Kahying's Reviews > The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

When I first came across the book title a few years ago, I thought it's something to do with dealing with procrastination. Until a few months back when a friend of mine recommended me the book A New Earth, I realised it's by the same author and gave it a try. And then I knew this has got nothing to do with procrastination (or maybe in a way it does), but so much more than that. It helped me realize how much our mind is constantly living in either the past or the future, missing out all the "now", the things that are presented in front us at the moment, the present that really is all that's in our control, how we always rather be at somewhere else than where we are - here, how our suffer mostly comes from an attachment to the outcome that we really have no control of, accept the impermanence of things, and thus learn to detach from the outcome and fully live now. You'll realise how our mind likes to avoid the present, how we always believe in all the stories our mind creates that aren't necessarily true, how our mind always makes us believe and say/do things that we regret when we calm down, because really, it's all our ego - our ego's need to feel important, how when we are attached to the future we are always waiting and wanting more, that mostly makes us feel like we are lacking, that we aren't enough. It's hard to explain, but learning to observe these emotions and not be totally identified and controlled by them are truly liberating.

The message is truly powerful, however I must admit I dread half of the book, which is why it's a 3-star, I finished it simply because I wanted to finish what I started. It's a little too repetitive in my opinion, after a while you just feel like he's solely repeating the same idea under different circumstances. (Im in no place to complain really, I genuinely appreciate what he writes that has transformed so many people's lives) Id recommend A New Earth as they talk about similar things, and I found that better, there are more examples based on our lives that could make you grasp the idea easier, a little more varieties, while this is more on a Q&A pattern.