Books by Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now is the Eckhart Tolle book in our library. Its argument is narrow and radical: if the search for purpose keeps you living in a future that has not arrived, the question is malformed, and sustained attention to the present is the thing you were looking for.
It is the least practical book on this shelf and the most direct. There is no method to follow, only a claim about where unhappiness is manufactured. Read it when planning has become a substitute for living rather than a way of arranging it.
How to read it. Read it when planning has stopped producing anything except more planning. It is not a method, and looking for one in it is the usual reason people bounce off it.
It sits in the Mindfulness and Happiness bundle as the least practical book here and the most direct. There is no method to follow, only a claim about where unhappiness is manufactured.
The book
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Eckhart TolleAttention to the present offered as the answer rather than as a technique. The argument that psychological time is where most unhappiness is manufactured is the one that tends to land, because it explains a feeling most people recognise without being able to name.
What it argues- Most unhappiness is produced by attention to a past or future that is not here.
- The present moment is the only place anything can actually be done.
- Identifying with your thoughts is the mechanism, not just having them.
- Acceptance of what is does not mean approval of it.
- There is no technique on offer, which is deliberate and inconvenient.
Suited to a reader whose planning has become a substitute for action, and to anyone who finds conventional self-help too busy. Not a practical book, and it is least useful read as one.
Where to start
Read it in short sittings rather than straight through, and do not look for a method. The claim is worth testing for a few days before judging: notice how much of the day is spent somewhere other than where you are. Readers who try to finish it quickly tend to reject it, and readers who return to a few pages a week tend to find that it changes something.
Where this fits
This is the most direct book on the shelf. The Art of Happiness reaches a similar conclusion through ethics, Wherever You Go, There You Are supplies the practice, and this one supplies the argument. Read it before the practice books if you need the case made first, and after them if you want to understand what the practice was for.
The rest of this shelf
The Mindfulness and Happiness shelf holds 5 books in total. These are the others, each condensed into a guide you can finish in about 15 minutes:
- Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles
- The Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama XIV and Howard C. Cutler
- Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff
The present, and four more books
The Power of Now is in the Mindfulness and Happiness bundle with Ikigai, The Art of Happiness, Wherever You Go, There You Are and Self-Compassion.
Five complete guides, about 15 minutes each.
Explore Mindfulness and HappinessIf the search keeps you in the future, the question is malformed.