Lessons from "The Power Of Now" by Eckhart Tolle
Lately I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts and the latest one I heard when I started writing this post is "The Power Of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.
The best thing about audiobooks is you can keep learning something new as you are busy with your daily chores.
Any environment that doesn't require conscious application of your brain (for eg. Driving) can be converted to a productive environment with the help of audiobooks. Talk about School On Wheels!
After listening to the 7 hours 35 minute audiobook, I took home 3 main lessons that I think matters a lot in our lives.
1. Present moment is all there is, be in the now.
We often think in terms of past, present and future but when you think about it, past was present moment when you experienced it. Future also becomes present moment when you experience it. This means that past and future are just illusions of your mind.
The ego loves to live in the past or the future because it loves certainty. The present moment just happens spontaneously and our ego has no control over it. Hence, it keeps bringing the past memories or the thoughts about the future in our mind continuously when we are in the present.
That's the main reason why we don't live in the moment.
What can we do about this?
Concentrate on breathing. When we start doing this, in the initial days, our mind will constantly be running wild with thoughts and we have to keep bringing the attention back to our breath (i.e. the present) as soon as we observe it wandering off.
Keep bringing the mind back to present every time it wanders off and it increases our control over the mind gradually with time. This enables us to focus on the present moment at will. This is something I am working on at the moment.
2. Resistance is futile, let go.
Whenever we feel depressed, anxious, angry, jealous or any other emotion that we don't want to experience, we tend to resist or suppress it in an attempt to get rid of it. What this ends up doing is feeding those emotions and these emotions grow even stronger.
What can we do in these situations?
Observe whatever thoughts and feelings come into our minds, acknowledge them and let go. When this is done the thoughts or feelings will stop taking up a huge space in our mind and they will go away. All we need to do is let go.
Letting go helps even in situations that aren't in our control.
3. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.
Most of what happens in our outer world is an exact reflection of what's happening in our inner world. If our inner world is in chaos, it manifests in our outer world and we end up seeking solutions in the outer world.
What do we do?
What we need to do instead is to calm down the inner turmoil, solve the problem in the mental plane and the problems in our external life will go away as a result. This is something I have experienced first hand and try to do the same whenever I come across such situations.
These are some of the lessons that I took away from the audiobook. You may find even more valuable insights if you go through the whole audiobook.
I'll leave you with the original link below: