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

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
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did not like it

I have three significant issues with this book:

1) The introduction to this book talks about his personal, emotional collapse after which he had a revelation about being in the "now". He did not follow the path he lays out or a system of practices. He hit rock bottom and had nowhere to go from there other than suicide or personal revelation.

If he wanted his personal story to truly resonate, he would have written something like this: "drive yourself into emotional blackness; delve into the abyss of depression. do whatever it takes to get yourself there. Good. now everything of importance is lost to you. You are a blank slate and ready to do something with your life. Here is my suggestion about how to live mindfully after that collapse. Here is my suggested Step 1..."

2) His arrogance is unacceptable. Perhaps I would put up with it if I were in a school with centuries of lineage teaching and the school was known for its power-mad masters. I find no compassion in his method of teaching. He continuously reprimands his readers that they have to accept his every word as ultimate truth.

3) His teachings are not new in the least. He is sampling from significant sources but making it seem like he is the one who figured all this out. Wrong.

Recommendation: Go read books by Jon Kabat-Zinn (_Wherever You Go, There You Are_ is so far superior to this book in almost every conceivable way).

I threw out my copy of "now", it was simply awful.
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Finished Reading
January 10, 2012 – Shelved

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Gopi your way of reviewing a book is really good..
just pointing out the key things and giving suggestions is nice...


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