Quotes from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of
ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and
not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms
of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whaterver form. Both are illusions.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now.
Let it teach you Being.
Let it teach you integrity — which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real.
Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry or hard-done by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon.
It is also insane.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Reading is my passion and my escape since I was 5 years old. Overall, children don't realize the magic that can live inside their own heads. Better even then any movie.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Don't look for peace. Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Die to the past every moment. You don't need it. Only refer to it when it is absolutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this moment and the fullness of Being. Feel your presence.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Being an outsider to some extent, someone who does not "fit in" with others or is rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don't think about it - don't let the feeling turn into thinking. Don't judge or analyze. Don't make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of "the one who observes," the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Where there is anger there is always pain underneath.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream
of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of
unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of
judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the
more ore you are free of pain, of suffering - and free of the egoic mind.
Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and
remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as
threatening. Time and mind are in fact inseparable.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Space and silence are two aspects of the same thing. The same no-thing. They are externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness: the infinitely creative womb of all existence.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“◦"At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form" states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness.”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

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