Daily Times

The book was published by Namaste Publishing in Vancouver in 1998. It sold over a million copies worldwide over. According to talk show host and actress Oprah Winfrey, “The Power of Now can transform your thinking. The result? More joy, right now.”

The main concept presented in the book is the focus on the present, disengaging oneself from the past and not looking into the future but just concentrating on the now! How identifying with the inner body awareness, letting go of the past and surrendering to the moment can help achieve inner peace via the need to free humanity of the damage done to both the self and the environment.

The book opens on the note of recognising the beauty of the light from the sun, how it rises and sets! How the moment dazzles us and makes us freeze in time! The moment is the moment of real experience when we come to our true self, our being.

Spiritual enlightenment brings forward the positive emotions of love, intuition, vitality, perception and communication.

The myth of ‘other than me’ is responsible for all environmental problems. The moment we make peace with ourselves and the universe is the moment of contentment. Harmony between nature and the self is the key to living a balanced and happy life.

The author says the book took birth when he underwent a lot of problems: all negative. It was then when he began to appreciate the beauty around him and then he attained a level of fulfilment and contentment. I would say, “You have it already. You just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.”

According to Buddha, “It is the end of suffering.”

Take the case of a beggar. A stranger approach him, asks him to look inside his bag. His natural reaction is to say, “There is nothing inside.”

However, upon persistence to look inside the beggar does only to find to his astonishment a bag full of gold.

What does this parable teach one: God works in mysterious ways? When one is completely disillusioned that is when the most unexpected of things will occur.

God is usually associated with the image of a tyrant. The idea is to open this closed image so to bring into play a balance of kindness& discipline.

Thinking is the greatest obstacle to experiencing this reality. Thinking, over-thinking is a disease. Freeing yourself from the mind meaning that you are “watching the thinker.’ And that is the key to enlightenment.

The ego is equated with self-identification. The unconscious mind may be able to bring you to awareness as thought but it it’ll always be reflected into the body as an emotion.

A famous Chinese proverb “don’t feed a man fish, teach him to fish for himself’ is focused on how to let a person become independent and earn his own sustenance.

Time is an essential; concept. To remove time from mind and it stops. Past and the present both are illusions. The past gives you an identity and the future hold a promise of salvation.

Spiritual enlightenment brings forward the positive emotions of love, intuition, vitality, perception and communication

What the power of now wants is to focus on the intent and not the fruits of the action for that is what gives you recognition and a feeling of fulfilment.

There is nothing wrong with setting goals and striving to achieve them. Take the example of an architect who before sketching the plan to supervising the construction of the house/building giver the final touches.

What is Chi? The balance between the manifest and the unmanifest. The word unmanifested is that which cannot be spoken.

The inner body awareness has other benefits in the physical body realm. The slowing down of the ageing process is assisted with less thinking and more activity. For example, if the master of the house does not control the domestic staff of the house will be in a chaos. Similarly, the ageing process is slowed down by focusing more on your inner and outer health and worrying less about what will or is going to happen. Deep breathing helps with lessening anxiety and depression just as Yoga. Or any other form of exercise does.

There are different levels of unconsciousness? The sleep, the dream and the death.

In the deep sleep you are completely unconscious, in a dream you are allowing the unconscious to submerge into the consciousness and in death you are asleep eternally.

Similarly, there are different portals such as the Now, cessation of thinking, surrender to mental resistance, silence and space.

Love is not a portal. It is what comes through this portal.

So, what is silence? It is listening to the sounds outside and silencing the inner workings of the mind. Space on the other hand is how like the big bang, the universe came into existence without space there is no life. God inhabited space by creating humans. Thereby, the relationship between humans and the earth are manifested through god who is one of the portals.

Just like and man and a woman are incomplete without each other, so the love of God is eternal.

It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of god. But the love of ego. If both genders love each other strongly it means that the love between them is pure and true.

A woman is more emotional and more likely to experience and endure physical pain which is why she is said to be more enlightened than a man. The famous quote from a My Big fat Greek Wedding that ‘the man is the head and the woman the neck. She can turn it into whatever direction she wants.’

Negativity is only a human trait. No other animal knows destructive powers over the universe. Man is the only ‘psychic pollutant.’

Surrender is simply a form of giving into pain or joy.

Where, thoughtless surrender such as to an illness is not a good idea. Treatment will be required by a doctor and if you pretend to be all well and not treat your ailment in time it will breed more negativity. Enlightenment is the way of cross when you scream out in pain because you can’t bear it any longer.

So, enlightenment and surrender go hand in hand. Forgiveness is the key but not forgiveness without accountability. So, the balance between being good and bad is the key to staying within the power of now!

The writer can be reached at beenishmhmd@gmail.com