The Power of Now - By: Eckhart Tolle

Well this one is a bit difficult..

So, It happened that i saw this book in many bookstores and many sites on the net, and the title as well as the comments on the cover [ and honestly the picture on the cover ] looked compelling enough .... but that's pretty much it.

The book should have been called : "the Power of Absolute Meaningless Bullshit-ness" [ and the last 'ness' is just to make it sound smarter as the original one tries ] !!!

This book attempts to take from the heritage of eastern philosophies [ which i deeply admire, by the way, and believe in many of their themes ] and mix it with some of the thoughts from Freud [The approach to Ego] and Schopenhauer [the struggle against immortality]. I honestly dont know if, and don't think that it is, intentionally.. but the result of the mixture is a piece of un-imaginable idiotic dimensions..

I honestly didn't read more than 3-4 chapters, but as a publisher once said "Lady, When I'm eating an apple, I don't need to swallow it completely to know that it is rotten!"..

So here are some of the statements from the book:

• Time is an illusion.. [ well you could agree to that somehow, but not like he means it]
• The past and the future can bring no pleasure or sadness and dont exist .. there is only the now ..
• Have the past and the future ever been felt or brought good or bad feelings
• You need to disconnect from the mind
• You need to fight and completely remove the ego.. it shouldn't make any difference to you if you are right or wrong [ !!!! ]
• Your mind cant understand what i'm saying .. only you can understand ..

I don't know what type of life is he trying to preach ... one with no past and no future [ he says that this is how you avoid pain bodies (?) ] .. one where the mind is minimized .. one with no ego .. with no right or wrong .... i think even one with no feelings .... He definitely erased memories [ past doesn't exist ] and hopes [ future doesn't exist ] ........ He mentioned this in the introduction ..... he's preaching the life of animals and plants !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are so many logical contradictions and huge vagueness in most of the arguments he presents.. but i don't think that a book of this calibre actually deserves that type of discussion.

A very fine example of what can happen people with a very narrow scope of knowledge and very weak mental capabilities try to preach lifestyle and philosophy of living.