The Power of Now: A sentiment that requires few words

As a self-described "wellness girlie," and as a creator who projects this title, I have had many people, both IRL friends and internet passersby tell me that Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now would be a life-changing book for me to read. I remember finally biting the bullet and purchasing a copy after a coaching call with Sarah Lockwood (better known nowadays as @sarahthebookfairy), where she told me it rewired everything for her. I admired her ability to reach others with her teachings on wellness, and we had clicked and were working seamlessly together, so I fully trusted her judgement and was so excited to pick it up once it arrived.

I knew very little about the book to begin with, despite it being one of the most recognizable self-help titles of our time. Upon receiving it and noticing the subtitle frames it as "A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment" made the undertaking feel quite a bit more daunting than what I had originally understood it to be: a guide for presence. But in the earliest pages it becomes clear where the focus on enlightenment stems from, and without this context, the author would have had almost no credibility with which to speak on the topic: Tolle, as he neared his thirties (the same stage of life I currently find myself in) was so chronically depressed and terrified of the surrounding world that he increasingly felt suicide was the only solution to end his suffering. One night, in the midst of a complete breakdown, he suddenly became hyper-fixated on the idea of wanting to kill him-self. "Him" and "self," are separated, he realized, because they are two parts of his being. Because the real "him" wanted to annihilate the "self." Therefore, they were at odds, and were not the same thing. He wondered if that must mean that one of the two was not really real.

This realization seemed to change everything for him. He woke up the next morning to the same surroundings he always had, but "Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence....[he] walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if [he] had just been born into this world" (4-5). And over the months and years that followed, he describes living in a constant state of bliss and euphoria that eventually gave way to calm, unwavering peace. He learned how to harness his thinking mind and channel his energy fully into presence in the current moment, and this is how he describes enlightenment. It's not what many of us would think of - it's not "finding God" or "being happy forever." It is simply being in the moment as much as possible, or all the time.

The book ventures to discuss presence, ego dissolution, freedom from compulsive thinking and what is referred to as the "pain-body" as the core principles of remaining in enlightenment, or, more realistically for the vast majority of us, how to approach that state of being more frequently. If you've followed my work at Lead to Gold for a while, you know one of my own pillars of wellness is practicing presence as much as possible, which is still very difficult even though I speak about it all the time - even though I think I have a good understanding of what true presence entails and feels like. This book is automatically helpful for those who really don't know what sensations to look for when practicing presence, in addition to those who may struggle to separate from their minds.

What does it mean to separate from the mind, exactly? Well, Tolle spends a great deal of time breaking this down. The short answer, which yogis and spiritual practitioners have been teaching for generations long before us, is to focus our energy into the body as much as we can remember to do so. This corresponds with presence as well; some may even consider both practices to be the same. Tolle's more nuanced take is that there is a distinct difference between the thinking mind and what we think of as awareness - he argues, in fact, that you cannot be truly aware unless you are temporarily separated from your thoughts. I believe that he is right.

But here's where the first crack starts to show, and it's that actually doing this is extremely difficult. Doing it consistently, even constantly as Tolle would have us believe he can, is obviously even more difficult. Imagine not thinking for more than a few seconds. Many of us have achieved this through meditation, but to do so in the middle of a busy workday or leading up to a difficult conversation is effectively impossible. Tolle would argue (and does, frequently) that this argument is merely an excuse designed to keep ourselves comfortable in our thinking minds, even though we know it causes us unnecessary pain. True as this may be, it still doesn't quite translate to the average reader as a reasonable request.

One component to The Power of Now that I do find genuinely useful is the reframe around what Tolle refers to as the "pain-body." This is described in its own chapter as what we may more commonly refer to as trauma that has accumulated over the course of our lives. He dubs it "a negative energy field" which, "if you look on it as an invisible entity in its own right, you are getting quite close to the truth" (36). Emotional pain of any kind, whether self-inflicted from not resolving a conflict, or unimaginable abuse at the hands of someone who should have been a caretaker, Tolle suggests we should treat as separate from our true identity. In my own personal journey through intense anxiety as a young adult, I would often practice the same thing: I'd see my intrusive thoughts, my demotivation and spells of depression as a visitor coming over unexpectedly (and certainly unwelcomed). It actually helped a great deal to frame the horrendous feelings as their own entity that, despite me not wanting around, I still found it within me to coexist with and even start to listen to. It lessened the pain because it normalized it. And over time, I learned to let it back in when it comes and simply sit with it again, without judging, without screaming at it to go away. Having the conversation around a separate body for our pain validated the same practice I had used nearly a decade ago.

