Posted on August 26, 2024

When I experience emotional pain, it typically stems from resisting something from the past that has already occurred or resisting a potential future which I fear. At times, I feel like I’m living much of my life between memory and anticipation. As someone who battles with their mind, reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle was a refreshing experience that has aided in shifting my mindset. This essay explores how Tolle's teachings on living in the present and dissociating from the mind have transformed my understanding of consciousness and inner peace.

The human mind is an intricate and powerful tool, capable of critical thinking, emotional processing, and influencing one's perception of reality. However, our collective association with our minds has been leading us into a rabbit hole of pain, ego, and fear. Eckhart proposes early in this book that we are not our mind; essentially specifying our mind should not be a representation of our overall being. The mind creates thought patterns rooted in self preservation. To only act on self preservation would cause someone to consistently harbor emotions like anger, resentment, fear, and envy. If your relationship with your mind is unbalanced, it will control you. Discipline and discernment are harder to maintain when you allow your thoughts to take control of you. Instead of thinking with your mind, you should be the watcher of your mind. Familiarize yourself with the thought patterns your mind creates without necessarily associating with them. By choosing not to engage with the mind's constant stream of thoughts, one can diminish its influence over their actions and emotions. In this case, you will be able to make a path toward a state of being Tolle calls “consciousness”. Consciousness is achievable by living in the present and embracing the power of now. When you embrace the present moment, you can appreciate the aspects of life that you once may have overlooked and undermined. Any means to an end can become an end itself. As long as you are identified with the mind, your sense of self is derived externally, not internally. As long as you continue associating yourself with your mind, you will never be free from this slavery. Enlighten yourself by rising above your mind, and you will no longer be controlled by emotion and ego.

The ego is a false representation of self created by negative mental images in the mind. To the ego, the present moment is not as important as the past and future. It obsesses over the past because without memories, the mind can’t associate itself with any pretense, and it obsesses over the future because it believes salvation can be found there. The ego is very vulnerable and insecure, perceiving itself as constantly under threat. In the perspective of the ego, to be wrong is to die; this is due to the innate incompleteness that it embodies. Constantly seeking to gratify the ego is akin to digging a hole in search of clearer skies. The ego will strive after possessions, money, success, recognition, attention, and other vapid things in order to curate a sense of self worth. Many who read this essay will know that these egoic accomplishments will never create inner peace for a lasting period. Material possessions and social status are not the recipe for a good spiritual life. Once you disengage from your mind, you no longer feel allegiance with ego.

Your salvation is not in the future. Belief in a future heaven creates a present hell, where nothing in the present is ever enough. Your degree of presence determines the quality of your consciousness, which will determine the trajectory of your future. In order to heighten your degree of presence, allow the present circumstance of all things in your life situation. The way in which you deal with life’s challenges is an indicator on your level of consciousness. Learn to live with the present moment in conjunction, rather than with conflict. If you are in a situation in life that you find intolerable, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change the situation, or accept the situation. Nothing in life should be perceived as a mistake, because everything that happens in life is meant to teach something. Many positive outcomes have derived from negative situations. These word associations are too constrictive to truly capture the unbounded complexities that every moment brings. There is no good or bad in life, everything just is. Allowing every moment to be what it is creates a peace center in your soul. You can be unsatisfied with something happening in your life situation and still be able to hold peace. Peace is unconditional, it does not come from an outward force, it derives from within. When you decide to end your desperate attempts to withstand or resist life, you open yourself up to the possibility of surrender to the now. The spiritual reward in surrendering is that it frees your soul by yielding to the flow of life. Surrendering is not about resignation, you don’t have to accept things that you don’t want in your life. The key to changing unwanted aspects in your life is to accept whatever is happening, take action towards creating a desirable alternative, and then move on. There is no reason to pollute your brain with overthinking, fear, or pain. Your truest spiritual potential, or your “light”, is not waiting in the future or the past. It is not your boyfriend or girlfriend. Nor is it your family and friends. Your light is within you, always. Let your inner light guide you away from identification with the mind. Consciousness will provide a pathway toward a peaceful life built on radical acceptance and surrender.

The Power of Now instilled bountiful wisdom in me. I first purchased the book in Summer 2022, but I never found time to read it until this past summer. Now, as I navigate my final year of undergrad, learning to dissociate from my mind’s thoughts and remind myself to live in the present moment has been a really impactful lesson to practice. I am thankful for the spiritual teachings I was able to gain from reading The Power of Now.