how to think but becaus...

If there is an apparent conflict between them, the thought will be the lie, the emotion will be the truth.

What’s going on inside me at this moment? That question will point you in the right direction.

Love, joy, and peace are deep states of Being, or rather three aspects of the state of inner connectedness with Being. As such, they have no opposite. This is

Become present. Be there as the observer of the mind. Instead of quoting the Buddha, be the Buddha, be “the awakened one,” which is what the word buddha means.

As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you.

Watch out for any sign of unhappiness in yourself, in whatever form — it may be the awakening pain-body.

This can take the form of irritation, impatience, a somber mood, a desire to hurt, anger, rage, depression, a need to have some drama in your relationship, and so on.

The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify with it.

It will feed on any experience that resonates with its own kind of energy, anything that creates further pain in whatever form:

Pain can only feed on pain. Pain cannot feed on joy. It finds it quite indigestible.

Once the pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain. You become a victim or a perpetrator. You want to inflict pain, or you want to suffer pain, or both.

The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego, is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness.

It is afraid of being found out.

Its survival depends on your unconscious identification with it, as well as on your unconscious fear of fac...

if you don’t bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, you will be forced to relive it again and again. T...

Some spiritual teachings state that all pain is ultimately an illusion, and this is true.

So the pain-body doesn’t want you to observe it directly and see it for what it is. The moment you observe it, feel its energy field within you, and take your attention into it, the identification is broken.

Unconsciousness creates it; consciousness transmutes it into itself.

“Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light.”

Watching it implies accepting it as part of what is at that moment.

When you start to disidentify and become the watcher, the pain-body will continue to operate for a while and will try to trick you into identifying with it again.

At this stage, it may also create physical aches and pains in different parts of the body, but they won’t last. Stay present, stay conscious.

You need to be present enough to be able to watch the pain-body directly and feel its energy. It then cannot control your thinking.

Let me summarize the process.

Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don’t think about it — don’t let the feeling turn into thinking. Don’t judge or analyze. Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of “the one who observes,” the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.

If you are able to stay alert and present at that time and watch whatever you feel within, rather than be taken over by it, it affords an opportunity for the most powerful spiritual practice, and a rapid transmutation of all past pain becomes possible.

Once you have understood the basic principle of being present as the watcher of what happens inside you — and you “understand” it by experiencing it — you have at your disposal the most potent transformational tool.

Observe the attachment to your pain. Be very alert. Observe the peculiar pleasure you derive from being unhappy.

Only you can do this. Nobody can do it for you.

if you are fortunate enough to find someone who is intensely conscious, if you can be with them and join them in the state of presence, that can be helpful and will accelerate things.

When a log that has only just started to burn is placed next to one that is burning fiercely, and after a while they are separated again, the first log will be burning with much greater intensity. After all, it is the same fire. To ...

The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any concrete and true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia, and so on.

This kind of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now.

You are in the here and now, while your mind is in the future. This creates an anxiety gap. And if you are identified with your mind and have lost touch with the power and simplicity of the No...

as long as you are identified with your mind, the ego runs your life, as I pointed out earlier. Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat.

an emotion is the body’s reaction to your mind.

ultimately all fear is the ego’s fear of death, of annihilation.

To the ego, death is always just around the corner. In this mind-identified state, fear of death affects every aspect of your life.

the compulsive need to be right in an argument and make the other person wrong — defending the mental position with which you have ide...

you as the ego cannot afford to be wrong. To be wrong is to die.