I wish I could say there were more points of the book that felt as genuine, valuable, or interesting as what we've discussed so far. But we're only on page 36, and most of the remaining 200-ish devolve into spiritual self-help fluff, as so many books in the genre unfortunately do. The following chapters take on the specifics of how to get present and what presence feels like, ways that we humans stop ourselves from feeling presence, how to practice it in relationship with others, and what it all really means. Upon reading most of the chapter titles, it's difficult even then to imagine how differentiated and specific the topics could be. Spoiler alert: Not much.

It becomes clear by chapter 6, "The Inner Body," that the publishers needed Tolle to come up with something, anything, to fill the spaces between what already felt too redundant. This is where the subject matter lost me entirely - where I began again the following summer to try to get through the rest of the book when I couldn't stick with it any longer. What starts off with the perfectly agreeable concept of getting more familiar with the sensations of our bodies in order to exit the compulsively overthinking mind, becomes an assertion that with discipline over our energy and consciousness, we can slow down the aging process and heal virtually any ailment we may be experiencing. When the book itself asks "Is there any scientific evidence for this?" Tolle smirks back, "Try it out and you will be the evidence" (123).

Girl, please.

This is what I cannot stand about modern self-help as a genre, and I say that as someone who works in the same space. If there is no evidence with which to demonstrate benefits from a practice claiming to change lives in the largest, most miraculous sense possible, ethically it cannot and should not be asserted. Something as weighty and promising as enlightenment surely can't be 100% chalked up to experience tested by the scientific theory, but there should at least be some level of certainty when discussing healing in any form. Otherwise, it's nothing more than bloat. The Power of Now isn't the first book I've read that mistakes length for credibility or repetition for emphasis - it's just likely the one that solidified my distaste and full-on skepticism for the genre.

What makes this book standalone in its difficulty to finish is Tolle's smug, holier-than-thou tone nearly the whole way through. There is a particular kind of confidence that he carries throughout this book that, at first, reads as conviction. By the midpoint, though, it starts to read as something else entirely. He has a habit - and it is a habit, recurring enough to be structural - of preemptively closing the door on any objection a reader might raise. Can't stop thinking? That's your ego keeping you comfortable. Find the premise hard to believe? That's resistance, which is itself a symptom of the very problem he's describing. Try it and become the evidence yourself.

The argument is airtight in the most frustrating possible way: agreement proves him right, and disagreement also proves him right. There is no position from which a reader could push back without Tolle having already won. This would be easier to stomach if he positioned himself as a fellow traveler - someone still doing the work alongside us. But he doesn't. He writes from a height, looking down at the rest of us still fumbling around in our thinking minds, and there's a pervasive sense that he finds our struggle a little tiresome. The tone isn't cruel, exactly. It's something more deflating than cruelty: it's patient in the way that someone is patient when they've already stopped expecting much from you.

A book about presence, written by someone who seems barely present with or tolerant of the reader's actual experience of reading it: that's the central irony I kept returning to, and I was never quite able to shake it.

My rating: ⭐⭐

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Interested in reading? Here is some additional info you might want to know:

Pages	229
Difficulty	🔴🔴⚫⚫⚫ The language in this book is not difficult comprehension-wise unless readers are very unfamiliar with some esoteric or religious terms. The book and its chapters are relatively short, and within each chapter are headers phrased as questions by Tolle's readers/followers as the lesson continues, which helps contextualize the current topic. Though it may be low in reading difficulty, some may find it higher in patience requirements.
Average Ratings	⭐⭐⭐⭐ Generally people who need the reframe of body over mind when becoming more present have favorable reviews of this book. Like others in the genre, it is genuinely helpful for people who have not done a lot of "inner work" and need a place to start. It may also be insightful for those who want to understand how presence relates to enlightenment in a more religious or spiritual sense. The largest complaints connect in their distaste for Tolle's condescension, redundancy, and spiritual pseudoscience.
About the Author	Eckhart Tolle is a German-born spiritual teacher and internationally bestselling author whose work has profoundly influenced the contemporary spiritual landscape. He experienced a transformative spiritual awakening at the age of 29 after years of depression and anxiety. This profound shift in consciousness marked the beginning of his journey as a spiritual guide and thinker. Tolle abandoned his doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge to explore and embody the stillness and presence he had discovered, eventually becoming a spiritual teacher based in London and later in Vancouver, Canada. His teachings draw from a variety of traditions, including Zen Buddhism, Christian mysticism, Sufism, and Hindu philosophy, though he remains unaffiliated with any formal religion.

Have you read The Power of Now? Are you enjoying this book review format? Let me know your thoughts in the comments! Let's converse! LOVE YOU!!