Many people are haunted by memories and paralyzed by worries. But between the past and future, there is the present, where, as Eckhart Tolle argues, we were meant to stay, where life is truly happening. Here in the Now we find the light-hearted, joy-filled existence that so many are striving for, but few seem to find. Accepting each moment as it comes and all it contains, instead of fighting it or withdrawing from it, is the key. In The Power of Now, Tolle shows us the benefits of moving into the Now and the obstacles that hinder many from living mindful, fulfilling lives.

There’s an old parable about a beggar on a street corner looking for a handout. One day someone tells him to look inside the box he’s been sitting on. The beggar thinks this a strange request but opens the box and discovers that the box he has been sitting on for years is full of gold!

Such is the human condition—the truth is far nearer to us than we would guess. Many are sitting on treasures, even as they live in existential rags. The treasure of joy and peace that comes from enlightenment is near. It is, in fact, within us.

But what is enlightenment? The Buddha understood it as the end of suffering. There’s a beautiful simplicity to this definition, but it is described in negative terms, in terms of what enlightenment is not (i.e., not suffering). But when suffering has been vanquished, what is it that one should be striving for? The Buddha doesn’t tell us, perhaps because our egos would cry out for something to achieve and then be crushed by the enormity of the task. This could be why many Buddhists who have described enlightenment in positive terms have concluded that enlightenment is for the Buddha but not feasible for the rest of us.

The main obstacle to enlightenment is an over-identification with your mind. Most people cannot stop thinking. It’s a compulsive cycle of tangentially related anxieties, fears, doubts, and hopes that never ceases. And because it’s pandemic, people are left with the impression that it’s normal. Like the hum of the refrigerator, so incessant that we forget it’s there, we have grown accustomed to the climate of inner noise that interferes with the peace that could be ours.

This causes us to live out of a false self, shaped by the environment around us, which is full of anxiety and pain. Enlightenment doesn’t just end suffering but also our slave-like servitude to a mind that whirs and whirs and cannot bear to be still.

Let’s be clear: the mind isn’t categorically “bad.” It can be useful, but it cannot serve you until you learn to “watch the thinker," pausing long enough to realize that you are, in fact, thinking. This ability to detach from your mind is part of developing a higher consciousness. As long as you believe that you and your mind are the same thing, you will not be free, because you will operate in a narrow realm of intelligence, unable to access the joys of creativity, beauty, and love that come through this higher tier of consciousness.

An awakening is essential in order to overcome your mind’s enslavement of you.

There’s an emotional suffering that arises from the ego’s sense of fundamental lack. It always feels incomplete, which is why it is always grasping, justifying, lashing out. It is trying to maintain what it believes it has and desperately grabbing for what it feels it is missing. When you fail to satisfy your ego, it tells you that you are deficient, that you’re not enough.

If you do manage to gain the money, admiration, and status that your ego told you would make you happy, the standards will shift. Your ego is a bottomless pit that will never be satisfied. Serving it is a thankless, exhausting, unfulfilling job. It will rob you of peace and joy. You’ll experience positive emotions occasionally, but they’ll be fleeting and leave you devastated and empty when they subside.

Love is powerful and universally desired. For the person who has not yet experienced the freedom that enlightenment brings, romance offers a temporary reprieve from fears and insecurities.

As long as you over-identify with the mind, you will operate from the false self, a collection of outside sources of identity: popularity, money, success, a value system. Your ego is just as vulnerable when inflated as it is when it’s deflated. In a blossoming romance, however, this neediness appears to subside—but really, it is just getting off on a new, external source of significance in a lover. It gives a unified sense of purpose and significance to a splintered existence. This is, however, very different from love.

Addictive love relationships start from a painful perception of lack. Like alcohol, drugs, or food, however, romance will only cover up the pain. And, as with any addiction, when the fix no longer fixes, it will leave a person in even more pain.

When the initial glow of infatuation fades, what do you do? The person who met your needs so fully is now falling hopelessly short of your expectations for how they should be making you feel. The pain you felt before will resurface and your partner will likely become the prime scapegoat for your pain and discomfort. You will likely try to change that person, to align them with your expectations, either through confrontational aggressive methods or more subtle, manipulative tactics. When these approaches fail, many people resort to withdrawing from the present. Addiction is ultimately a coping mechanism that allows someone to experience the present. To stay in the present is to risk encountering your pain. So some people medicate instead of confronting it.

