Eckhart Tolle explains that while physical time cannot be escaped, internally one can "escape" time by realizing and inhabiting the present moment. He argues the present moment is not merely what is happening (which constantly changes) but a timeless space or presence in which events arise and pass. Many people treat the now as a means to future ends or actively resist it; this unconscious pattern prevents experiencing present-moment awareness. Tolle offers metaphysical and experiential claims: the past and future exist only as thoughts, the essence of now is consciousness/beingness (the "I am"), and sensing it requires letting go of thought.
Chapters
You cannot escape time on this physical dimension. That is true. But internally you can escape time by realizing that another portal is very the most obvious portal into that dimension. And that realization is obviously the present moment. Present moment awareness. Present moment awareness. What is the present moment? Well, most people think that the present moment is whatever is happening right now. And therefore they do not really think in terms of the present moment. They think that life and every hour consists of many moments. For most humans, life is full of many moments because they think that the present moment is what's happening. But the present moment isn't what's happening because that changes continuously. Your life is continuous flux, the flux of becoming. What doesn't change is it's always the present moment. We talked about time that you cannot escape time on this physical dimension. That is true. But internally you can escape time by realizing that life is always now and never not now always. But most people live as if the opposite were true. For most humans, the now is fairly unimportant. And for many humans, the now is not a very desirable place. They are somehow trying to get away from it. No, no, don't give me this. I don't want this. No, I want the next one, or maybe the one after that, or a bit more in the future. And so the now. Humans reduce the significance, the value of the now by reducing it to, in best of cases, a means to an end. They use the present one as a stepping stone towards what they imagine is a more important future moment. That's how people live unconsciously. Millions of humans still live like that on a daily basis. They are always on the way to something more important somehow. It's an unconscious process. They don't tell you. They don't tell themselves, I'm on my way to something more important. Because if they did tell themselves that, they would immediately recognize how absurd it is to be continuously moving to some more important moment which never arrives. Because there is the moment this projected future moment arrives. It's not it's again the now. It's a now. And it's the now that you don't like that habitually you try to get away from. So when you achieve what you wanted to achieve, it's the now again. And the habitual mind pattern kicks in again. And you want to get away from it to something different or even better, or whatever it is, it doesn't satisfy you ever, because you have not found present moment awareness. The habit pattern is, I need to get away from so using the now as a stepping stone towards some future moment. Now you might have noticed the future moment never arrives. It never comes. And here we come to the. We talked about time being everywhere. But if you go more deeply, you realize that there's something about time that's not quite right. Because there is ultimately future. When it comes, it's now, the past. Where does the past exist? Where does it exist? Where is the past if you don't think about it? Where's the future if you don't think about it? Nowhere. This is hard to grasp intellectually, probably, and I would recommend that you don't start thinking about it, but use the words to get you through this realization that life is always now, and most humans live as if this were not the case. Life for most humans, either past or future are more important. When you're relatively young, the future is always the future. When you get old, you begin to realize you don't have a lot of future left. Then you dwell more on the past, think about the past. You talk about the past. And either with regret or resentment or nostalgia. Oh, that was so wonderful. When I was in love, it was. It's all gone now. Oh, my God, it's all. Nothing is gone. You're still who or what you are in this moment as consciousness. There was a. In the pub in England, there was a sign on the counter which says, free beer tomorrow. And it was always true, because if you went there the next day, said, where's my free beer? He said, read this. Oh, tomorrow never comes. So this is a very important realization, the primacy of the present moment. We talked about using the present moment as a stepping stone. That's one thing. Even worse, and that also applies to millions of humans, they actually have an antagonistic relationship with the present moment. In other words, whatever is happening, wherever they are, whoever they are with, they don't want it. They'd rather be somewhere else. You know, the sticker on bumper sticker on cars. I'd rather be golfing, I'd rather be fishing, or whatever it is, anything. He kept with this here and now. I visited Ram Dass, who wrote a famous book about the present moment. I think it's going to be here now. In the 60s, I visited him, and on his car he had a big bumper sticker which said, I'd rather be here now. So to appreciate, to give more attention to the present moment. And the present moment is deeper than what happens in the present moment, because what happens changes continuously. But the essence of the present moment, that is a timeless space in which everything happens, it arises and it passes. Away it arises and it passes away. It's born and it dies. It's born and it dies. All in that space of that space of now. So the now is the space for what happens, but it is not what happens. So, because that remains, no matter where you go or when, it's always now. Now. Can you become aware of this now directly? Not through what's going on, not through sense perceptions or thoughts, but can you get a sense of the power of this wonderful no thing. You can't call it a thing. It enables all things to be, but it's not a thing. Can you be aware of the presence, that presence that is the now. And this is a realization that is totally non conceptual. In fact, if you are thinking, you cannot sense it. You have to let go of thinking. And then what remains is again. Suddenly we are back to presence, the presence that is the essence of you. And you can sense the presence that is the essence of you as the. You can call it the I am or whatever you call it the beingness. And you can sense it as that is the essence of now. So the essence of now is consciousness itself. Unconditioned, timeless. In other words, it's you. I wish that had occurred to me when I was writing the Power of Now that you are the now. That formulation came to me a bit later. It was too late for the book. You are the now. Sa.
