Luke Shanahan–Neubauer's Reviews > The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

This book is both incredible and inedible.

I am a quick and experienced reader but this book almost set a new record for me. Perhaps it lost the speed record due to the hour long sleep I took when meditating.

In all seriousness, I wanted to like this book. It was lovingly given to me by a close friend and I wanted to understand the concepts in the deepest possible way. That is why it got an extra star. 20 pages in I grabbed a pen and started again; linking definitions and concepts to decipher Tolle. I didn't stop writing the whole book.

What I found blew my mind. This is a pamphlet bloated into a book by a man who writes like an arts student; not a Cambridge graduate (I am sure he is not! Has anyone gone 'Jeffrey Archer' on this bloke?). What Tolle is essentially (and only) saying is the age-old philosophy that as humans we are 'form' borrowed from 'being'. He references Jesus and Buddha (almost always together and never with actual referencing) and a little snippet of Sufism to try and give his waffle credibility but he (perhaps unwittingly) always misquotes. I am surprised he doesn't throw in Abe Lincoln and Muhammad Ali. It is an incredible feat to make it to the last Q&A: "How will I know when I have surrendered? When you no longer need to ask the question."

Tolle relies heavily on 'religious speak' with words like grace, salvation, second coming and his take on Chi. However, his use of these words relies on a middle-class middle-age Sunday-school yoga-retreat understanding of terms that fits perfectly to his Oprah audience. Yet he twists the words to the point of HIS utter confusion. He DOES have moments of clarity, particularly in the second part of the book where he seems to have a 'second awakening of reasoning'. However, he has set such a ridiculous precedent that he seems unable to step out of his own dark shadow (borrowing his example). Comparing page 175 with page 5 will start to give you an understanding of the sad insanity of this now very rich man.

I would recommend this book to everyone except the mentally unstable. It will give you a good grasp on Western society's hunger for spiritual fast food. However, it must be read critically. That is a common sense this book lacks. It is a one-day read that will give you little food for thought and lots of food for discussion.