My Mind's Ink

I did not enjoy The Power Of Now. The central idea of the book is solid, but its presentation is awful. My criticisms are numerous, but first I want to be positive. A number of people recommended this book to me, it is widely popular, and has received excellent reviews. There are good reasons why this is so.

I agree with the main themes in the book and, like any material, you incorporate some into your worldview, and discard the rest. Hearing about other ideas and belief systems is a good thing. If you are inclined towards reading it, I am sure you will benefit from the experience.

There are two primary themes found interwoven throughout the book. The main theme, indicated aptly by the title, is that now is all you have. Building on this is the second concept that you create your own reality.

The Power of Now Synopsis

You cannot change the past, and planning to be happy in the future doesn’t work. By letting go of past experiences you cannot change, and not worrying about future events you cannot control, you eliminate most of the complexities of life. Appreciate the beauty in the moment and be happy with what you have in the present. The ability to do this, and live life in the present moment, is what the author calls The Power of Now.¹

The secondary theme builds on your ability to focus on the present moment. Once you purge concern of past and future events from your thoughts you can begin to create your own reality. How you feel and react in the present moment becomes a choice. Accept the external things you cannot control and direct your internal perspective over which you have complete control. The result is peace and happiness.

I agree whole-heartedly with both of these philosophies.

So what is the problem?

Good ideas are best presented simply and honestly. The Power Of Now is neither, which tarnishes worthwhile philosophies, and makes it a chore to read. It may seem like I am being particular, but I am not alone in my thinking. I want to assure fellow analytical thinkers that enjoying new age spiritual books is not a prerequisite to self-examination or a search for fulfilling work.

My main complaints are:

• Arrogance
• Language
• Dishonesty
• Pseudo Science
• Religion
• Plagiarism

Arrogance

You can’t properly present an argument peppered with I think, I believe, and In my opinion. It’s weak and tedious to read, however, if you are presenting the idea that you have discovered the very answers to life then, I think, at least one phrase indicating a lack of complete certainty should be forthcoming.

The author presents some lofty ideals with a level of arrogance I found intolerable. When speaking of the very nature of reality, humanity, and the purpose of life, begin with some humility. Hang question marks on your statements and recognize that your audience has opinions of their own.

He states plainly that following his teachings is the only way to “enlightenment”.

The fact is that no one has ever become enlightened through denying or fighting the body or through and out-of-body experience.²

Anyone that states they have found the one and only true answer to life is far too full of himself. There are countless doctrines and ideologies that make the same claim. It is possible that one individual amongst the sea of humanity has come up with the answer to life, but it is reasonable to approach this idea with a critical eye.

Quoting single lines from other religious text and interpreting the meaning to suite you own point of view is such a cliched technique that it is annoying every time I see it done. Not to mention the immense ego required to state that you alone have understood a piece of text centuries old.

(On bible passages) Even the men who wrote the Gospels did not understand the meaning of these parables, so the first misinterpretations and distortions crept in as they were written down. (he then goes on to say what they really mean)³

Hence the statement in the Bible that in the coming age “The lion shall lie down with the lamb.” This points to the possibility of a completely different order of reality.⁴

A long time after their fall from a state of grace and oneness into illusion, humans suddenly woke up in what seemed to be an animal body – and they found this very disturbing.⁵

Language

This book is painful to read. Do not take my word for it, lets look at some passages from the book.

When you become conscious of Being, what is really happening is that Being becomes conscious of itself. When Being becomes conscious of itself – that’s presence. Since Being, consciousness, and life are synonymous, we could say that presence means consciousness becoming conscious of itself, or life attaining self-consciousness.

There is an unfortunate tendency for people to make assumptions about things they do not understand. They leap to the conclusion that these are concepts that are beyond their understanding, or that they are reading something very deep and profound. The truth is that often the subject is beyond understanding because it is poorly written, or in this case, complete gibberish.

Read the above quote from the book as many times as you wish. I propose that you can make no sense out of it for a very good reason; it’s total nonsense written in lofty sounding English. A point the author concedes with the statement that immediately follows the above quote.

But don’t get attached to the words, and don’t make an effort to understand this. There is nothing that you need to understand before you can become present.⁶

I read that page a dozen times and nearly threw the book out the window after each. Did he just make me read a nonsensical paragraph and then tell me not to worry about what it means? What an asshole.

The book is full of examples of this but here is another of my favorites.

The word Unmanifested attempts, by way of negation, to express that which cannot be spoken, thought, or imagined. It points to what it is by saying what it is not. Being, on the other hand, is a positive term. Please don’t get attached to either of these words or start believing in them.⁷

The author justifies his inability to clearly communicate ideas by saying they are beyond understanding.

Please stop trying to understand Being. You have already had significant glimpses of Being, but the mind will always try to squeeze it into a little box and then put a label on it. It cannot be done. It cannot become an object of knowledge. In Being, subject and object merge into one.⁸

To further confuse the issue the author chooses to invent new terms and redefine existing ones, but in a non-specific way, so you are always trying to understand what he is saying. He invents the pain-body, and Unmanifested. He redefines, Being, Consciousness, and Presence, and often uses them interchangeably. This is confusing not deep and profound.

A smaller point, but one I find annoying, is the constant use of language that splits the human being into separate independently operating pieces. The author talks of the ego, the mind, and pain-body as separate entities with its own thoughts, feelings, and desires. This makes as much sense as saying, “My left arm is afraid of my right arm.”

