If you are ready this book will change your life. The no nonsense, no New Age jargon, non heavy handed approach is not only welcoming but inclusive in addressing the religious and non-religious but spiritual alike. I cannot recommend this book enough. And after you've read this you'll undoubtedly want the next book, "A New Earth".

If you seek spirit, if you are ready for a gentle, yet profound, guide to find your real self, Tolle's voice may speak to you. If you listen, and really hear, you may find so much more than you could have imagined. The Power of Now and A New Earth are more than brilliant, they share the vision to shape a new universe. Tolle holds the wisdom and teachings of the ages and looks at them through the illuminated glass of his enlightenment - and they sparkle with a new understanding. Also recommend Tolle's DVDs.

The Power of Now- Eckart Toll
I loved this book. Toll believes that it is our minds that get us into trouble. He points out how we've lost
contact with our feeling selves, and how thinking can prevent us from listening to others and to our inner instinctive voice. As a college speech teacher, to actors, I related to his suggestion to focus on breathing in order to experience your inner body. He maintains this process puts us in touch with our true selves, not our fear-based habits. When my students are connected to their breath, their work is instantly creative and honest. When they are tense and held,the negative chatter in their brains stops them from taking risks. When they connect with their breathing, endless possibilities present themselves. This allow them to become amazing listeners and therefore better artists.

I found another way to access the moment through the writings of Ariel and Shya Kane. In their book "How to Create a Magical Relationship" they share how listening can instantaneously transform our lives. The authors have an effortless and brilliant approach to living fully and richly in the moment. This magic is available to all
of us right now, and we don't have to work hard to achieve it. It is our birthright.

For a long time, I had been having these niggling questions in my life, when my aunt introduced me to this book. I read it and immediately felt the importance of the message that came through. Intuitively, I knew it made a lot of sense, even though I was brought in the usual liberal Catholic tradition. That was two years ago. Since then, I've tried to read up on more books on mysticism, yoga, etc; books on the Fourth Way, Zen, Hinduism. I learnt and practised yoga, meditation and quite a few other techniques.

Probably due to my practices and reading, I started to experience a few sensations in my body, mainly the feeling of a sort of current-like sensation 'within' my body. Later, I found that 'Proprioception' was the appropriate word for my feeling, only more pronounced. Of course, given my will power, I dropped yoga, meditation and everything else, and started to look for shortcuts and easier solutions; probably a more integrative approach. This does not mean that Yoga did not provide it; it's just that I was too lazy to have enough of a discipline to continue with it.

A week ago, having tired myself of all the different theories on englightenment (and there are a whole bunch of them out there on which your ego can have a never-ending trip) and the different paths and portals to the gates of my essence (sticking to any one is more difficult than getting swept off with spiritual shopping), I picked the 'Power of Now' and re-read it. I realized that there was a new dimension to the book that I found. I seemed to understand a lot more from it than the last time I had read it, and probably might understand more after a couple of years more.....

Every single sentence rings with truth in this book. I'm sure Tolle is not an ordinary person. I don't know much about his history, and frankly, I don't really care. His message to me is all that is real for me, and the only thing which might be of help to me. The Energy Body is REAL. I cannot stress this particular aspect of his writing. For most of us, in order to access the portal of our God-Essence, the body is the simplest introduction. What Tolle explains about the energy body is not some metaphorical (as I believed it the first time I read the book) entity, but a real sensation-feeling body. I don't want to try and give it some definition, as so many books and esoteric schools have done. And neither does Tolle try to fit everything into a neat little framework for you.

He only tells how to BEGIN self-discovery, and that's all anyone can ever do for you. Unless you understand the book, trust what he says 'may' actually work, and practise it every moment of your wakeful life (and try to remind yourself more often... to remember to practise :), this book will only remain one of the many that extols the same idea of enlightenment.... and you will continue to search for something new, where there is no other.

I know I am not a good reviewer, don't read a great deal of books, but this one I will take the time to warn others about, it rambles on and on, as if the author just wants to hear himself talk. It is so full of painfully obvious thoughts, and maybe I ask too much for some entertainment value this one has very little, so I would suggest you pass on picking up this book.