The Power of Now

I am working all weekend long so my posts won't be filled with adventures, but I would like to suggest a new book title to you that I have been long awaiting to suggest, it is called The Power of Now. I would say this is the book that MAJORLY started my journey to a healthier mind and soul. Eckhart's words are so powerful and this book is one to continue to go back to for a constant reminder. Some of my favorite passages from this book are:

"So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of the mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it."

This is important to me because I am someone who tends to get into my head a lot, aka an over thinker, When I very first read this portion of the book it hit me that I do not have to listen to what my brain is saying all of the time, in fact, there are many times that it is not even ME who is speaking in my own head but it is my ego, My ego does not know what is best for me, if I allow myself to not be as attached to those ego thoughts and laugh at them for even entering my mind, then I can become more positive and have thoughts that are authentic and in Spirit.

"The whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor's edge of Now- to be so utterly, 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."

This paragraph also hit me hard because I realized reading this, that all suffering we go through is caused by our own minds. We allow suffering to work its way into our lives by worrying about the past or what is to come in the future. But if we simply focused on what is happening right in this moment, then there is no time for suffering, and only time for a solution. Our problems would never appear if we decided to deal with each moment as it comes rather than allowing time to slip and let it become a bigger problem.

"All problems are illusions of the mind. It is impossible to have a problem when your attention is fully in the Now. A situation that needs to be either death with or accepted- yes. Why make it into a problem? Why make anything into a problem? Isn't life challenging enough as it is? What do you need problems for? 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 mental without there being a true intention or possibility of taking action now and that you are unconsciously making it part of your sense of self. You become so overwhelmed by your life situation that you lose your sense of life, of Being. Or you are carrying in your mind the insane burden of a hundred things that you will or may have to do in the future instead of focusing your attention on the one thing that you can do now."

Speaks for itself.

I highly recommend this book to all of you. I recommend you read it and re-read it until you find yourself living in the Now daily.