The good news is that addictive, unhealthy relationships can become enlightened relationships. The key is to delve ever more deeply into the Now. Dysfunction arises from the belief that you lack wholeness, either because of the past memories or feelings of inadequacy. It’s all ego-driven.

As discussed earlier, learning to observe the thinker helps us enter into the Now. By observing the mind, you can disentangle yourself from its grasp and the noise and pain it perpetuates. Through this process of submerging yourself in the radiant splendor of the Now, the pain can be transformed into love and peace, because you will accept what is instead of greedily grasping for more.

This ends codependency in a relationship because you accept what is, as it is, instead of seeking to change it or greedily grasping for more. It brings a contentment and creates distance from the greedy ego which is tempted to look for significance in another person. And suddenly the person whom you were crushing with your expectations is now free to simply be; you are able to accept the them for who they are. 

You cannot solve your problems by thinking them into oblivion. This is trying to beat the mind by using the mind. It’s fighting fire with fire. There’s only so much you can learn by delving into the past and figuring out what your afraid of or worried about. Your dysfunction will continue even if you’re cognizant of it. 

The root of unconscious—which we ideally replace with consciousness—is staying at the level of the mind. By disentangling yourself from your mind, you can step into the present. In order to do this, you must learn to end the tyranny of time. The mind operates within time, tugged in every direction by past experiences and hopes and fears about the future. What would happen if you acknowledged the present moment and accepted it for what it is? Regardless of the things that brought you to this moment or will come after it, this moment is here. Time is not what is valuable, as many suppose. It is the Now.

In fact, the Now is all there is. To operate outside the Now is to live a life disconnected from Reality, or Being, like a branch disconnected from the vine. 

To keep your ego or self intact, the mind avoids the Now. When your mind wanders unconsciously, it usually goes to past memories or future hopes and worries. The mind will not guide you to the present. You must choose to live in the Now.

For some people, living in the Now happens immediately and permanently, but in most cases it takes diligence and practice. As you begin to focus on the present, you will become aware of how fleeting those moments are, how quickly you default to past and future orientations of the mind. But this realization itself is a victory. With practice, the Now becomes not just a rare encounter but a regular state of being, to be enjoyed and reveled in.

The litmus test for living in the Now is whether there is an easy-going, light-hearted joyfulness with which you do things. If you feel anxious and burdened as you go about your day, it is likely that time is encroaching and ensnaring you again. Doing is not the end, but the means to an end.  It is hard to be fully present if you are resisting what is happening. It is also hard to be present when you are preoccupied with the outcomes of your actions rather than the actions themselves. The fruit of your labors is external and thus cannot rattle your inner peace. There is a joy and peace that cannot be taken from you because you have everything you need now, in the present. You lack nothing.

True surrender is victory—not defeat. The word “surrender” connotes a range of meanings and images, some that seem negative, cowardly, and passive. That is not the surrender spoken of here. Surrender does not mean that we stop making plans or seeing them through to completion. Surrender means accepting life’s ebb and flow instead of fighting it. It’s an unconditional embrace of what is. When we fight what is, we have exited reality, and this will only leave us angry and hurting. It is not passive, but active, because we are choosing to accept the Now without the buffers and caveats.

Refusal to surrender is the ego rearing its head. Giving in to the ego will separate you from the world, from people, from experiences. You’ll become suspicious of others because they will be threats to the unrealities with which you have chosen to align your thoughts through your refusal to accept what is.

Surrender is not easy, but it is better than the alternative. To surrender is to accept pain and suffering. It is a kind of death. Really, all that dies is the ego; so the ego, eager to be preserved and inflated, will violently resist surrender.

The Christian notion of “the way of the cross” is an example of the power of surrender. Christ exhorted his disciples to put the false self to death by way of total surrender. Christians throughout the centuries have experienced deep suffering and persecution, but they accepted it as part of “the way of the cross.” In doing so, the false self that the mind perpetuates does not stand a chance. This practice is an ancient path to enlightenment, but it is an effective one.

These insights are just an introduction. If you're ready to dive deeper, pick up a copy of The Power of Now here. And since we get a commission on every sale, your purchase will help keep this newsletter free.

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