THE POWER OF NOW by Eckhart Tolle

Aren’t past and future just as real, sometimes even more real, than the present? After all, the past determines who we are, as well as how we perceive and behave in the present. And our future goals determine which actions we take in the present. You haven’t yet grasped the essence of what I am saying because you are trying to understand it mentally. The mind cannot understand this. Only you can. Please, just listen.
Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now? Do you think you ever will? Is it possible for anything to happen outside the Now? The answer is obvious, is it not? Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it happens in the Now.
What you think of as the past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When you remember the past, you reactivate a memory trace and you do so now. The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the Now. When you think about the future, you do it now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present. Their reality is “borrowed” from the Now.
The essence of what I am saying here cannot be understood by the mind. The moment you grasp it, there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence. Suddenly, everything feels alive, radiates energy, and emanates Being. In life-threatening, emergency situations, the shift in consciousness from time to presence sometimes happens naturally. Whatever response is needed then arises out of that state of consciousness.
The reason why some people love to engage in dangerous activities, such as mountain climbing and car racing, is that although they may not be aware of it, it forces them into the Now, that intensely alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking, and free of the burden of the personality. Slipping away from the present moment, even for a second, may mean death. Unfortunately, people come to depend on a particular activity to be in that state. But you don’t need to climb the north face of the Eiger; you can enter that state now.
Since ancient times, spiritual masters of all traditions have pointed to the Now as the key to the spiritual dimension. Despite this, it seems to have remained a secret. If you go to a church, you may hear readings from the Gospels, such as: “Take no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself,” or you might hear the passage about the beautiful flowers that live with ease in the timeless Now and are provided for abundantly by God. The depth and radical nature of these teachings are not recognized. No one seems to realize that they are meant to be lived to bring about a profound, inner transformation.
The whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor’s edge of Now, to be so completely present, that no problem, no suffering, nothing that is not who you are in your essence, can survive in you. In the Now, in the absence of time, all your problems dissolve. Suffering needs time; it cannot survive in the Now. The great Zen master Rinzai, in order to take his students’ attention away from time, would often raise his finger and ask, “What, at this moment, is lacking?” A similar question in the Zen tradition is “If not now, when?”
The Now is also central to the teaching of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. Sufis have a saying: “The Sufi is the son of time present.” And Rumi, the great Sufi poet and teacher declares: “Past and future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them with fire.” Meister Eckhart, the 13th century spiritual teacher, sums it all up beautifully: “Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time.”

Adapted from The Power of Now, copyright 1999 by Eckhart Tolle. Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA, 800-972-6657 (ext. 52).
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