THE POWER OF NOW by Eckhart Tolle

When you are full of problems, there is no room for a solution. So whenever you can, create some space so you can find the life underneath your life situation.
Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don’t interpret. See the light, shapes, colours and textures. Be aware of the silent presence of each thing. Listen to the sounds; don’t judge them. Touch something, anything, and feel and acknowledge its Being. Observe the rhythm of your breathing. Allow everything to be, within and without. Allow the “isness” of all things. Move deeply into the Now.
You are leaving behind the deadening world of mental abstraction, of time. You are getting out of the insane mind that drains you of life energy, just as it is slowly poisoning and destroying the Earth. You are awakening out of the dream of time into the present. It feels as if a heavy burden has been lifted.
“I feel clear . . . but my problems are still there waiting for me, aren’t they? They haven’t been solved. Am I not just temporarily evading them?”
If you found yourself in paradise, it wouldn’t be long before your mind would say, “Yes, but …” Ultimately, this is not about solving your problems. It’s about realizing that there are no problems, only situations. Problems are mind-made and need time to survive. They cannot survive in the actuality of the Now.
Focus your attention on the Now and tell me what problem you have at this moment.
I am not getting any answer because it is impossible to have a problem when your attention is fully in the Now. A situation that needs to be either dealt with or accepted, yes. Why make it into a problem? Isn’t life challenging enough as it is? The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity of sorts. This is normal, and it is insane.
“Problem” means that you are dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a true intention or possibility of taking action now. You become so overwhelmed by your life situation that you lose your sense of life, of Being.
When you create a problem, you create pain. All it takes is a simple choice: no matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself. I will create no more problems. Although it is a simple choice, it is also very radical. You won’t make that choice unless you are truly fed up with suffering. And you won’t be able to go through with it unless you access the power of the Now. If you create no more pain for yourself, then you create no more pain for others.
If you have ever been in a life-or-death situation, you know that it wasn’t a problem. The mind didn’t have time to fool around and make it into a problem. In a true emergency, the mind stops; you become totally present in the Now and something infinitely more powerful takes over. This is why there are many reports of ordinary people suddenly becoming capable of incredibly courageous deeds. In any emergency, either you survive or you don’t. Either way, it is not a problem.
Some people get angry when they hear me say that problems are illusions. They have invested much time in a false sense of self. A great deal of what people say, think, or do is actually motivated by fear, which, of course, is always linked with a focus on the future. As there are no problems in the Now, there is no fear either.
Should a situation arise that you need to deal with now, your action will be clear and incisive if it arises out of present-moment awareness. It is also more likely to be effective. It will not be a reaction coming from the past conditioning of your mind, but an intuitive response to the situation. In other instances, when the time-bound mind would have reacted, you will find it more effective to do nothing. Just stay centred in the Now.

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).
www.newworldlibrary.com