The Wan Era (A Gnat Ran Siam)October 31, 2008 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I started to flip through "The Power of Now" because of the fuss about it at the time, and to my surprise I finished it easily. Here was someone who had been through a real and fascinating spiritual experience. The teachings were simple and repetitive, but that's what works today: few people have the patience to unravel the complex, beautiful, elliptical spiritual teachings of slower ages. There was nothing new in them, but that was also good. Spiritual teachings aren't supposed to be new.
You are not your body or your thoughts; you are not any form that can be indicated. You are the timeless Presence beyond all this. The past is only thought: memory, regret, nostalgia. The future too is only thought: hope, expectation, fear. Presence exists only Now, in that instant finer than a hair that is yet vast enough to contain Eternity.
So the practice is to stay in the Now unfailingly. This is like Buddhist Mindfulness, but notice the crucial difference of aim. Buddhism teaches No-Self: the point of Mindfulness is to see that There Is Nothing beyond passing thoughts and sensations. Tolle, like Hindu Nondualists, teaches Presence: Something rather than Nothing.
But with This book I'm afraid he lost me. Hate to gloom everyone out, but I see no sign of a New Age, a Global Spiritual Awakening. Ask the people in Iraq, Palestine or Somalia about a New Age; ask slum-dwellers in Cairo, Delhi, Manila, Sao Paulo. More important, why is a Nondualist telling us this? Why this interest in a Coming Age, in the future, in time at all? Whatever arrives is certain to depart again. What Is always Is.
When he began to describe the "pain body" I gave up. Dozens of vague psychological entities have been dreamt up since the days of Freud: this must be one of the least interesting. It's hard not to feel he's pandering to an audience absorbed in their own emotional lives and problems. Try Hindu Nondualist teachers like Ramana Maharshi or Nisargadatta Maharaj. They are just as accessible, and they'll be around a lot longer.
Getting in line to be obtuse....October 31, 2008 1 out of 3 found this review helpful
THE NEW EARTH BUSINESS IS ONE OF A LONG LINE OF OBTUSE IDEAS, BORROWING FROM THE MAJOR RELIGIONS WHERE HANDY; USING SOME NEW WORDS TO SET THEIR IDEAS APART FROM THE NEXT THING COMING DOWN THE LINE. MOST OF IT IS COMMON SENSE, BUT CLOTHED IN NEW WORDS, LIKE PAIN BODY. HOW ABOUT JUST SAYING SIN? THAT'S WHAT HUMANS DO TO EACH OTHER, AND TO THEMSELVES == GIVING IT A NEW TITLE DOESN'T CHANGE THE EFFECT OR THE GUILT. THAT'S ANOTHER WORD WHICH HAS BEEN LEFT BEHIND IN THE DUST OF NEW WAYS TO MAKE MONEY BY PUBLISHING BOOKS WITH NEW VOCABULARIES. THEY ARE NOT OFFENSIVE; THEY ARE SAD.
AwakeOctober 30, 2008 0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book. I would definitely recommend this book for someone who is at a crossroads. My suggestion is to read this book when you have the time to truly absorb it.
Very Helpful to keep things in perspectiveOctober 30, 2008 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found this book to be very insightful. I've read it twice already and had to purchase a second book just to give away! It's so important to realize we're more than this one person here on earth, we're only part of a whole. It doesn't matter if your a high executive, the President or someone who scrapes by on minimum wage, we are the same inside. I hope some day we can work more as a group, caretaker of earth and all life here, for a better life for us all now and the future.
Good, but Could've been BetterOctober 30, 2008 I indeed agree that the state of mind described by Eckhart Tolle as "enlightenment" is the optimal state of being. It makes us infinitely more human, and makes us see beauty in almost everything. But isn't this state of mind the same that we obtain after a period of meditation? Mr. Tolle makes a mistake by not concentrating enough on meditation as the main and best portal into the "Now." Maybe he wants his teachings to appear more original, but he shouldn't do that at the expense of the content. Eckhart Tolle gives us only two new things: Some new techniques for attaining "presence" and a new terminology that makes the whole thing easier to understand (and feel.) Otherwise, staying "present" is an ancient Oriental teaching that goes back thousands of years. Anyway, I think Mr. Tolle should also admit that maintaining "presence" is no easy task. Good overall, but I'm very doubtful that all or even most human beings will understand the imortance of reaching "presence," let alone succeding in that and subsequently become a better race.
