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

Alright, So I quit 20% in and rating it just 1 stars.

Some of my friends read this and said it changed their way of thinking.
Well I found it just a guy rambling on about what he claims is (spiritual) enlightenment.

The book starts of with his story off 'awakening' which just happened overnight and I just find kind of hard to believe, this instantly put up my bs-radar.

Then he goes into a Q&A format where it's clear he wrote the Q's so he can give his own 'ideal' answers. Which isn't necessarily a bad format unless you are as condescending as he is in his answers. Anybody that disagreed with his point "doesn't get it". It is so hard to figure out what the hell he's trying to say because he's using so much nonsense in every sentence he writes trying to make it as unreadable as possible, using as much 'mumbo-jumbo' as possible.

And he says that the words he uses are different from how we know them but he fails to give a good clarification of his meaning of those words (because they are just words and they don't mean anything).

I also just don't agree with a lot of the things he writes, for example:
Imagine the earth devoid of human life, inhabited only by plants and animals. would it still have a past and a future?

To me this is a clear yes, but according to him that if humans aren't around to witness anything it means nothing is happening. He puts humans on such a high pedestal (and himself even way above that) which i simply don't agree with.


And if he really claims to have found this 'spiritual enlightenment' and wants to share it with the world and make it accessible to everyone, why aren't his books free? At this point he's made more than enough money to live care-free his whole life, but he still charges for all his books/dvds/seminars/etc. Seems like he is clearly feeding his own ego, which is kindof hilarious since his whole book (well I didn't finish it so I guess I can't say) is about not having an ego anymore.

one of my friends that does really like the book told me that what I am doing is the same as starting a meditation session and thinking it's stupid while I'm sitting there 'meditating'. Which might be true but I'm just too skeptical to 'open my mind' to something which I clearly think is BS.

I'm not saying that there isn't anything to gain from this book, there are plenty of people that live by it and think it's the best, however the same can be said for religion.

If you want to read a book about how to improve yourself, I suggest: Give and Take from Adam M. Grant. Perhaps I will try this book again in 5 years time but I highly doubt it.

Some of the quotes from his book:

"The pain-body consists of trapped life-energy that has split off from your total energy field and has temporarily become autonomous through the unnatural process of mind identification."

"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."

"In this way, you grow in presence power. It generates an energy field in you and around you of a high vibrational frequency. No unconsciousness, no negativity, no discord or violence can enter the field and survive,"

"Even a stone has rudimentary consciousness; otherwise, it would not be, and its atoms and molecules would disperse. Everything is alive."

"Consciousness is evolving throughout the universe in billions of forms. So even if we didn't make it, this wouldn't matter on a cosmic scale. No gain in consciousness is ever lost, so it would simply express itself through some other form. But the very fact that I am speaking here and you are listening or reading this is a clear sign that the new consciousness is gaining a foothold on the planet."