The ego believes that through negativity it can manipulate reality and get what it wants.⁹

“That’s dangerous,” says the ego. “You’ll get hurt. You’ll become vulnerable.”¹⁰

The pain-body, which is the dark shadow cast by the ego is actually afraid of the light of your consciousness.¹¹

Dishonesty

Eckhart Tolle makes statements that are false, misleading, unsupported, and ridiculous. The book is full of claims that his book contains the secrets to end war, aging, disease, and violence. The claims look like this:

As there is more consciousness in the body, its molecular structure actually becomes less dense… When you become identified more with the timeless inner body than with the outer body, when presence becomes your normal mode of consciousness and past and future no longer dominate your attention, you do not accumulate time anymore in your psyche and in the cells of the body. The accumulations of time as the psychological burden of past and future greatly impairs the cells’ capacity for self-renewal. So if you inhabit the inner body, the outer body will grow old at a much slower rate, and even when it does, your timeless essence will shine through the outer form, and you will not give the appearance of an old person.

Of course, the book contains nothing to support his claims in any way. A point made clear by the statement immediately following the above quote.

Is there any scientific evidence for this? Try it and you will be the evidence.¹²

Here are some more examples of his claims.

The more consciousness you bring into the body, the stronger the immune system.¹²

This includes collective evils such as war, genocide, and exploitation – all due to massed unconsciousness. Furthermore, many types of illness are caused by the ego’s continuous resistance, which creates restrictions and blockages in the flow of energy through the body.¹³

It is not only your physical immune system that becomes strengthened; your psychic immune system is greatly enhanced as well.¹⁴

(On focusing on the past) Then you are not only reinforcing a false sense of self but also helping to accelerate your body’s aging process by creating an accumulation of past in your psyche.¹⁵

The author furthers his claims by purporting to know what happens to you when you die.

Even if you have missed all the other opportunities for spiritual realization during your lifetime, one last portal will open up for you immediately after the body has died.¹⁶

This one is plainly offensive. It turns out if you are murdered, robbed, or raped, it may be because you don’t have enough consciousness.

Anyone with a strong pain-body and not enough consciousness to disidentify from it… may also easily become either the perpetrator of the victim of violence.¹⁷

Stating the earth is flat does not make it so. The author has written a book filled with outlandish statements that are entirely unsupported. It is, quite simply, peppered with bullshit.

Pseudo Science

Pseudo Science arises out of the desire to use the intellectual cache of science without the restrictive nuisance of scientific boundaries like facts, provable arguments, or working examples. Words you would expect to hear in a laboratory, but which are entirely out of context. Marketers use it extensively to sell ideas and products by conveying a feeling of scientific merit where there is none.

The cosmetics industry is full of examples, like this one about a face cream.

Soft and creamy texture provided by elastomer and emollient esters.

The author uses technical terms wherever possible. He writes energy field, vibrational frequency, force field, and energy polarity, where he could have used aura, feeling, and opposition. The reason is not difficult to understand. Replace his various “energy” terms with the word aura in the following quotes. The meaning remains constant but without the jargon they sound like flaky unsupported statements, which is closer to the truth.

The pain-body consists of trapped life-energy that has split off from your total energy field and has temporarily become autonomous through the unnatural process of mind identification.¹⁸

Physical violence would be impossible without deep unconsciousness. It can also occur easily whenever and wherever a crowd of people or even an entire nation generates a negative collective energy field.¹⁹
It (consciousness) generates an energy field in you and around you of a high vibrational frequency.²⁰

The latter protects you from the negative mental-emotional force fields of others, which are highly contagious.¹⁴

Apparently, gays need not apply to The Power Of Now.

You are either a man or a woman, which is to say, one-half of the whole… the longing for wholeness…manifests as male-female attraction… It is an almost irresistible urge for union with the opposite energy polarity.²¹

Religion

The soul is a timeless concept. It comes by different names, but whatever label you put to it, it is a notion every adult has already accepted or rejected. If, like me, you do not believe, then there is no reason to adopt the idea because Eckhart Tolle says so.

With this radiant peace comes the realization – not on the level of mind but within the depth of your Being – that you are indestructible, immortal. This is not a belief. It is an absolute certainty that needs no external evidence or proof from some secondary source.²²

There are no question marks in the book. It states the answers to life and offers nothing to support its claims. This puts it on the same footing as every other religious text.

Plagiarism

The author presents a set of ideas as singularly created by the him. A passing acknowledgement that the ideas presented in the book are built on many philosophies from various cultures would have been placated me. If this was the only issue it could be excused, but as it is, it added to the bitter taste all of my other complaints had developed.

Conclusion

So many people love this book, I apologize to anyone I offended. It is not my intent to throw stones just for the sake of doing so. I think a critical look at ideas that tell you how to live is important.

If you were to cut out the bullshit, and give the material to a less arrogant author, you would end up with 40 pages I thoroughly enjoyed, instead of 230 pages that had me gritting my teeth and cursing. It felt like buying a good car from a slimy salesman. I ended up with something I can use, but the process was distasteful.

Footnotes

All of the quotes I have obtained from the first paperback edition. For brevity I have used ellipses (…) to replace material in some of the quotes. None of the meanings have been altered by the subtraction of this material.

Footnotes

1. The best expression I have heard for living in the present is, dancing in the moment. [↩]
2. pg. 114 [↩]
3. pg. 95 [↩]
4. pg. 200 [↩]
5. pg. 113 [↩]
6. pg. 98 [↩]
7. pg. 121 [↩]
8. pg. 107 [↩]
9. pg. 189 [↩]
10. pg. 216 [↩]
11. pg. 38 [↩]
12. pg. 123 [↩] [↩]
13. pg. 180 [↩]
14. pg. 124 [↩] [↩]
15. pg. 84 [↩]
16. pg. 142 [↩]
17. pg. 166 [↩]
18. pg. 39 [↩]
19. pg. 74 [↩]
20. pg. 75 [↩]
21. pg. 150 [↩]
22. pg. 220 [↩]

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