Mind-identification is created by the ego (the part of you that believes it is separate from all other life forms) and is the cause of a lot of emotional pain. When you identify with your mind, you are subject to the belief that your thoughts are in control and that you are subservient to them. There is not enough presence in mind-identification and that gives rise to emotional pain.

The false belief of separation

However, this illusion is the greatest threat to inner peace.

“Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind, which is to say as long as you are unconscious, spiritually speaking.”

Separate the true You from the thoughts about you

The ego creates and perpetuates the concept of mind-identification and the false sense of self. Becoming aware of your true Self as a manifestation of the One Consciousness (i.e., God) allows you to break free and that is how joy arises. You must use the power of Now to become the observer of your thoughts and live in the present moment. 

become the observer of thoughts

When you become the silent watcher of the senseless chatter created through mind-identification, you offer no resistance but only awareness. 

It is only through love that the harmful mind-identification is subsided. Judgment only fuels this illusion because you continue to think that you are your thoughts.

The concept of the pain-body is hardly addressed in spiritual literature, but it is a powerful one. Tolle describes the pain-body as trapped life energy that has been cut off from your total energy field and temporarily becomes autonomous. To dissolve past pain one must use the present moment and realize deeply their true power in the Now. 

“The pain-body wants to survive, just like every other entity in existence, and it can only survive if it gets you to identify with it.”

This process is prolonged through the unnatural process of mind-identification. By thinking that a bad life situation is a bad life. Think of the pain body like an animal, which has turned on life itself and becomes anti-life. Snarling at everyone who is in close contact with it, and often tries to devour its own tail.

Identification with too much past and too much future can fuel the pain-body. However, using the present moment is how one breaks free. In short, not enough presence leaves room for human pain.

Only through the present moment can one identify the pain underneath the True self and access true power in the Now. 

awareness as the key to freedom

Awareness of the pain-body is a powerful transformative tool because, through observation of their entity within yourself, you are no longer identified with it.

You have used the present moment to free yourself from human pain. 

Tolle describes the trap of the pain-body that seeks your identification with it for its growth. Pain-body and mind-identification are one and the same. The moment you observe it, feel its energy field within you, and take your attention into it, the identification is broken. You become free in the present moment.

It is the spiritual realization that you are not your pain but the awareness of it that frees you in this present moment. That is when the real joy arises from the pain underneath. Dissolving past pain is key here.

As human beings, it is nearly impossible for us to go through this life without interacting in some form of a relationship (i.e., parents, siblings, educators, or even romantic partners).

“We come to see that our relationships are yet another doorway into spiritual enlightenment if we use them wisely, meaning if we use them to become more conscious and therefore more loving human beings.”

However, very few people acknowledge the intense presence that is required to foster healthy relationships, which thrive through effective communication. To have healthy communication, one must remain present in their relationships.

This means recognizing the pain that you create in your relationships through mind-identification and fueling your own pain-body. This also means recognizing the true identity of your partner or others that are close to you. You begin to see their unconscious behavioral patterns and how that is being manifested in their interactions with you.

But to fully recognize the unconscious behavior of others you must first see it in yourself.

Christ and Buddha's spiritual teachings on the power of now

In modern-day Christianity, the teachings of Jesus Christ have been brushed over or have not been fully examined. Often in the parables of Jesus, He spoke of spiritual enlightenment and accessing true power in the present moment.

In The Power of Now, Tolle does a great job of integrating these teachings for us to achieve Christ Consciousness.

“When I occasionally quote the words of Jesus or the Buddha… I do so not to compare, but to draw your attention to the fact that in essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching, although it comes in many forms.”

In another The Power of Now quote, Tolle uses an analogy from Jesus to highlight another teaching of the importance of the present moment. He speaks of a student who was startled by an approaching Zen master.

“If the student had been fully present and in a state of alertness, if he had ‘kept his loin girded and his lamp burning,’ which is one of the analogies that Jesus uses for presence, he would have noticed the master coming up from behind and stopped him or stepped aside.”

Depending on the spiritual practice, it is implied that the body is a thing to be escaped. A trap to be avoided in this physical reality. However, in The Power of Now quotes, Tolle suggests that the only way to the spirit is not away from the body but through the body in the present moment.

“Body awareness keeps you present. It anchors you in the Now.”

The body can be a great indicator of what is going on internally in the present moment, but it is only through awareness of the body that we are able to become present enough to see what lies within and identify any unconscious resistance to where we are Now.

transcend your emotions using intense presence

Things like “focusing your attention on the inner energy field of your body” have the power to put you in touch with your emotions and eventually transcend them through intense presence and acceptance.

Any unconscious resistance to the present moment only leaves you blind to the inner peace that is Divinely yours as a human being on this Earth. Realize deeply who you are and use the present moment to free your mind from life's challenges.

In the present moment, your primary focus should be on the inner space that is truly free from psychological time, physical pain, and all unconscious suffering. 

use silence to contemplate space and time

In The Power of Now quotes, Tolle speaks of the several portals, or access points to bring us into the present moment. One of these portals is the contemplation of inner space and another is through silence.  

Conscious presence allows us to recognize whatever the present moment contains. The present moment is only a means to realize deeply how time and space have turned nothingness into the experience were are consciously aware of. Use the outer and inner silence to help you stay present in the Now. 

We may go our whole life never realizing the space around us, but the unconscious person still has a lot to learn about how psychological time is contained within infinite time and space. 

“Be aware of the silent presence of each thing. Be aware of the space that allows everything to be. Listen to the sounds; don't judge them. Listen to the silence underneath the sounds.”

In this The Power of Now quote, Tolle is drawing our attention to the calming and perfect presence of all things within space and the silent presence that gives birth to the harmonies of life.

Our life situation is pure at its core and gives us the opportunity to fully see who we are as spiritual beings having a human experience. 

Again, this awareness provides access to a portal of Being. However, I believe that the key here is the non-attachment to the sounds and things that are under observation. Imagine going your whole life never hearing the silence beneath the sounds or seeing the space between the material things. Our everyday life is meant to be lived freely! 

We are all one

The conscious person is always aware of the Universal Oneness. The need to judge and filter our environment is created through the egoic mind, the part of us that determines all things and persons as separate from us. This is a part of ordinary unconsciousness. As Tolle points out several times in his book, it is all One. We are all One.

Everything that exists has Being, God-essence, and has some degree of consciousness. However, to fully grabs this idea, one must be intensely aware of their current state of awareness of how the world around them operates.

“Your perception of the world is a reflection of your state of consciousness.”

Consciousness, described as the light emanating from the eternal Source, lies in the realm of the Unmanifested (formless). It is the life force and “stuff” described in quantum mechanics that makes up all things and IS all things.

Unconsciousness, on the other hand, creates the “evil” we see in the world.

“To transmute darkness into light, unconsciousness into consciousness, you must first observe it in yourself and use intense presence: the power of Now.”

The definition of consciousness has changed over time. However, consciousness refers to the formless energy that is revealed in all life and all matter. What you see in your physical reality is only a projection of the mind’s eye. The formless unconsciousness taking conscious form.

This blog post was all about 7 life-changing ideas and quotes from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. 

We hope that you were able to gain some clarity from the profound ideas put forth by one of the world's most renowned spiritual teachers.

Do not wait your whole life to practice these spiritual teachings. Keep your primary focus on the Now and watch your life miraculously transform.